Crimson Picture Conveys Negative Image of Israel

The increased visibility and coverage of international affairs in the newly-redesigned Crimson are to be commended. However, an increased commitment to the coverage of international affairs carries with it an added responsibility. Crimson readers deserve the same high standard of editorial oversight in stories published via outside news sources as they have come to expect in stories written by Crimson writers.

It was both surprising and sad then to see a lapse in that oversight in a story on tensions in Jerusalem from the Reuters newsservice in last Thursday's paper. Accompanying that story was a photograph depicting a Palestinian Arab youth confronting an Israeli Border Policeman. The caption to that photograph fails to measure up to the Crimson's high standards on two counts.

First, it erroneously describes the encounter as occurring in Arab East Jerusalem. As recognized by both the Israeli government and the United States Congress, Jerusalem is the undivided capital of the State of Israel-not separated into eastern and western sections. Further, it is inaccurate to refer to east Jerusalem as Arab because, although there is a sizable Arab population in the city, Jews today are the majority in east Jerusalem and the Jewish population has been the largest community in Jerusalem since 1840. The term Arab East Jerusalem is inappropriate because it ignores the political and geographical realities of Jerusalem today and is prejudicial because it adopts the Arab position in advance of the permanent-status negotiations of the peace process. The Crimson could have corrected this error by substituting with the more appropriate and neutral eastern Jerusalem.

Second, the caption is at fault for using language that panders to emotion and oversimplifies a complicated issue. By only describing an Israeli Border Policeman violently confronting a Palestinian youth, the caption or photograph does not capture the incident in its totality. It gives the impression that this was an unprovoked act of Israeli-initiated aggression and ignores the presence of the belligerent mob that threatened an apartment compound housing Israeli Jews.

The lack of impartiality in the coverage of this issue became even more strikingly apparent when Friday's Crimson chose to ignore completely the Israeli government's successful procurement of the removal of the Jews from the disputed apartment building. It is unfortunate that the Crimson chose to so visibly promote an unfairly negative impression of Israel and then fail to cover such an important effort by the Israeli government to advance the peace process the very next day.

We hope and believe that this was an isolated instance of oversight and that we can continue to receive the same quality of journalism from the Crimson in the future as we have come to expect in the past. --Rustin Silverstein '99,   David Honig '99   Co-Chairs, Harvard Students for Israel