The following letter was submitted to The Hour (Norwalk, Connecticut) immediately after that newspaper published virtually the same later twice in eight days. Although The Hour publishes almost everything sent to it, this letter has not been published, even after it was resubmitted about two weeks later just in case it got lost in cyberspace.
To the Editor:
It's encouraging to learn that in these days of diminishing resources, The Hour has initiated the revolutionary concept of "content recycling." The letter, "Nervy of the letter writers to suggest editorial policy," by Lynn Carlton published August 15 was almost identical to the letter by the same writer, "Defending Scott Kimmich," published eight days earlier and also similar in message to the letter by Aletha Carlton, "Focus the conversation on what is happening now," published just four days earlier.
Each of these anti-Israel letters, like Scott's, also recycle false information and unsupportable opinions. The latter are acceptable but the former, such as the obviously false assertion "Israel has … separate license plates for people of a different faith," are not. The known truth is that Israel issues the same license plates for all its citizens, whether Jewish, Christian, Muslim or adherents of any of the other faiths who practice freely in Israel. These license plates of course differ from those issued by the Palestinian Authority, the corrupt governing body for almost all the Arabs in the disputed territories.
Interestingly, these anti-Israel writers completely ignore the apartheid policies of the Palestinian Authority, which go far beyond issuing different license plates based on religion. The Palestinian Authority insists that no Jews will live in its future state and long ago made it a capital crime to even sell land to a Jew.
Those who claim to be interested in human rights should be protesting the racist policies of the Palestinian Authority and its refusal to even negotiate with Israel.
In terms of suggesting editorial policy to The Hour, I would not suggest it stop publishing the anti-Israel diatribes by Scott Kimmich and the two Carltons, but I would suggest it pay more attention to Article IV of the Statement of Principles of the American Society of News Editors, which reads: "Truth and Accuracy. Good faith with the reader is the foundation of good journalism. Every effort must be made to assure that the news content is accurate, free from bias and in context, and that all sides are presented fairly. Editorials, analytical articles and commentary should be held to the same standards of accuracy with respect to facts as news reports. Significant errors of fact, as well as errors of omission, should be corrected promptly and prominently."
In other words, I suggest The Hour exercise its responsibility to eliminate the false information that pervades those anti-Israel letters and issue its own, official corrections when it inadvertently publishes false information.
I recognize such a policy would create tremendous difficulty for the anti-Israel writers, since it is very hard to make a case against Israel while sticking to the truth, but unfortunately sometimes life can be fair. And the anti-Israel fanatics certainly have plenty of illogical arguments they can continue to recycle.
Alan Stein
