Dear Editor,

A great deal of intelligent, thought-provoking opinion pieces about the Middle East have been printed in many publications over the past few years, from all sides of the complex issues in that region.  But occasionally, one encounters a column that contains so much misinformation that it confuses and misleads readers, rather than enlightening them.  James Shipley’s guest column of Oct. 23 “United States supporting Terror” is an example of one of the latter - a column filled with so much factual disinformation that it does your newspaper a disservice to print it.

Columnists are of course expected to state their opinions and take a stand.  But Mr. Shipley’s stand is built on a total misunderstanding of or reckless disregard for history.  

The United States “had something to do with” the “many people...put to death after the French Revolution”?  The United States was a fledgling country, not a world power, when France had its revolution.  

Israel attacked Egypt in the “Sanai (sic) Peninsula in 1972”?  The converse is true - and it was in 1973.

“Jewish settlers...have forcibly removed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians” from their homes?  Again, a gross misrepresentation.  The million Arab citizens of Israel today, who enjoy freedoms their neighbors in other Arab lands can only dream of, are proof positive that Israel did not “forcibly remove” most Palestinians from their land.  Most of the Palestinians who did leave fled a war-torn region of their own accord, encouraged to do so by the same Arab countries that now refuse to let them assimilate, but that force the Palestinians to stay in refugee areas as political pawns. 

Jews “had not lived (in Israel) in hundreds of years”?  There has been a continuous presence of Jewish residents in Jerusalem since King David’s time (except for periods when Jews were barred from living in the city).  By 1844, well before the modern Zionist movement, Jews were the largest single religious community in Jerusalem.  The UN partition plan that created Israel actually created two states, for the two peoples already living on the land: Israel, a Jewish state, and Jordan, an Arab one.

Many of Mr. Shipley’s facts are simply not true, and by allowing them to be published, even in an opinion piece, Mr. Shipley, and your newspaper, loses credibility.

Sincerely,
Joyce Rubin
Assistant Director
Anti-Defamation League

Dear Editor,

I hold no ill regard toward my being fired and replaced by an all-so-be-it more “intellectual” editor by choice of the entire editorial staff at The Metropolitan. Without delving into the circumstances of my firing, I thought I would suggest that the forest has been missed by way of the trees regarding Mr.Bahl.

You stupid professors, professing that Mr.Bahl has no right to an opinion in a college newspaper is pathetic. Your thought is sometimes erratic—contingent upon your self-worthiness for the day—and, as a future teacher, I find most of the flow of your thought, for lack of a better suggestion, “willy-nilly.” How in the hell ought a “student” approach your classes knowing that you are so worried about your “opinion.” Please do not bore me and, further, consider me not an idiot. There are many, but few, students on campus who find your naive approach nothing but ridiculous and, in some classes, insulting. Not all of us are idiots. In fact, the concept of having a Ph.D. is not a universal mandate for truthful speaking.

Anymore, in some classes, when I take a test, I answer the questions the way the professor would like me to answer—NOT the way I would like to answer the question. I have found this quite interesting and it has improved my grades (whatever).

The truth is, given base 10, 2+2=4. Sometimes, math and science are not tautological. More so, in the “Arts and Sciences.” Professors are not always right or correct, nor are the textbooks we are required to buy. We are being misled by something bigger than what is front of us. I am not attempting to suggest a “conspiracy theory,” but an idea contingent upon all professors to continue the “concept of education, in and of itself.

I am not suggesting that professors are morons. I am suggesting that we have retired to a bureaucracy that insinuates that the “status quo” deserves a better say in our education than either students or teachers (or learners, per se) in our “promotion” of education than we all do, collectively; and; as a result, are bastardizing the entire system of education (and if I am not mistaken, that is why, ultimately, we are in Iraq, sending countless friends and family to combat the situation, but I digress . . . )

This is sad. For a student to raise an adverse opinion in a class only to be ultimately removed from the class as a net result of their opinion does not deserve accolade from professors, but admonishment. Mr. Bahl most likely “enticed” his professor . . . his only mistake was walking out . . . . and I would have not. Ms. Meranto can have an opinion, she can express it in her class, but she has no right to remove anyone from her classroom for any reason. She is very lucky I am not in any of her classes. As a future teacher and, most likely, a future professor, I would very much like to teach her and her “fellows” how to learn, again.

Brian P. Reed
a.k.a. “The Gadfly”