It is obviously easier to criticize how something was covered in the newspaper or who was included in an international or academic forum than to write about what or who was not there.  Often, the most powerful bias of a publication or conference organizer comes out in what they choose not to report or for a meeting, who was excluded. Last year, the United States established a Global...

  To the editor,      CBS anchor Bob Simon observed in the 60 Minutes story on Israel's Christians, "The one place where Christians are not suffering from violence is the Holy Land".  A real journalist would have tried to determine what makes Israel safer and why Israel's Christian community has grown, when all around the region...

[NB This version differs in minor stylistic ways from the Jerusalem Post one] A self-proclaimed National Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Conference is set to take place at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) an Ivy league institution in the heart of Philadelphia during the weekend of February 4th. Last held in 2009, according to the organizers, the BDS movement...

NOTE: A CORRESPONDING PETITION HAS BEEN CREATED WHERE YOU CAN SIGN TO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT. THANK YOU. This weekend there will be a gathering on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania by advocates of selective punishment of Israel for the absence of a comprehensive settlement of its conflict with Palestinian Arabs and the larger Arab world.  The preliminary program lists 21 speakers,...

 

A few random acts of harassment in Israel were characterized as "Jewish extremism" in Wednesday's Inquirer story "Ultra-Orthodox's actions against females decried." Those acts have been widely and forcefully condemned, including by Israel's prime minister, president, and chief rabbi. Even a leader of the group the miscreants come from has publicly criticized their behavior. There have been demonstrations against their misdeeds.

Contrary to The Inquirer's story, what is being highlighted is not "Jewish extremism," but widespread Israeli intolerance of the extremists' misbehavior.

What a contrast to Egypt, Gaza, and Iran, where religious zealots are largely free from criticism or restraint by public officials for acts of far greater violence and intolerance toward Muslims, Christians, and others. There, of course, religious extremists are not criticized by the government; they are the government.