January 19, 2010 Opinions

Letters

Kudos to E-I-C

by David S. Rovins

Arguably, the most difficult topic for the media to handle is the highly emotional and divisive topic of the Middle East, especially the Israeli-Palestinian challenge. Even conferences whether academic or popular usually are one sided and after hearing the repetitive propaganda one has not only a feeling of having heard it all before but resentment and frustration that individuals cannot go beyond their personal biases and distortions and try and take a comprehensive look at all aspects of the problem from all sides.

Terrine Friday, the editor-in-chief of The Link, is to be highly commended for her article “The Cost of Land” [Jan. 12, Vol. 30, Issue 18]. She covers every contemporary aspect of the difficulties and she writes and explores the topic in a balanced and professional manner which is unfortunately so rare yet is so welcomed.

Human behaviour is the most difficult aspect of our universe to change, otherwise we would not still have hatred, violence and war.

The only other comment I have is the media’s tendency to refer to religious groups and political parties from the religious groups or political parties own perspectives rather than analyze them according to the criteria of the group or party to see if they truly fit the beliefs of those entities.

For example Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda and Hamas should not be referred to as organizations that are part of “Islamist extremism”; indeed, if one knows about the major tenets of Islam, they are extremely anti-Islamist.

—David S. Rovins,
Independent student