I take serious issue with The Cavalier Daily's headline in the April 16 print edition ("Israel executes two Palestinians, updated to "Hamas executes two Palestinians"). First and foremost, it's flat out wrong. What is true is that two Palestinians were very recently executed by firing squad in the Gaza Strip on April 15. What is not true is that the executions were carried out by Israel. Thankfully the article itself correctly reads that it was Hamas, not Israel, that carried out such executions on the basis that the two Palestinian men were "collaborators" with Israel. But the damage has been done.
Although I don't imply by any means that any malice or hidden political agenda was behind what I truly hope (and think) was an innocent mistake, I do feel it fair to demand a higher standard of accuracy from a publication that provides information to a not insignificant number of people, both on and off Grounds. Unfortunately, Israel is all too often accused in international press of horrific acts based on evidence that would seem flimsy to even the wildest conspiracy theorists; one need only look to as support a Swedish newspaper absurdly claiming that the IDF kills Palestinians to harvest their organs, or to a Turkish TV show depicting Israelis as baby-kidnappers or to a chilling yet not entirely uncommon belief in the Arab world that Israeli agents carried out the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Although an ideologue on either side of the larger issue will hardly be swayed by a headline, it may not take more than a few boldly stated yet entirely inaccurate headlines to lead the neutral observer to a misinformed conclusion.
I hope that most people who picked up a Cavalier Daily on Friday and saw the headline actually took the time to read the article and then realized that the printed headline was wrong. Sadly, I'm sure that many did not. As the saying goes: "A lie told a thousand times becomes truth." Yet, really, a lie told a thousand times is still a lie. The world already sees more than enough publications that perpetuate falsities regarding this very sensitive issue. Inadvertently or not, The Cavalier Daily need not participate.
Freddie Rose\nCLAS II
Editor's note: A headline that appeared in the Nation & World section of the April 16 edition of The Cavalier Daily mistakenly read "Israel executes two Palestinians." The headline should have read "Hamas executes two Palestinians." The Cavalier Daily regrets the error.
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