Skepticism needs explanation
Gabe Kahn’s “Why we covered Breaking the Silence” (June 6) contained one curious distinction that deserves an explanation. Breaking the Silence is described as an organization “that says it strives to tell the true stories…” while CAMERA is described as an organization “that promotes accurate and balanced media coverage.” His skepticism about what Breaking the Silence strives to do cries out for clarification as does his uncritical belief in CAMERA’s self-description, especially in the face of CAMERA’s unsubstantiated charge that NJJN “promotes an anti-Israel organization.”
I also question your decision to publish six letters, repetitive in the aggregate, protesting Michele Alperin’s Reporter’s Notebook “Picture worth thousands of complicated words” (May 9) rather than one representative of the sentiments expressed. As Kahn made clear in his front-page Garden State of Mind in the June issue, the “vast majority” of letters protested the article; it was not necessary to publish six letters that essentially said the same thing.
Speaking only for myself, had I anticipated that the Notebook would occasion such a backlash I would have written to express my admiration of her piece. It was an honest and personal reflection that captured the ambivalence that many of us, American Jews and Israelis, feel about the very troubling dilemma that these citizen soldiers have faced.
Finally, in future issues I hope you will return to this subject to confront some of the vague charges that some readers have levelled at Breaking the Silence. It strikes me as ironic that an organization that aspires to break a “silence” is itself shouted down with a cacophony of wild and reckless defamation that is itself undocumented.
Neil Litt
Princeton
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