As organizers of the “Fighting for Justice from Gaza to Ferguson: Black and Palestinian Solidarity” panel, we were upset with the coverage of the event by the Daily Princetonian. To correct the record and voice our concerns, we drafted an op-ed to be published by the Prince last week.
However, their editors wanted about half of the letter to be cut, in large part because it pointed out the biases of the one of the authors of the piece, Marie-Rose Sheinerman. She had been a member of the Alliance of Jewish Progressives and quit during their protest of “Israel Week,” a Center for Jewish Life sponsored week of events promoting Israeli culture last April. We thought it a violation of journalistic ethics that she was assigned to cover our event, and believe the article served to voice personal opinions regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict, anti-Semitism, and Norman Finkelstein.
The editors at the Prince thought this was fair grounds for an op-ed. However, the trustees believed it was unprecedented and unfair; that criticizing an author would be out of bounds, as she would not be allowed to respond. But any pretext of her impartiality had vanished when the piece was published, and a publication’s self-imposed rules shouldn’t shield them from criticism. Furthermore, without any redaction of the article, nor a public editor to register our complaint and hold the editors accountable, and finally with no forum to set the record straight as to what was so unfair about the coverage, we have decided to publish our op-ed here, in the Prog.
As organizers of Friday’s “Fighting for Justice from Gaza to Ferguson: Black and Palestinian Solidarity,” we were surprised to see the headline chosen by the Prince for our event: “Finkelstein GS ’87 delivers anti-Semitic remarks at panel on black and Palestinian solidarity.” Did he? Given Finkelstein’s already deft handling of the issue in his op-ed published Monday, we had hoped not to have to further weigh in on this topic. However, several issues remain concerning editorial bias in the article as well as inaccuracies in the responses it has provoked.
A co-author of the piece appears to have undisclosed biases which compromise her objectivity which were simply ignored before publication. Marie-Rose Sheinerman, a co-author, is a former member of the Alliance of Jewish Progressives, a co-sponsor of our event. She left the group last year during their protest against the Center for Jewish Life’s “Israel Week.” Why did the Prince allow a reporter to cover an event sponsored by the same group she had left – whose views clashed with that group during the Israel Week controversy – to cover an event on the Israel-Palestine conflict? If this was disclosed to the editors, why did they choose to let the piece run and fail to mention her involvement? At least we are no longer surprised as to why an egregiously editorialized headline made it to print as news, as to why there were no quotes from attendees in support of the event, or why the article focused in on the actions of a single one of our panelists in its first edition at the expense of everyone else.
Unfortunately, the coverage of the event, especially in regards to Finkelstein, has given the impression that Finkelstein dominated the stage, shut out voices on the panel and in the audience, and veered wildly off topic. We would like to set the record straight. As he stated at the panel, Finkelstein is a scholar of the Israel-Palestine conflict with a focus on Gaza and prefers to speak on his area of expertise – that was what we had invited him to do. After all, the event is titled “Fighting for Justice from Gaza to Ferguson: Black and Palestinian Solidarity.” For good measure, he spoke about Frederick Douglass, the American South and lynchings, and the anti-Apartheid movement at Princeton. Our other panelist, Lawrence Hamm, who spoke for around twenty minutes on the black liberation movement in the 70s early on in the panel, was actually suggested to us by Finkelstein when we invited him. The two have been friends for years.
Finkelstein is not the one to blame for the perceived lack of attention dedicated to the black and Palestinian causes. Rather, we would do well to focus on the fact that the Prince article, even in its updated version, takes no quote or statements from directly impacted groups, namely black or Palestinian students, at the event. That’s not due to a lack of attendance. In fact, it doesn’t find a single quote from anyone sympathetic to the arguments from the panel, something surprising considering the large number of supporters the event garnered and the regular applause. The responses of the Jewish students cited in the article are important, but the article would have us believe that they represent the entirety of the Jewish student body here at Princeton. It also implies that no one else’s opinions were just as legitimate, and a fair article should have interviewed those attendees as well.
Signed,
The Young Democratic Socialists of Princeton
Princeton Committee on Palestine
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