The Clerical Pandora’s Box I think that the priests’ collars of piety should be removed & that these men must be listed as the social outcasts they have become. That a church would keep pedophiles as clerics but condemn the ones who’ve had sexual relations with women as outcasts is completely beyond my comprehension. The Pandora’s box is open & all the hands caught in the cookie jar have been revealed. Keep up the good work of reporting the news. Kyan James
Re: “A Notorious Cleric”
05/29/02
Rodeo, New Mexico
Higher Learning? Thank you for such a timely and sobering reminder of how easily extremism slips into everyday political debate regarding the Middle East. It is a dire problem when educators allow such denigrations to go unchallenged and flourish within our supposedly liberal institutions of higher learning. Tom Hill
Re: “The Rough Beast Returns”
06/17/02
Co-opting the Cause If true progressives do not stand up against the haters, the movement will be co-opted by those who would cynically use it for their own ends. The students at SFSU should be criticized by all who truly believe in humanitarian values.
Re: “The Rough Beast Returns”
06/17/02
Generalizations Todd Gitlin objects to the formula, “the Jews,” but accepts and passes forward the formula, “the students at SF State.” It’s not quite six of one and half-a-dozen of another, but it should be pointed out that he, himself, is doing exactly what he decries in others. Timothy Porges
Re: “The Rough Beast Returns”
06/17/02
Who’s to Blame? I am sorry, but Israel has created much of what it is getting and it has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. I view that as a ploy to keep us from dealing with the truth and that is that Israel is an imperialistic and racist nation. Now that said, Arafat is a monster as much as Sharon. Bartel Broussard
Re: “The Rough Beast Returns”
06/17/02
Balance and Compassion Thank you to Todd Gitlin for a cogent piece on anti-Semitism today. It is indeed alarming. I sit on the divide, looking for balance and compassion in the public dialogue, instead finding ever more vitriol. The divide now seems like a razor’s edge. It aches in my heart a great deal, but I can only find that compassion and kindness are the responses to fear, hatred, and violence. And, remembering. We elders have forgotten to teach.Ê Jeff Hotchkiss
Re: “The Rough Beast Returns”
06/17/02
Propaganda In an otherwise excellent analysis, Todd Gitlin falls victim to the very propaganda he decries when he says that “hundreds of civilians died during Israeli incursions into the West Bank.” There is absolutely no evidence to support this assertion.Ê In Jenin, where by far the worst fighting took place, the number of civilians who died was probably less than 30. To say that hundreds died overall is really a gross exaggeration, particularly in light of the efforts by the Israeli army to avoid civilian casualties, efforts which cost the lives of as many as 23 Israeli soldiers. Jonathan Levine
Re: “The Rough Beast Returns”
06/17/02
Midwest Regional Director
American Jewish Committee
