Monday Magazine's Selective Letter Publishing
by C. L. Cook

Besides the snotty tone of Mr. Tafler's three paragraph assailing of Mr. Neish, (a friend of mine, and man I've interviewed numerous times concerning his efforts to protect human rights workers and fair elections in South America and Palestine over the last ten years) it is full of error and outright Israeli propaganda.

 

It includes propaganda, (Sid's assertion that "one of his [Mr. Neish's] fellow-floaters told an Israeli through radio contact to "go back to Auschwitz"") already discredited by the Israeli military itself.

I understand Sid is protecting his own, (he is an avowed Zionist, and author of the book, 'Us and Them' an accounting of his happy days as a youth growing up on land newly taken from its Palestinian inhabitants) and though I don't countenance his lying about Hamas having taken over Gaza at gunpoint, when the facts remind, Hamas won elections in Gaza and the West Bank in 2006 that were certified as clean and fair by international observers, I know exactly where he's coming from.

What I don't understand is: Why does Monday allow letters full of false information appear without clarification, or at the very least a little background on their authors?

Michael Ross also contributed a doggerel attacking the victim of the massacre aboard the Mavi Marmara May 31st, but following his vile spew, below his name, there was no indication that he too is an avowed defender of Israel no matter what, who bills himself as a former secret Mossad agent, (even as he held Canadian citizenship apparently).  

I believe Monday owes its readers better than this. I believe, to paraphrase Sid Tafler: Monday Magazine is no dupe. Its editors knew what they were publishing, and now must face the uncomfortable truth, and acknowledge their share of guilt in demonizing an honorable and brave citizen criminally victimized by the state of Israel.

C. L. Cook
Managing Editor
Pacific Free Press