A shocking story.
1. Emily McNeill graduates from Ithaca College last year and visits the West Bank with a Christian Peacemaker team. She writes a fine, earnest piece for the college's official magazine about Israeli settler violence against Palestinians.
The piece gets tons of response, including many favorable comments.
2. The College president, an obvious lightweight named Tom Rochon, issues a lengthy apology, including this:
is an appropriate way to discuss controversial issues in the alumni
magazine, a way to share with you the academic dialogue on campus, the
experiences and opinions of our students and alumni surrounding an
issue. However, in this case we failed to do so in a fully balanced and unbiased manner.
3. The magazine's editor for the last 12 years, Maura Stephens, writes an "apology" that deserves long excerpt because it is such a monument of skulking pusillanimity:
I was remiss in both
cases. For this I am very sorry, and I am particularly regretful that
people who are close to Ithaca College and care about it passionately
feel hurt by the institution. The institution is not to blame. I am the
only one at fault here.
The last thing I intended was to fuel more conflict.
Maura Stephens, editor
Note that all this surrounds an article about an illegal occupation and pogroms in a foreign country halfway round the world. And it demonstrates why it is impossible to discuss the corruption of American foreign policy and journalism without talking about rightwing/even liberal Jewish money, the loss of which the president and the editor obviously fear.
