I should like to suggest that Hillel, and any other organization responsible for inviting Mr. Gary Kenzer to campus, be reimbursed for any costs associated with the lecture "Media Coverage of the Arab-Israeli Conflict" (April 1), as Kenzer's presentation was so devoid of content and rigourous analysis as to render the entire affair unworthy of the price of admission.

To begin with, it is important to realize that, aside from a few particularly irrelevant slides pertaining to the Israeli attack on Lebanon in 2006, the lecture dealt with the Israeli-Palestinian, and not the wider Arab-Israeli, conflict. It is galling to observers, as well as demeaning to the Palestinian people, to represent the conflict as an ethnic struggle instead of a nationalist one. If we view the conflict as Kenzer implicitly suggests, we are forced to see it as little Israel against the Arab world, instead of the continuing oppression of an impoverished, miserable and small population.

Before addressing the so-called 'content' of the lecture, I must point out that Kenzer has the curious habit of infantilizing his audience in order to make them draw the desired conclusions. We were asked to explain "why bias is bad" and what we "saw" when made to view several photographs without any accompanying explanation. Kenzer eventually lessened his reliance of this form of "audience participation" in favor of a more straightforward "exposure" of bias: He chose to either simplify or distort photographs and stories, or engage in piteous and, it would seem, wilfully offering illogical explanations. A few of the more egregious examples:

On Jan. 3, 2004, The Associated Press reported that "[the IDF] opened fire [on] a large number of Palestinians throwing stones," which resulted in the death of three. Having quoted, but not discussed the story, Kenzer proceeded to show a photograph, purportedly of the incident, of Palestinians hurling bricks and concrete. By way of further comments, the audience was led to believe that the media systematically downplays the danger of Palestinian mobs armed only with "stones." Kenzer, however, failed to point out that the above quote came from an Israeli army spokesman; furthermore, the original caption of the photograph, which he chose not to show, clearly states that the incident it depicted occurred on Jan. 2 and not the third (the day the killings took place). This, then, is clearly not a case of anti-Israeli bias; rather it is an attempt on Kenzer's part to downplay the unjust violence inflicted upon the Palestinians.

In fact, as the night wore on, it became ever more apparent that a large part of combating anti-Israeli bias is merely the whitewashing of the Israeli occupation. Take, for instance, Kenzer's coverage of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza caused by the recent Israeli blockade. On Jan. 20, due to a lack of fuel, the only power plant in Gaza, which serves Northern Gaza and Gaza City (population 400,000), was shut down. It is true that inattentive observers may have been led to believe that all of Gaza was without electricity (the rest of Gaza receives power directly from Israel); however, rather than clarify this misapprehension, Kenzer, by showing photographs - of unknown origin - of protesters holding candles with electrical light clearly visible in the background, made it seem as though Gaza City was awash with electricity, that the very real lack of power in Gaza City was just an elaborate piece of Hamas propaganda.

Kenzer's final example of bias was a chart of the world, featured in The UK Sun, showing the number of Islamist terror attacks in each country. Conspicuously absent was any indication of the horrendous number of attacks on Israel. When asked about this oversight, The Sun's absurd response was that there were just too many. Finally, the epitome of anti-Israeli bias, but should it be of any concern? I think not, for The Sun is tabloid rubbish - only slightly more respectable than our own National Enquirer. While it may have the highest circulation of any English-language daily, it is most known for its sensationalism and photos of topless women appearing on Page 3. To criticize is to diminish one's own position.

The night wasn't all criticism though. In his laudatory remarks, Kenzer found time to praise Pat Robertson, saying, he isn't "fair and balanced," he's "pro-Israel" and "absolutely remarkable." This is an utterly contemptible and unconscionable endorsement, as the embrace of Christian-Zionists, such as Robertson, by Israel and its supporters is nothing less than the wholesale repudiation of all that Israel aspires to: humanism, equality and the numinous. All of this, swept aside for the support of the most kind-hearted anti-Semites imaginable: They extol an expansionist Israel but abhor Jews.

Kenzer made much of the fact that Honest Reporting has more than 160,000 members, monitoring some 500 papers. I can only wonder what amount of good they could be doing if they were writing letters to the Israeli government, asking them to return to the 1967 borders or halt the expansion of settlements in occupied territory, instead of obsessing over a largely illusory matter.

- Ryan Gerdes is a graduate student in electrical and computer engineering from Spirit Lake.