Letters to the Editor

Stein weighs in

To the Editor:

I was made aware yesterday of a scurrilous article purportedly in the Loyola University of Chicago student newspaper, The Phoenix, that concerned me, and was recently reprinted or otherwise disseminated at Penn. The article claimed I said that in the context of 6,500 dead at The World Trade Center, I "...could not care less..." (or similar phrasing -- I have only had the article read to me hurriedly) about what happens to Arab Americans.

This is simply made up, probably by someone who was not even at the lecture.

The real turn of events was that after my speech, one of the many questions was from a student (or at least a young person) who asked me about racial epithets being directed at Arab Americans.

I said, again in paraphrase, that some sense of proportion was necessary after the terrorism in New York. Murder was a terrible thing. Racism was a terrible thing. There were (or so the data ran at the time) 6,500 dead at the World Trade Center. There was a report of a Chicago filling station owner getting shouted at by a passing motorist with a slurring phrase.

Both were unfortunate, but there was simply no moral comparison as between being yelled at from a passing car and being murdered.

I still think that is true. Racial epithets are terrible and low. Murder is incomparably worse.

To warp that very basic and unexceptionable proposition into the complete lie that I said I didn't care what happened to Arab Americans is libel on the part of The Phoenix, pure and simple. The statement did not happen, and to say that it did is a malicious falsehood.

I have been working and demonstrating against racism since I was in high school in 1961, and have continued to struggle against it wherever I see it. To allege otherwise is a disgusting lie.

May I add, by the way, that minimum journalisticÿstandards at Loyola would have required that the authors of any such allegations against me, and their editors, check with me about the quote. It is unfortunate that this basic ethical and legal duty was not performed.

I look forward to appearing on your campus next week.

Ben Stein

This letter was originally sent to the members of SPEC Connaissance.

Pay attention to issues

To the Editor:

This letter is in response to Timothy Swain's letter ("Shame on Sharon," The Daily Pennsylvanian, 10/17/01).

Swain mistakenly claims that Israel used the events of Sept. 11 to "enact a misguided revenge through a series of attacks on the Palestinian people." He doesn't mention that Israel's actions are in response to attacks on Israelis and Jewish settlements by Palestinian terrorists.

For an example, one need not look past the terrorist assassination of the Israeli Tourism Minister Rechavam Zeevi, which occurred just yesterday.

In addition, Swain does not correctly interpret Ariel Sharon's call for the United States to avoid appeasing Arab nations. This call was not made to prevent the U.S. from making Arab allies, but rather to draw attention to the nature of their governments -- which often reject the values of freedom, equality and pluralism.

Just look at the Palestinian response to the Gaza Strip marches in support of Osama bin Laden. Arafat did not just "quell" these protesters, but he ordered his troops to violently suppress them. Three, in fact, were killed.

One must remember that this is a turbulent world. Greater attention to issues must be made before making such simplistic observations such as Swain's.

Seth Finck

College '02

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