Headline was misleading\nI am writing to voice my concern over a title of one of your articles that ran on the front page of Wednesday's edition of the IDS. Normally I am an avid reader and supporter of the IDS, but I was shocked and very concerned when reading the title "African studies chair replaced." (When the article was clearly meant to refer to the department of African American and African Diaspora Studies AAADS).\nCurrently, I am a Ph.D. student in the history department and very involved in the African Studies Program, which is a self-contained department quite separate from AAADS. My current adviser, Dr. John Hanson, is the director of the African Studies Program, and upon reading this headline I was afraid something awful had happened to him. Of course that is not the case as I later read, but this title is clearly misleading and has brought quite a bit of unfounded worry to us involved in the African Studies program. As a result I am requesting that a retraction is printed and that the IDS pay closer attention to the implications assumed by the titles it chooses in the future. \nMatt Crortenuto\nPh.D. student
Slanted idea of peace\nRelative peace: adj. The state of Israel/Palestine when only Arabs are being killed. \nThe image on Page 9 of Wednesday's IDS that attempted to portray Hamas as the first to break the cease-fire is exactly the sort of media slant that has helped perpetuate the Israeli/Palestinian occupation for 37 years. \nIsraeli Defense Force's (IDF) June 5 military assassination of five Palestinians in the West Bank town of Atteil did not disturb the relative calm.\nIt was not a breach of the cease-fire on July 25, when the IDF shot and killed four-year-old Mahmoud Kahaba while he sat in the back of his family's jeep at a check-point.\nIn fact, none of the IDF's attacks which left 17 or more Palestinians killed, and 59 injured during the six weeks of the cease-fire were worthy of disturbing the "relative peace."\nAccording to Kristin Ess, a New York City journalist writing on June 6 from Palestine, "The Israeli military government is openly reporting that it will not cease its illegal practice of targeted assassinations, as it demonstrated yesterday in the West Bank.\n"This is the Israeli 'cease-fire'. Occupation, humiliation, home-demolitions and killings have been part and parcel to the Israeli idea of 'peace.'"\nNot until August 13, after the very despicable and inexcusable actions of Hamas, did the New York Times and Washington Post (and consequently those who have not yet learned to look elsewhere for their news) agree that the cease-fire was over. Had the truth been told all along, the IDF might have been publicly condemned for its attacks, and perhaps the August 12 and 19 suicide bombings would never have taken place. Thus, editors and journalists who engage in this sort of manipulation are accomplice to murder.\nThis willful media bias has allowed the conflict to continue for too many years, and does nothing to serve Israel. It merely serves to allow war-criminals and Zionist-extremists like Ariel Sharon to remain in control, holding not just the West Bank and Gaza hostage, but rational, peace-loving Israelis as well.\nDouglas Wilmoth\nIU employee
