“A picture is worth 1,000 words.” That’s an old saying that attests to the power of graphical representations. And with power comes responsibility. That’s why I need to comment on “Palestine 101” described in Wednesday’s Daily.

Included within “Palestine 101” were photographs of Israeli soldiers in positions of power over Palestinians. In addition to those pictures there were others that “drew parallels between the deaths of Palestinians resulting from violence in the Middle East and the genocide of the Holocaust by presenting explicit photographs of murdered Palestinians and concentration camp victims in Poland.”

I suspect that these images were meant to imply more than parallelism. They were meant to suggest equivalence – that the Israelis are dealing with Palestinians just as the Nazis dealt with the Jews.

Is it accurate to equate the behavior of the Israelis with the Nazis? I doubt that anyone aware of 20th- and 21st-century history would find that the “violence in the Middle East and the genocide of the Holocaust” are comparable in any meaningful way.

What is one to make of the choice of these images? Were they chosen to educate or to inflame? Were they chosen to evoke sympathy for the Palestinians or to offend students and faculty, Jewish and non-Jewish alike?

Similar photographs were displayed at the Pro-Palestinian Protest a few weeks ago. This was an event that was supposedly designed not to offend anyone but I certainly found the photographs offensive.

I hope that in the future the ISU Muslim Student Organization can find a way to inform without the use of inaccurate and hurtful messages. The possibilities for a meaningful dialogue are much greater when people speak quietly and honestly then when they shout obscenities at each other.

Martin Edelson

Faculty Advisor

ISU Hillel