Once again, the charge of bias against the Daily has been leveled. Sure, I don't write there anymore, but thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I can still read it. Here's the accusation in question:

"The outstanding bias present in The Michigan Daily when it comes to covering events concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is reflective of the bias present in the mainstream American media on when it comes to coverage of the same issue.

Since last week, Gaza has faced a growing humanitarian crisis, because Israel cut off all exports to Gaza, one of the most densely populated places on earth. Gaza is under siege by Israel. The Gaza population of 1.5 million people is enduring collective punishment at the hands of Israel, with dwindling electricity, fuel or food supplies. The occasional incident when the Israeli government decides that Gazans deserve a little humanitarian aid is not enough to sustain the entire population for more than a couple of days at a time. Gazans are living in darkness and utter poverty, with their few hospitals practically running on empty.

Yet, where is the reporting of this large-scale humanitarian crisis in the mainstream news? Why aren't the stories of people suffering in Gaza heard? By the tens of thousands, Gazans flooded into Egypt last week in order to buy supplies, because they were essentially starved. The breakdown of the border wall between Egypt and Gaza shows the kind of pressure cooker the Gazans were forced to live in, with the top finally coming off.

A vigil was held Thursday night on the Diag in which organizers counted up to 180 people attending. Students, community members, families and many more people attended the vigil that was held in solidarity with the people of Gaza. Yet the frontpage story that covered the event reported only 20 people showing up to the vigil - a gross mistake. Like the national media, it seems apparent that the Daily also shows bias when it comes to issues and events that concern the Palestinians.

Hena Ashraf
LSA senior
The letter writer is the co-chair of Students Allied for Freedom and Equality"

So, the bias is . . . showing a different number of people at a vigil than you believe were there? Of course, we all know there is an Zionist Propaganda Desk at the Daily, right next to the EIC's desk.

She has legitimate points; mainly about the reality of the situation in Gaza. But to throw around the bias accusation when she has absolutely no idea how the paper is run, probably has never set foot into 420 Maynard, let alone ever gotten to know any of the writers, says more about the letter writer than it does about the paper.

You want to know the truth? The truth is the pro-Israel students, for nearly all the time that I was there, accused the Daily of being . . . you guessed it . . . biased against Israel. Student activists on both sides of this issue charge the Daily for being biased, yet fail to realize that most people don't care about vigils . . . unless both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel students were doing the event TOGETHER. I used to receive emails about vigils by the American Movement for Israel all the time, most of which were never covered in the Daily at all.

Friends of mine used to say the Daily always prints anti-Israel letters or viewpoints and never edits them for accuracy, but did so for anything that they wanted to submit.

Bias is a knowing and willful policy, if unofficial. The truth is that there isn't any pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian bias in the Daily. It just appears that way to those activists because neither side can stand to see something in the paper that they disagree with. Or whenever something isn't covered EXACTLY as they wanted it to be covered.

The student activists on both sides of the Israel/Palestine debate at UM need to get something straight: the Michigan Daily is not your personal propaganda paper. So stop calling it biased when it doesn't do exactly what you want it to.