Readers Write: Opinions and falsehoods not the same

The Island Now

It seems that the dispute over Mr. O’Kelly’s anti-Semitic diatribe just won’t go away.

Two letters in the January 27, 2017 papers take diametrically opposed positions.

Michael Rosenbaum, president of the [Sid Jacobson] JCC, castigates O’Kelly while Carole Simon of Great Neck makes the case for freedom of speech and Blank Slate publishing.

While I have refrained from entering the fray until now, the illogicality of Ms. Simon’s arguments demand a rebuttal.

She states that “everyone is entitled to their (sic) opinion and has the right to express it.”

Agreed, but there is a difference between opinion and fact.

One does not have the right to conflate the two.

If I were to write a letter to the editor stating that the heavens were comprised of fruits and vegetables and that the moon was made of green cheese, I suspect that the editors would not publish such nonsense.

I would argue that the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” fall into this category.

They are a forgery, published in Russia in 1903, purporting to prove that the Jews sought global domination.

No one claiming the validity of these Protocols should go unchallenged.

One might make the case that Blank Slate media has neither the time nor the personnel to fact-check every letter submitted, but they have not made this argument.

One more fallacy in Ms. Simon’s logic.

She says: “Your dislike of what was written does not give you the right to threaten the newspaper with financial sanctions.” This is patently absurd.

The United Farm Workers of America boycotted grapes, Martin Luther King led the famous bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala., and our government is currently imposing sanctions against Russia.

There are no laws, local, state or national which prohibit such behavior.

What Ms. Simon should have said was that she disapproved of such a threat.

Dr. Hal Sobel

Great Neck

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