Western Galilee kibbutz closes its pool to Israeli Arab swimmers

Well, Irma, you've got me thinking there. Can you abrogate all responsibility for the impression created by your seed and summary? Is that good citizen journalism?

Maybe for most articles the title and first para are fine. The rest of the seeded article is an elaboration, more detail for those sufficiently interested after the "taster" para.

That's fair enough because in general people are busy, have many articles to read. They read the first para and only delve deeper if they are so interested they want all the details. They expect to find greater detail in the seeded article, not something which fundamentally alters the balance.

As seeder you need to bear this in mind and take care not to present your readers with a de facto one-sided slant and expect them to always check out the seeded article, just in case there was more there than merely additional elaboration.

I would be interested to know what other Viners think.

As seeder you need to bear this in mind and take care not to present your readers with a de facto one-sided slant and expect them to always check out the seeded article, just in case there was more there than merely additional elaboration.

I have to agree with Dennis here. If you want to post an article in which the information comes from a site where you know it will be slanted, and then not tell anyone just to see if they take the time to look it up--it may be good journalism for the Inquirer.

It is my opinion that most of the people on the Vine are very tired of slanted news and feel that they can turn to places like the Vine for a somewhat more balanced view, a veiw where people like you have taken the time to check the sources and comment where the information is doubtful. We get enough bad sources quoted here from (I believe) sheer ignorance. We don't need any one who knows the difference feeding bad info into the net just to see who reacts.

If you consider yourself a journalist of any type, there is a Fiduciary Responsibility to your readers to do your very best to make sure they have accurate information. Please, leave the bad stuff to the newspapers and TV. They are the experts in this field.

I agree with Dennis. Because you pasted so much of the article, I thought you posted the entire thing until Dennis mentioned otherwise. The part of the article missing was the entire view of the other side. It's irresponsible to mislead readers the way you did, and though I doubt you had any sinister agenda it was a mistake.

And how many Arab Jews are there in israel exactly, for whom discrimination is so common?

I don't really know why you started talking about Arab Jews. The article above is not at all related to that....

Maybe your wife can join too?

Writer X - I realize that you feel this may be an issue. However, racism against Arab Jews is not really the topc of this post. Maybe it belongs with its own post and not over here, in something that is not really related?

Yaakov - I disagree with you. My point here is that many news sources use the term "Arabs" as a one catch all term. I think you will agree with this statement.

I am just pointing out the fact that many of these "Arabs" are probably Jewish Arabs, Maronite Arabs, etc... It is in accurate to lump them in one category because of the political ramifications involved. It continues the spread of ignorance when we are unwilling to recognize the diversity of the Arab culture.

I've also sent you a friend request. The Israel/Palestine conflict is an interesting dilemma for me. I would love to hear your thoughts on them from the standpoint of someone who used to live here (US). Maybe a comparison between the struggle of African Americans ( I disagree with this term because it also lumps Jamaican Americans, etc... in one term but I haven't found another term so I will use this one. Also, you have Asian Americans, Latino Americans, women etc... who fought to be heard so I guess I really mean "minorities". A term not used in reference to population but in terms of political power within the system.) for equality. .

Writer X - When news sources refer to Arabs in Israel, 99.9% of the time they are referring to Arabs who are Muslim, maybe Christian. Certainly not Jewish. I am well aware that a large segment of the Jewish population are Sefardic Jews (what you may call Mizrahi - that term is not really used so often), whose families spent the past two thousand years in predominantly Arab or Muslim countries. The community that I live in is made up of mostly Sefardic Jews. However, if you think there is lot of racism against this group, I think that you are mistaken.

People are not out to hide the diversity of the Arab culture. It is just easier when reporting the news to speak about the violence between Arabs and Jews. What would you prefer? That the headline reads something like: "5 Maronite Arabs, 3 Christian Arabs, 7 Muslim Arabs, and 4 Muslims who came from Iran but really have much more of an Aryan ancestry than an Arab ancestry were among the people arrested at a checkpoint today". Would that be better?

Yaakov - Sorry for the delay. I'm in between moving right now and I'm having problems replying quickly, actually, add answering emails to that.

I agree with you that it would be a pain in the a$$ to include all that information. However, for the sake of lessening everyone's ignorance about the term "Arab," I think it is important to include that distinction.

Will you disagree with me that most "Americans" are ignorant of what is going on with the Israeli/Palestinian conflict?

exclusion by race or religion is practiced in some places in Israel. And, this observation is made by a black man, Israel-supporter and a Jew.

Hi David, this is precisely why I pointed out the complexity of the term "Arab." I just wanted the article to distinguish between Arab Moslem, Arab Maronite, Arab Jew, etc...