From the Editor’s Notebook that appeared in the June 1988 issue of Harper’s Magazine. The complete article—along with the magazine’s entire 173-year archive—is available online at harpers.org/archive.

The news from Israel this spring is about a rain of stones, and as I read the reports about the suppression of the rioting in Gaza, I wonder how the story would be told if Israel were a less-favored state. By and large the American media borrow the definitions of the Israeli government and refer to the riots as a cynical strategy…