OTHER VIEWS
Clipped To The Holocaust
W
hitwell, Tenn., is a small
town, a mountain valley
about 30 miles west of
Chattanooga, with a
population of under 2,000, predomi-
nantly Christian.
David Smith, deputy principal and
football coach at Whitwell Middle
School, was looking for something
to teach his students about hatred
and intolerance. In the summer of
1998, he attended a teachers' semi-
nar in Chattanooga and heard a
Holocaust survivor speak. That gave
him the idea to offer a voluntary
course to teach students about the
Holocaust.
He pitched his proposal to the
school's principal, Linda Hooper,
who endorsed it. She called a meet-
ing for the students' parents. Some
of these parents questioned the wis-
dom of exposing their children to
such horrific material, but relented
after the principal assured them she
would allow her child to attend this
class. Thus, it became a town proj-
ect.
Smith taught the class. The first
year, they read such works as Anne
Sam Offen is a Holocaust survivor who
lives in West Bloomfield.
Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, I
Have Lived a Thousand Years:
Growing Up In The Holocaust, by
Livia Bitton Jackson, and Kingdom of
Auschwitz by Otto Friedrich. They
saw Schindler's List and other Shoah
films. Most of the time, Smith read
aloud to the class because many of
the students could not afford to pur-
chase the books.
After learning about the enormity
of the Nazi crimes, the students
decided they would like to com-
memorate the six million who died
in the Holocaust, but did not know
how. One of the students came up
with the idea to collect six million
paper clips. Why paper clips? The
student responded that he read
someplace that during World War II,
many people in occupied Norway
wore them on their lapels to protest
Nazi race policies and to honor
Johan Vaaler, the Norwegian, who
took out the first paper clip patent
in 1899.
Thus, the Holocaust Paper Clip
Project began. A German couple,
Dagmar and Peter Schroeder, White
House correspondents for several
German and Austrian newspapers,
learned about this worthwhile proj-
ect. They put this information on
There Is No Substitute For Victory
Philadelphia
t this time of war between
Israel and the Palestinians,
half-baked suggestions for a
speedy resolution are
whizzing by almost as fast as bullets.
Let's review some of the more
prominent schemes:
• A new Palestinian leadership.
Israel's defense minister believes that
pushing Palestinian Authority leader
Yasser Arafat out of power will bring a
more pragmatic and flexible leader-
ship to office.
• Unilateral Israeli withdrawal. Peace
Now, a powerful Israeli organization,
promotes the slogan, "Leave the
Settlements, Return to Ourselves" —
meaning a complete withdrawal to the
1967 borderlines. (This is somewhat
along the lines of the plan promoted by
Crown Prince Abdullah • of Saudi Arabia
A
.
QIN
4/5
2002
36
Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle
East Forum. His e-mail address is
pipes@MEForum.org
and just passed by the Arab League.)
• A territorial swap. Israel's transporta-
tion minister suggests trading some
Arab-majority areas within Israel to the
Palestinian Authority in return for the
latter giving up its claims to some
Jewish-majority areas on the West Bank.
• A wall. "A Protective Fence, the Only
Way" is a newly popular bumper sticker
on Israeli cars calling for an electric fence
to go up along the 192-mile border
between Israel and the West Bank.
• Buffer zones. Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon favors a beefed-up version
of the fence option with trenches and
minefields, saying that this "will lead to
security separation and contribute to
the security of all Israeli citizens."
• U.S. soldiers. Thomas Friedman of
the New York Times envisions that
"Israel gradually withdraw from the
West Bank and Gaza Strip, to be
replaced by a joint American-
Palestinian security force." He then
wants Washington "to station
American troops on the ground,
the Internet at
After learning of this proj-
www.Marionschools.org
ect, I had numerous conver-
The response was over-
sations with David Smith.
whelming. Within a short
He suggested I visit and
period of time, the students
experience their accomplish-
received millions of paper
ments. This past February,
clips from the United States
my wife, Hyla, an-d I drove
and all over the world,
to Florida. On the way, we
including some from then-
SAM OFFEN made our way to Whitwell.
President Bill Clinton and
We were greeted by Smith
Community
Vice President Al Gore, who
and all the teachers with real
Views
is from Tennessee. The
Southern hospitality.
Schroeders also were instru-
Among other things, we
mental in obtaining a cattle car to
learned that, prior to their special
display the paper clips. •
project, none of the students, and
Sam Offen in .
front of the
Holocaust-era
cattle car.
These faulty notions derive
in good part from the Israeli
government having made a
subtle, but large mistake in
indefinitely, around ... Israel."
approaching the Palestinians.
These ideas all share the pro-
This was, as Efraim Karsh of
foundly faulty presumption that
the University of London
a century of Palestinian aggres-
recently notes, narrowly to
sion against Israelis can be
define its enemy as the
stopped either by Israeli conces-
DAN IEL
Palestinian Authority, not the
sions or by some clever initia-
PIP ES
Palestinian body politic as a
tive. Not one of these sugges-
Spe cial
whole.
tions addresses the real problem:
Comm entary
In this, it emulated the U.S.
the Palestinians' conviction that,
approach to Iraq in 1991 and
by continuing to hammer away
to Afghanistan in 2001. One can
at Israel, they can defeat and destroy it.
argue that the Iraqi and Afghan popu-
Although Arafat adheres to this ugly
lations are not parties to the aggres-
ambition, he is not its source and his
sion of Saddam Hussein and the
removal will not eliminate it.
Taliban,
and so are not America's ene-
Far from helping, an Israeli pullback
mies, but that's plainly wrong when it
from the West Bank will signal weak-
comes to the Palestinians versus Israel.
ness and thus further inflame
Every piece of evidence suggests, and
Palestinian demands. Fences and no-
every opinion poll confirms, that the
man's lands are nearly useless.. (Just a
Palestinian assault on Israel is a wildly
few days ago, four terrorists from
popular undertaking. Indeed, there is
Jordan breached a border fence by
reason to believe that the "street" is
digging under it.) Placing foreign sol-
more anti-Zionist than the leadership.
diers in a hot zone is a non-starter —
This battle, in other words, is a con-
Americans and Europeans will not
ventional clash between peoples.
accept fatalities in someone else's war.