Seventy-Seven Years of Editorial Freedom
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS
The Mid-East and the New Left
__
ere Opinions Are Free, 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN ARBOR, MICH.
Truth Will Prevail
NEWS PHONE: 764-0552
Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
ATURDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1967 NIGHT EDITOR: MARK LEVIN
An Administrative Disgrace
IN THE WANING months of the
Hatcher administration, no principle
seems so sacred that it cannot be
sacrificed at the altar of student pun-
ishment. But the latest action-re-
quests to undergraduate and graduate
college boards by Vice President for
Student Affairs Richard Cutler that
academic punishment be used for an
alleged non-academic violation - is
simply intolerable.
For Cutler's move undermines the
very foundations of academic freedom,
which. the Hatcher administration ob-
viously interprets as a one-sided coin
to defend war research by University
professors, but not war protest by Uni-
versity students.
Cutler requested the administrative
board of the Literary College to dis-
cipline Mrs. Karen Daenzer, '70, for
her participation in an Oct. 11 pro-
test against visiting Rear Admiral S. N.
Brown.
Cutler also sent the names of two
graduate students, Eric Chester and
Sam Friedman, to the Rackham School
of Graduate Studies for discipline con-
sideration. Chester and Friedman were
also involved in the protest of Rear
Admiral Brown.
There were no public arrests made
at the protest, which disrupted the
Admiral's visit and no doubt embar-
rassed the hosting officials. Yet, to
repeat, no one brought civil charges,
but instead, the devious and secret
wheels of administrative revenge began
to turn.
Cutler reacted to a protest from the
engineering college and sent a "con-
fidential" letter to the board of the
literary college requesting academic
discipline, i.e., suspension. The board
rejected Cutler's proposition. (Rack-
ham also apparently disregarded Cut-
ler's request.)
-THESE ADMINISTRATIVE actions
demonstrate the University's com-
plete disregard for academic freedom
and due process. But these violations
come as no surprise for an administra-
tion which as early as 1954 suspended
professors who refused to testify be-
fore a McCarthy-like Congressional
committee investigating Communists.
And the string of abuse, culminating in
the release last year of 65 student and
faculty names to HUAC and the sub-
Sequent sit-in ban on campus, obviously
has not reached its conclusion.
Two of Chester's, Friedman's, and
Mrs. Daenzer's most basic rights were
violated, and if it is argued that they,
in turn, had violated the Admiral's
rights, one must ask why this viola-
tion was not pursued through the pro-
per channels of the American legal
system (perhaps charging trespassing
or disorderly conduct).
Instead, the administration em-
barked on a course which upsets an
ideal of this University that sets it
above other great institutions: the
separation and integrities of the aca-
demic and non-academic spheres. For
once any university feels it is proper
to use academic discipline for political
activity, there is no "academic free-
dom." And if the violation of these
students' academic freedom were not
enough, one need only examine the
second-.and typical abuse: the kaf-
kaesque administrative path to seek a
punishment, without so much as in-
forming the students of the issue or
offering her a chance of defense.
ONE CAN SHOUT police-state tactics
and administrative negligence, but
these are not the issues. Rather, the
whole case reflects the desperation
and vindictiveness the administration
now has toward punishing alleged vio-
lations in the non-academic sphere.
Director of University Housing John
Feldkamp, who obviously needs a re-
fresher course in the meaning of the
Reed and Knauss Reports, has warned
that he plans to take repeated viola-
tions of conduct rules to the literary
college administrative board rather
than Joint Judiciary Council, which is
now only ruling on violations of stu-
dent-made regulations.
Since Mr. Feldkamp's outlook needs
enlightenment, the warning should be
sounded that an administrative reign
of terror by tossing students out of
school for violations in the non-
academic sphere will accomplish noth-
ing but further disruption and bitter-
ness. Bull-headed administrators must
squarely' confront the principle of the
Reed and Knauss Reports-and most
recently the report by the Student
Relations Committee: sudents have
the right to determine their own be-
havior rules in the non-academic
sphere. This will not make them im-
mune to the laws of the state, under
which the three students should have
been disciplined if there were a viola-
tion.
THE SCORN with which the admin-
istration was once viewed has now
turned to shame. It is unbelievable
that the University's leaders have a
conception of a University as a free
and open arena for controversy and yet
clandestinely manipulate to have war
protestors thrown out of school.
It is now less than a month till the
new President, Robben Fleming, as-
sumes office. With revelation of the
latest administration conspiracy, it
seems one month is much too long.
Whether or not President-designate
Fleming was involved in this latest
fiasco is unknown, but the hope per-
sists that as the old administration
leaves, its warped ideas, devious tactics,
and tired personalities will exit also.
-ROBERT KLIVANS
Editorial Director
By DAVID GUTMANN
The author is a professor of psy-
chology at the University.
I WAS IN Israel during the 1948
conflict and during last June's
war. At the height of the May
crisis I was cheered to hear of
Sartre's message to Nasser, de-
claring that the U.A.R. could not
expect the reflexive support of
the French left whenever they
used against Israel the rhetoric
of "people's wars," and "anti-
colonialism." I had hoped for a
similar declaration from the us-
ually vocal American Left.
Though disappointed in this, I
was still surprised by the degree
of leftist bitterness towards Is-
rael that I found on my return-
attitudes summarized by the reso-
lution condemning Israeli "aggres-
sion" passed by the recent Con-
ference for New Politics. My left-
ist friends left me feeling that at
best I had returned to cloud-
cuckoo land, and at worst to 1984.
While there, I saw Israel as a
Middle-Eastern version of North
Vietnam; it seemed that I had
been privileged to see a small,
brave and decent people, whose
morale derived from a revolution-
ary and socialist heritage, rout a
host of determined enemies,
themselves armed and encouraged
by a large and imperialistic power.,
But American leftists have since
suggested to me a different inter-
pretation of these events; accord-
ing to them, I had seen an im-
perialistic power, Israel-installed
and maintained in the Middle
East by the colonialist West-
same Jews became morally sus-
pect when they had the bad taste
to humiliate an enemy who made
the kind of genocidal threats that
Jews have learned to take very
seriously.
I think also that the image of
the tough Israeli - the source
rather than the target of aggres-
sion-undercuts for Jewish left-
ists the cherished identity of the
victim, and the sense of unique-
ness, justified self-pity and moral
superiority that goes with this
identity.
"I saw Israel as a Middle Eastern version of North Vietnam . .. a small,
brave and decent people, whose morale derived from a revolutionary and
socialist heritage, rout a host of determined enemies, themselves armed
and encouraged by a large and imperialistic power."
S....:r:::v:"rr.:v vrr . .t nP:a ^:3i:"X :"}.:.. .............: a : :.nvr".:n : s.... ;..........,.. .s....... ......". ::.x ..::v,}".4s rr.:{:.":..
tory is completely re-written,
that the much publicized Arab
refugees were not exclusively the
product of Jewish aggression. The
Gentile world has a bad con-
science as regards the Jews, and
likes to think that Hebrews can
be as brutal as any follower of
Jesus. Probably so, but the fact
remains that many Arabs left the
territory of Israel, not in the face
of Jewish terror, but because -
quite understandably - they did
not want to be citizens of a Jew-
ish state.
crushing Israeli victory, without
understanding the sources of Is-
raeli martial effectiveness and
morale. Thus, leftists assert that
the Israelis win because they are
a developed, militaristic, Western
power, fighting an exploited, un-
derdeveloped people, etc.
But if "Westerness" and "de-
velopment" are the crucial fac-
tors in military victory, then why
don't American troops have more
success against the North Viet-
namese? The typical leftist an-
alysis ignores the egalitarian, even
If my analysis is correct, then
I do not think that much can be
done to alter leftist opposition to
Israel: too many covert, unexam-
ined needs and passions find ex-
pression in it. However, if Israel
does not greatly suffer by this
opposition, the truth often does,
and I do not like to see leftists
rationalize and indulge their op-
position at the expense of truth.
It is notaopposition per se which
galls, but self-righteousness based
on distortion and unexamined
ignorance.
TAKE FOR example the major
belief around which contem-
porary leftist anti-Zionism collects
-that Israel was carefully im-
planted in the Middle East by the
British Foreign Office, in order
AFTER THE British left, and
as the war escalated in scope and
horror, Arab communities were
indeed attacked, and at times
brutally: (as in the case of Deir
Yassin, mentioned by Proft Rod-
enbeck in The Daily) for strategic
reasons and in retaliation for
raids and atrocities perpetrated by
Arab guerrillas based on them.
These actions did indeed result
in the terrorization of many in-
nocent Arabs, and their subse-
quent flight, but I have never yet
heard of a war fought at close
quarters that did not produce its
quota of such innocent refugees.
It is too much to ask of an un-
derarmed nation of 600,000, faced
with the very real threat of ex-
termination, that they fight with-
out either frightening or killing
their enemies.
Horror is a part of war; it is
not the exclusive property of
Jewish military action. The Arabs
typically mount wars and terror
campaigns against Israel, and
then complain of the bitter price
in lives, land and material exact-
ed by the Jewish military re-
sponse.
I can sympathize with the
Arab's need to salvage at least
moral victory from military de-
feat. but I am always puzzled by
the readiness of many leftists to
agree with their complicated Le-
vantine reasoning.
[ THINK THAT many leftists
V believe charges of Israeli mili-
tarism, because they see the
socialist bases of Israeli morale.
Israel has a strong socallist tra-
dition, and though there is also a
large and growing private sector,
the Israel Defense Force is the
kind of army that a socialist
country ought to have (and
rarely does).
The trappings and cosmetics of
militarism are refreshingly ab-
sent, and except in battle or in
combat exercises, there is almost
no distinction between officers
and enlisted men. Rank reflects
merit, and rank distributes re-
sponsibility rather than privilege:
officer casualties are higher in
the I.D.F. than in any other army,
except perhaps the North Viet-
namese.
By contrast, and despite the
self-congratulatory Arab rhetoric
of "people's wars," the Arab
armies, like the countries that
they represent, are rigidly class-
graded, such that the upper mid-
dle, educated classes tend to sup-
ply the officer corps, while the
peasantry and urban masses sup-
ply the enlisted men.
The officers tend to look down
on their men, the men fear and
distrust their officers, and when
it comes to the sticking point,
neither group is particularly
eager to stand and die for the
other. (In support of this point I
would cite the effectiveness of
the Jordanian Legion, the one
Arab force that put up a good
fight against the Israelis in two
wars. Hussein's soldiers do not
preen themselves on their social-
ist or revolutionary character, but
being traditional Bedouin tribes-
men-who do not recognize class
distinctions - the Legionaires are
not troubled by the social divi-
sions that afflict the other Arab
forces.)
INCIDENTALLY, for all the
talk of Jewish atrocities, neither
in 1948 nor 1967 did I hear any
public expressions of hatred to-
wards the Arabs, not in speeches,
posters, editorials, or informal
discussions.
The Arabs were referred to as
a kind of natural force-"Aravim"
-with whom one must contend. I
contrast this to the viciously anti-
Semitic posters and cartoons
(beaky, greasy, cowardly Jews
being driven into the sea by proud
Arab warriors) which poured from
the presses of "socialist" Syria
and "revolutionary" Egypt.
Again, I do not think that the
Israelis are notably more moral
than other nations, but I will not
concede that they are less moral,
and it is significant that they
have not yet learned from the
Christian or socialist world the
rhetoric of hatred.
TO REPEAT, I don't think
that the majority of the American
Left would become' pro-Israeli,
even if they were thoroughly in-
formed about the realities of the
Middle East and the history of
Arab-Israeli relations. Their sen-
timental and historical allegiance
is away from the values, qualities
and social forms that Israel rep-
resents.
But the Left does value peace,
and the peace of the Middle East
is threatened in large part because
of the Arab capacity to create and
believe in the myths-of Israeli
colonialism, militarism, and so
forth - that the American Left
tends to pick up and amplify.
Such myths are projections and
rationalizations for wounded Arab
pride, self-pity, and -rage; they
poultice the Arab's psychic hurts,
but they distort reality, and they
lead to continuous war in the
Middle East. To the extent that
the leftists validate and defend
such myths they are damaging
the cause of peace in the Middle
East, and with it the cause of
the oppressed Arab masses who
suffer the consequences of their
leaders' myth-fed obsession with
Israel.
*
9
The Arab Response
Searching Jordanian Arabs
L INo %p 40
I'', -\ * - ~7
-- !'
.w I
brutally crush an underdeveloped,
emergent and revolutionary Arab
people.
THIS L E F T I S T "newspeak"
should not have surprised me. In
1949, following the Israeli War
of Independence, the word on the
Left was that any nationalism
was regressive, parochial, and re-
actionary. Thus, in 1949, Israel
was condemned for being nation-
alistic; now, Israel is condemned
for interfering with Arab na-
tionalism.
But if nationalism is bad for
Jews, why then praise Arab na-
tional aspirations? This incon-
sistency, this double standard,
suggests a continuing need on the
part of many American leftists to
find some plausible basis for con-
demning Israel, for emphasizing
out of all proportion some un-
doubted weaknesses in Israel's
moral position. What it boils
down to is that when Israel
fights and wins-no matter what
the provocation-a large number
of American leftists will find some
(usually pious) rationale for de-
nouncing her.
Any position that is inflexibly
maintained in the face of chang-
ing circumstances, or that is ex-
pressed and justified through
contradictory arguments, m u s t
have some important irrational
qualifications. I don't claim to
know what these biasses are, but
I assert that they exist, and that
they contribute to the stereotyped
hostility shown by many Ameri-
can leftists - especially Jewish
lefists-towards Israel.
What may be involved is the
Left's (and especially the New
Left's) sentimental allegiance to
weakness. They often take the
implicit position that "Weakness
Makes Right," or "Impotence
Makes Right," a stance which
seems ultimately as rigid and per-
haps as immoral as the Fascist's
belief that "Might Makes Right."
to maintain an Imperial power
base against the rising tide of
Arab anti - colonial aspirations.
This myth of British-Zionist col-
lusion is partly based on Eng-
land's post World War I Balfour
Declaration, sponsoring the Zion-
ist goal of a Jewish national home
in Palestine.
But those who cite only the
Balfour Declaration should know
better: they ignore the subsequent
grim history ofrBritish dealings
with the Hebrew community, cul-
minating in the severe restrictions
put on Jewish immigration to the
Holy Land just prior to World
War II. At least a million Euro-
pean Jews who might otherwise
have found refuge in Palestine
went instead to the death camps.
Hebrew defiance of the repres-
sive British policies led to under-
ground terrorist and illegal immi-
gration campaigns, to the point
where the British, weary of main-
taining a great Palestinian mili-
tary establishment, gave over the
problem to the UN, and began
their pull-out. Though the UN
partitioned mandate Palestine in-
to Jewish and Arab states, the
British did less than nothing to
sponsor or secure the planned
Jewish state: they did not pre-
pare an orderly transition of
power, they did not defend the
emerging nation against renewed
Arab terrorism, and they gave up
strategic police fortresses to Arab
irregulars, while systematically
hampering the Jewish defense
forces.
ANOTHER MYTH has it that
the Jews brutally took the land
they now held, and drove inno-
cent Arab peasants from their
land. Again, no: the first Jewish
holdings up to 1947 were all, to
the last dunam, bought and paid
for, and often at outrageous
prices. As Koestler wrote, "it was
a kingdom bought with begging
bowls." True enough, in the
course of fighting a war, that-
By NU7RI KASHMIRI
and IMAD KHADDURI
mr, Kashmiri is a graduate stu-
aent at the University in the
engineering school, and is president
of the University chapter of the
organization of Arab Students. He
is a native of Riad, Saudi Arabia.
Mr. Khadduri is a graduate student
inphysics. He is a former president
of Arab club and a native of
Baghdad, Iraq.
MANY AMERICAN intellectuals
and leftists have been asking
the Arab students on the latest
reconciliation efforts of King Hus-
sain and the U.A.R. to Israeli mil-
itarists and the effect of such
policies on the Arab people's strug-
gle against oppression and exploi-
tation. Many of the following views
express the official position of the
Organization of Arab Students in
the U.S.A. and Canada which rep-
resents 10,000 Arab students.
Since the Arab-Israeli dispute is
not between Israel and some Arab
leaders, no Arab leader or group
of leaders can settle this problem
without consulting our masses. The
Palestine question is of vital and
existential concern to the Arab
people and, in particular, to the
Palestine Arabs. No solution which
is unacceptable to our people is
binding on our people.
Israeli sovereignty and a peace-
ful Middle East are mutually ex-
clusive. There will be no peace. as
long as the Israelis act as in-
vaders who occupy our land and
keep almost 1.5 million Arabs as
refugees by force of arms and by
the material and moral support
that they receive from the im-
perialist powers. The European
ruling establishment in Israel is
ideologically committed to "en-
gather the exiles" and to re-es-
tablish the Empire of David in
what is called Erezt Israel (historic
Israel, which in their considerate
estimate stretches "from the Nile
to the Euphrates."
This objective is a constant
threat to our existence as a people
in our ancestral land. Some of our
Western friends-including radical
Jewish intellectuals-used to dis-
miss our fears of Zionists expan-
sion as unfounded.
Would they dismiss them today
after the annexation of Jerusalem
-or, in Mr. Eban's hypocritical
locution, "the unification of the
ecumenical city"-and, after the
claims of Mr. Eshkol to "Greater
Israel?" They have "unified" Jeru-
salem; when will they unify his-
toric Israel?
Israeli vested interests want to
solve their mounting economic dif-
ficulties by opening up Arab mark-
ets which include 100 million con-
sumers. Once that is done, Western
capital which would feel itself in-
secure in Arab countries will base
itself in Israel and from there it
will securely enjoy easy access to
our markets. Our nascent indus-
try will be sacrificed. Then both
Israeli and Western capital would
incure our "progress and "pacifi
cation."
ARAB revolutionaries are come-
mitted to the overthrow of the de-
generate oligarchies that exploit
and oppress our people and sur-
render our wealth to the neo-co-
lonialist powers in return for the
protection that the neo-colonists
give them. As we struggle to attain
our economic independence and to
end the dehumanizing class ex-
ploitation of our people, the Euro-
4
peacefully in a multi-ethnic, multi-
religious community which guar-
antees the civil and human rights
of all its citizens.
American Jews, for instance,
live as free men without having
a state of their own. It is quite
conceivable that Israeli Jews could
live among us without a state of
their own. Then together we shall
work for a common life free from
exploitation of man by man, class
by class, ethnic group by ethnic
group, and people by people. This
is a difficult and demanding task
for all revolutionaries. Unfor-
tunately, it can be realized only in
the distant future.
WE REJECT any concession to
the European ruling establishment
in Israel. For this would only en-
courage them. We categorically re-
ject the de jure recognition of an
Israeli sovereignty, or any other
foreign sovereignty established on
w
'I
i
An Israeli oversees the dead
pean ruling establishment in Is-
rael and her imperialist allies want
to force us to give up this struggle
and accept their cultural and econ-
oihic predominance. Only -then do
we become sufficiently "realistic"
and "reasonable." ,
If ,there are, as we are told, pro-
gressive Israelites who are interest-
ed in affecting the necessary socio-
Arab territory. A de facto recogni-
tion of Israel has already been
made in the Armistice Agreement.
We regard any negotiations with
the Israeli expansionists as an act
of treason. We consider any Arab
official-be it Hussain or Faisal,
the Baath party or Nasser, Boume-
dienne or Arif-who enters into
such negotiations, or makes any
0