Seventy-Sixth Year
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Truth Will Preval
Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
TUESDAY JUNE 6, 1967 NIGHT EDITOR: AVIVA KEMPNER
Nationalism in Middle East:
Building or Destructive Force?
Israel: Peace Is
Nobody's Birthright
*
THE KEY to the continuing crisis in
the Middle East has been and may
very well continue to be Gamal Abdel
Nasser. He has used the state of Israel
as a tool to maintain his position as the
leader of the Arab world. By being the
most aggressive opponent of Israeli sov-
ereignty, he has been able to gloss over
his domestic failings, and even his blund-
ers in other parts of the Arab world (not-
ably in Yemen) and seems to habe con-
vinced most of the rest of the world that
he is in fact the moral leader in the
Middle East.
Nasser has used as his major tool the
same tactic which has been used by
similar demogogues throughout recent
history: nationalism. By creating the illu-
sion that Israel's existence was a threat
to the Arab's honor and unity, he has
been- able to keep that part of the world
in constant turmoil. This nationalism, this
cry to the honor and dignity of a non-
existent entity, has been and will con-
tinue to be the major stumbling block to
the peaceful solution of many world
problems today.
The nationalism on which Nasser bases
his appeal is an aggressive and destruc-
tive nationalism. It degrades other na-
tionalities without constructively improv-
ing itself. Rather than developing strong
internal 'social and economic structures,
it encourages foreign conquest as an end
in itself. It is this type of nationalism
which is slowly, too slowly, passing from
the world scene. These attitudes are the
attitudes which were employed by the
great imperialists of the last two cen-
turi'es.
FEGYPT ECONOMICALLY, cannot com-
pete on the same level that the French
and British once did. It must limit its
attempts to a small country which has
for the third time in 20 years decimated
the Egyptian armies.
Cairo, in its pitiful attempt at assum-
ing the role of a significant power, ap-
pears to be playing a role similar to
that of Mussolini's Italy-boisterous but
impotent, vociferous but powerless.
Israel, in its fight to maintain its
existence, has been forced to resort to a
nationalism of its own, and a militarism
which would not exist were it not a requi-
site for existence. The nationalism of
the Israelis is a defensive and construc-
tive nationalism. The constructiveness
is evident in the domestic programs
which have been undertaken. They are
in the process of building a country from
the same materials that the Arabs had.
But whereas the feeble Arab attempts
were miserable failures, Israel is on the
way to some significant successes.
This new nationalism is not unique to
Israel. Identical feelings of national pride
and hoped-for accomplishments are what
have inspired patriots in Cuba and Viet-
nam. Cubans have for the most part been
anti-American only in reaction to Ameri-
can hostility; for their own part they
have managed to bring to Cuba a viable
economic structure, far advanced from
the fascism and capitalism of Batista.
Similarly, Vietnamese' nationalism, first
directed against French imperialism and
now at Americans, has not been antagon-
istic to those powers which have not
molested it.
THE INTRANSIGENCE of Nasser's posi-
tion makes any lasting solution of the
Middle East's problems unlikely. There
seems to be only two possible paths to
"peace":
* If Israel is pushed into the sea as
Nasser wishes, at least a temporary peace
will ensue, although, no doubt, the Arab
world would soon split into the hostile
camps which have been mildly fragment-
ed up to now.
! The only hope for Israel lies not in
a negotiated settlement, which the Arabs
would undoubtedly not abide by for long,
or in a limited military victory for Is-
rael. Israel will achieve its goal-protec-
tion only of its territorial integrity and
freedom of movement on the seas--only
by discrediting present Arab leaders. This
can be achieved by (1) decisive military
victory over the Arab armies as in 1956,
which seems possible from early BBC re-
ports, and (2) a generous settlement on
the part of the Israelis which demands
only what they have been asking for-
free use of Aqaba and possibly Suez, and.
cessation of terroristic activities on her
borders.
By discrediting Nasser, Israel may be
able to turn the tide of world and in-
ternal Arab opinion against leaders who
have failed so miserably at their tasks.
-R. M. LANDSMAN
/
C's? 9 ci ; s" 5'. N.Tiw .r
NoS AL&(P\
crystal pal
____the
lace _ _
An American Asian Debacle?
Bill Mauldin, the noted poli-
tical cartoonist, is following the
war in the Middle East and
sends back the following dis-
patch from Israel:
TEL AVIV-Shalom means peace
in Hebrew. It serves as a greeting,
commentary and farewell. When
I arrived at Tel Aviv's airport
Saturday night war was expected
momentarily and people muttered
"Shalom" to each other as usual,
somewhat perfunctorily, with no
irony intended.
Maybe no irony was there. War
tension is routine to a country
trapped between the Arab world
and the deep sea. Israelis know
something most Americans never
had to learn: Peace is nobody's
birthright. It is really the lin-
natural condition on Mother Na-
ture's earth. It is something you
hope for, and sometimes attain
by knocking hell out of somebody
else. Saying "peace" to an Is-
raeli is like saying "water" to a
parched old desert prospector. It
is a benediction, an expression of
hope-anything but a statement of
fact.
The truth about peace comes
as a shock to sheltered persons.
The Tel Aviv airport is a prime
target in the event of hostilities,
and I saw real panic in many
faces among the crowds of flee-
ing American tourists who were
sweating out airline seats.
But the local folks were sim-
ply being practical. The rent-a
car man was delighted to see an
incoming customer because, he
said, he was trying to get his
vehicles dispersed. He managed
to give me one that had to be
refueled on my way to town. The
boy at the gas pump said yes,
they had high-octane. (The rental
man had particularly asked me to
keep his machine serviced with
high-octane in the unlikely event
that it should need topping off.)
The gas station manager came
out and said no, I would have
to take low octane. I hd a feel-
ing that this was. not exactly
hoarding on his part - merely
strategic thinking.
TEL AVIV seemed dead, al-
though there was traffic on the
streets. What was missing, of
course, was flashy youth, which
was off digging holes in the sand.
Fill a sidewalk with us aged folks
and it will seem like a lot of
concrete. Hotels were empty, ex-
cept for little clusters of de-
partees standing by their bag-
gage,praying that TWAor Pan
Am or El Al (the Israeli airline)
would lay on an extra flight.
Hotel personnel were bored and
rude. It was hard to blame them.
I asked for a corner room with a
view of the beach. "We had five
feet of snow in Chicago," I ex-
plained, "and I might be here
for awhile. I'm sorry I didn't
have reservations, but you seem
to have plenty of vacancies."
"Don't say that," he snarled.
He made a production out of find-
ing a corner room for me, al-
though I believe that on my first
night, I was the only tenant on
the entire floor.
As I got farther into the Ne-
gev, the uniforms became some-
what more uniform, but not the
individuals. Officers are well-plac-
arded and in command, but there
is no servility or saluting, and you
get the disquieting feeling that if
an officer got into the way of a
soldier he would be stepped on
in a hurry. Except for the tiny
cadre of professionals it is truly
a citizen's army. I became ac-
quainted with a colonel who had
trained in the German army. As a
Zionist he was fulfilled, but as a
Prussian he was eating his heart
out,
ONE OF THE most startling
sights, to someone recently from
America, was the number of sol-
diers with beards.
And there they were, carrying
rifles instead of signs. I suppose
everybody can make his own mor-
al out of this. The old folks can
say thank God some countries
know what to do with hippies,
and the kids can say it shows
that idealists don't mind fighting
for something they can believe In.
There is no question about the
"gung ho" of this army. They can
eat lizards for lunch and the Arabs
for dessert, and they know it and
have proved it more than once.
However, they are also clear-head-
ed and aware of the fact that the
military fist is merely an extrem-
ity of the political arm. Colorful
battle heroics sometimes turn out
to have been momentary hysterics.
A real soldier knows how to cool
his fire without quenching it.
The consensus among the few
men with whom I hada chance
to talk was that they realize Is-
rael needs friends. They are pos-
sibly the only people in the world
who have survived American aid
without hating America. They
know that they must respect the
caution of their friends, but they
would like a little more reassur-
ance that it is merely caution on
our part. The soldiers were too
polite to say what they were clear-
ly thinking-that if we weren't up
to our ears in Vietnamese quick-
sand, we might be a little less
chicken about events in the Middle
East.
A major ally of Israel in the
past has been the disunity of the
Arabs, who zestfully cut each
others' throats when nothing else
is handy. If they sniff a sellout,
with Jewish blood in the offing,
they will manage to cluster at
least long enough for the kill.
ISRAELIS have no intention of
being wiped out, which seems to
me a reasonable attitude even in
these times. One soldier, a beard-
ed one, told me he would rather
die like a man than live like a
donkey. That bit of rhetoric sound-
ed faintly second-hand, but didn't
say so, partly because I couldn't
remember the source, and partly
because it would' have been out
of line. Soldiers at the front have
a certain right to mess around
with rhetoric in front of civilians.
And his attitude, too,seemed rea-
sonable.
One Monday, I drove to Jeru-
salem, up through miles of moun-
tains covered with young forests
laboriously planted by hand.
Some of these have names honor-
ing Americans who have helped
Israel. I saw Harry Truman's tree,
but was unable to spot the grove
dedicated to my Chicago friend
and colleague, Irv Kupcinet, which
probably means that I can't go
home.
Much of the route to Jerusalem
goes past hostile territory. There
is wire to mark the line, accented
now and then by the glint of a
weapon or -the movement of a
soldier in the sun, but you don't
really need these things to tell
the border. One side is simply
barren and the other side is
growing green. Cartoonists love
over - simplifications, especially
when they tell the truth.
In the Knesset, Israel's house
of parliament, I heard the prime
minister speak of restraint while
Ben-Gurion glowered from his seat
on the floor as Churchill used to
do in his last years. While Ben-
Gurion looked mostly sardonic, the
people in the gallery looked be-
mused. They know that if/ their
leaders and friends are wrong their
friends will be merely embarressed
but their nation and a great many
of its people will be dead.
It's quite a dilemma. The army
knows it can whip Nasser today,
but at the cost of world disap-
proval, so what about tomorrow?
On the other hand, if they don't
whip Nasser today, there might be
no tomorrow. You figure it out,
and shalom to you, too bud.
M
4
By DAVID KNOKE
The bellicose opportunism of
Egypt's Nasser has diverted at-
tention for the past several weeks
from significant developments in
Vietnam that lead to an astound-
ing conclusion-the United States
has started to lose the military
struggle there.
Doubtless the U.S. could never
have gained a "victory" solely by
military means. The special' na-
ture of the war's origins and
Washington's persistent blindness
to the realities of the struggle
have combined to make a mili-
tary solution in the traditional
terms meaningless.
But experts in these matters
have long been predicting that if
the U.S. maintained military dom-
inance, a "second war" on the
socio-politico-economic front could
turn the tide against the "Com-
munist aggressor."
Generals and diplomats ceased
predicting exact withdrawal dates
or peak troop levels and hinted
at the decades military forces
should have to occupy the coun-
try until it was pacified. The cru-
cial situation was that while the
.U.S. could not win militarily, keep-
ing the upper hand was necessary
and, in fact, had been achieved.
RECENT EVENTS below this
claim. The insurgent forces have
not only increased their military
activities but have begun to bad-
ly batter the U.S. forces:
e SAC B-52 bombers have ceas-
ed flights over the demilitarized
zone since early May because So-
viet-made missile sites on the
North's side make the slow bomb-
ers vulnerable.
* U.S. casualties mounted to
almost 300 last week, with the
death rate for the entire month
at an all-time high of 294 a week.
* Increased enemy offensives in
the northern South Vietnamese
provinces have caused major shifts
of allied troops and a delay of
the long-planned allied offensive
in the Mekong Delta where the
main force of native insurgents
operates.
i The pacification program has
run into serious difficulties and
been reorganized again for the
fourth time in almost as many
years. In the latest move, U.S.
Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker took
the program out of South Viet-
namese hands where it logically
would belong, and put it under
American military control, with a
civilian director, Robert Komer.
* Guerrilla troop recruitment
and infiltration from the North,
hardly dented by two years of
bombing, has kept pace with
American troop strength. The
guerrillas are better armed than
before-with heavy mortars and
portable rockets-indicating that
major suppliers of arms, Russia
and China, have been reconciled
at least in their support of a fel-
low socialist state against the im-
perialist aggressor.
WITH THINGS going as bad
militarily and politically for the
Johnson administration, why has
the U.S. come to rely increasingly
on a military solution?
The Americans may be waiting
on the South Vietnamese election
results in September, hoping to
legitimize the Saigon government
before starting negotiations. Yet
with Ky and Thieu, the major
military figures, now declared riv-
als and both opposed to a nego-
tiated end to the fighting, the
election dodge is likely to eno in
shambles.
As Tom Wicker of the New
York Times wrote, "American sup-
port for the war, tenuous and
uneasy already, probably would
not survive a perversion of the
election by the military or a later
army coup."
Another explanation of the ad-
ministration's inflexibility might
be an unwillingness to depart
from past practices. James C.
Thomson, former staff member of
the National Security Council,
wrote The Times:
At each stage of the
Vietnam conflict, from 1961 on-
ward, 'constructive alternatives'
have, in fact, been available and
proposed, both within the gov-
ernment and outside it; at each
stage such alternatives have
been rejected as unpalatable;
but all such alternatives have
become progressively more pal-
atable in retrospect, once the
opportunity to choose them has
passed us by."
The administration believes that
the war is of an imported, ex-
ternal origin, prosecuted by a mi-
nority group that would not be
supported by a free populace.
Therefore, the solution is to crush
that minority and tempt the peo-
ple with tidbits of political and
social reform.
BUT WASHINGTON is myopic
to the fact that the fighting is
only one manifestation of under-
lying social disaffection. While a
minority of the forces come from
outside-and have a better claim
to involvement than Americans-
the inescapable conclusion is that
a guerrilla army could not exist
and be successful as it 4s if the
populace did not willingly support
them.
Further, the "second war" ef-
forts are doomed to failure for
they represent the exact effects
the U.S. believes it is fighting
against-an imposed, coerced ac-
tivity conceived and carried out by
unpopular outsiders. The plain fact
of the matter is that the U.S.
cannot do for the Vietnamese what
they themselves will not do.
As with most revolutions in the
world today, the U.S. finds itself
on the wrong side.
All letters must be typed,
double-spaced and should be no
longer than 300 words. All let-
ters are subject to editing;
those over 300 words will gen-
erally be shortened. No unsign-
ed letters will be printed.
Eligible Students Should Vote
In City School Election
NEXT MONDAY Ann Arbor voters will
face one of the most important elec-
tions in the city's history. They will fill
three new seats on the School Board and
approve or reject a muhc-needed school
millage increase designed, to raise teach-
ers' salaries.
In this light it is imperative that all
University students registered to vote, do
so, since they could swing the election
both on the board seats and the tax pro-
posal.
THE ELECTION comes at a time when
the board is embroiled in controversy:
its actions concerning discrimination in
the school system and the construction
of the city's new high school have been
criticized by liberals and conservatives
alike.
Factions have already lined up against
each other. Conservative board member
William C. Godfrey has come out in
support of three of the seven candidates,
one an avowed member of the John Birch
Society. Three other candidates have re-
ceived support for their liberal views.
The conservatives have long attempt-
ed to take over control of the school
system. Now, with considerable disaffec-
tion with the present policies of the rela-
tively liberal board, it appears that the
three conservative candidates could win.
THERE HAS BEEN considerable con-
fusion concerning the right of stu-
dents to vote in this election. Few stu-
dents are aware of the fact that non-
property owners are allowed to vote both
for the school board and the millage pro-
posal. In addition, the voting places for
this election are different than those for
regular city contests. In the second and
third wards, in which the majority of
students reside, polling places will be An-
gell School and Burns School, respective-
ly.
,All eligible students should be inform-
ed of their right to vote and should fa-
miliarize themselves as much as possi-
ble with the issues involved. Failure of
the millage increase could result in a
threatened strike by teachers in the fall;
election of the, conservatives -to the board
could lead to the continuation of de
facto discrimination in the city's schools.
These problems are too serious for the
numerous students who reside in Ann
Arbor to continue their present apathy
toward city affairs.
--DAVID DUBOFF
Missing Mao
HAT EPIC PROSE masterpiece, "Quo-
tations from Chairman Mao," has van-
ished without a trace from the New York
Times Best-Seller List. The red plastic
pocketbook with the quasi-Biblical built-
in bookmark soared into the number sev-
en non-fiction slot two weeks ago by ef-
fectively capturing the loves and fears
that are America. Last week the weighty
tome managed to cling to its position on
the top 10, although slipping to ninth
place.
The book is significant for it is prob-
ably the first to make the best-seller list
replete with a stamped registration from
the U.S. government. The registration
statement. in perhans the year's greatest
MUSJIC
m
.,.. .:. .. . v..:..:.B A R R Y G O L D W A T E R a n =e. .s,
Vietnam and~ U.S CtRis
Fi-LnFGoing for Baroque
*'
-s~ l:':i : .
The Daily, in an effort to bet-
ter balance its editorial page,
has contracted for Barry Gold-
water's column. (Goldwater was
unsuccessful candidate for Pres-
ident in 1964 and continues to
exert considerable influence
among conservatives.)
There is an almost exact simil-
arity between Hubert Humphrey's
plea that we give advocates of
domestic violence everything they
want to buy them off and the
suggestion that we give the Chi-
nese and North Vietnam Commu-
nists everything they want.
In both instances there is the
implied suggestion that the guilt
for the particular violence in-
volved lies elsewhere than with
fact that the Communists have
done everything in their power to
halt free elections in the South,
whereas the supposedly corrupt
government has actually held free
elections under the most trying
of circumstances, is brushed aside.
IN THE CASE of "justification"
for domestic riots, the fact that
government has gone as far as it
properly can, or perhaps even fur-
ther, in redressing grievances also
is brushed aside. The new argu-
ment is that it isn't enough.
In the case of the domestic
appeasement of violence there is
no clear definition of just what
might be enough. Humphrey sug-
gests certain programs, but he
must be aware that what the
the Communists began fighting
in the first place is simply to
obtain an official role for the Na-
tional Liberation Front (the ac-
tion arm of the Viet Cong in the
South) in the government of South
Vietnam.
The political dimensions of vic-
tory or defeat in Vietnam, there-
fore, involve whether or not the
fighting ends with the National
Liberation Front in or out of the
governmental machinery.
There is no way to buy the
enemy off with anything less. The
alternative is to beat them in the
field.
THERE IS NO WAY, either, to
buy off the advocates of violence
in our cities. The alternative is
By NEAL BRUSS
Program
Suite No. 1, C major
Concerto for Flute, Violin and
Harpsichord, A minor
Concerto for Violin, No. 1, in
A minor
Suite No. 3, D major
The first concert of the Univer-
sity's first Fair Lane Festival was
an aftrnoon of easygoing fun. It
was carried off with a combina-
tion of shirtsleeved happiness and
the well-intended discipline that
seems to underlie so much of the
University's Courage to Serve.
Jean Martinon and the Chicago
Symphony B a r o q u e Orchestra
performed the Bach works ener-
getically. Most of the music car-
ried well, from the front rows of
new yellow lawn chairs to the out-
The Bach works were performed
in the spirit of the opening: vig-
orously and well -directed. A
healthy string and woodwind sec-
tion brought out the, best in the
two suites despite an uncertain
brass section. Flute and harpsi-
chord solos seemed lost In the
Great Outdoors from positions
halfway into the audience, al-
though both violin solos came
through clearly and expertly.
Lyrical stretches, fugal flights
and high-blown French openings
and closing were treated with lun-
derstanding and power. A violin-
ist as well as conductor and com-
poser, Martinon played while con-
ducting the orchestra. Imposed on
the performance was singing of a
flock of birds in the pines, whis-
tles of distant trains, the roar of
jets overhead and the Rouge River
I