Sem"ty-Third TI a EDrED AND MANAGED BYSTUENT F E UNIvERY OF MICHIGAN UNDER AUTHORrrT OF BOARD I CONTROL OF STUDENT PUDSiCATIONS "Where opinions Are Free STUDENT PUBLICATIONS BLDG., Ar ARBOR, MicH., PHONE 1o 2-3241 Truth Will Prevail" Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This must be noted in al: reprints. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1964 NIGHT EDITOR: H. NEIL BERKSON LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Speaker Misrepresents Israeli Actions Committee Acts Unfairly Toward SGRU Candidates IT IS BECOMING increasingly obvious that the members of Student Govern- ment Council and those who work for it are doing everything possible to prevent the Student Government Reform Union from having an equal chance in the forth- coming SGC elections. When the SGC committee on student activities checked the membership list submitted by SGRU when it applied for recognition as a student organization, the committee members didn't merely ask those named on the list if they were in- deed members. They questioned several of the members for . some time as to whether they really knew what SGRU's purpose was and whether they really wanted to be associated with such an "ir- responsible" organization. Logic I DIDN'T KNOW whether to laugh or cry at the assortment of state legislators who came here Monday. Eighteen of them descended on Ann Ar- bor, primarily to discuss the University's prospective budget for the fiscal year 1964-65 with University officials.' They displayed more interest in their own hu - mor, which was pretty sad, than in any- thing the University had to say. THE MOST INCREDIBLE performance of this circus came from Rep. William Copeland (D-Wyandotte). Vice-President for Academic Affairs Roger W. Heyns was describing the University's serious salary situation, attributable to seven years of legislative under - appropriation, when Copeland interrupted him in mid-sen- tence to present his own analysis of the University's problems. "You don't have any loyalty in your. people," he began. Why? Because his daughter had tried to get in here and didn't make it. Copeland laboriously ex- plained how he called everyone from Uni- versity President Harlan Hatcher on down. "I couldn't get anything done." This, he added with a flourish, is why the Univer- sity is losing faculty. INTERESTING POLITICS behind a Uni- versity budget appropriation, n'est-ce pas? -H. NEIL BERKSON OUCH UNETHICAL PROCEDURE made me, as a candidate, and the other lead- ers of SGRU wary of further attempts by SGC to "stack things against them," but even this wariness seems not to have pro- tected them. The rules of SGC elections state that each candidate for SGC must submit a platform statement of no more than 300 words no later than 10 days before the election. Richard Keller Simon, co-chair- man of SGRU, asked Charles Cooper, SGC elections director, if special consideration could be given SGRU since all the SGRU candidates were running on the same platform. What Simon was referring to was the length of the statement: since all the SGRU candidates were submitting only one statement, could it be longer than 300 words, as long as it remained un- der 1800 words, which would be the com- bined total if each candidate were to submit a separate 300 word statement? Simon says that he understood that SGRU would be allowed to do this, al- though Cooper says that such a decision was never definite. Therefore, when Simon turned in the SGRU platform statement before the deadline on Sunday, it came to about 450 words, or well within what Simon had understood was the limit. However, Cooper and SGC Executive Vice-President Thomas Smithson decided on Sunday that the SGRU statement would also have to be less than 300 words, but failed to tell Simon of this decision. When Cooper discovered on Monday that the SGRU statement was long, he de- cided that it was up to him to remedy the situation, so he edited out over 30 per cent of the statement, leaving just over 300 words. He didn't even consider asking Simon if he would care to do the cutting, on the grounds that Simon understood what the length of the statement was to be. It is inconceivable to me that Cooper would think that Simon understood that he was to write less than 300 words and still write well over 400. This seems to be just another example of how little SGC cares for the students, in that it doesn't even give them the chance to read SGRU's entire platform, and also to what lengths they will go to keep SGRU from having an equal oppor- tunity to present its case before the elec- tions. -THOMAS COPI To the Editor: LAST THURSDAY The Daily gave front page prominence to the hate-Israel speech presented to the Arab Club by Mr. Thashim Bashir, a representative of the United Arab Republic. The Uni- versity's Arabic and non-Arabic communities are entitled to a de- tailed rebuttal of Mr. Bashir's statements. 1) Arabs in Israel have not been persecuted. With the exception of certain restrictions relating to na- tional security questions, they en- joy full rights of citizenship. In contrast, Jewish minorities in the Arab lands have been denied the fundamental rights of citizenship. Under threats of violence and acts of violence, Jews in numbers com- parable to the total number of Arab refugees who voluntarily left Israel in 1948 have fled the Arab lands. While these refugees have settled in Israel with full rights of citizenship, the Arab refugees of 1948 have not been integrated by their Arabic host countries. Jordan to be sure has given them citizenship, but not employ- ment; Syria denies them citizen- ship while it conscripts them for military service; Lebanon confines them to their camps. The mass of the Arab refugees remain second- class citizens in the very countries which invited their flight, and which now so loudly proclaim Arab "unity." 2) THE economic status of the Arabs in Israel is better than it was before partition, and signifi- cantly better than the economic status of the average Arab in sur- rounding Arab countries. Certain- ly their standard of living has risen; if their per capita income has indeed fallen as Mr. Bashir claims it probablyareflects the fact that the wealthy Palestinian Arabs fled Israel en masse, taking their portable wealth with them. The land Mr. Bashir described as "lost" by the Israeli Arabs since partition has in fact been volun- tarily sold at attractive prices to the Israeli government or to pri- vate Israeli corporations. Only in a few instances has the govern- ment been forced to seize Arab lands by eminent domain, and and only for the furtherance of vital irrigation projects. Rather than subjecting the Arab minority to economic discrimination Israel has bent every effort toward mak- ing them a productive component of her national economy. * * * 3) IN NO other area has the Arab propaganda been more cyni- cal than on the question of the 600,000 refugees of 1948. From the vast amount of comment on this question, the following short pas- sage from the World Council of Churches Adviser on Refugees (Dr. E. Rees) contains the judgement of most neutral observers: The United Nations General Assembly voted a sum of $200 million to provide "homes and Jobs" for the Arab refugees. That money remains unspent, not because these tragic peo- ple are strangers in a strange land, because they are not; not because there is no room for them to be established, because there is; but simply for political reasons... I dare to suggest that there is also a debt owed to the refugees by the Arab states themselves. The debt, that men of the same language, the same faith, the same social organi- zations should at any time in history feel due from them to their fellows in distress, the debt which in simple terms would involve regard- ing these people as human be- ings and not as political foot- balls ... 4) In his comment that Arab unity is thwarted by the "artifi- cial states" set up by Britain and France after World War II, Mr. Bashir is expressing Nasser's avowed desire for hegemony over his neighbors. It is unfortunate that hatred for Israel has proven the only consistently useful argu- ment in his pleas for Arab unity. The negative nature of such a basis for union can never con- tribute to the social and economic progress the Arab world so des- perately craves. Indeed, the econ- ornic drain of the arms race it has provoked has already strained the economy of the UAR. While the United States maintains the UAR by supplying one third of Egypt's food Nasser is expending millions on planes and rockets Egypt does not need, to attack a country which fervently desires peace. 5) IN THE technical agreement among Israeli and Arab engineers negotiated by the late Eric John- ston, Israel made substantial con- cessions concerningrthe distribu- tion of Jordan-Yarmuk water. Jordan was to receive all the water she could use, Israel got what was left (39 per cent). It was mutually recognized that Arab-Israeli cooperation was vital for the efficient use of the Jordan- Yarmuk basin. However, Arab politicians re- jected the plan. With United States aid 'Jordan in 1962 "unilat- erally" (and perforce inefficient- ly) diverted the waters of the Yarmuk. Israel is now "unilater- ally" (and perforce inefficiently) developing her part of the Jordan River Project. At enormous extra expense she has placed her canals and tunnels out of reach of Syrian guns While water resources in the three Arabic countries involved (Syria, Lebanon and Jordan) are more than abundant for their needs, Israel desperately needs water for industrial and agricul- tural development. However, Is- rael's Jordan River Project will consume less than two per cent of the 30 billion cubic meters per annum available to the four coun- tries. The "dispute" boils down to whether or not Israel can develop unhindered her own water re- sources. 6) THE "restrictions of freedom of movement" suffered by Arabs in Israel apply only in the tense bor- der regions under military control. In these regions attack by infil- trators pose a serious threat. Resi- dents of such areas require the permission of the military com- mand for travel out of them. The areas involved and the re- strictions themselves have been relaxed in recent years, but would be fully restored in event of fresh attacks. The "inequities under ap- plication of the military law" to which Mr. Bashir refers is pre- sumably the not too surprising or unbearable legislation which bars Arabs from service in the Israeli Armed Forces. The fact of the matter is that the Israeli government has bent over backwards to ensure civil rights to the Arab minority. Un- fortunately, there are few signs of appreciation on their part, nor even recognition of these efforts in the Arab world, as Mr. Bashir's remarks illustrate. IN ADDITION to representation in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, the Arab minority enjoys freedom of worship, speech and press; free education in their own schools from ages 5 to 14; health, accident, unemployment and old age insurance; right to work, or- ganize and strike; free practice of any legal profession, trade or busi- ness. The Arabic language is official- ly recognized in the Knesset, the courts and in the government sup- ported Arabic schools. The Minis- try of Religious Affairs assists the Moslem minority (as well as Christians and Druzes) in the up- keep of mosques, holy places and cemeteries. Kol Israel, the govern- ment radio, broadcasts Moslem prayers and Koran readings. Arabs in Israel enjoy all these benefits in addition to economic prosperity relative to their brethren in the surrounding Arabic countries. * * * CONSIDERING the susceptibil- ity of this Arab minority to propa- ganda from outside Israel, and the numerous incidents of their collaboration with infiltrators, their treatment at the hands of the Israeli's has been unbelievably fair. We Americans can recall with shameour own response in a sim- ilar situation: our Japanese- Americans were unswervingly loyal to the United States, yet with our World War II concentration camp policy we took more severe mea- sures against them than Israel has taken against a more numerous and menacing minority group. If Mr. Bashir wishes to study persecution in the Near East he might better examine the treat- ment of the (vanishing) Jewish minorities in the Arabic countries. The indescribable bestiality shown by the Arabic governments toward Israelis kidnapped in border raids might provide him with further perspective on the term "persecu- tion". The latest shocking revela- tion came only one month ago when 11 Israeli prisoners were ex- changed with the Syrians under UN auspices. * * * 7) CONCERNING UN resolu- tions: The UN on Nov. 29, 1947 by a two-thirds majority established the State of Israel. Arab adher- ence to this UN action was mili- tary invasion of Israel. To this day the Arab countries refuse to recognize the existence of Israel nor to negotiate with her on any issue. They actively boast of their intended invasion of Israel, they have initiated an arms race with Soviet and now American aid, they wage an international economic boycott against her, they provoke border incidents, they refuse her access to the Suez Canal, and now they wish to deprive her of her own water resources! Indeed, I agree wholeheartedly that the "way to overcome injus- tice is to acquire peace." Unfor- tunately Mr. Bashir's government has consistently pursued a quite different path. In view of the dis- tortions he presented in Ann Arbor on Wednesday night he could not have intended to lead his listeners to seek the path of peace. -Joseph Eigner Department of Biological Chemistry Candidacy..,. To the Editor: FEW STUDENTS are aware that The Daily - as well as several campus periodicals-is placed un- der the governance of the Board in Control of Student Publications. Still fewer know that The Daily staff is required to adhere to a Code of Ethics which defines its obligations to the newspaper. To remove those restrictions in the Code of Ethics injurious to the quality and freedom of The Daily, I am seeking election as a write- in candidate to the Board in Con- trol of Student Publications. * * * THE FIRST limitation on The Daily which I oppose is harmful not only to freedom of the press but also to every student on cam- pus. The Daily is prohibited from publishing editorials which either favor or oppose the election of a Regental candidate. No single group of writers knows so much about the Regents as those who write for The Daily. Not only do they attend every meeting of the Board of Regents, but they frequently discuss Uni- versity matters with them in the course of writing their daily ar- ticles and editorials. And what is their reward for such knowledge? They are the posters near the dining rooms of West Quad and this gave me the impression that the scheduled lec- tures had been cancelled. Furthermore, when on Feb. 8 about 9:00 p.m., going to a danc- ing party organized by Negro stu- dents, I walked through the MUG, I noticed that the poster previous- ly there had also been taken down. I was then convinced that the lec- tures had been cancelled. * * * WHEN I got to the party, I asked the Negroes I met there why they had cancelled the lectures. They found it hard to believe that the lectures had been cancelled, and didn't have the slightest idea of who was taking the posters down. Two days later, on Feb. 10, they put new posters on the same boards. But again somebody took them down or at least they dis- appeared. On February 12, though Negro week was to last until Feb. 16. Confronted with a war on Negro posters, shall I conclude that, while Student committees are a "Don't Think I'm Resisting-I Just Want To Get Away And Think Things Over A Couple Of Years" a 7 *5 . 4v A Continuing Conference FOR ABOUT SIX HOURS last weekend, students, faculty members and admin- istrators made an admirable effort to talk to-rather than at or about-one anoth-t er. The Conference on the University aim- ed at increasing communication on cam- pus; for a few hours, it succeeded. Ad- ministrators perhaps held to the old par- ty-line; faculty might have been too con- servative; students were somewhat ideal- istic and visionary. But the air was partly cleared, some contact was made and opin- ions, instead of remaining bottled up, were given free flow. But what will be done now, after the soul-searching speech by Carey McWil- liams and the honest although less spec- tacular attempts by workshop chairmen are over?' For one, co-chairman of the conference, Richard Keller Simon, notes that sum- maries of the Conference workshops will be compiled in a booklet for campus-wide distribution. Hopefully, someone will read it and-maybe-seriously consider some of the concepts and concrete proposals discussed last weekend. Is a booklet enough, though? ONE FAIRLY SURE WAY of perpetrat- ing the atmosphere of concern, enthu- siasm and free and open discussion gen- erated by the Conference on the Univer- sity is a Continuing Conference. A small group of different students, faculty mem- bers and administrators could gather each month to discuss a specific problem cen- tering on the University and higher edu- cation in general. The Continuing Confer- ence could be organized by the present steering committee of the Conference on the University. Eventually, even those faculty members of touch or unconcerned with the prob- lems of the University-those people who did not want to attend last weekend's Conference-might become involved in one of these discussions. But the ultimate benefit from a Con- tinuing Conference would go beyond those participating; it would spread to the en- tire campus community, creating a live- lier and more concerned atmosphere and, perhaps, a closer bond between the vari- ous groups of the University., -MARJORIE BRAHMS Associate Editorial Director The Boss? WHOEVER SAID the power of the pen was mighty had never heard of the power of the American union and its chief weapon-the strike. Waterfront unions ,after refusing to load American ships bound with wheat for Russia, ended their strike yesterday. Their agreement was reached with Presi- dent Johnson in return for a government pledge that future grain deals with Rus- sia would have the cargoes carried in American vessels. The unions charged that the 50-50 shipping split negotiated by the late Pres- ident John F. Kennedy had been violated and that only about 38 per cent of the wheat was being shipped in United States vessels. To back up their demands, the unions went on strike. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN more effective if the unions had attempted further dis- cussion before beginning their strike. It also appears that self interest motivated their action much more than patriotism only ones in the state of Michigan specifically prohibited from taking sides in elections for the Board of Regents. The Regents run the University. Yet the University's student news- paper cannot even comment on their quality to do so at election time. . The Regents affect the daily life of every student. Cannot even some students seek to affect those who affect them so greatly? * * * THE SECOND restriction on The Daily which I oppose seems only slightly unjust in compari- son with the first, but is unjust just the same, and therefore ought to be removed. Before publishing an editorial discussing state appropriations to the University, the editor must first consult the Chairman of the Board in Control of Student Pub- lications. That state appropriations is a sensitive matter no one will deny. But that students themselves can- not judge the appropriateness of their editorials on this matter must be denied. If The Daily's writers have enough sense to judge the effects of their writing throughout the year, why will they lose it when the state Legislature prepares to make University ap- propriations.? Obviously, this restriction ex- ists not because students become less responsible at certain times, but because at certain times the Board in Control loses its taste for freedom of the press. Removal of this limitation will restore the Board's respect for that freedom to a full-time basis. * * * THE THIRD limitation on The Daily which ought to be with- drawn forbids every writer to ex- press racial or religious bias in his editorials. Although I believe ra- cial and religious bias to be wrong, I also believe that no opinion, no matter how perverse, ought to be suppressed. I invite anyone who thinks the above restrictions ought to re- main in the Code of Ethics to pre- sent his reasons in these columns. And I invite all those who seek a better newspaper and a more informed public opinion to write my name on the ballot in the com- ing election for the Board in Con- trol of Student Publications. If enough students do so, I am sure that the regulations I have named will be removed. -Richard Kraut, '65 Freedom... To the Editor: working very hard to improve hu- man relations, there are, on the other hand, committees possibly unknown, who counter the already slow progress. Of course in no way am I chal- lenging the right of such supposed committees to do so, because I know that the magic word people love to use in this country to solve any problem is what they call .. freedom! * * * IT'S THE Negro's right to want integration, but it's also the white man's to keep segregation. Each has his right. Doesn't he? -Gonzales Sotondi, Grad. The University .. . To the Editor: YOUR SUNDAY Conference on the University articles on the state of education at the Univer- sity might be disastrous. The fu- ture seems gloomy. Yet I am sure that overcrowding is being en- couraged on purpose here, for most seem to be satisfied that in many clasrooms, 90 per cent of the students never have to say a word all semester. This is only possible when clasess are large. And it's so nice never to have to think about what the teacher is saying: you can knit, or read a good novel, or take notes mechanically while the teacher is talking and no one ever says a word because it's under- stood here that students are to play the passive role. If the class- rooms were smaller, students might get individual attention and be more stimulated. Can you imagine what might happen with a thinking, concerned, reacting student body? Furthermore, as the better teachers leave (what professor wants, day after day, to look out over row upon row of inert bodies) the work is easier and less chal- lenging. * * * ALSO, THERE is more time for extracurricular activities s i n c e time is not wasted talking to teachers. You see, teachers are so rushed now, so aware of status, so burdened with outside pressures that students do not feel the per- sonal touch which might spark a provocative discusison or make some sort of contact meaningful. The best advantage of such a monstrously huge institution is that no one has to take responsi- bility for the ever-increasing en- rollment and the decline in qual- ity. The child will say: "OOooo, look at all those buildings, and all the windows. I wonder who's inside?" The adult will say: "Be quiet! .~ \XM *I i& ' l drj1 ux~~j~4 1