a
Eighty-Seven Years of Editorial Freedom
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Palestinians in the occupied territory
Wednesday, March 23, 1977
News Phone: 764-0552
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
it is time to put the
AFSCME strike behind us
S OF THIS afternoon, 27 mem-
bers of the American Federation
of State, County and Municipal Em-
ployes (AFSCME) have been suspend-
ed for "misconduct" in the strike.
We feel the choice made by ad-
ministrators to seek out, prosecute
and "eliminate" employes is unfortu-
nate.
The suspension of these workers
will only prolong the ill feelings as-
sociated with the 26-day strike. Such
actions certainly will not bring the
already disillusioned University em-
ployes any added security.
All of the persons in danger of
being discharged were involved in
"serious misconduct," the administra-
tion claims. They are cited for slash-
ng tires and breaking windshields
on University vehicles, malicious van-
dalism and in some cases assault' on
University personnel.
We agree that these activities are
beyond what might necessarily be
considered "obedient" picketing, and
The Daily idoes not condone any of
these actiities, at any time.
But, as we have said here before,
the time has come to forgive and for-
get. The University must realize that
those strikers involved in overzealous
activities were under a great deal of
pressure, not only from their peers,
but from their families. These peo-
ple hadn't been paid in weeks, mon-
ey was scarce, and they had a lot
to be angry about. To the workers,
the University was entirely at fault.
If administrators are going to
punish strikers, why not look at the
other side of the picture? What about
all of the police who overreacted
and attacked pickets? Don't they de-
serve to be disciplined, too? What
about the University's Chief Negotia-
tor, who one day decided to hop be-
hind the wheel of a laundry truck
(even though he isn't licensed to
drive one) and who ended up run-
ning down a union member with it.
Why isn't he being suspended? And
what of all the supervisors who ille-
gally drove University trucks? What
is happening to them?
THE UNFORTUNATE truth is that
administrators can iow take out
their frustrations and vengeance on
a few workers who happened to be
caught up in the insanity of the mo-
ment.
Still another case is to be made
for student workers, who, after hav-
ing the guts to skip a few days work
in honor of the AFSCME cause, were
notified that their "unexcused ab-
sences" had prompted supervisors to
give their jobs to someone else.
Even worse than this, not all of
the student sympathizers were fired,
only those who had been at the fore-
front in organizing student support
for the strike.
How ironic that a University which
preaches student involvement and en-
courages them to take sides in pub-
lic issues should can anyone who
takes their advice.
Student workers should not be
punished for expressing their views,
no matter which side 'they end up
on.
At least AFSCME employes who
are suspended have a chance to fight
their punishment in arbitration, but
students have no chance to save their
jobs.
The administration is fighting a
little below their class.
The AFSCME strike was a dismal
mar on this academic year, and the
time has come to end the whole
mess. Actions taken in the heat of
the battle will not reflect on the
performance of those workers now
that they are back on the job, and
it seems best to put this matter be-
hind us.
By T. D. ALLMAN
Second of Five Parts
IN THE TWO Palestinian villages of Bardala and Tel
el Beida, the long Arab-Israeli conflict is one
of neither grand geopolitical principal nor recondite
detail. It is simply a problem afflicting human beings.
Just a few years ago, the most significant thing
about these two villages - located in the central Jordan
River valley near what until 1967 was the West Bank's
northern boundary with Israel - was that, in spite
of four Arab-Israeli wars, the thousand or so villagers
had made some progress.
At Tel el Beida a modern irrigation system had
doubled the crop yields. At Bardala, the villagers had
constructed a municipal water system that piped drink-
ing water to each household.
Now, the irrigation system at Tel el Beida is a
ruin of dusty culverts. At Zardala the pipers are dry,
and the village women, as in the days of Turkish rule,
once again walk nearly a kilometer to fetch drinking
water and then laboriously carry it back to their
houses.
THE SOURCE of their misfortune is the nearby
Medah cooperative farm: a new Israeli §ettlement of
modern housing surrounded by high fences where 30
families now live.
A year after the Israeli army swept through the
area, Israeli engineers surveyed the two Palestinian
villages. Then, in violation of Jordanian law - which
Israel as the occupying power is obliged by the Geneva
convention to respect - the Israelis drilled a new and
deeper well only a few yards from the Palestinian well.
The villagers complained to the military govern-
ment. but to no avail. The Israelis not only denied them
permission to drill an artesian well to compensate for
their lost water but refused to sell them water from
the Israeli settlement.
SUCH SITUATIONS are far from rare a decade
after Gen. Moshe Dayan told his troops: "Soldiers of the
Israeli Defense Forces, we do not aim at conquest."
The Israelis have established some 84 settlements in
Arab territories occupied in 1967, according to Ameri-
can Friends Service Committee figures.
Under Israeli occupation, the Arab population of
the Golan Heights seized from Syria has been reduced
from 130 000 to 13 285. As a result of Israeli policy
in lands seized from Jordan, some 200,000 Palestinians
have been forced to emigrate to foreign countries.
Even within the densely populated Gaza strip,
where nearly 450 000 Palestinians are compressed into
an area of 120 square miles, the Israelis have confis-
cated nearly 100,00 acres and established four Jewish
settlements.
IN THE HIGHLANDS above the Jordan valley the
new Allon Road runs the length of Samaria through
lands from which all traces of Palestinian settlement
are being systematically eradicated. Palestinian cis-
terns have been sealed. Palestinian croplands have been
defoliated or transferred to Israeli settlers.
Since 1967, in fact, the Israelis have confiscated
some 80 per cent of the arable land abutting the West
Bank of the Jordan River.
Along the highway running north from Jericho
toward Galilee, where Palestinian fields once bloomed,
the Israelis have created a desert. One passes dozens of
dismantled irrigation stations and miles of fences bar-
ring the Palestinian population from lands they once
cultivated.
Andre w}
For the Palestinians, such systematic destruction of
Arab farmlands is a clear sign of Israeli intentions.
They believe the Israelis are not merely seeking
military security but creating political conditions in
which the Palestinians will be unable to establish a
viable state of their own.
"I HAVE SEEN the Israelis watch a farmer double
his output," a U.S.-trained development expert said.
"and then seize half his land. Their aim is to keep the
Palestinians an impoverished people."
In the Jordan valley village of El Makhruk, a
Palestinian farmer pointed to the Israeli barbed wire
and desolate fields beyond. "They have taken away
three-quarters of what my fatier willed to me," he
said. "I fear my sons will be landless laborers, forced
to wander strange lands."
At Bardala, a Palestinian landowner pointed to the
Israeli well. "No guns are being fired." he said, "but
the Israelis are making war on our right to live. We
could dismantle their well some night," he continued,
"but then the soldiers would come. They would deport
our elders and imprison our sons. They would tell the
world the terrorists have struck again."
EARLY THIS YEAR Israeli Foreign Minister Yigal
Allon ordered intensified Israeli settlement of the oc-
cupied territories'
If the Allon plan were implemented, the lands
left to the Palestinians - whether they formed an inde-
pendent state or were linked to Jordan - would. com-
prise three small, truncated regions: Samaria, Judea
and Gaza, all largely or entirely cut .off from each oth-
er, hedged in on all sides by Israeli troops, guns and
barbed wire.
DUAL STANDARD
Palestinian suspicions are inflamed not only by
Israeli policy, but by what they consider an unending
pattern of Israeli provocations.
In the Gaza Strip, where the population density
exceeds 4.000 persons per square mile, Israelis have
been permitted not only to establish businesses em-
ploying cheap Paletinian labor, but to live there if
they wish.
BUT PALESTINIAN laborers working in Israeli
territory are not permitted to live where they work.
Instead, they must spend many hours daily traveling to
and from the Jewish areas.
The Palestinians of Gaza are obliged to pay Israeli
taxes. but they do not receive Israeli social benefits.
And, while Israeli products are allowed free entry into
the Occupied Territories, Palestinian products are not
permitted to compete with Israeli goods inside Israel.
Such Israeli policies - not just in Gaza but through-
ot the occupied territories - have produced an ironic
result. Designed to make the Palestinian populatic'
more pliable, they instead have helped to radicalize
local politics and win for the Palestinian Liberation
Organization (PLO) a degree of support it did not en-
joy before 1967.
"If there is any complaint against (PLO head) Yas-
ser Arafat, it is that he is too moderate," a Palestinian
journalist recently observed.
WHEN ISRAEL permitted West Bank elections a
year ago as required by the Geneva convention, candi-
dates who openly supported the PLO won every contest
- even though several of the most popular West Bank
leaders were under political detention and one likely
winner was deported before the vote was held.
And in Gaza, where demands for elections even
by the conservative Israeli-appointed ,mayor Rashad
El-Shawa were denied by the Israeli government, no one
now disputes that free elections would produce an
overwhelming victory for the PLO.
Late last year, the Israeli military governor of
Gaza, Brig. Gen. David Maimon, outlined plans for
the future of the strip. Whether or not Israel ultimately
withdrew from Gaza, Gen. Maimon said, the strip would
be surrounded by fortified Israeli settlements, including
a number established in former Egyptian territory.
GAZA WOULD BE denied any territorial contact
with other Arab.territory, and its population would be
permanently quarantined from the surrounding Arab
lands. Any possibility of the Gazans ever returning
to the lands from which they had fled, or receiving com-
pensation for property lost to the Israelis, was cate-
gorically excluded.
Gaza, an American official stationed there later
commented, "is a place where one's nose is constantly
being rubbed in the dirt. Periodically, the Israelis pick
up one of my employes and make an example of him,
just to show the Palestinians they cannot look to the
international relief agencies for protection. The last
time they took one of my employes, they tortured
him by forcing his own shoe down his throat."
'INMATES OF GAZA'
For many Palestinians, water-starved villages like
Bardala. and the defoliated farmlands along the Jordan,
conjure up a future in which, as a Palestinian agri-
cultural expert employed by a U.S. relief agency put
it "We will all become inmates of Gaza strips, if the
Israelis have their way."
"The Palestinians complain all the time," re-
marked Medah Cooperative member Hillel Wiseberg.
"They forget all their progress is .due to us. This
is our land." he added. "We will never give it back."
But Wiseberg, who emigrated to Israel from Brit-
ain, acknowledged that this was the first time he had
heard of his neighbors' water problem. And he freely
conceded that in eight years there he never had entered
either Palestinian village, never taken a meal with a
Palestinian and never engaged in prolonged conver-
sation with any of his non-Jewish neighbors.
LATER, ONLY a few hundred yards away, a
Christian Palestinian pointed to the parched fields'
around him and said, "It is a very old Jewish policy.
The Israelis are doing here what they did in my
grandfather's time in Jaffa."
Then, referring to a text as old as Moses, he sum-
med up the fate that now haunts all Palestinians,
wherever they live, by reciting from memory the 23rd
chaoter of Exodus:
I will not drive them out from before thee in one
year: lest the land become desolate and the beasts
of the field multiply against thee. By little and
little I will drive them out before thee, until thou
be increased, and inherit the land.
* * *
TOMORROW: The Palestinians in Israel.
Dr. Allman is a freelance
Journalist who often writes for
the Pacific News Service.
Wvn man
ng "we need you in from off the cuff. Young's
Young, however, de- statements are the frank opin-
o pass up the oppor- ions of a man who does not ad-
here to the old diplomatic rule
d not abandon the of never saying what you real-
movement for the ly think.
What he did was Young will undoubtedly con-
e civil rights strug- tinuesto be frank, open, and
international stage, honest. It's a refreshing, far
just for America's cry from the one-man show of
for blacks in white- Henry Kissinger, the separation
esia and South Afri- of morality from foreign policy,
ng says, racism, not and traditional diplomacy. Of
i, is the major prob- course, there is that one ad-
thern Africa. vantage in the multi-ring fore-
his outspokenness, ign policy show - Andrew
sador has not yet Young is not the sole spokes-
d on the carpet" for man for America in foreign
untimely comments. affairs. He is one man expres-
Carter himself has sing one man's convictions.
ed up the style of
call "off the cuff" Keith B. Richburg is a Daily
But Andrew Young's cartoonist, who often writes
nments, ill - timedc to itorofte
y may be, are far for the Editorial page.
Teenagers need to obtain
good birth control service
OL
MONDAY, Rep. Perry Bullard (D-
Ann Arbor) introduced a bill in
the state House which would make
family planning services and contra-
ceptives available to teen-agers, and
it's about time.
One out of every five babies is
born to a teen-ager, yet a Federal
District Court judge - apparently
unaware of this problem' - ruled
earlier this month that parents must
be consulted before their children are
given birth control services. What
good can a ruling like that possibly
do? It is an attempt to keep our
young people "pure," and it is an
extension of an old belief that only
bad, immoral, or degenerate teens
would have sevual relations. But
those days are gone, if they ever
existed at all.
Planned Parenthood reports that
one-fourth of all 14-year-old girls
are sexually active, and that is a fact
that we simply can't continue to ig-
nore. Without debating the point of
whether or not it is "right" 'to en-
gage in teen-age, pre-marital sex, all
of us - parents, legislators, religious
leaders, and moralists of all sorts -.
must recognize that this kind of ac-
tivity is going on, and we can't stop
it. Teen-agers are, and will continue
to be sexually active, and the best
thing we can do is minimize the risk
of an unwanted pregnancy.
An unwanted pregnancy doesn't
do anyone any good, especially 'if
the parents are teen-agers. Not only
can it ruin their lives, but it is an
unhealthy situation to thrust a baby
into. It would take exceptional ma-
turity to raise a child decently un-
der those conditions, so it can ruin
the life of the child as well.
13ULLARD has simply recognized the
problem and proposed the best
solution. Under his bill, public hos-
pitals, clinics, health departments,
and physicians would be permitted
to provide contraceptives, and, family
planning advice to teen-agers with-
out procuring parental consent. How-
ever, doctors could refuse to provide
such services for medical or religious
reasons.
The debate on this issue is cer-
tain to be heated, and several per-
sons have already painted Bullard
as "a man out to corrupt our young."
But actually, he is out to save them
- to save them from an unwanted
pregnancy that could destroy their
future, or, worse yet, an abortion
that could have been avoided with
proper contraceptive use, or good
counselling. Many of the legislators
who oppose this bill are undoubted-
ly also opposed to abortions, especi-
ally for teen-agers. Yet, teen-age
abortions have skyrocketed in recent
years, and nothing is being done to
curb the rise. Unable to obtain ef-
fective contraceptives, many teen-
agers have come to rely on abortion
- normally a last resort - as their
primary means of contraception.
Bullard's bill will not ' solve all
these problems, no legislation could.
But it is a big step in the right di-
rection, and it is a step we can't
afford not to take.
By KEITH B. RICHBURG
MISSING from the evening
news is the parting shot
of Henry Kissinger winging off
to the mideast or Europe on
a "secret mission" for his men-
tor. Gone is the "lone ranger"
style of foreign policy that Jim-
my Carter campaigned so vig-
orously against, in favor of an
openness in our foreign affairs.
Carter told Time magazine (Nov.
8, 1976) that "Mr. Kissinger is
a very secretive man. He's in-
clined to play a lonely role in
the evolution of foreign policy.
There's no consistency in it.
There's no predictability about
it." Carter promised to keep
foreign policy consistent with
the basic beliefs of the Ameri-
can people and to involve the
American people "as deeply as
possible."
AND JIMMY CARTER proved
true to his word. Anxious to
prove his own expertise in con-
ducting the affairs of state, the
Georgian opened his administra-
tion with a foreign policy blitz
often referred to as "a multi-
ring spectacle." Barely sworn
in as the nation's newest Vice-
president, Walter Mondale was
sent off to Western Europe and
Japan. Secretary of State Cy-
rus Vance then left for a fact-
finding foray to the Middle East.
Ellsworth Bunker was negotiat-
ing for the administration in
Panama, and Carter himself was
preparing for a spring trip to
the NATO summit in Europe.
And perhaps the most colorful,
and certainly the most contro-
versial, character on this new
foreign policy stage is United
Nations Ambassador Andrew
Young.
IF YOUNG 'IS keeping with
Carter's promise to make fore-
ign policy open, then he is just
as readily breaking rank with
the President's promise to make
foreign policy consistent and,
predictable. If there is one thing
Young definitely is not it is
predictable. And on the matter
of consistency, the Georgian
minister has not hesitated to
speak his mind, even when his
statements are inconsistant with
the State Department's "offic-
ial" position.
At his Senate confirmation
hearings, Young said that he
zania and Nigeria, Young out-
wardly attacked Rhodesia's
white minority Prime Minister
Ian Smith as "an outlaw" who
must be dealt with. Young, in
another incident, declared that
Cuban troops in Angola provid-
ed a certain "stability and or-
der," and on still another acca-
sion, he commented that Rho-
desia would have to negotiate
if South Africa insisted upon it.
Both statements brought quick
clarifications from the State De-
partment. On the Cuban re-
mark, Secretary Vance insisted
that the Cuban situation was
not helpful and on the Rhodesia/
South Africa remark, Vance
clarified that the situation was
"not quite that simple."
At any rate, and despite offic-
ial "clarifications" of the Am-
bassador's comments, Young
seems determined to speak his
mind. In his latest public state-
ment, Young suggested that
U.S. troops might be able to
play a role as peace-keeper in
Rhodesia, and that no one had
any confidence in the British
to prevent a Rhodesian civil
war.
THE ANDREW YOUNG style
of foreign policy is, to say the
least, unique. Not bound by the
restraints of diplomacy, Young
sees himself as a "point man"
for Carter. He initiates fresh,
new ideas, rather than merely
regurgitate established official
policy. He throws possibilities
out to the public, before they
become official policy. And
what's more, Young brings to
foreign affairs the one thing
that Henry Kissinger admitted-
ly tried to keep out - humani-
ty.
As a black American and a
veteran of the civil rights move-
ment, Young can relate to op-
pressed peoples on a level that
not even Daniel Moynihan could
come close to. Young can em-
pathize with the South African
blacks' struggle against racism
because of his own fight against
racism in the American South.
And he can sympathize with
dissidents in the Soviet Union,
who are not unlike black dissi-
dents during the activist '60s'
here in U.S. 'cities.
YOUNG WAS A late convert
to the civil rights movement,
becoming active only after be-
Ing: His
gressman from Georgia since
reconstruction. When fellow
Georgian and former Governor
Jimmy Carter announced his
campaign for the presidency,
Young was one of the first black
leaders behind him, even though
his friend, Georgia State Sen-
ator Julian Bond, still had res-
ervations. When Carter did
make it to the White I-louse,
Young was virtually assured of
a position with the new admin-
istration. He was offered the
Ambassadorship to the United
Nations.
YOUNG DECIDED to accept
the post only after weeks of
soul-searching. Black leaders
urged him not to accept the
role of the administration's to-
ken black. They told him that
at the U.N. he would not be in
a position to help American
blacks. Others opposed the
move, sayin
Congress."'
cided not to
tunity.
Young di
civil rights
U.N. post.
transfer th
gle to the
and, notj
blacks, but
ruled Rhod
ca. As You
communism,
lem in sou
Despite
the Ambas
been "calle
any of his
And Jimmy
lately picke
what critics
diplomacy.1
public cor
though they
LettE
Muhammed
To The Daily:
Controversy over the movie
Muhammed is nothing new. It
stems from centuries of religi-
ous beliefs.
Islamic faith discourages mak-
ing images of God and his Prop-
hets, Muhammad. The Prophet
has a very sacred role in Is-
lam. Muslims have never ac-
cepted the act of making im-
ages of the Prophet. This move.
is sacrilegious to Muslims. An-
other problem with this movie
is the distortion of facts that
will inevitably occur as a re-
sult of dramatization.
Because I feel strongly about
these issues, I plan to boycott
the movie "Muhammed: The
Messenger of God." I urge not
only all the Muslims of the com-
munity to boycott the movie,
but other Americans as well.
These are many different re-
ligions in the United States, and
all of them should be tolerated
with respect. This is a very sen-
timental issue for Muslims. It's
very offensive to us to have this
movie shown.
- Shahida Ahmed
=rs to The Daly
- 1583 mem-
Jon Taylor
first tentative agreement.
The second tentative agree-
ment (now ratified contract)
provides for a 30 cent raise from
March. 20, '77 to March 20, '78
and a further 30 cent raise from
March 20, '78 to March 20, '79.
It also provides for a $125 retro-
active payment for the period
Jan. 1, '77 to March 20, '77 for
a total package of $1,997 as of
March- 20, '79.
The first tentative agreement
(rejected 1,300 to 300 by the
membership) provided for a 25
cent raise from Jan. 1, '77 to
July 1, '77, a further 25 cent
raise from Jan. 1, '78 to Jan.
1, '79 for a total package of
$1,716 as of Jan. 1, '79.
Now it is surely safe to as-
sume that had the first tenta-
tive agreement been ratified
and made contract the mem-
bership of AFSCME Local -
1583 would have gained at least
a 25 cent raise on Jan. 1, '79
with renegotiation of the con-
tract. And using this conserva-
tive figure one finds, the total
pay increase as of March 20, '79
would have been $2,068, i.e. -
$71 more than under the now
ratified second agreement.
As hard as this may be to ac-
AFSCME Local
ber. .
prisons
To The Daily:
I was embarrassed to be part
of the audience that questioned
Erica Huggins on Saturday,
March 19th at the Teach-In on
Prisons. As Huggins said in re-
sponse to one question: "I ex-
pected more out of Ann Arbor."
She was asked if she felt right
about taking money from the
federal, government for her
school' and for the breakfast
programs the Black Panther
P4rtydruns. Is hunger to be
considered a question of right
or wrong? Is this part of a
trend in which the Ann Arbor
community is allowing self-in-
terest and apathy pervade all
issues that we are involved in?
In ;;ecember, students voted
to discontinue the boycott of
non-union lettuce. Presently,
minimal support and general
disinterest have been the re-
sponse to the AFSCME strike
showing little concern for the
people that maintain the build-
ings we all use. When Ann Ar-
bor decides to take a back seat
t- : -.t.. 4 -t nnll nal i o
Contact your reps
Sen. Donald Riegle (Dem.), 1205 Dirksen Bldg., Washing-
ton, D.C. 20510
Sen. Robert Griffin (Rep.), 353 Russell Bldg., Capitol Hill,
Washington, D.C. 20515.