100%

Scanned image of the page. Keyboard directions: use + to zoom in, - to zoom out, arrow keys to pan inside the viewer.

Page Options

Download this Issue

Share

Something wrong?

Something wrong with this page? Report problem.

Rights / Permissions

This collection, digitized in collaboration with the Michigan Daily and the Board for Student Publications, contains materials that are protected by copyright law. Access to these materials is provided for non-profit educational and research purposes. If you use an item from this collection, it is your responsibility to consider the work's copyright status and obtain any required permission.

May 24, 1977 - Image 4

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
Michigan Daily, 1977-05-24

Disclaimer: Computer generated plain text may have errors. Read more about this.

Begirn:
By T. D. ALLMAN
Israel's hawkish new Prime
Minister Menaham Begin was
not the only winner in his na-
tion's historic elections this
May.
Perhaps the biggest winners,
in the long run, were the Arab
hardliners - called rejection-
ists. And the biggest losers -
bigger than the leaders of Is-
rael's defeated Labor Party -
may have been the moderate
Arah powers who have staked
their prestige on the success of
peaveful, diplomatic negotiations
with Israel.
For unless Regin acts contra-
ry to everything he has espous-
ed in the past, 1977 will not be-
come "the year of peace," but
the year the fifth Arab-Israeli
wat became inevitable.
"All this talk of a- Geneva
conference does is raise false
hopes," the leider of the Pal-
estine Liberation Organization
(PLO> , Yasser Arafat, remark-
ed early this year. "Nothing will
coie of it, because the Israelis
.ren't interested in peace."
Until the Israeli election, that
statement would have been de-
niunced not only by Tel Aviv
but by the moderate Arab gov-
ersnents of Egypt, Jordan, Sy-
ria and Saudi Arabia.
Even before Israel's hawks
wton their biggest victory since
the Six Day War, Arab mod-
crates were facing growing

Victory for the other side

criticism of their failure to win
back at the negotiating table
what their predecessors lost on
the battlefield in 1967
Even since the last Mideast
war, the kings and presidents
of those four nations have dog-
gedly attempted to maneuver
their own constituents, and force
the Palestinians into making ma-
jor concessions to Israel - in
hopes that Israel would respond
with important concessions, too.
The right-wing Likud Party's
victory has changed all that.
The Israeli electorate has not
only voted into power a gov-
ernment even less likely than
its predecessor to negotiate a
peace acceptable to the Arabs.
It has greatly strengthened the
militant side of the Arab debate
over how to deal with Israel's
decade-long occupation of Arab
territories and continued oppo-
sition to the establishment of a
Palestinian homeland.
The Israeli voters, in fact,
may even have elected a gov-
ernment that will alienate its
foremost ally, the United States.
Just as Israel's Arab neigh-
bors are eager, for the first
time in history, for a compro-
mise peace, the Carter Admin-
istration clearly wants to
achieve the comprehensive Mid-
east peace that eluded Nixon
and Kissinger.
Thus if important progress to-
ward peace is not made soon,
it will be difficult to place the

blame on anyone except the Is-.
raelis themselves.
However desirable a negotia-
ted settlement, Arafat and his
followers have argued, Israeli
intransigence makes such a res-
olution unlikely, and Arab con-
ciliation just encourages Israel
to retain its conquests forever.
Only mutual concessions can
bring peace, Arafat believes.
Even Israeli peace proposals
that have incurred major oppo-
sition inside Israel itself, PLO
leaders contend, offer the Arabs
little except permanent Israeli
annexation of its most important
1967 conquests.
In response, moderate leaders
like Assad and Sadat have used
tactics ranging from persuasion
to open warfare against the PLO
in Lebanon to bring the Palestin-
ians into line.
But while PLO policy itself has
changed greatly in recent years,
neither Syrian tanks nor Saudi
petrodollars produced the policy
changes the moderates wanted.
The Palestinian congress avoid-
ed any major concessions pend-
ing the beginning of real nego-
ttiions with Israel.
Now, with the Likud victory,
PLO resolve will undoubtedly
harden. The more radical Pal-
estinians, gaining the upper
hand and citing the impossibility
of negotiations, may again pres-
sure Syria and Jordan to allow
Palestinian guerrillas free move-
ment across the border to attack
Israeli positions.
And that, with a hard-line par-
ty in power, could provoke an
all-ot attack by Israel to wipe
out the guerrilla bases within
its neighbors' borders.
Israel's new Begin govern-
ment faces a crucial dilemma.
Will it offer some hope of peace-
ful negotiation, thus cultivating

Arab moderation? Or will it
incur the permanent hostility of
its neighbors as the price of
keeping its 1967 conquests?
By background, temperament
and ideology, Menaham Begin
- a leading terrorist for the
Zionist cause in the years pre-
preceding Israel's birth - is an
unlikely figure to produce any
breakthrough toward peace in
the Mideast.
There are, however, those who
argue he is in the same posi-
tion with the Arabs that Rich-
ard Nixon was with China and
the Soviet Union when he en-
tered the White House in 1969.
Just as only a Republican with
a strorg anti-communist back-

- ground could visit Peking snd
pursue detente with Moscow, so
it now is suggested only an is.
raeli hardliner like Begin can
win Israeli popular support for
a comprehensive peace settle-
ment.
If Israel's new government in.
deed does have any such aspira-
tions, Prime Minister Begin wilt
have to act quickly and decisive.
ly to prove one intransigent Is.
raeli government has not been
replaced by an even more in.
transigent one.
T. D. Allman has wriu,5
about the Middle East for /
New York Times, WahIi5tejj
Post and New Ripsblir,

PARIS- MAY 21,1921
BkhTi

The Michigan Daily
Edited and managed by Students at the
University of Michigan
Tuesday, May 24, 1977
News Phone: 764-0552
Information, could b e
t stem young pregnancy
It is illegal to teach Michigan public high school
students about birth control methods in their sex edu-
cation classes.
But teenage pregnancies have soared over 32,000
since 1974. Planned Parenthood in Ann Arbor predicts
10,000 live births to females under 20 years of age this
year. Two hundred of those, Planned Parenthood says,
will be to girls under the age of 15.
Twenty per cent of the females under 20 have preg-
nancy tests taken on their first, trip to Planned Parent-
hood. Such girls and women do not go to learn about
birth control methods, but to determine pregnancy.
Conception is okay in -the eyes of the law here;
contraception - or knowledge about it - is not.
State Senator Gilbert Burlsey (R-Ann Arbor) is try-
ing to help. He has introduced legislation which would
permit reference to birth control methods in sex edu-
cation classes only with area school board approval, and
only in elective classes.
His bill, which is but a step in the right direction,
has met opposition from Catholic organizations and from
Happiness Of Women (HOW), an anti-feminist group.
Those groups can't be facing the situation squarely
if they believe the dissemination of contraception in-
formation would breed widespread sexual activity. Sexu-
al activity among high school and junior high school
students is already shockingly prevalent.
Because one of five 13 year olds is sexually active,
because one of five live births in Michigan is to a teen-
age girl, these girls and their partners must have in-
formation about their activity. Sexually active persons
must at least be given the chance to be responsible for
their actions.
Familiarity with contraception by introduction into
public high school sex education classes can only stem,
not stop, the problem of unwanted teenage pregnancy.
sBut at least it'sa step. forward. -

I.-

Letters to The Daily

Zionism
To The Daily:
Permit me a few comments
on the reported remarks of
Abdeen Jabara in his talk on
"Zionism . ." in The Daily,
May 17th.
Non-Jews most certainly can
serve in Parliament without be-
longing to "Jewish Majority
Parties." The only criterion for
participation in political process
in Israel is Israeli citizenship.
And non-Jews are and can be-
come citizens.
If -by "Jewish Majority Par-
ties" Jabara was trying to show
that there are no Arab parties
- he is wrong. There are! It
is true that many Arabs belong
to parties with a majority of
Jews, but that is the nature of
The State of Israel. Most peo-
ple who live there are Jews.
And contrary to Jabara's con-
tention, integrated political par-
ties and Arabs elected to Par-
liament through them would
seem to prove that there is no
racism in the political system.
As to separate -school sus-
tems - we cannot compare Is-
rael to The U.S.A. where all
Americans have a substantial
cultural common denominator.
Zionism being a movement of
national liberation of The Jew-
ish People is - mindful of the
national needs of others, and
therefore provides schools for
Arab children in which Arabic
is used and Arab culture is
taught. If Arabs were integra-
ted into the "Jewish" schools
of Israel, I'm sure Mr. Jabara
would be complaining of cul-
tural oppression instead of seg-

regation. You can't have it both
ways. It is interesting to note
that the Arabs living in Israel
and under Israeli administra-
tion now have the highest litera-
cy rate of any National Arab
Community.
Regarding human rights. It is
difficult to find an Arab coun-
try in which a free election is
held, and more so one like that
recently held on the West Bank
when many candidates support-
ing the P.L.O. were elected to
office in an Israeli administered
election. Nothing rigged or ob-
structed there, that's for sure.
And finally. The only Arab
women in the Middle East to
ever vote in a national election
are those Arab women who live
in Israel and the territories un-
der Israel's, administration.
Israel's record on Human
Rights and respect for other
nationalities seems quite clear,
- Martin IBallonoff
traffic watch
To The Daily:
On behalf of bicyclists in Ann
Arbor, I would like to present
an open plea to motorists every-
where to observe us in their
driving. Whether- the reason is
financial, political or just plain
physical fitness, bicycles remain
a healthful, expedient and en-
ergy conscious mode of trans-
portation. I personally enjoy- the-
exercise and relative-ease of a
bicycle . . . or the potential con-
tained therein. Lately I have
been g r o w i n g increasingly
frightened- o riding 'my bicycle

as it is becoming rather dan-
gerous.
There seems to be a comi on
inability or unwillingness to ob-
serve bicycles. A day doesn't
pass that I don't miss an :_cci-
dent by fractions of an inch.
Therefore, I would like to sug-
gest the following tips:
* look before opening cur
doors into the line of bicycics
* look before emerging from
a parking space
* avoid turning in fruni of a
bicycle, and be sure to tse yor
signals
* be careful so notice bicycles
at stop signs and intersections
* avoid running bicycles ofI
the street. Stay out of bike lanes
I recognize bicyclists are no'
without fault, and that there is
room for improving our driving
manners. So, with a little cau-
tion and consideration, together
we should be able to make bi-
cycling a viable, safe means of
travel.
-Kimberly Allen
TODAY'S STAFF
NEWS: Eileen Daley, Ron
DeKett, Stu McConnell,
Ken Parsigian, Tim Ygel,
Mike Yellin
EDITORIAL: Linda Wilicox
PHOTO: Christina Schneider
ARTS: David Keeps
.SPORTS: Don MacLachlan

Back to Top

© 2024 Regents of the University of Michigan