4
OPINION
Page 4 Monday, February 17, 1986 The Michigan Daily
Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan
Vol. XCVI, No. 97 420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Unsigned editorials represent a majority of the Daily's Editorial Board
Zionism and apartheid similar
Don't pay MSA
T HE MICHIGAN Student
Assembly will vote tomorrow
night on whether to make the of-
fices of president, vice-president,
and committee chair paid
positions. If the proposal is ap-
proved by the Assembly, it will go
on the March ballot for approval by
the student body. This proposal is a
case of MSA wasting time on
something which has little chance
of being approved by the students.
University students feel firancially
.drained as it is by the University
and are not going to vote pay more,
even the estimated five extra cents
a year this plan will cost.
MSA President Paul Josephson
claims this plan will make the of-
fices available to financially disad-
vantaged students and encourage
officers to devote more time to
their duties. While the proposal
may open positions to financially
disadvantaged students, the
problems it creates outweigh this
expected reform.
Because only these positions will
be paid, it will create an in-
congruity between those officers
and the rest of the Assembly.
Salaries will alter the of-
ficeholders' attitudes toward their
positions, but not in the positive
way Josephson expects. Being paid
- by the hour will put a value on the
-office which is now determined by
*the officeholder's personal
dedication to the Assembly. As
Law School representative Eric
Schnaufer points out, some officers
will view their position as a duty
while others will consider it a job.
Considering the Assembly has
been pre-occupied with internal
controversies for the past two
weeks, controversies similar to
those which have interfered with
student issues for the past year, it
is odd Josephson would propose
payment at this time. Students will
be especially unwilling to pay of-
ficers whose bulk of time is
engaged in internal disputes.
Josephson's proposal could be con-
sidered viable if these officers were
actually devoting more hours to
issues which concern the average
student.
Josephson also says 25 to 40 hours
per week is too much time to put in
without direct compensation. As
with all other student activities,
serving on MSA should be con-
sidered a privilege and part of the
officeholder's education. These
positions offer their holders first-
rate experience and a powerful op-
portunity to improve the Univer-
sity. The Assembly and any poten-
tial effect it could have on the
University education would be
seriously degraded if run by of-
ficers who need monetary incen-
tives to devote more time to their
elected positions.
By Steve Ghannam
Material for this article was based on
an essay by Steve Goldfield of the
November 29th Committee for
Palestine.
It is amazing to witness the hypocrisy of
many liberal American-Jews who are sup-
porters of the Free South Africa (anti-apar-
theid) Movement in this country. They label
the government of South Africa as racist,
immoral, and blind to the human rights of
black South Africans. They seemingly join
the moral struggle to free black South
Africans and claim themselves as the moral
protectors of oppressed people around the
world..
Yetwhen it comes to the Zionist gover-
nment of Israel, these same liberal
American-Jews, these "moral protectors of
oppressed people," suddenly redefine their
moral struggle and somehow through tem-
pered rationality come to support the Israeli
dictatorship over the Palestinian People.
They exhibit moral impotence when it
comes to questioning the policies of Zionism
and its relationship to non-Jews. When Meir
Kahane declares on national television that,
"Zionism and Democracy cannot exist
together; you must choose either one and
not both," they shake their heads in
disbelief. What these American-Jews fail to
realize is that the Israeli conquest of the
West Bank and Gaza Strip has led to the
construction of an overt apartheid system in
Israel. The comparison between South
Arican and Israeli apartheid is easy to
make.
Both Israel and South Africa are settler
states in which immigrants have seized land
from indigenous peoples. There is an impor-
tant historical difference in settlement
strategy, however: South African policy is
to drive Africans into tiny, barren enclaves
from which they "emigrate" to work in
white enterprises. Israeli policy is to drive
most Palestinians out of Palestine
altogether, though since 1967 cheap
Palestinian labor has become a significant
factor in the Israeli economy.
The basic system: Neither Palestinians in
the West Bank and Gaza nor Black South
Steve Ghannam is a graduate student
in architecture.
Wasserman
Africans are considered citizens. Both must
carry passes. Palestinians living inside the
pre-1967 borders of Israel have some rights
as do those classified as Asian or Colored in
South Africa. Palestinians who have Israeli
citizenship may vote, although only for par-
ties approved by the courts, which means
that they may not question the Zionist
nature of Israel. Asians and Coloreds can
also vote, but not for representatives in the
ruling parliament.
Land
Massive amounts of land have been con-
fiscated. In pre-1967 Israel, 92 percent of the
land was controlled by the state and reser-
ved for Jews. In South Africa, 87 percent of
the land is reserved for whites. In the West
Bank and Gaza Strip, estimates vary from
slightly less than half to slightly more than
half of the land taken by the Israelis. Israel
has formally annexed the Golan Heights
from Syria and East Jerusalem from the
West Bank, though these annexations are
not recognized by the U.S. government.
Contrast these data with historic land
ownership anduse patterns. Africans, of
course, owned and cultivated all the arable
land in South Africa before the arrival of
European settlers. And Palestine was the
most economically dynamic sector of the
Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, its
wealth based on agriculture.
In over two hundred years, European set-
tlers pushed Africans off their land. The
Zionist movement moved faster. In 1947,
Jews - primarily settlers - made up ap-
proximately one-third of the population of
Palestine and owned less than 7 percent of
its land. In that year the United Nations
alloted 54 percent of Palestine for a
"Jewish" state and in the next six months
the Zionist armies took an additional 24 per-
cent of the territory. In 1967 the Israelis took
the rest of Palestine and show no indication
of willingness to give any of it up.
Economy
Conditions strongly discourage African
development; the policy is to have a cheap
labor force. Palestinian development is
prevented because harsh conditions are in-
tended to drive Palestinians out. Palestinian
access to land and water is sharply circum-
scribed and shrinking. Neither industrial
nor agricultural development are perm it-
ted; nothing which would produce jobs for
Palestine is allowed.
Human Rights
In South Africa, Blacks can be imprisoned
with charge (commonly referred to as
"administration detention") for up to four-
teen days; they can be immediately
rearrested for extended periods. In the West
Bank and Gaza, Palestinians can be im-
prisoned without charge for up to eighteen
days; they can be immediately rearrested
and thus be held continuously. More than
three-quarters of South African Black men
and more than half of Palestinian men in the
West Bank and Gaza have been imprisoned,
many for past violations.
South African prisoners are routinely tor-
tured; many have died from torture.
Palestinian prisoners are also routinely tor-
tured, particularly to extract false con-
fessions, and many have died including
many held in Ansar Prison in Lebanon.
Many Palestinians and South Africans have,
of course, been massacred by soldiers and
police. A growing phenomenon for
Palestinians, better-known in Latin
America, is that of the disappeared.
Both Palestinians and South Africans suf-
fer town arrest: restriction to a particular
locality. South Africans can also be banned,
which means they cannot go to public
meetings, must check in with the police
regularly, and cannot even receive more
than a few people at a timein their homes.
They cannot be quoted and their
photographs cannot be publicly displayed.
Palestinians are also banned - though the
terminology is a little different; restrictions
are essently the same. Palestinians are not
permitted to identify themselves as
"Palestinian," only as Arab. The-colors of
the African National Congress of South
Africa, founded in 1912 - green, black, and
yellow - are banned in South Africa. The
colors of the Palestinian flag - red, green,
white, and black - are banned in Israel and
areas under its control.
These are some of the effects of apartheid
on non-whites and of Zionism on non-Jews.
To support Zionism and, in turn, support the
Free South Africa Movement is a crime and
an insult to the anti-apartheid movement
around the world. Both Americans and
American-Jews must realize that Zionism is
just as racist as South African apartheid
and neither should be allowed to infest the
evolution of any race of people.
Pro-life violence
. Pro-life picketers have made it
necessary to choose between the
absolute right to free speech and
the right to a safe abortion; the
picketers are causing disruption of
health care at abortion clinics by
unsettling both doctors and patien-
ts.
For example, one hospital that
does some abortions but mainly
delivers babies is the target of pro-
life picketer. A pregnant woman
who had had difficulty conceiving
visited the clinic to receive atten-
tion for cramps. When she arrived
at the hospital she had to walk th-
rough a gauntlet of pro-life
picketers, who screamed "don't
kill your baby," "murderer' and
other confrontational slogans. The
pregnant woman, who wanted to
have her child, made it through the
gauntlet only to have a
miscarriage.
No one can say for certain that
the miscarriage resulted from the
picketers actions. The same can be
said of the difficulties of pregnant
women with high blood pressure.
The stree caused by the screaming
picketer may cause high blood
pressure to rise, but it would be dif-
ficult to prove in an individual case
that stress caused pregnancy com-
plications.
According to Joseph Scheidler,
one of the more extreme pro-life
organizers, who has visited Reagan
twice, picketers increase hospital
"confusion and comnlications...bv
women.
Intimidation may cause clinics to
close temporarily and women to
stay away until the picketing stops.
Unfortunately, it is not a safe
strategy to wait out the picketers.
Women who have abortions in
weeks 16 through 20 of their
pregnancy are 12 times as likely to
die as women who have abortions
after 9 to 10 weeks of gestation and
the death rate increases for every
week of delay. A delay in health
care caused by picketer intim-
dation undermines legally man-
dated conditions of "maximum
safety" for abortions.
The law also mandates that abor-
tion is a private decision, but
patients have no choice but to pass
through picketers when they go to a
hospital. The picketers who stand
in front of the main doors of the
hospital necessarily invade the
privacy of patients, who can not opt
out as one might choose to do at a
Nazi rally or other distasteful ex-
pression of free speech.
Judges should go beyond issuing
injunctions against picketers guilty
of assault or invasion of privacy.
The safety of patients should be the
first concern, especially since the
free speech of pro-lifers is so
easily protected by giving them
space at hospital corners away
from the main doors. People who
want to talk to pro-lifers should
have the option of doing so, but they
should not have to walk amongst
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LETTERS:
'Journalism keeps pace with morality'
To the Daily:
In response to Gail Kirshen-
baum's editorial "Television
Redefines 'News"', I would like
to commend her for a well-done
article which identified the rift of
indecisiveness that troubles the
journalistic community of
tary to the disaster of Challenger,
but it was a major part of the
story.
It is sadening, and possibly
unfortunate, that their reactions
were captured by the eager eye of
a camera lens, but the fact that
they were, links them, in a highly
year old son, was news as well.
Personal reaction, whether it be
brought to us through television,
radio, newspaper or personal ex-
perience serves as a barometer
by which we can guage the con-
tent of our own character.
It is not the responsibility of the
nalist's integrity should never
outdistance their respective pace
of morality. The public can, and
will, trust the media only if given
the appropriate reasons.
As you further your journalism
career, Ms. Kirshenbaum, I hope
that competent, caring jour-
t