4
OPINION
Page 4' Monday, September 22, 1986 The Michigan Daily
Israeli: egotia with the PL
On September 15, Gideon enough weren't tried. I wrote letters as government. I am trying now to raise In 1970 I went to study at the right wing Jewish militants were
Spiro, an Israeli calling for a private citizen; my job was not support for my case. There has been a University of Haifa. I started my screaming that the University was:
peace between Israelis and mentioned. The judge who tried me violation of civil rights, and this is studies at 35, the age when most people giving too many rooms to Arab student;
Palestinians, spoke in Rackham widened the charges beyond the living proof that totalitarian norms in the United States are applying for but they neglected the fact that no one
onhs govrn men's icy in he prosecutor's demand. I was found don't stop with Arabs and that slice by tenure as professors. wanted to rent a room to Arabs.
Occuied erritoris.iy Sir, e guilty in violation of the spirit of slice they will hurt the Jews as well. When I came there we had a very U ersit to r ge A ic a
Occupied Territories. Spiro, certain laws. This is a totalitarian One day Israel will find itself another high number of Arab students and University to recognize Arabic as an
who held a high position as a interpretation. In Nazi Germany, Middle Eastern dictatorship. So I'm Jewish students from Central America. official language in the Middle
civil servant in the Israeli people were found guilty of violating the calling on academics who are the It was a very active political
Ministry of Education, was fired spirit of the law. There is no such safeguards of freedom and civil community. We had a high number fight for recognition that Arabs as a
for writing letters critical of the interpretation in democratic society. rights, to raise support for my case, of students who were Kibbutz group had the right to elect their own
Israeli invasion of Lebanon. A Daily: When did your peace members. We established in those days representatives to student government.
Opinion page editor Karen Klein te hing I rought 1 activities begin? a new Jewish-Arab student movement Whatawas unique about this student
Oiincharacter witnesses who said what a group was that it succeeded in 1972 to
interviewed him while he was wonderful person I am. If only half of . M which was a new phenomenon. You win election to the student government.
here. this is said at my funeral I would be Spiro: My peace activites started have to understand that Israeli students This was the first time in history that a
very happy. There were three Knesset when came acerom the United were exactly the opposite of the rest of the This as te sttientrp taa
> fxFENr= ap.States in '68. After the Six Day War, I wrd nte17s h hl ol non- affiliated student group won
(the Israeli parliament) members, woving t the ad the leadrs election to the student parliament
people who served in the army, Unted Stat r s nite was moving to the left, and the leaders Prime Minister Golda Meir came to
journalists, and my superiors at work. Nations corespondent for one year. I of the student union were militant right Haifa to find out what was going on.
uiai gUe . All of them said I should not be covered the Vietnam campaign and wing. This Jewish-Arab movement She was very disturbed. We were a
severely punished. After all, I wrote wheIk represented completely different great source of interest to the press.
letters, I did not kill anybody. They worry about the future. I saw that the values. It dealt with the whole Israel- Everyone wanted to know; whats
raised the point that I am the father of orrypat thewfuture.tI saw that the Palestinian conflict on a local, going on in Haifa?
two little children. time and I started my engagement with national, and regional basis. It was I was elected in 1971, to be the editor
The court decided that I should be the aeemen first, I established to promote Jewish-Arab of the student paper. I transformed it to
Spiro explains: I refused to serve h h or eie htIsol e the peace movement. At frt under-standing to fight Jewish racism
war in Lebanon, because I felt it was an dismissed immediately , and that I belonged to those who favored any kind againstdg, g a newspaper that dealt with real issues
immoral war, and that Jewish war should lose my pension. Professor of settlement which would end the Arabs, and to call for mutual and not with stories about gossip and
crimes should not be judged differently Claude Klein at the law faculty at conflict in the Middle East. I was bygopening aepoiticlouetween bc a n excegoingon in the cafeteria. It
from other war crimes. Government Hebrew University said this is among those who thought that the Six thyopenin parties.tI dialogue between became a exceptional student voice.
employees have civil rights outside of intolerable, like a death penalty in the Day War brought us a goldenstwg
their jobs. Yet they were saying to me, criminal law. Especially severe is the opportunity to reach a very imaginative Problems at the University reflected views. Arabs, who had never had the
you have no right to express doubts loss of my pension: after all, it affects peace offensive to the area. I thought greater problems. For example, Jewish opportunity to speak out, now had a
about the war, but you have the right to my whole family. I find it very that a sweeping victory should be used homeowners refused to rent housing to space. Some of the Central American
fight and die for your country. disturbing that a person who wrote to develop a peace initiatve . Instead of Arab students, so they had to have more students studied Hebrew just so they
Government employees who criticized letters is punished so severely while the this I saw a slow and steady rooms in the University owned student could write articles in the paper.
the government for not being strong people who initiated the war are still in development of secular chauvinism. dorms. It was a vicious circle; the This is the first of a two part series..
Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan
Vol. XCVII, No. 13
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Wasserman
1T'S (6 ~TME YOU PULLEP
YOUR iNVESTMENTS OUT OF
SOUTd AFRICA
Unsigned editorials represent a majority of the Daily's Editorial Board
All other cartoons, signed articles, and letters do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Daily.
Invasive testing
President Reagan's advocacy
of mandatory drug testing for
Federal employees is a violation
of fourth amendment rights and
due process. The program is
not geared to prevent drug abuse
or treat its causes. Rather it is a
general enforcement mechan-
ism. It examines all workers
whether or not they are
suspected of using drugs.
Employees discovered to be
drug users through the test
would be punished through
mandatory discharge or
treatment. Comprehensive
testing thus violates the fourth
amendment requirement for
probable cause-testing indi -
viduals not suspected. It also
ignores due process, imposing
punishment without a trial or
opportunity for representation.
Overriding the right to trial by
jury, the federal government
assumes the role of the court
system. The president's pro-
gram is an attack on America's
most cherished civil liberties.
Drug testing would seriously
invade the privacy of
handicapped workers, such as
epileptics or interferon users,
who function normally at work.
They would have the choice
between being labeled drug
users or having their handicaps
exposed to their employer.
Drug testing constitutes an
unacceptable invasion of worker
privacy, not only to those with
medical needs, but to the person
who chooses to use recreational
drugs during vacation time.
Some drugs, marijuana for
instance, can appear on the test
sixty to ninety days after use,
though experts agree that there
is no effect sixty days later from
isolated marijuana usage.
Drug tests are too inaccurate
to be used as the sole proof that
illicit substances have been
used. One out of twenty of the
drug tests is a false positive,
indicating someone used drugs
when they did not. Other items
in a person's diet can also
influence the test: eating poppy
seeds can result in a positive test
for opiates such as heroin..
Conventional methods of law
enforcement must be used over
dubious drug testing.
Drug abuse has long been a
serious problem in the United
States, but drug testing is not
the answer. It makes no
attempt to treat root causes or
ask why people use drugs.
The program would instead
invade the privacy of
government workers and more
seriously suspend the
constitutional rights of drug-
users and non-drug-users alike.
Mandatory drug testing
enforced by the employer's
power to fire allows employers to
dictate what people do during
their vacation time. Employers
arrogate themselves authority
more properly vested in the
court system.
IM IVESTMENTS
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I
LETTERS:
Response
to
To the Daily:
It is unfortunate that
Shadroui and Ghannam
exploit the morbid an-
niversary of the Sabra and
Shatila massacre to make a
crude attempt to de-legitimize
the State of Israel by claiming
that the massacre was a
"logical extension of Zionist
thinking" (Daily 9/18). The
horror of Sabra and Shatila
deserves to be remembered as
a low point in the plight of the
Palestinians and as a
reminder that the highest
level leaders of Israel, and
any other country, should
always be held accountable
for their actions. Yet
Shadroui and Ghannam
have conveniently omitted the
complete context in which the
massacre took place and are
thus enabled to disregard any
reasonable perspective of the
to 1982 -- including the
massacres of innocent
victims in Damour and
Nabatiye, perpetrated by the
Palest-inians. Thus, follow-
ing the assassination of
president-elect Bashir
Gemayal, history would
dictate a gruesome response
by Christian Phalangists and
unfortunately the refugees in
Sabra and Shatila camps
served as the tragic victims.
Yet the authors would have us
believe that the Israelis are
responsible for all the misery
of the Palestinian refugees
living in camps in Lebanon.
Would they then claim that
the Shiite Amal militiamen
subscribe to the ideology of
Zionism? For they are the
Arabs who for the last twenty
years have waged a relent-
less war on the Palestinian
refugee camps in Beirut,
- m--assacr
a response is the claim that
the Israelis failed to make
any distinction between
civilians and fighters in
their invasion of Lebanon.
Could it be said that the PLO
made such a distinction by
stockpiling their weapons in
schools and hospitals and by
hiding their fighters behind
civilian populations.
Yet the most significant
element omitted by Shadroui
and Ghannam is the Israeli
reaction to the massacre. The
day after the tragedy became
known, 400,000 Israelis
poured onto the streets of Tel
Aviv to protest the massacre
and the ongoing Israeli
presence in Lebanon. That is
one in every ten Israelis -- an
equivalent demonstration in
the U.S. would mean 28
million people! The
demonstration led to the
vigil
or when did the PLO ever hold
a high level inquiry into
countless acts of terrorism
that have been the hallmark
of the PLO since 1964? To use
a rhetorical tool often
employed by Aralb
propagandists, "Is Jewish
blood less red than
Palestinian?"
To say that Sabra Shatila
was a logical extension' of
Zionism is to claim that the
Lod, Munich, Ma' alot,
Herzaliya, Rome and
Vienna massacres are
"logical extensions" of
Palestinian Nationalism.
Following the debacle at
Sabra and Shatila, a leading
Israeli statesman made an
impassioned plea before the
Knesset: "We have a sense
that underneath the blocks of
cement used to cover the
bodies of children, women,,
We encourage our readers to use this space
to discuss and respond to issues of their con-