APRIL 1988 News Features

U. THE NATIONAL COLLEGE NEWSPAPER 3

APRIL 1988 * News Features U. THE NATIONAL COLLEGE NEWSPAPER 3

I

Can there ever be peace in the
Middle East?
Students nationwide say yes, but
differ in how best to resolve the
deep-rooted conflict. Their opin-
ions range from denouncing Israeli
oppression of the Palestinians to
defending the Jewish state. Most
offer the solution of creating two
culturally distinct nations.
dEs
Students de.,fend Palestinians-, Israelis

Agony explodes into
armed resistance
By Editorial Staff
. The Daily Cardinal
U. of Wisconsin, Madison
For the past 20 years, 1.5 million
Palestinians have chafed under Israeli
military occupation in Gaza and the
West Bank. Now, their agony has ex-
ploded into a full-blown resistance
movement.
At least 40 Palestinians have been
shot to death by Israeli soldiers since
the uprisings began nearly two months
ago. And recently, since Israeli Defense
Minister Yitzhak Rabin's policy of beat-
ings, not bullets, took effect, hundreds
of Palestinians have been brutally
attacked with clubs, fists and rifle
butts.
The Israelis have employed a range of
strategies to quell the rebellion, raining
rubber bullets and tear gas down on
protesters, arrresting thousands of
Palestinians and imposing tight curfew
over the refugee camps. The insistent
characterization of Israel as a perennial
}"victim," which is used to justify its ev-
ery abhorrent act and to deny the legiti-
mate claims of the Palestinian people,
negates the reality of Israeli power and
twists the true meaning of "victim" into
an unrecognizable distortion.
The opposition to Israeli occupation
has spread throughout the Arab
population residing in Israel; nearly
750,000 participated in a one-day
general strike last December.
But the Israeli government is deaf to
their challenge. Prime Minister Yit-
zhak Shamir has rejected calls for a
U.N.-sponsored international peace
conference, charging that it would
mean Israeli acceptance of a separate

Palestinian state and total Israeli with-
drawal from Arab lands. That, of
course, is precisely what the Palesti-
nians, and now a growing number of
Israelis, are calling for. Instead, Shamir
says, "The violence will be stopped by
our actions, by army actions."
Rabin's program of"might, power and
beatings" cannot suppress this move-
ment for Palestinian national libera-
tion. The crushing of hands may pre-
vent the throwing of stones, but it can-
not destroy ideas and aspirations. Will
Israel unleash in full its terrible power,
destroying the Palestinians themselves
in order to wipe out their resistance?
We must challenge the facade with
which supporters of Israeli policy hope
to mask the truth of what is taking place
in the territories. We have a right and a
duty to pose an alternative response to
Palestinian resistance-that is, accept-
ance of its legitimate demand for the
establishment of a Palestinian home-
land, side by side with a democratized
Israeli state.

If Israel won't defend
itself, who will?
By Lisa Tarin
The Western Herald
Western Michigan U.
This is in response to "Israel must
heed condemnation of its brutality."
(Western Herald, 1/14/88)
Professor Esmail stated that Israel is
committing "acts of brutal repression
against Palestinians." What are the
acts to which he refers? Could he be
talking about the suppression of the
Palestinians when their demonstra-
tions become too violent? How is the
Israeli government supposed to react to
the rioting, by letting them do as they
please? There is not one country in the
world I am familiar with that allows
uncontrollable rioting, not even in the
United States. The Israelis are doing
the best they can, even though the rest
of the world believes their actions arej

too harsh. If the United Nations be-
lieves that Israel is in the wrong, why
don't they send a peace force to help deal
with the rioting? Instead, they issue
condemnations, which do nothing to
solve the ongoing antagonism between
the Jews and the Palestinians.
Referring to the condition in the Gaza
Strip, yes, there are many Palestinians
living in refugee camps. A recent official
figure of people living in Gaza was
750,000. What Professor Esmail has
failed to mention is that most of the
people are there by their own free
choice. They reside there only because
they believe the Jews will be pushed
into the Mediterranean Sea, in other
words killed, so the Palestinians can re-
claim the land as theirs.
The Palestinians definitely have poli-
tical rights. They are allowed to vote,
but only a minority exercise this right.
The Israelis/Jews must continue to
show military strength, otherwise 40
years of defending our homeland will all
be for naught. If Israel allows the
Palestinians a free reign and gives them
the West Bank as their homeland, how
will we know they will be satisfied? Af-
ter all, doesn't the Palestinian Libera-
tion Organization demand the entire
country be given over to them? And
don't they claim they will use any
means to achieve their goal?
In conclusion, I feel that Israel is cor-
rect in using force to defend its home-
land. The army is ordered to help main-
tain peace. The means are usually
through tear gas, rubber bullets and
water. Live ammunition is only used as
a last resort, then they are ordered to
shoot to wound, not to kill. Granted a
few soldiers make mistakes, but we are
not perfect. If Israel won't defend her-
self, who will?
Palestinians
lion in grants.
The U.S. and the Jewish state have
joined in a program of portraying the
Palestinians as terrorists, subhuman
and barbarian people with no history or
claim of land. One recalls Golda Meir's
saying that the Palestinians were not a
real people.
How many times do Palestinians
have to be humiliated, arrested, de-
ported, beaten and killed? Despite this,
Palestinians have enough courage, time
and patience, for they see a light at the
end of the tunnel.

America colludes with Israel in oppressing

/By Abdul Hamad
The State News
Michigan State U.
The Israeli army, the Shin Beth in-
telligence service and the Jewish set-
tlers have adopted a policy of killing,
beating and breaking the bones of
Palestinian demonstrators, even
shamelessly leaving their blood to stain
a wall in the middle of the West Bank
}town of Ramallah.
The official record of the Jewish state
is bloody while that of the American
Administration is appalling and seems

.r

to be getting worse. The United States
recently vetoed two United Nations
Security Council resolutions deploring
the violation of Palestinian human
rights by Israeli military forces.
Rarely has an oppressed people faced
such obdurate and so hypocritical and
unrelenting a pair of enemies. To move
from-general to specific, as Patrick
Buchanan put it, "When Israeli troops
dragged those Palestinian youths be-
hind buildings and broke their hands
with two-by-fours, those were American
tax dollars at work. For America pro-

vides the Jewish state $3 billion in
annual subsidies ($12,000 for every
Israeli soldier)." (Detroit News, 1/27/88)
Therefore, the Americans cannot
escape responsibility for what is being
done.
The Jewish state has declared a war
against Palestinians, but Uncle Sam
cannot reward the Jewish state-his
spoiled naughty baby--enough. On the
very day President Reagan "admo-
nished" the Jewish state for its harsh
behavior in Gaza, the U.S. handed the
naughty baby an additional $200 mil-