The Michigan Daily - Friday, April 20, 1990 - Page 5
Campus voters favor
Israeli Labor party
*
'1
l
by Geri Alumit
Daily Staff Writer
Israel came to campus yesterday.
As part of mock Israeli elections in
the Fishbowl, students cast their bal-
lots for the political party of their
choice.
Sponsored by the University's
American Zionist Youth Foundation
(AZYF), the mock elections were
part of a national project at 25 uni-
versities. The schools will all an-
nounce the results this week in the
Jerusalem Post, a daily newspaper in
Israel, said AZYF national outreach
director Mose Horn.
"We are taking these tallies to see
how the younger generation would
vote," Horn said.
The ballot required that each stu-
dent vote between 15 political par-
ties. The election results for the par-
ties with the most votes were the
following:
Maarach (Labor Party): 41.4%
Likud (National Liberal
Party): 28.5%
0 Ratz (Citizens' Rights and
Peace Movement):11.4%
1 Mercaz-Shinui (Center):
7.85%
- P.L.P. (Progressive List for
Peace): 3.5 %
1 Mapam (United Worker
Party): 2.1
"Israel has been getting a bad rap
and we wanted to promote pro-Israeli
feelings," said the project's co-coor-
dinator Debra Katz, an LSA senior.
"The purpose of this project was
to promote Israel's democratic nature
and to compare systems," added the
projects other co-coordinator Melissa
Silverman, an LSA senior. "Most
Jewish students are not at all famil-
iar with the Israeli government and
how it works."
RC Senior Aaron Frank, who
was casting his ballot, said the polit-
ical system in Israel is a more pure
form of democracy than in the
United States because people vote
for a political party rather than a
single candidate.
The two largest political parties
in Israel are the right-of-center Likud
and the left-of-center Labor party.
One major difference between the
two rivals is that Likud will not ne-
gotiate with the Palestine Liberation
Organization and Labor will.
The Israeli government is cur-
rently in a deadlock because the La-
bor party has only a few more days
to form a government before Likud
is given a chance.
"I like the Labor and Ratz be-
cause they are for compromise and
are willing to talk to the Palestini-
ans," said LSA senior Larry Garner.
"I think that Labor will win on this
campus because the average Jewish
student is liberal and for the Israeli
government."
"In this election I would guess
that the Labor coalition will win be-
cause the student body as a whole is
Dems
propose
slashing
defense
WASHINGTON (AP) - The
Democratic-controlled House Budget
Committee on Thursday approved a
plan to slash President Bush's de-
fense spending proposal and shift
billions of dollars to domestic pro-
grams.
The $1.24 trillion budget for fis-
cal 1991 was approved on a 21-14
party-line vote. Debate in the full
House was scheduled for next week.
Republicans portrayed the plan as
an embodiment of the same old lib-
eral Democratic priorities, with irre-
sponsible defense cuts and loose
reins on domestic spending. But
they expressed little concern, calling
the committee action just an early
step in the long budget process.
The Democratic budget envisions
$295 billion in military spending
next year, about $1 billion less than
in the current year and $8 billion
less than requested by Bush.
Three-fourths of the defense sav-
ings would be shifted immediately
into domestic accounts that include
Medicaid, food stamps, education,
AIDS and anti-drug abuse programs.
Liberals on the committee failed
Thursday in their attempt to cut de-
fense spending even further
LSA senior Lynn Blaustein explains to LSA junior'Evan Strauss the differences between the various political
parties in the mock Israeli elections yesterday in the Fishbowl..
quite liberal," said Horn. "In the real
world it is impossible to predict who
would win in an election because
there are too many 'x' factors."
But John Blow, an engineering
senior and co-chair of TAGAR, said
the reason people would vote vote
Likud is that they think the Labor
party is too weak, endangering the
security of Israel.
Katz said AZYF was very happy
with the 140 person voter turn-out.
Garner said he voted because,
"I'm taking an Arab-Israeli conflict
class right now and because I have
also been (to Israel) several times, I
have a strong opinion on how (the
vote) comes out."
The University's AZYF, having
about 100 members, promotes Is-
rael, encourages others to get in-
volved with Israeli issues, and finds
methods for students to visit Israel.
Each year the organization is
formed by students who have justj
visited Israel, said LSA Senior Lynn
Blaustin,an AZYF co-representative.
Hostage
*release
delayed
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Pro-
Iranian kidnappers said yesterday
they postponed indefinitely the re-
lease of an American hostage be-
cause the United States refused to
send a senior State Department offi-
cial to Syria.
the Islamic Jihad for the Libera-
4ion of Palestine in a lengthy state-
ment repeated its demand that John
Kelly, U.S. assistant secretary of
state for Near Eastern affairs, fly to
Damascus.
It also renewed threats to attack
jetliners and airports used to trans-
port thousands of Soviet Jewish em-
igrants to Israel, who Arab leaders
say could strengthen Israel and dis-
place Palestinians from the occupied
territories.
In Damascus, Syrian Foreign
Minister Farouk al-Sharaa said his
government has "been exerting a
great deal of influence" to secure the
hostage release by Sunday. He would
not elaborate.
President Bush said the United
States has "been disappointed before"
by dashed hopes for the release of
American hostages and repeated that
he will not meet the demands of kid-
nappers.
"The United States does not
knuckle under to demands," said
Bush when asked why he did not
dispatch Kelly to Damascus.
The kidnappers' statement was
* accompanied by an instant photo-
graph of Robert Polhill, one of three
U.S. educators help by the group
since Jan. 24, 1987. It was delivered
to the Beirut newspaper an-Nahar and
to a Western news agency.
In a communique Wednesday, the
group said Kelly should go to Dam-
ascus "to coordinate some final steps
to guarantee success within 48
* hours." They said a hostage would
be freed within that time frame but
did not say which one.
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