14A -The Michigan Daily - Thursday, March 28, 1996 NATION/WORLD
Arabs call for end to Israel crackdown
Los Angeles Times
AMMAN, Jordan-Across the Arab
world, anger is replacingthe initial sym-
pathy for Israel after the wave of sui-
cide bombings last month.
Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres'
tough crackdown in response to the
bombings, closure of the West Bank,
demolition of Palestinian houses and
arrests of hundreds of people associ-
ated with political groups that spon-
sored the bombers, appears to be erod-
ing the fragile good will that existed
toward Israel and threatening the peace
process.
As a follow-up meeting to the "Sum-
mit of the Peacemakers" gets under
way today in Washington, Arab coun-
tries are demanding that the agenda be
broadened to bring an early end to what
they call the "collective punishment" of
all Palestinians for the crimes of a few.
"What Israel is doing every day is
humiliating the Arabs - both the Pal-
estinians who are our neighbors and the
whole Arab world," said Jordanian
writer Mounes Razazz.
"They deal with people as if they information about terrorist groups and
have been defeated, and in this case
they cannot make peace."
Rising Arab outrage at the month-
long blockade of the West Bank and the
Gaza Strip, which Yasser Arafat's Pal-
estinian Authority says has thrown
60,000 people out of work and cost the
cutting offthe secret pipelines ofmoney
to them.
But Egypt, the co-sponsor of the
Sharm el-Sheikh summit, is joined by
the Palestinian Authority, most Arab
states and France in trying to broaden
the agenda. They say the current Is-
already impover-
ished territories
$6 million a day
in lost wages and
trade, is behind a
sharp diplomatic
row over the two-
day Washington
conference. -The
meeting was
called to come up
with specific
ways to fulfill the
What Israel is
doing every day is
humiliating the
Arabs
- Mounes Razazz
Jordanian writer
raeli actions
against Palestin-
ians should also be
addressed, be-
cause they run
counter to the
original summit's
other main goal,
reviving the Arab-
Israeli peace pro-
cess after the
bombings. "We
cannot accept the
needed to safeguard its territory and
deter would-be terrorists after the se-
ries of four suicide bombings between
Feb. 24 and March 4 that killed 58
victims and four attackers.
Now beginning a tight election cam-
paign against the right-wing Likud,
Peres' Labor government shows no in-
clination to relax its stance before the
May 29 voting.
In a new blow to the Palestinians,
Israeli Foreign Minister Ehud Barak
announced yesterday that Israel will
not withdraw as scheduled today from
Hebron, the last West Bank city it
occupies. In addition, talks on a per-
manent peace agreement, set to begin
in May, might also be delayed, he
said.
From the Arab perspective, the Is-
raeli response to the bombings has been
wrong from the beginning, because it
strikes out indiscriminately at all Pales-
tinians, including those loyal to Arafat
and opposed to violent extremists of
Hamas and other militant Islamic
groups.
goals of the March 13 anti-terrorism
summit held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.
The Clinton administration wanted
the conference to focus on coordinated
steps to oppose international terrorism,
including such things as exchanging
Palestinian people being starved and
their homes being demolished," said
Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr
Moussa.
Israel, supported by the United States,
argues that its tough moves have been
LET YOUR VOTE MAKE A REAL
DIFFERENCE TODAY.
Jonathan James
AP PHOTO
President Clinton gestures as he addresses the National Education Summit in
Palisades, N.Y. At his right is Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson.
Governors pledge to
set more rigorous
goals for students
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The Washington Post
PALISADES, N.Y. - The nation's
governors pledged yesterday to revive
the campaign for higher academic stan-
dards by setting more rigorous goals for
theirown students in the nexttwo years.
The governors said that attempts to
create new, voluntary national guide-
lines for schools, launched at their last
national summit on education seven years
ago, have been
greeted with great
suspicion locally. fyo
The only politically
viable way to bring
higher academic
standards to the learning
nation's classrooms,
they said, is to keep mean 8
the federal govern-
ment's role abso- _
lutely minimal.
President Clinton conceded as much
when he addressed the governors yes-
terday, but he urged them nevertheless
to set standards that are consistent from
state to state. "While I believe they
should be set by the states and the
testingmechanisms should be approved
by the states, we shouldn't kid our-
selves," the president said. "Being pro-
moted ought to mean more or less the
same thing in Pasadena, Calif., that it
does here. In a global society, it ought
to mean more or less the same thing."
The president also challenged the
governors also to require students to
pass tough new exams, especially in
subjects like reading, before allowing
them to move on from elementary,
middle and high school.
"If you want the standards move-
ment to work, first you have to do the
hard work in deciding what it is you
expect children to learn," said Clinton,
who, as the governor of Arkansas,
mI
Pi
played a central role at the last educa-
tion summit in Charlottesville, Va., in
1989. "But then you have to have a
assessment system that says no more
social promotions, no more free passes.
If you want people to learn, learning
has to mean something."
But the governors went to great
lengths during the summit to mini-
mize the role of Clinton, Education
Secretary Ri-
chard Riley
r want and the rest of
federal gov-
olearn,ernmentiO
has pingthem
set new stan-
dards for stu-
methingE dents. Unlike
the last sum-
'resident Clinton mit, they also
avoided any
mention of national educational goals
or standards.
Yet the governors are vowing t
create a new nationwide clearinghous
for states to share information on how
to set and assess standards and to try
to create more consistency in what
schools expect of students.
In many states, setting high academic
standards, and holding schoolsaccount-
able tothem, is proving tobe adifficult,
and often controversial, task.
Even the general statement that the
governors drafted forhavingbetterstan-
dards ignited political bickering her
Some conservative governors, includ-
ingGeorge Allen (R-Va.), vowednotto
back it until all references to "national"
academic goals or standards were ed-
ited out. That angered other governors.
Roy Romer (D-Colo.) called Allen
"paranoid", but in the end they agreed
unanimously to support the summit's
goals.
For MSA
* Reforming the Student Group
Funding Process
* Real Tuition Reform: Capping
Tuition and a Tuition Tax Credit
" Protecting your Housing Rights
- Saving undergraduate Education by
supporting the GEO
e Focusing administrative attention to
minority retention and services
" Improving access to North Campus
by Creating additional parking
spaces for commuting students
For LSA-SG
" Preventing LSA-SG from becoming
another MSA.
" Increasing student awareness of
LSA-SG through surveys,
petitions, and newsletters.
* Involving students and student
organizations in government
programming and academic issues.
" Working on expanding the number
of available R&E classes.
* Making fund allocations easier
with on-line applications and a
computer database of past fund
allocations.
Germany may get
toger on n polc
A new vision for a new
student government
Los AngelesTimes
BERLIN - After years of keeping
communication lines open to Iran, much
to the annoyance of the United States,
there are signs that Germany may be
reappraising its policy of "critical dia-
logue" with the Iranian government.
Until now, Bonn has claimed that by
pursuing talks with Tehran's Shiite fun-
damentalists, Germany was keeping
alive a special, neutral relationship that
could be used to help persuade the Ira-
nians to abandon their support for inter-
national terrorism. Bonn argued that its
approach, also embraced by the Euro-
pean Union, would, in the end, be more
productive than America's policy of
isolating Iran.
But criticism is mounting, within
Germany and outside, that Bonn's cor-
diality toward Tehran is really moti-
vated by a desire to help German com-
top spymaster. The warrant charges
Falahian, Iran's ministerforintelligence
and security, with four counts of mur-
der and attempted murder in the gang-
land-style deaths ofthree exiled Kurdis
leaders in a Berlin restaurant, the
Mykonos, in 1992. The Kurds' transla-
tor also was fatally shot in the attack;
another man was injured.
In 1993, one Iranian and four Leba-
nese were arrested and charged with the
murders. They are now standing trial in
Berlin. But almost from the beginning,
there were also hints that the hit was
orchestrated by Tehran. Though Ira.
denies any involvement, German opin-
ion makers have been calling since 1993
for federal prosecutors to go after the
suspected Iranian mastermind, not just
the triggermen.
The attorney general's office says it
will not comment on the latest develop-
t TC"%T7 EO