NATION/WORLD The Michigan Daily - Thursday, April 16, 1998 - 9A &Peace Now 'initiative still Crunch time elusive in Israeli process The Washington Post TEL AVIV, Israel - They were angry young men then, ry because they thought Israel was missing the chance to e peace with an Arab enemy. So they decided to write a letter. The letter sparked a movement. The movement brought tens of thousands of Israelis into the streets and helped move a reluctant govern- merit to sign a peace accord with Egypt. Twenty years later, the men -joined by the women they initially excluded -- are not so young, and the peace they sought with all the Arabs is still elusive. Their movement was dubbed Peace Now, to their conster- nation - they thought it was too insistent, too "American." After two decades the name seems to mock their concern. bee has not come "now," and the present animosities :ween Israel and the Palestinians suggest peace may yet have a long wait. For many who helped draft the original letter, such as Tzali Reshef, the current impasse in Israeli-Arab relations is dis- couraging. "I don't think we have all the time in the world," Reshef said. "In the Middle East, if you have a deadlock, the way it gets broken is with a war." Their disappointment is all the more bitter for having come so close to success. Three years ago, the govern- ment had adopted the basic goals of Peace Now: peace *h Arab neighbors, return of land to the Palestinians. But leaving a huge celebratory rally in Tel Aviv in November 1995, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. Peace Now watched in dismay as the soaring hopes of those times fell into suspicion and hostility, and Rabin's Labor Party government was replaced by a coalition, led by the Likud party, opposed to the negotiations Labor pur- sued. "It caused a depression that paralyzed people" said Janet Aviad, one of the early activists of the movement. "We didn't immediately understand the political tragedy of Rabin's death. I never dreamed that from November to May our world would explode." There are now no negotiations with Lebanon and Syria. Egypt is frosty toward Israel; Jordanians are angry at their king's embrace of the Jewish state. The peace accords with the Palestinians are in disarray, as both sides live in appre- hension of violence from the other. Faced with a government hostile to its goals, Peace Now feels4hat it has little voice in the current Israeli discussion. "There is a change in the country that has marginalized Peace Now." acknowledged Avishai Margalit, one of the intellectu- al founders of the movement. or some, there is comfort in a long view backward. The movement has waxed and waned in Israeli public favor, sometimes riding the crest of popular sentiment, sometimes sounding a forlorn and futile note of protest. Peace Now demonstrators have been beaten by police, attacked by other Jews, abused and denounced. But the movement helped shove then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin into peace with Egypt; it shamed the Israeli government into pulling its troops back from Beirut after the invasion of Lebanon; it has painstaking- ly helped turn the question of returning land to the Palestinians from one of "whether' to one of "how much." AP PHOTO Nina Kocher, left, checks her concessions receipts with tax consultant Donna Lightsey yesterday at the H & R Block tax preparation office in Hutchinson, Kan. MIGRANTS Continued from Page 1A McGee said the spring training ses- sions gave her the cultural and linguistic background necessary to successfully teach at the camps. But often the teach- ing conditions were hard to adjust to, she said. "The most difficult part for me was the social issues, because you feel so powerless against the social structure and the discrimination (the workers) face' McGee said. LSA senior Jon Molenar, who also participated in the program last summer, said many of the students' worst teaching fears never materialized. "We had been afraid that our lessons wouldn't be good enough," Molenar said. "But we actually found out that with a little winging it, it was fine. Molenar said that last summer's group enjoyed their time with the workers and their families so much that many times they stayed beyond the two hours of teaching time designated for the ses- sions. "One night they taught us the Cumbia and we danced for a good two hours, Molenar said. "Everybody seemed really excited not just for the chance to learn English, but that we were taking an inter- est in them. Our presence was a break in their week." Beth Campbell, an LSA and Art and Design senior, said she hopes to take the course this summer because she has an interest in the environment. "It's great to see classes developed like this that are very practical instead of classroom theory-based," Campbell said. "I work at an organic farm and am interested in the agricultural aspect of the class" she said. The course has no prerequisite, but coordinators said they are accepting stu- dents who are committed and willing to participate in all the summer activities. Organizers said they hope to receive increased funding to expand the course so students from across the country could take part in the volunteer program. To find out more information or to register for the course, students can e- mail hcashman@umich.edu. ITD Continued from Page 1A tures in line with its budget. It would never be our policy to reduce services. ITD is working with MSA representa- tives, the Rackham Student Government LTD's Student Advisory Committee and other groups to further revise the basic t computing program for next year. "We're looking to meet approximately 95 percent of all students' needs," Griffiths said. lTD's main goal for future policy changes is to make sure computing ser- t vices for students are not reduced. "We want to provide as much service 1 as we can with our funding" McCord said. Student S -. paper aims or diversity CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) -- The editors of the Harvard Crimson recently looked around the newsroom and came to a sudden realization: too many Jews. -ditors of the student newspaper said tey wanted more diversity among the editors and columnists, and they added positions to include other ethnic groups. But Justin Danilewitz, who is Jewish, says the concern was so great that it led to his exclusion from the editorial board. He aired his complaints in a Commentary magazine article titled "Counting Noses at the Harvard Crimson." Crimson editors say that Danilewitt the story wrong and that his failue nothing to do with his faith, but 1."y would not elaborate. The 125-year-old Crimson, Those alumni include former Preidents Franklin Roosevelt and John F K:nnedy, has about 300 mostly volunteerstaffers, about one-fourth of whom woK in the news department. Danilewitz, a junior and guost colum- nist, applied for the chairperonship of editorial board, which tictates the p, per's editorial policy and ismade up of he columnists and top editos. He claims hat two other students wer, selected for he job because they advocted reducing he number of Jewish colunnists. Wealthy countries describe Japan's problems as serious "Officiilly, they say there isn't a quota sysem," he said. "But the editors have shown their intentions. If their rejection of m wasn't about religion, then I have to thnk that religion wouldn't have had to be brought up." Danilewitz said that during the applica- tion process last winter he was told by an outgoing Crimson editor that she felt it was a "problem" that eight of the paper's 10 columnists were Jewish. He added that the two Jewish students selected as co- chairs of the editorial board were chosen because they felt they should recruit columnists from various ethnic back- grounds. "In their position papers, they specifi- cally said that Jewish columnists from the tri-state area (New York, New Jersey and Connecticut) were over represented," said Danilewitz, who wrote his article in the April edition of the journal published by the American Jewish Committee. Crimson editors admit that there were newsroom discussions about the high ratio of Jewish staffers. Incoming editors wanted to broaden the editorial staff's racial and ethnic makeup, which now includes eight Jewish columnists out of 16. Black, Islamic and female students were among the six additional colum- nists. WASHINGTON (AP) - Japan came under increased pressure yesterday from the United States and other nations to do more to boost its flagging economy, with top finance officials depicting Japan's economic problems as serious and growing worse. The officials are concerned that troubles in the world's sec- ond-largest economy could cause renewed financial turmoil in Asia and beyond. "The challenges facing Japan are serious and have intensi- fied in recent months," the group said in a joint communique. The economic fallout from the Asian crisis was topic No. I during, more than five hours of discussions of finance min- isters and central bank presidents from the world's seven wealthiest industrial countries -- the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada. Japan signed off on the communique from the G-7 group but participants indicated there were some differences of view on the issues. "I would not describe it as heated," Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin said of the afternoon talks. "The Japanese gov- ernment officials very much wanted to express their views and I think other G-7 ministers ... wanted to express their con- cerns and their focus on the enormous importance of these objectives being achieved." Financial markets had been wary in advance of yester- day's meeting, wondering whether the seven nations would embark on a coordinated effort to boost Japan's flagging currency, the yen, by intervening in currency markets. But Rubin had told reporters not to expect any policy change and the language on currencies in the final statement largely tracked wording used when the G-7 officials last met in February in London. In both statements, the finance ministers and central bank directors said that "excessivatility" was undesirable. But the new statement made no explicit commitment to intervene and instead said the group supported Japan's efforts to deal with the problem "by stimulating domestic demand led growth." That wording echoed comments the Clinton administration has been making with increasing frequency recently as the Japanese economy appeared to be teetering on the brink of a recession. Bowing to strong foreign pressure, Japanese Prime Mnister Ryutaro Hashimoto last «;eek proposed a$S75 billion package of tax cuts and new government spending aimed at restarting Japan's economy. While that was the biggest in a series of stimulus efforts attempted by Japan, financial markets have been skeptical, believing it is too late to keep the country out of a recession. Japanese Finance Minister Hikara Matsunaga told reporters the group had shown "great understanding" about the Japanese efforts. Vice Finance Minister Eisuke Sakakibara said the ministers also talked about the potentia threats from the high-flying U.S. stock market. U Need a A G If me See Stand-up Comedian ete Lipsey before EXAMS? 3Iso featuring Comedy Company's van Messinaer y... ...' r,. frI ;.. w. 1111 ,.