V ANALYSIS
Israel will not tolerate
any more terrorism
Attacks persist despite Arafat's pledge to stop violence
OPINION
Wednesday, December 5, 2001- The Michigan Daily - 5
BY YULIA DERNOVSKAYA
AND DAVID LIvSHIz
Last weekend, 28 innocent Israelis were
killed and nearly 200 were wounded in terror-
ist attacks perpetrated by the terrorist organi-
zation Hamas. The attack in Haifa on Sunday
that blew up a bus, scattering blood, body
parts and belongings of the
15 civilians killed in the Attacks si
explosion was a follow up to hap
a coordinated assault on a that
crowded pedestrian mall in weekend
Jerusalem less than 12 hours
before; there, two suicide
bombers and a car bomb unwillingnt
killed 12 Israelis. Many have to act t
justified these attacks by against t
pointing to the difficult con-
ditions faced by the Palestin- group
ian people every day. Palestini
However, one can not use tern
suffering as an excuse to
attack innocent civilians and
cause more suffering. While many claim that
Israel is equally guilty of such crimes, in
reality Israel attacks military targets, while
Palestinians purposely choose to target civil-
Moreover, the Palestinian Authority is
complicit in these terror attacks.
Attacks such as those that happened this
weekend are a direct consequence of the
unwillingness of the PA to act decisively
against the terrorist groups within Palestinian
Authority territories. Last week both CIA and
the Israeli intelligence repeatedly warned
Yasser Arafat of impending attacks.
Despite thes
uch as those
pened this
are a direct
pnce of the
ess of the PA
decisively
he' terrorist
is within
an Authority
tories
21 teenagers at
e repeated warnings, Arafat
= refused to take any actions
to prevent these attacks
from happening. As a
result Hamas was able to
carry out its murderous
missions. This behavior is
typical of Arafat's
"response" to terrorism.
When Chairman Arafat
signed the Oslo Accords in
1993 he pledged to end all
terrorist acts against Israel.
Since then, Palestinian ter-
rorists have killed more
than 400 Israelis. This past
summer, a bomber killed
a Tel Aviv disco and then in
August, another bomber killed 15 and injured
more then a hundred in Sbarro's Pizzeria, a
family restaurant, in downtown Jerusalem.
Since then the violence and murders have
continued unabated, despiteArafat's repeated
promises to put a stop to it.
..:.v..,.:. :"-:. .. -- - - ,,mS:i. :...::, -'.- '.;":- ::: .::. :. ..-'..
In retaliation for the latest round of terror-
ist attacks the government of Israel initiated a
military campaign to root out these terrorists.
While many argue that violence only leads to
more violence; and that Israel should take the
moral high ground by not retaliating as this is
the only way to end the cycle of violence.
These arguments, however, are disingenuous.
This summer the government of Israel
showed restraint after a suicide bomber killed
21 of its citizens. Then, as now, Israel was
asked to trust Chairman Arafat's word that he
would put an end to this violence. However,
the events of August 16 (Sbarro's Bombing)
and this weekend prove that Arafat has no
intention of stopping these assaults.
Israel can no longer rely on Arafat's
empty promises.
Many might point out that this time Arafat is
being serious by arresting nearly 100 militants. In
reality these arrests are to be expected. After each
terrorist bombing Arafat bows to international
pressure by arresting known militants. However in
May of 2001 Arafat released numerous known
terrorists responsible for the murderous of over 60
Israelis in eight bloody days in 1996. Herein lies
the problem. How can Israel trust Arafat not to
free the militants he arrested since Sunday so that
they cannot go on yet another killing spree tomor-
row?
Others will claim that it is Israel's block-
ade of the occupied territories that causes
these tragedies. The unfortunate reality is that
it is when Israel withdraws from the territo-
ries that these events occur. For instance the
terror on Sunday would have been impossible
as recently as a week ago because the Israeli
Defense Forces were keeping Jenin - a city
known for its production of suicide bombers
- under a strict watch.
However, late last week Israel bowed to
U.S. pressure and withdrew its forces from
Jenin - less then 72 hours later a suicide
bomber originating from Jenin killed 16 inno-
cent people.
It is obvious that the Arab-Israeli conflict
will not be resolved through violence. How-
ever, it is unreasonable to expect Israel to
silently stand by as its citizens die on a daily
G L 0 B A L
VIEWS
A sampling of newspaper
staff editorials from
around the world
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
LoND O:N
' t'The Palestinians' long
hatred of Mr. Sharon and the
prime minister's total distrust of
Mr. Arafat leave no ground on
which to resume negotiations. In
their inimitable way, the
Palestinians have once again
missed an opportunity, this time
presented by the suicide
hijackings in America, to advance
their cause.
HA'ARETZ
TEL AVIV
' t Dreaming about (the
Palestinian Authority's)
elimination is wishful thinking
derived from anger, and an
attempt to actualize those wishes
could bring chaos down on both
the Palestinians and Israel."
THE NEW YORK TIMES
NEW YORK
Mr. Arafat's reluctance to
shut down terrorist groups like
Hamas has again led to the death of
innocent teenagers and adults and
thrown yet another set of Israeli
families into mourning.
THE TIMES OF INDIA
The similarities are chilling
- first, President George Bush
giving the U.S. carte blanche to act
in 'self-defense' and now, Israeli
prime minister Ariel Sharon
justifying his massive show of
strength against the Palestinians.
Both speak of a war which will go
on till terror ends. A war which
respects no territorial sovereignty,
no international protocols and no
accepted rules of engagement."
AP PHOTOS
TOP: Israeli flags and broken glass mix at the
site of Saturday's suicide bombing in central
Jerusalem.
ABOVE: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
addresses his nation on Sunday.
LEFT: The aftermath of a suicide bombing of a
Haifa bus.
basis in places like shopping malls, discos
and family restaurants. While negotiations
are obviously the best way to solve this prob-
lem, until Chairman Arafat proves that he is
willing, and able, to stop terrorism Israel has
no one with whom to negotiate.
Dernovskaya, an LSA sophomore, and Livshiz,
an LSA senior are members of the Daily's'
editorial board. Livshiz is co-chairman of the
American Movement for Israel.
Y LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
What about
profiling white
Christian men?
TO THE DAILY:
After reading Louis Krane's letter in
the Daily ("What's the big deal with
racial profiling?" 12/3/01) I couldn't
help but feel a tinge'of dismay. Krane
attempts to justify racial profiling on the
basis of protecting national security.
Although I do agree that the U.S. gov-
ernment needs to take measures to
ensure the security of its citizens, I also
feel that to go so far as to profile anyone
and interrogate him/her solely based on
his/her religion or country of origin is
absolutely absurd.
For a country that takes pride in glo-
rious concepts known as freedom, jus-
tice and democracy, it should be
embarrassing that we Americans would
go as far as singling out individuals
merely due to their associations. The
U.S. government needs to take mea-
sures to prevent another Sept. 1 1th, just
as it should take measures to prevent
another Holocaust, Vietnam, and Okla-
homa City. But let us think for a
moment, is all the evil of the world
caused by a Muslim or someone claim-
ing to be Muslim? To be fair, according
to Krane, we would need to single out
all terrorists and the group or religion
they claim to represent, and we would
need to profile all members of that
group to secure the safety of the Amen-
can people.
Those who follow this logic will
soon realize Muslims and Arabs need
not be profiled any more than any other
group or religion. One may recall only a
few months ago, the perpetrator of the
worst terrorist act against the United
States (pre- Sept. I1) was not Muslim or
Arab, but in fact a white Christian ex-
serviceman known to us all as Timothy
McVeigh, dubbed by his lawyer as "the
boy next door." Can we prevent another
McVeigh by profiling all whites, or all
Christians, or anyone who has served in
the U.S. military? Racial profiling is not
the solution, it strips some citizens of
basic human rights while attempting to
secure some others, and indeed it will
only result in more anguish and more
hate crimes. There will always be a bad
egg in the basket, and if we cracked all
our eggs just to find that bad egg, we
would have lost our entire breakfast.
HIBA GHALIB
LSA senior
Goodstein's
column off mark
TO THE DAILY:
Raphael Goodstein grabbed his
bully pulpit and started preaching
against the BCS in his column on Mon-
day, but not all of that criticism was
deserved.
It is true that the BCS is generating a
lot of money for all the teams that play
in it, and this is why it will stay around
past 2005 (when the contract is up).
Currently, the Big Ten is guaranteed to
give slightly more than $1 million to
each school in the Conference (their one
guaranteed berth pays out approximate-
ly $13 million, which is divided evenly),
do you really think that they, or any
other major conference, wants to give
this payday up?
Not a chance, so if they were to
move to a playoff system all six "major
conferences" would demand an auto-
matic bid. That means we have to take
at least eight teams, now then that
sounds a lot like the current system and
all the smaller conferences are going to
do their best to make sure they're repre-
sented. Perhaps the big conferences will
help them (to get more of their teams in
as well, and thus more money in their
pockets) so now we have a possible
playoff schedule of 16 teams. How on
earth are these teams going to be cho-
sen?
One could argue that the winner of
the conference should get an automatic
bid, perhaps that makes sense. Howev-
er, in the past couple years there have
been several occasions on which the
team who won the conference title was
not the highest ranked team (for exam-
ple, in 1998 Ohio State was higher than
Wisconsin who was the official champi-
on and in 2000 we were higher than the
champion, Purdue). What happens in
those cases? Who knows.
The BCS does provide a lot of
excitement in my mind. Did anybody
watch the last couple weekends of foot-
ball? You can't even count the number
of important games that have shaped the
outlook of the championship that have
been played in the last three or four
weeks. I hate to use the cliche, but that
certainly does provide the excitement of
a playoff. Just this past Saturday there
were 3 games which all had a major
effect on the BCS rankings, and all of
them were decided by 2 points! It sucks
that our cable, and the Big Ten's TV
juggernaut kept us from watching some
of them, but that doesn't take away the
fact that this system makes sure the sea-
son is very exciting. Saying that no one
cares about the outcome of the other
bowl games is silly. I know I will cer-
tainly care about the Citrus Bowl, my
friend at Illinois will care about
whichever BC$ bowl they get, as will
my other friend at Florida. But in a play-
off, the OSU-Michigan game wouldn't
have mattered as much to them, and the
Florida-Tennessee game wouldn't have
made a difference to me. This way,
there is always a game from November
on that determines the national champi-
onship.
JEFF ALLOTTA
Engineering junior
Letter writer
quite ignorant
TO THE DAILY:
As I read his letter, I wondered
how educated Louis Krane is/was
about his topic ("What's the big deal
with racial profiling?" 12/3/01). Sept.
11 was a tragedy but it appears people
are using it as an excuse to implement
racist practices in this country. It is so
easy to say, "...because of limited
resources and time..." but I wonder
what would be said if the terrorists
were white American men. After all,
Timothy McVeigh and Eric Rudolph
have indeed proven that they come in
that shade and gender. If that had been
the case in this instance, I wonder if
white American males would wel-
come being interviewed by an F.B.I
agent.
If Krane has been following the
news, I am sure that by now, he would
know that a white American male Tal-
iban has been captured. From his logic,
as a result of limited time and money,
the best approach would be to search
within the white American male com-
munity. Hmmm.
Most minorities would tell you
racial profiling is being used at airports.
But as we know, that did not prevent the
atrocious crimes committed on Sept. 11.
Instead of racial profiling "epsuring our
safety" it violates the 14th Amendment.
I shall not pretend to know anything
about you, Louis Krane, but I doubt you
received any of the letters in question. I
honestly believe that you wouldn't
"whole-heartedly condone such mea-
sures," if indeed you had.
OMENA UBOGU
Rackham
Wolverine Access
working well
TO THE DAILY:
I'd like to thank the people who
worked so hard last week among a lot of
student grumbling and fixed the prob-
lem with Wolverine Access. Right after
the backpack option was announced
several weeks ago, I went in and set my
classes up. When I went to register from
home today (with my dial-up account
connected at 31200 bps), it took a total
of three minutes to register for my five
classes. That's the fastest I've ever reg-
istered, at any university, and certainly
beats the telephone for ease of use.
Again, thanks to the computer folks
who enabled us to register online after
all, rather than standing in line.
LAURA DELFELD
Pharmacy student
Salvation Army
discriminatory
TO THF, DAILY:
I would like to urge all readers of the
Daily to twink twice before giving
money to the Salvation Army this holi-
day season. While the organization per-
forms many good deeds, their policies
regarding gay men, lesbians, bisexuals,
and transgendered people are discrimi-
natory. The Salvation Army has refused
to grant domestic partner benefits to its
employees. This goes against the code
of the city of Ann Arbor and the Univer-
sity. It is cruel and punishes those men
and women who are not heterosexual.
Please look into giving charity to other
organizations this holiday season.
ADAM ROSENWASSE
RC sophomore
Informational Meeting
Are you an African American, Native American
and/or Latino/a undergrad looking for a PAID
summer research experience in Ann Arbor?
If so, you MUST attend this meeting:
the MiChiganabily DisplayT Tea
WHEN?
WHERE?
Thursday, December 61
6:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
MLB, Auditorium 4
COME AND LEARN ABOUT THE FOLLOWING RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP PROGRAMS:
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