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: m