4 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, March 6, 2002 OP/ED Gcbe irbt1Vit u Itilg 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 letters@michigandaily.com N A NOTABLE QUOTABLE CHIP CULLEN GRIND IN G T Ni\N EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 JON SCHWARTZ Editor in Chief JOHANNA HANINK Editorial Page Editor Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of the majority of the Daily's editorial board. All other articles, letters and cartoons do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily. W..It is, at best, inappropriate and, at worst, malicious to describe what my colleagues and I are doing as lacking relevance." Sprinrerok'... ... Ana ourDas LWer. i! k V r/r V A ~I jl [, - Ted Koppel, in an op-ed piece published in yesterday's New York Times, in response to ABC's efforts to replace "Nightline" with David Letterman's "Late Show." -==..= ~ -f64601 ~C4( ..LE 3.O2cbecr- JW.At) cool The spectre of fairness is haunting the free traders NICK WOOMER BACK T0 THE WOOM few weeks ago, Imposing high tariffs to protect American they'll always get the same answer from Treasury Secre- steel or allowing the glorious free market the free traders: "You just don't under- tary Paul to sort these problems out at what almost stand, all we need is less regulation, more O'Neill, discussing the everyone agrees will be a horrible cost. privatization, stronger protections of Enron collapse, noted This means that the free traders will property rights andfreer trade!" that "Companies come soon find themselves in a rather delicious This is the "genius of capitalism"? No and go. It's part of the Catch 22. European leaders have already thank you. genius of capitalism - pledged to challenge any attempt by the The point here is not necessarily that people get to make good United States to impose any sort of signif- everyone should support imposing tariffs decisions or bad deci- icant tariff on imported steel through the on steel imports. The point, rather, is that sions and they get to pay the conse- World Trade Organization's shadowy and we should listen to Paul O'Neill: The col- quences or enjoy the fruits of their undemocratic legal processes. The people lapse of Enron and Argentina and the Cal- decisions." of say, Cleveland, are unlikely to take ifornia energy crisis should not be viewed Comments like O'Neill's are typical kindly to the idea that a group of unelect- as aberrations, but symptoms of a greater fuzzy free-trader talk. Sorry all you ruined ed WTO bureaucrats now have more say systemic problem, a problem O'Neill Enron employees and stockholders, it's in U.S. trade policy than W. or Congress. euphemistically calls "the genius of capi- nothing personal, it's just 'the genius of And if the free trade ideologues emerge talism." capitalism!' from this battle triumphant, Americans are Now we all get to bear witness to the For some time to come, the recipients unlikely to sit back idly and watch as the "genius of capitalism" work its ruinous of such insipid excuses will be steelwork- economy of say, West Virginia, is slowly magic on American steelworkers, pension- ers and retired steelworkers. Last Thurs- swallowed by the anonymous machina- ers and the local economies that rely on day, tens of thousands of steelworkers and tions of global capitalism. steel production. their allies rallied in Washington, D.C. to Do the free traders really think this Apologists for global capitalism will promote legislation that would place a 40 country is just going to nod its collective soon find themselves coming head to head percent tariff on almost all foreign steel head solemnly and reassure itself that with Americans' more noble populist sen- products. The reason is that the American "this really is for the best"? They must, timents, notably the American people's steel industry is being strangled by super- and they had better pray (after all, so deep sense of fairness. While it is certain- cheap imported steel - resulting in 31 many of them think praying makes a dif- ly debatable as to how to best deal with domestic steel manufactures declaring ference) that working Americans are actu- the crisis in the American steel industry, bankruptcy since the Asian economic cri- ally just members of some big, dumb, only the crassest individual would suggest sis in 1998. masochistic herd ready to prostrate them- that it's fair that hard working American No one doubts that the collapse of the selves before Unfettered Global Trade. steelworkers should lose their livelihoods American steel industry will mean the loss The steel industry, of course, is just the or that pensioners should see their nest- of thousands of the best jobs in the United beginning. As the regulations and tariffs eggs dry up overnight. States' manufacturing sector - a loss that come crashing down, visions of laissez It would appear, then, that a spectre i* will reverberate throughout the entire faire-topia will become even clearer: More haunting the free traders: The spectre of economy (particularly in the rust belt Enrons, more California-esque energy fairness. states). So the debate over what to do with crises, more Argentinas, more inequality, American steel basically revolves around ,more polution and weaker unions. When >>Nick Woomer can be reached"t which is the least bad of two alternatives: people complain about these problems, nwoomer@umich.edu. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 0 Protestors wrong to blame only Israel for Conflict in West Bank, Gaza To THE DAILY: In regards to the latest wave of public support on this campus for Palestinians, I have only a few questions for those who took to the Diag in protest. First, many of you rightly declared that the violence must end, for who would ever want war and the death and destruction that come with it? However, I find it hypocritical to put all blame squarely on Israel, particularly in wake of the latest suicide bombing over the weekend of Orthodox Jews leaving syna- gogue. How can you claim to advocate peace, while not admitting that Palestinian terrorists and the Palestinian Authority have also done a great deal to undermine the peace process? Second, if statehood, self-determina- tion, and all other inalienable rights of human beings are being to the Palestinians, why hasn't the PA done more to secure their independence? There is no military that has been estab- lished to fight for a separate state; the armed forces of the Palestinian people consist of a number of terrorist factions that simply kill Israeli civilians (and fight each other, no less). There also has not been a declaration of statehood; one would think that if Yasser Arafat was truly seri- ous about a Palestinian state, he would have declared the West Bank and Gaza Strip to be the independent state of Pales- tine by now. Again, in light of this lack of effort by Arafat, coupled with the entrenched cor- ruption of the PA and their inability to con- trol terrorism within their territories, it is impossible to simply blame Israel for the violence. Lastly, while the Palestinians do have legitimate claims to statehood, why has this surge of national identity come only since 1967? It was not as if there was a country called Palestine with a Palestinian government that was overthrown by a for- eign nation. In fact, the entire country - ancient Israel, historic Palestine, etc. - did not have self-rule since 63 BC until 1948, when the State of Israel was estab- While it does not nullify that need, I was just curious as to why it suddenly arose in 1967. ELI SEGALL LSA sophomore Media portrayal of Palestinians as 'barbaric terrorists' misguided TO THE DAILY: The general campus community tends to either feel very passionate about the Arab-Isreali conflict or they are generally apathetic. The Daily reported yesterday in Palestinian protesters call for end to fighting that over 100 members of our campus com- munity gathered in the blistering cold on Monday to help spread the word of ending the violence. The surrounding media has been generally biased in their coverage of the conflict. I am proud of the campus community for voicing the truth. Despite media portrayal, Palestinians are not barabaric terrorists. They are an oppressed people struggling for their rights and liberties. Their land has been stripped away from them, and they are being told that they have no right to return. Their lives have been destitute and impoverished over the past few decades. When women and children die in the relentless attacks, we hear from the Israeli army, "We are sorry, we thought they were Palestinian militants." When their homes are demol- ished, we hear from the Israeli army, "We are sorry, we thought the homes were abandoned." When will it stop? Ariel Sharon yester- day said, "The aim is to increase the num- ber of losses on the other side. Only after they've (Palestinians) been battered will we be able to conduct talks." With atti- tudes such as these, I fear that the violence will only continue. Is he waiting for all of the Palestinians to be wiped out before he has these negotiations? The 53 years that the Israelis have been suppressing and bat- tering the Palestinians must end. By sup- porting those that spread the truth, such as those that did on Monday, only then can we educate ourselves and potentially save the lives of the innocent. BRENDA ABDELALL throws around the word occupation in ref- erence to the Palestinian Israeli land dis- pute. Through the word occupation and throughout his article Zahr implies that Israel is some bloodthirsty nation that invaded Palestine in an effort to kill the Palestinians and take over their land. This could not be further from the truth. Zahr fails to address how the land became "occupied" in the first place. The fact is that after the United Nations partition Israel was immediately attacked by the sur- rounding Arab nations, in an effort to erad- icate the entire nation. Israel won and tried to build a country only to be attacked again by the surrounding Arab nations again in 1967. It was during the 1967 war that Israel was forced to defend itself by going into the Golan heights, Gaza and the West Bank. After Israel won the war its government wanted to give back the west bank and Gaza. However at the time the Palestinians refused to acknowledge the existence of the State of Israel on any level so there was no one for the Israeli's to give the land back to. As another course of action the Pales- tinians decided to get back "their land" by perpetrating acts of terror within Israel. So is the land "occupied" as Zahr puts it? I don't believe that occupied is the right term. When the Palestinians refused to acknowledge Israel and get back their land in 1967, it seems to me that they forfeited some of their rights, certainly the right to try and regain it through the murder of Israel civilians. It seems to me that Zahr believes that Israel's mere existence is con- sidered an occupation of Palestinian lands. He should address how Israel acquired that land in the first place and reassess what the word occupation really implies TALI BLANCHARD LSA sophomore LETTERS POLICY The Michigan Daily welcomes letters from all of its readers. Letters from University students, faculty, staff and administrators will be given priority over others. Letters should include the writer's name, college and school year or other University affiliation. The Daily will not print any letter containing statements that cannot be veri- 0 {':> 77:7: 77: J1 Ad