0 4A - The Michigan Daily - Monday, March 10, 2003 OP/ED U e £I~tti itIq 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 letters@michigandaily.com EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 LOUIE MEIZLISH Editor in Chief AUBREY HENRETTY ZAC PESKOWITZ Editorial Page Editors 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. NOTABLE QUOTABLE He was the sole candidate." - Journalist Stephen Gibbs, on the Cuban elections, in which Fidel Castro was re-elected, as reported by BBC News. SAM BUTLER THE SOAPBOX pus~n ur yqocici, ioF - o Eng'le, s -- *. Fighting the hopeless fight JON SCHWARTZ Two SIDES To EVERY SCmWART The words con- fused me then, frightened me later, and today, I'm sorry to say that I feel numb to them and other comments of their ilk. They are the reason that I believe the prospects of peace in the Middle East to be hopeless. I was not yet 14 years old, spending the summer of 1995 at the Israel Basketball Academy, a right-wing Orthodox Jewish camp in Israel that focused on basketball instruction and touring the country. I wasn't particularly interested in the poli- tics of the trip - I was there to play bas- ketball. I was the misfit. I wasn't like my peers in terms of politics or religion. But one night I wandered into a conversation that some of my friends were having with one of our counselors, a fundamentalist Yeshiva student named Mo. Needless to say, Mo was not too pleased with Israel's leadership at the time, a government presided over by Yitzhak Rabin. Mo made one comment that I'll never forget: "Someone has to do something about him." Confused and disturbed, I wasn't able to understand at the time how serious Mo was. I didn't know enough about the histo- ry of the region, the profiles of those who came before Rabin and Arafat in the strug- gle for (and sometimes against) peace and the roles that people like Mo had played in manipulating the struggle time and time again. If I had known enough, I would have left the camp immediately. But I didn't,,so I didn't. Four months later, someone did some- thing about Yitzhak Rabin. Though his name was Yigal Amir, you could exchange any bit of his and Mo's ideologies to find the same end. Rabin's assassination was the type of act the Middle East community had seen all too many times. And I don't see an end to such actions in sight. I'm reminded of words used by former Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat in his historic and brave address before Israel's Knesset in 1977: "Before us today lies the appropriate chance for peace. If we are really serious in our endeavor for peace, it is a chance that may never come again. It is a chance that if lost or wasted, the resulting slaughter would bear the curse of humanity and of history." The problems I have with his statement are twofold: Firstly, while he was right in saying that Israel and Egypt had to seize that moment and make peace in the region, the eventual agreement signed at Camp David obviously had little staying power. And secondly, four years after offering the olive branch, Sadat suffered the same fate that would befall Rabin in November 1995. Shot down, not by a foreigner fight- ing for his country's or people's right to freedom, but by his own people in a cow- ardly move to restructure the country's stance toward the peace process. It's the same reason behind the assassination of King Abdullah I of Jordan in 1951, once again, by one of his own people. The chances were lost and wasted, and their slaughter bore the curse of the region's humanity and history. And the chance may never come again. This is why the peace process is hope- less. I see no way that it ever ends with, both sides happy. An Israeli leader who brokers peace by giving up control of Jerusalem will surely suffer the same end as Rabin. There's no doubt about that. And the Palestinian people, who have long showed their distaste for the process by taking it to the streets and the buses, will never accept a deal that does not include Jerusalem. It's not an issue of who's right or wrong. These are simply facts. Arafat and Sharon are pawns. The real power in the region lies in the hands of fundamen- talists who see only black and white, good and evil, absolutely right and absolutely, wrong. It lies with men who speak only with guns and bombs. That's what people don't realize about this issue. Someone who believes the cur- rent struggle to be between Israelis and Palestinians doesn't fully understand its magnitude. There are four groups fighting here and the real trouble comes from the two that are often forgotten - the militant Jews/Israelis and the militant Arabs/Pales- tinians. The fundamentalists who run the country from underground, who are small- est in size but unmistakably largest in impact. These are the leaders. When I think about Mo these days, I wonder what.he's doing. I wonder what his politics are like. I wonder how he reacted on Nov. 4, 1995, when he heard the news that Rabin had been killed. I think about Mo and remember that for quite some time he was, by association, the most powerful person I'd ever known. And that's what scares me. That's what leaves me without hope. Schwartz can be reached atjlsz@unmich.edu. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Honors Commons afair reward for students who participate in rigorous study To THE DAILY: I am disgusted that the Daily would write the editorial, Coffee talk (03/07/03), against the opening of the new Honors Commons. It is about time this University rewarded and praised academic excellence! Honors students (who represent roughly the top tenth percentile of the school) face tougher academic requirements, such as maintaining a minimum 3.2 grade point average to stay in the program and a more intense workload. Each semester, they must take a minimum of two Honors class- es, which entails not only extra but more challenging work. In the last year of the program, they must compose a lengthy Honors thesis to graduate with honors. As an Honors student, all of my papers are graded harder and I am assigned more thought-provoking work. Even with these greater expectations, I love the Honors Program because my professors lead dis- cussion sessions rather than GSIs and I have the opportunity to meet visiting scholars from all over the country each month. It is a learning community within this large university that is not isolated but incorporated into the University's pro- grams. We are not secluded students who associate only with ourselves. Rather, Honors students are some of the most active, who are able to balance schoolwork with chapter meetings, political rallies and theater rehearsal. If the Daily is so upset about Honors students receiving a study room to use, then I expect to see the Daily argue against the use of a special dining room that serves better food for football players or an Olympic-size swimming pool for the swim team that is not open to other students. What the University has done is reward those who are exceptional in their field. Get over it. YASMIN NAGHASH LSA freshman Editorial reveals a cmplete misunderstanding of Honors ComTmons~'s burboses' editorial's implicit charge of elitism. The Hon- ors Program is one of several "learning com- munities" that "make a large university small" and enrich the University overall. Its special mission is to provide an especially intensive intellectual experience to LSA undergraduates who are ready, willing and able to take advan- tage of it. Elitism in the pejorative sense, we believe, is leaving the most demanding liberal arts education to wealthy private institutions. The Perlman Honors Commons is not a student "lounge." The space includes four alcoves in which Honors faculty can meet office hours with their students. It is locat- ed next to seminar rooms so that Honors faculty and students can continue conversa- tions interrupted by the end of class. It will be the site of a series of regularly-sched- uled discussions and other intellectual and cultural events, such as a "philosophy cafe." And, we hope, it will encourage the serendipitous conversation between stu- dents and faculty, and among students themselves, that can significantly deepen the Honors experience. It is not, therefore, a cushy perk: an "uppity measur(e) remi- niscent of Princeton's eating clubs." It is rather a place where faculty and students can pursue the activities that can make the Honors Program more of an intellectual and cultural community. Although other learning communities like the Residential College and Lloyd Hall Scholars Program have dedicated common spaces, the Honors Program has had none. When the Daily asserts that "only a small group of students will be able to take advantage of this facility," it may not realize that the Honors Program includes some 1,800 students. We believe that LSA and the University as a whole are enriched by a strong Honors Program, and we are very grateful to Rick and Judy Perl- man for making the Perlman Honors Com- mons possible. GWEN ARNOLD LSA senior STEPHEN DARWALL University professor ofphilosophy Uncondiioasupportof war in Iraq 'dangerous,' war l-ad sed, too risky TO THE DAILY: Tt has hee.t, or tedinhltters to this of civilian casualties, mass hunger, a refugee crisis, attacks on the Kurdish people from Turkey or even further wars in the region. . But the problem is much wider than Iraq. As French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin noted last Friday, the world remains preoccupied with the dangers of the Israeli- Palestinian crisis, North Korea, and Kashmir. These problems will continue to.plague the world after Iraq even as others will emerge. By pursuing its aggressive policy towards Iraq, the Bush administration has deeply divided the UN Security Council, the NATO alliance, and the rest of the international community. As the United States pushes for a vote on a resolution that would quickly lead to war, we risk turning a disagreement over Iraq into a new divide in international politics. The United States appears to be willing, even eager, to face a lawless world, devoid of effective multilateral institutions, where U.S. military prowess is the solution to every problem. Such a world is not even in our own interests. I applaud France and other nations for courageously confronting this very real threat. ERIc MOBERG LSA sophomore SAFE shows true colors by inviting controversial scholar Finkelstein to 'U' To THE DAILY: I am disgusted and disheartened at the temerity of Students Allied for Freedom and Equality leaders ('Negative reaction' to Finkelstein, SAFE distorts words, facts, 03/07/03). Not only have they unapologeti- cally brought the leader of Islamic Jihad in America (Sami Al-Arian), to campus, but now they are bringing Norman Finkelstein to our campus. Norman Finkelstein has praised Hezbollah and he has said about the Holocaust that "If everyone who claims to be a survivor is one, who did Hitler kill?" He also has said, "I some- times think that American Jewry 'discover- ing' the Nazi Holocaust was worse than its having been forgotten." Does this sound like a serious Holo- caust scholar to you? Furthermore, it is ludicrous for Eric Reichenberger and Ashraf Zahr to declare that "perhaps the greatest living authority on the Holocaust, 0 al A 1"Tf-lDE I