0 4 - The Michigan Daily - Friday, October 18, 2002 OP/ED ate £ irigun &ziIg 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 letters@michigandaily.com 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. NOTABLE QUOTABLE You must make the assumption that al- Qaida is in an execution phase and intends to strike us both here and overseas." - CIA Director George Tenet, in a speech given on Thursday justifying his bureau's counter-terrorism actions, as quoted in yesterday's Washington Post. 5 each i' SAM BUTLER THE SOAPBOX ...-. o p dt e1A - aAt~ !wft .4- (d 0 pecFc.4- be.+c o - \Cke-m is , Menc aS~i% w i+ n ck 1OvNi, oal C04-40v' one S'!Ze iksaIl louS'j T -sW 101/!! Wherever we stand, we stand together DAVID HORN HORNOGRAPHY n the day I saw the first shirt I saw a problem. Last winter, Jewish 3 students on our cam- pus surfaced in blue T- shirts that read, "Wherever we stand, we stand with Israel." The shirts also displayed an Israeli flag. I am Jewish, and was asked by both Jews and non-Jews why I not only refused to wear one, but why I was adamantly opposed to such an effort of solidarity. My response, quite simply, is that the "effort of solidarity" supported on college campuses by Hillel, the American Israel Pub- lic Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Ameri- can Jewish Committee (AJC) and other Jewish organizations, is counterproductive, hypocritical and propagandizing. Am I apathetic? Anti-Zionist? Anti- Semitic? No, no and no. But these shirts exemplify the current state of Jewish (and Palestinian) thinking in this country, which is irrational, frustrated, and reactionary. A campus like ours should be invigorated by bilateralism, cooperation and dialogue. Instead it is infected by anger and stubbornness on both sides of the Israel- Palestine debate. The shirt should be a neutral color. It should display both an Israeli and a Palestin- ian flag. It should read, "Wherever we stand, we stand together." And where do we stand now? We stand in Ann Arbor, on a liberal campus and in a shared community. Standing together should be easy - at least easier than it is in Jerusalem. But how do we stand? We stand opposed and irate, with swords drawn and ears deaf. We should be ashamed. I believe that our campus has reached this discouraging nadir because campus leaders too quickly and easily follow the examples of their respective political leaders. Yasser Arafat's stubbornness and hawkish policies do not excuse or justify the same from pro- Palestinian leaders here at Michigan. Ariel Sharon's stubbornness and hawkish policies do not excuse or justify the same from pro- Israeli and Zionist student leaders. The men in control in the Middle East are desperate politicians, and neither Arafat nor Sharon is a worthy role model for anyone interested in peace. Their actions are deplorable; oars do not have to be. The divestment conference has come and gone, and the opposition to it has delivered its message. Was the conference motivated by anti-Semitism? I do not know. The argu- ments I have heard from divestment support- ers sound inconsistent and poorly developed. What I do know is that both sides feel they are being suppressed, discriminated against and bullied. The New York Times printed a statement by the AJC this week condemning the growing number of instances of discrimi- nation and intimidation toward Jewish stu- dents on college campuses. You know what? Arab students in particular, and Palestinian students specifically, have faced that for years, and face it still. The language of cooperation and dialogue - of acknowledging differences and recog- nizing similarities - seems like a forgotten memory. The worst thing that happened at Camp David was not that the Palestinians were insulted or that the peace process was fatally impaired. The worst thing that hap- pened at Camp David was the culture of dis- trust and frustration that grew out of it among the entire Jewish and Palestinian communities. The few of us left in the peace camp know that Sharon needs to halt and reverse his settlement policy, and that both sides need to elect leadership that is serious about peace. We know that President Bush (or, if he fails to do so, a future President) needs to stop appeasing the American Jewish commu- nity with his blind support of a dreadful Israeli regime. We know that Hamas and Islamic Jihad (or their kin) are not going away, but that sanctions need to be imposed if the Palestinian Authority cannot curb the Intifada for the sake of the peace process. That's what we know. What we hope for now and in the future, in our own community - is a commitment to dialogue and an end to accusatory propaganda. The divestment conference was a waste of resources - resources that would have been better spent creating a forum for building trust and foster- ing cooperation. I have heard extremists on both sides suggest that such efforts are tired and futile, sprung from Rabin-era idealism and naivete. That may be. But if the alternative is fin- ger pointing, saber rattling and neglect toward understanding, then I'll stand alone in my "We stand together" T-shirt. David Horn can be reached at hornd@umich.edu. VIEWPOINT SAFE needs to dissociate itself from extremists BY JUSTIN SHUBOW Palestinians have a long history of picking the worst of allies. First there was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem's attempted alliance with Hitler. Then there was the Palestinian Libera- tion Organization's long friendship with the Soviets. Then Yasser Arafat made the mistake of siding with Saddam Hussein when he invaded Kuwait, which instigated the Kuwaiti government to expel the 300,000 Palestinians living there. And, if the North Korean Central News Agency is to be believed, just this month the Palestinian ambassador to that country pledged that "The Palestinian people and leadership will remain faithful to the bonds of comradely friendship and coopera- tion with the workers' party and people" of the Stalinist state. (The quotation is the "news" agency's paraphrase of him.) Although the Palestinian leadership's his- tory of misjudgment and moral turpitude is well known, what is more distressing is that many of their same flaws are being mirrored by the most vocal pro-Palestinian group on campus, the so-called Students Allied for Freedom and Equality. Putting aside their ill-advised divestment conference, perhaps the strongest evidence is that on Wednesday Rabbi David Weiss of Neturei Karta spoke on campus at their behest. No doubt the student organizers' intention was to offer an example of a religious Jew who opposes Zionism, but it is unlikely that they or most students on this campus know the full story behind the group he represents. Founded in the 1930s, Neturei Karta, which means "Guardians of the City" (that is, Jerusalem) in Aramaic, is a fringe group of fer- vently Orthodox Jews who oppose Zionism on theological grounds. Largely concentrated in Jerusalem, their membership is miniscule, num- bering merely in the hundreds (out of a world Jewish population of 14 million). They believe that a Jewish state can be founded only after the coming of the messiah. Viewing Israel's exis- tence as a heresy, they actively seek its destruc- tion, and have long supported the PLO. In fact, their friendship with the PLO dates back to 1974, when the group's leader, Rabbi Moshe Hirsch, met with Arafat shortly after his notorious speech to the United Nations in which he waved a pistol and said, "The differ- ence between the revolutionary and the terror- ist lies in the reason for which each fights. Whoever stands by a just cause and fights for liberation from invaders and colonialists can- not be called terrorist." (Apparently Arafat believes that blowing up schoolchildren isn't terrorism if it is for a noble end. One wonders if the members of SAFE agree, for the organi- zation quite conspicuously has refused to con- demn suicide bombings.) Currently, Rabbi Hirsch is Minister of Jewish Affairs (a purely honorary position) in the Palestinian National Authority, which perhaps says more about the PNA than Neturei Karta. Another of the group's strange bedfellows is Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, a man who has talked of "synagogues of Satan" and has called Judaism a "gutter religion." In February 2000, Rabbi Weiss appeared at a press conference to support Farrakhan, Fawn- ing over the bigot, he said, "All those who say they are Jews who speak ill of Mr. Farrakhan are not Jews." But not only is Neturei Karta's hatred of Israel hugely out of step with the rest of the Jewish community, including the fervently Orthodox, the group is so extreme that it actual- ly blames the Jews for Holocaust, which it views as God's punishment for Zionism. In a March 2000 press conference Rabbi Weiss him- self said that the Holocaust was divine punish- ment for Jews' abandonment of the Torah. Those who attended Rabbi Weiss' talk on Wednesday had an opportunity to witness the group's lunacy for themselves. He said that Zionists are worse than Nazis, and that the Unit- ed Nations is a work of Satan, and skillfully avoided answering a question asking him if he opposed Palestinian suicide bombings. Needless to say, members of Neturei Karta are pariahs within the Jewish community. Treating them as representative of Jewish opin- ion or religion is like holding up David Kore- sh's Branch Davidians as typical Christians. It is ironic that although Muslim students frequently complain that Americans misun- derstand and misportray their religion, it was an utter ignorance of Judaism that was demonstrated by SAFE's hosting of Rabbi Weiss. Moreover, they were apparently unaware of Neturei Karta's fundamental beliefs, for they embarrassingly failed to realize that the religious group actually does support having a Jewish state in all of the land of Israel, including presumably all of Jerusalem and the West Bank - just not yet (since the messiah has not come). Do pro-Palestinian students really wish to associate themselves with people who blame the Holocaust on the Jews and seek the destruction of Israel? Surely they can express their message without supporting extremists, crackpots, and lunatics - unless, of course, such people accurately reflect the students' opinions. If that is the case, if what they truly believe is that Israel has no right to exist, if what they ultimately want is a Palestine from the Jordan to the sea, then they should quit their pussyfooting and say so. If they reject extremism and lunacy, however, then they should heed the advice that has long escaped the Palestinian leadership: Choose your allies carefully. Shubow is doctoral student in philosophy. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Good journalism starts with getting the facts right, ends with admitting mistakes TO THE DAILY: line "German presidential election proves close" was plainly wrong. The report concerned an election for the German parliament, which had been held the previous day. The German presi- dency is a representative post and the German electorate does not directly cast votes to fill this position. On Oct. 3, the headline "Malaria gene in mosquitoes found" was equally wrong. cially counterproductive in the editorial process of a good newspaper. I do not want to believe that the hard working staff of The Michigan Daily thinks it is OK to be wrong and that nobody cares whether the facts are correct or not. I understand that the making of The Michi- gan Daily takes a lot of work and dedication. However, please make sure that the product is one we all1 can be nroud of. F . CL.t ,L1 1,1,.G6~ f :.l itL+Vk _ixvxl.E:_7.4xGa.#' rA74ss:A, 1[14V ?~ . Vtt r Q AlYYAX AIVIy 4o it