Monday, June 17, 2002 - The Michigan Daily - 5 * LETTERS TO THE EDITOR The scarlet bagel 11m2TmaT MO Ijfr4%J r '~'x. Deitch's opinion is irrelevant to the issue of divestment To THE DAILY I am writing in response to the article "Palestinians ask 'U' to investigate financial support of companies" (06/03/02). Univer- sity Board of Regents Chair Laurence Deitch (D-Bingham Farms) was reported as saying that he supports the Israeli mili- tary and their actions. Although I disagree with what he had to say, his opinion on the Israeli mili- tary's actions is irrelevant with regards to the University's policy regarding its investments. The University's policy states that any investments which are the cause of "moral and ethical" concern to many students of the University should be investigated and if these concerns are found to be legitimate, the University should take the appropriate action to begin divesting from these corpo- rations. Deitch should not factor his opinion of Israel or the Israeli military in his decision. All he should consider is whether many students find these investments to be of concern. If you have been keeping up on events around the University over the past two years, you will have seen that there is a very large number of people that share the same concerns I do over the Uni- versitv's investments and these people are not only Palestinian hut they are also Americans, Africans, Arabs, Muslims, Asians and many more people that I can name. The University should respond as it did when many stu- dents found the investments in South Africa and tobacco compa- nies of moral and ethical con- cern. It should create an advisory committee to investigate these concerns. then resorts to lies sbout Israeli treatment of Christians in order to explain why Christians should not support Israel. It seems that in Zahr's mind if people support Israel, it can only be explained as being the result of some conspir- atorial political alliance or hid- den anti-Semitic motives. In reality, Israel enjoys widespread support as people understand the precarious situation in which Israel finds itself. People under- stand that Israel is fighting a war against a terrorist infrastructure that literally spends its nights devising plans to kill women and children, and its days recruiting 14-year-old kids to implement those plans. People support Israel because they have looked at the historical background and pre- sent day reality of the situation and based on that, have made the conscious decision to support Israel. Zahr concludes by urging American Christians to support the Palestinians so as not to be duped by the Christian right. nevermind making a decision based on an analysis of informa- tion. I would urge everybody, not just Christians, to look at the reality of the situation and form opinions based on the facts and history of the situation, not the rhetoric offered by Zahr. By casually throwing around terms like "ethnic cleansing" and "war crimes" (which demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of what those terms actually mean), Zahr offers much in the way of colorful slogans, but lit- tle substance. YONATAN HEiSLE University aluni Daily staff is both a disgrace and inferior to the State News To THE DAILY: g i RIGT SIDE when my m o 0 h e r applied to one of the elite private prep schools in the state, the interview- er asked her parents if given her last name (which was not McNeil at the time), she was Jew- ish. When they answered yes, the interviewer promptly drew a life size bagel in red ink on the application. Although the interview continued on briefly, with assurances that she was a fine applicant ansd that a decision would be reached after careful consid- eration - it was clear that she would not gain admission. That scarlet bagel, as she would later call it, represented her own personal experience with big- oted admission policies that sought to limit the number of Jews who gained admission to the nation's best schools - a disturbingly common practice at the time. Such policies are, one would expect, remnants from another time. In fact Jews, while only 2 percent of the population, they account for 23 per- cent of the students at Ivy League schools. It would seem we have moved well beyond the vestiges of discrimi- nation in which bright young appli- cants are branded with bagels or other demeaning ethnic markers. But as Judge Danny Boggs noted in his dissent from the recent 6th Circuit Court of Appeals decision, "a significant portion" of the candidates to the University's Law School who are turned down because of the Law School's racial quotas are Jewish applicants. The reason? Because in order to maintain the "critical mass" of less qualified minority students, many of the best applicants are turned away. Apparently being a Jew- ish student is less valuable to the Law School's "diversity" than is an underrepresented minority whose experience is akin to, according to the Law School, that of someone who has attained a physics Ph.D or gained 30 years of professional work experience. The Law School, in their quest to construct entering classes according to ethnic and racial "representation" in the population are very dissatisfied when Jews have stepped well beyond their "allotment" and gained nearly a quarter of all spots at Ivy League schools - to the demise of the "underrepresented." Apparently the Law School will continue to deny admission to students simply because they are Jewish until they can achieve a more accurate "representation" - i.e. around a few percent. What ethnic marker does the Law School admis- sion office draw on Jewish applica- tions? Have they returned to scarlet bagels? Apparently they do not have to. According to the Wall Street Journal, testing companies, including the Col- lege Board, the maker of the Scholas- tic Aptitude Test and many other standardized tests, have begun asking test takers to list their religious faith. They then market this information to colleges and universities who are bent on controlling access by a few specified groups beyond racial classi- fications and some who even actively recruit certain categories. For exam- ple, Vanderbilt University recently announced an "elite strategy" to target Jewish students in order to boost its rankings closer toward Ivy League sta- tus. The "strategy" targets Jews because of their staggering "overrepre- sentation" in the ivy Leagues and the fact that of all reported faiths for the SAT, Jews scored the second highest on average. Admissions officers no longer have to draw red bagels on applications when companies can sell them sophisticated reports. Institutions of higher education have seemingly returned us to a time when applicants are branded according to racial and ethnic categories that weigh far greater upon their chances of admission than their accomplish- ments or talent. It would seem that affirmative action and anti-Semitism have disturbingly similar objectives. It is time to end this madness. KevinMcNeilcan bereachedat kicneil@uniich.edu VIEWPOINT Moral clarity in a time of crisis Zahr's rhea nothing to realities of To THE DAILY: it seems that of Amer Zahr's "The dasgers of C (06/03/02) is should not sup that Jews, in to welcome Christi convenient. Wh about the artic Zahr's blatant a strong feelings conteimpt betw Christians and Zahr refers to quote made by B urges Jews not t Billy Graham is sentative of all ASHRAF ZAHR Once again, the Daily has dis- Engineering senior appointed me. Daily Arts Editor Luke Smith's review of the MTV Movie Awards "The 2002 MTV toric does Movie Awards" (06/10/02) is rep- resentative of the Daily's unpro- expose the fessional and casual attitude N;iar t toward reporting. Regardless of Mi A s the merit of the award show, the comments made were inappro- priate, especially the caption, t the main point "Sarah Michelle gets shown her recent viewpoint place. Rock on JB." While I have lristian Zionism" become used to the Daily's casu- that Christians al attitudes, biased reporting and port Israel, and constant typos, I often wonder urn, should not why the staff does not have more an support. How' pride in its work. Maybe I should at is disturbing just read the State News. le, however, is KRssTAL VARDAMAN ttempt to create LSA senior of distrust and .een pro-Israel pro-Israel Jews. SEND LETTERS TO THE an anti-Jewish EDOfoR TO. lilly Graham and LEERS MICHIGAN o forget it, as ifA somehow repre-- DAILY.C M. Christians. He_ BY ERC StNGER Two weeks ago, a viewpoint wxes written in the Daily, "The dangers of Christian Zionism" (06/03/02) criticizing the strong support Christian conservatives have given to Israel and Israel's war on terrorism. How- ever, this strong support should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the con- servative revolution of the '90s, as many ide- ological conservatives have supported Israel for years due to theirclear vision of morality. After all, Israel is a democratic nation that stands for many of the same freedoms and principals that the United States stands for while the Palestinian Authority is a suppres- sive regime headed by a terrorist. House Majority Leader Dick Armey's (R-Texas) strong support for Israel is totally based on principal, as no person in their right mind can accuse Armey of catering to the Jewish American constituency that gives him very little support. Armey cor- rectly understands that Israel is a sovereign democratic nation that has the right to defend itself from terrorism. U.S. policy should not infringe on Israel's right to reclaim the West Bank and Gaza in order to protect its citizens from the terror that is harvested in these two areas. Jewish American voters need to remind themselves of the Republican leadership's unequivocal support for Israel when they go to the ballot boxes in 2002. The Democratic Party cannot be a sufficient protector of Israel as many of the constituencies of the Democratic Party are ultra-liberals, who are extremely sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. Jewish Americans need to begin sup- porting conservative Republicans like Armey and House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) in order for their pro- Israeli positions to become U.S. policy. If any substantial amount of Jewish Americans supported President Bush in the 2000 elec- tions, Bush would not waiver so much on his Middle East policy as it is difficult for a president to be extremely pro-Israel without receiving the support of Jewish Americans. One can only hope that in the near future Bush changes his policy on the Middle East, as many innocent Israelis continue to be vic- tims of terror. The Palestinian claim to the land of the West Bank and Gaza is unfounded as Israel gained theses two territories through war. The notion of giving land for peace is ridiculous, as no people should be rewarded for terrorism. Yasser Arafat is a terrorist and Israel should never agree to any type of peace settlement that requires dealing with Arafat. Ariel Sharon's most important job as prime minister of Israel is protecting his people and if 1e thinks reclaiming the West Bank and Gaza will eliminate terrorism in his nation, U.S. policy should not stop hint. President Bush can no longer waiver in his Mid-East policy. Bush needs to label Arafat as a terror- ist andlproceed from there. President Bush needs to retreat to his conservative roots and fully support Israel's war on terrorism as other members of his party have. Bush cannot continue to act moderate in order to keep his poll numbers up. Moderates like Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Advisor Con- dolezza Rice need to take a back seat in the administrations foreign policy and hawks like Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wol- fowitz need to take charge. Mid-East turmoil should not stop the United States from invading Iraq and pursuing other military operations in the war on terror. President Bush should not be afraid to act like a true conservative since he was elected as one. Republicans put Bush on die ballot because he was a conservative, not a moderate like Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Although President Bush has not been staunchly pro-Israel in his foreign policy, it needs to be noted that mainstream Ameri- can conservatism is pro-Israel, Radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are unabashed in their support for Israel and Republican Congressional leaders con- tinually voice their support for Israel's cause. The fact that Israel is a Western Democracy with elected leaders is enough for conservatives to stand solidly with Israel, even though most American Jews do not vote for conservative politicians. It is time for Jewish Americans to move across the aisle and support the political party that will protect Israel. Hopefully, Jewish Americans will remember that it was Presi- dent Clinton who brought Arafat to this country and legitimized him as a leader. Armey and DeLay will continue to be Israel's two greatest allies in American pol- itics and it is time that Jewish Americans take this into consideration when they vote. Singer is an LSA sophomore.