LETTER TO THE EDITOR
The Michigan Daily - Monday, July 12, 2004 - 5
Imagine this: "President Kerry"
SUHAEL MOMIN AN Au.TRNATIE SPN
Israel needs wall to
protect itself
against terror
TO THE DAILY:
Imagine that continuously, for
four years, your home was attacked
by suicide bombers, snipers and
bombs. Would you allow this to con-
tinue on forever? Or find a safe way
to secure your house from attacks?
Israel has chosen the latter.
One cannot legitimately attack
the necessity of the security fence to
maintain Israeli security and protects
its citizens against the continuous
threat of Palestinian terror. However,
Fadi Kiblawi seems to think that the
security fence doesn't work in keep-
ing Israel safe ('U' alum arrested for
protest in West Bank, 7/6/04). Howev-
er, the fence works very well in pro-
tecting the lives of all Israeli citizens
from the Palestinian terror that has
been destroying the country for its
entire existence.
The security fence saves innocent
Israeli lives, whether they are Arab,
Jewish or Christian, from heing
blown up in restaurants, shopping
malls or at universities. In the year
since the northern portion of the
Wfence was finished, the amount of
completed Palestinian terrorist
attacks in that area has fallen hy 90
percent, and the amount of victims
has decreased by 70 percent. All this
time, the amounts of attempted
attacks hy the Palestinians continue
to increase. The right of a country to
protect its citizens, which this securi-
ty fence doesjutifies its existence.
While the plight of the Palestin-
ian people is a horrible one, and it is
unfortunate that they are inconve-
nienced by the fence, the poor and
selfish Palestinian leadership needs
to make a larger attempt at halting
terrorism and providing for its own
people. Yasser Arafat, instead of
providing plumbing, electricity, hos-
pitals and schools for his people,
lives in a multi-million dollar com-
pound, has hundreds of millions of
dollars of foreign aid stashed in for-
eign banks and has his wife and
daughter living on $100,000 a
month in Paris. All this while his
people starve and resort to terrorism
to achieve what their leadership
won't give them. Israel has tried to
achieve peace with her neighbors
for many years, yet the Palestinian
leadership has fought back legiti-
mate and fair agreements at every
opportunity, most recently at Camp
David in 2000. Instead of engaging
in this peace agreement, they began
the newest round of almost four
years of Palestinian terrorism on
Israeli society.
The fence can be taken down in
a day if the terrorism stops, and
when that joyful day comes, it will
be taken down. Until then, Israel
will continue its right to protect
itself from the daily threat of ter-
rorism against all of its citizens. A
fence can be torn down, but terror
victims can never be brought back.
ALANA KUHN
LSA ssphsinsre
Co-chairAmerica Memrnest //
Israel
will say it: John
Kerry can win this
election. Inconclu-
sive polls aside, Kerry
has some real advan-
tages on Bush, not the
least of which are his
domestic plans and his
running mate. If Kerry
manages to shift the
focus of this election away from the end-
less referendum on Iraq and the inane "val-
ues debate,' he can hit Bush where Bush is
weakest: the domestic policy front.
The Bush team has played a smart but
risky game. It has taken flashy issues such
as war and national security, and elevated
them, front-and-center. Commander-in-
chief George W. Bush has declared war
on terror, liberated the Iraqi people, made
America safer and stabilized the world by
deposing a lunatic with(out) weapons of
mass destruction. This fixation on inter-'
national issues, however, has come at a
cost: Domestically, Bush hasn't done any-
thing impressive. His sole economic poli-
cy has been the institution of tax cuts, his
major healthcare initiative has been a pre-
scription drug benefit that helps pharma-
ceuticals more than either seniors or
taxpayers and his flagship education plan
(No Child Left Behind) isn't even ade-
quately funded. His pet project, a Consti-
tutional amendment banning gay
marriage, is lip service to the loony Right.
For Kerry, an opportunity exists to define
and promote a John Kerry agenda that
can draw support independent of the
"Anybody-but-Bush" sentiment.
With international policy, Kerry and
Bush are at odds about details. Bush want-
ed the war in Iraq, Kerry voted to authorize
it. Bush was supportive of the June 28
transfer of power, so was Kerry. Bush does-
n't like evildoers; Kerry shares a similar
sentiment, even though he might refer to
them in a more technical manner as "ter-
rorists." The finely drawn line between the
two is that Kerry wants the cooperation of
allies and he thinks he can get it, while
Bush wants the cooperation of allies and
has shown he can't. The Bush foreign poli-
cy has mired the United States in a horrible
international mess, but Bush thinks he's
right and Kerry has to face reality: pulling
out of Iraq unilaterally and immediately
would be disastrous. The result, inevitably,
is that both plan to stay in Iraq. With Ralph
Nader launching his ego trip (candidacy),
Kerry has to worry about liberals breaking
with the Democrats and tossing the elec-
tion to Bush. In the foreign policy arena, if
the best Kerry can do is to adopt a subtle
rendition of Bush's policy, he has to define
himself elsewhere.
Case-in-point: healthcare. Essentially,
Kerry rescinds Bush's tax cut to all those
making over $200,000 a year. He uses this
extra $631 billion over 10 years to fund his
healthcare plan, estimated to cost a little
over $650 billion over the same period. The
income threshold for Medicaid is raised, so
many working-class families become eligi-
ble for government healthcare, and the gov-
ernment agrees to pay 75 percent of any
healthcare costs in excess $50,000. Paul
Krugman, economics professor at Prince-
ton and columnist for the New York Times,
has argued that the plan will not only drive
down everyone's premiums by about 10
percent, but also adequately cover millions
of families who make too much to qualify
for Medicaid but not enough to afford pri-
vate insurance. In his own words, "This is a
truly good idea ... Mr. Kerry's plan would
help far more people than it would hurt."
Bush, by comparison, has yet even to artic-
ulate a plan for providing healthcare to all.
Potential president Kerry also has a
trump card: Senator John Edwards. Repub-
licans have good reason to be scared;
Cheney vs. Edwards is an unfair fight.
Edwards revels in front of cameras,
Cheney dislikes campaigning. Cheney is
associated with Halliburton; Edwards is
associated with the working class. Edwards
has energy; Cheney has heart problems.
Already, Edwards has invigorated the tick-
et: Kerry has been seen laughing at recent
campaign stops! Republicans are panicking
- Edwards was clearly a good choice.
With the President on the defensive
about Sept. 11, the CIA and the Iraq war, a
Democratic victory in November seems
possible. Riding last week's wave of good
press, it is now up to Kerry and Edwards to
find their issues, sell their plans and fight
this campaign on their terms.
Momin can be reachedat
smomin@umich.edu.
No friends in City Hall
ELLIOTT MALLEN IbATNAlI EXUBERANCE
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SAM BUTLER T fE SOAPBOX
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Ann Arbor City
Council. A
harmless little
enclave that deals with
harmless little issues.
Why should we, as
students with busy
schedules and no
intentions of staying
here after graduating,.
care one damn about what they do? We
have no interest in heated debates about
when garbage pick-up day ought to be.
Few among us have fiery opinions about
the Machiavellian maneuverings of the
City Joint Caucus (aside from the obvious
jokes its name provokes). I'd venture to
guess that most students here don't even
know who our mayor is, let alone how to
pronounce his name. Local government is
for the aged, the feeble, the trivial and the
dull. The sad fact is, City Council members
take advantage of this student apathy by
passing legislation that negatively affects
students without fear of reprisal. The recent
proposal banning porch couches is one
example of how the Ann Arbor City Coun-
cil pushes an anti-student agenda with rela-
tive impunity.
The voting districts of Ann Arbor are
gerrymandered to ensure that students will
never get a seat on the City Council. The
city is split into pie-shaped wedges, with
each containing a sliver of the student-
dominated downtown and a much larger
chunk of the surrounding homeowner
strongholds. Each wedge elects a City
Council member, meaning students never
have enough numbers in any individual
wedge to field a pro-student candidate. A
homeowner's most valuable asset is his
home, and he will fight anything that could
potentially lower the value of that asset
(like living close to rowdy, unkempt stu-
dents). Members of the Council all favor
the more permanent homeowners over
transient students, leading to legislation
like the ludicrous couch porch ban.
The idea that students can't even get
their own City Council member suggests
that they are but a small minority, and this
simply is not true. Of Ann Arbor's 114,024
citizens, 39,031 are students. Renters out-
number homeowners 55 percent to 45 per-
cent, putting homeowners in the minority.
The college feel of Ann Arbor is further
reflected in the fact that the 45 percent
home ownership rate is significantly lower
than the Michigan average of 74 percent.
The relatively small number of property
owners in the city makes their domination
of the Council all the more absurd. There's
no doubt that Ann Arbor would not be
nearly as prosperous if it weren't for the
University. Without students, there would
be no South University. There would be no
football games drawing tens of thousands
of fans into the city in the fall. Sprawl
would surely have taken a much greater toll
if there weren't thousands of students liv-
ing and spending money in the city center.
Property owners would have you believe
that students are a blight on an otherwise
pure city. In reality, we're a blight that's
holding this town together.
The students vs. homeowners divide is
not the expected Democrat versus Republi-
can battle we've come to expect between
the young and the old. The very people
who want to ruin what little pleasant
Michigan weather we get in the summer by
taking away our porch furniture are the
same people who most likely have a "Jobs
Not War in 2004" sign in their immaculate-
ly manicured lawns. They'll gladly vote for
Kerry, march in one of the more main-
stream peace rallies, and support striking
Borders workers. Just don't ask them to sit
idly while their student neighbors enjoy
their upholstered furniture outside, poten-
tially driving their property values down
for living in close vicinity to such riff-raff.
Any sense of camaraderie between stu-
dents and homeowners that comes from
shared liberal values is overridden as soon
as property values come into play.
Seeing as students lack the power to
vote City Council members out of office,
more creative methods are required if stu-
dents are to defeat the proposed ban. One
person I talked to suggested we camp out
on couches outside the next City Council
meeting on July 19. Others have suggested
burning these couches on the steps of City
Hall - East Lansing riot-style. One jittery,
shifty-eyed man I spoke with at the Fleet-
wood fervently suggested we burn the City
Council members themselves. Whatever
students decide to do in response to the pro-
posed ban could be prevented if students
had the ability to vent their frustration with
the homeowners' associations through vot-
ing. Until that day comes, students have no
choice but to find other ways to vent.
Mallen can be reached at
emmallen@umich.ed.