Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 5, 1973)
East teach-in presents varied info On last Thursday night the Student Unions Support Israel Com mittee sponsored a Middle East teach-in at 138 Commonwealth. The speaker was Morton Jacobs, professor of English at the Union College. His specialties are Mid-East literature and linguistics. Jacobs spent six months in the Mid-East in 1969 and 1970. Jacobs began by discussing the mood on his campus at the time he returned from Israel in spring, 1970. “All of a sudden, Cambodia blew up and nobody on my campus touched ground for the rest of the term.” He also spent a large amount of time criticizing the organizers of teach-ins and those who come to them. He stated that everyone talks a lot but there is no evidence that they have read anything about the subject or that they will read about what others say. He told his audience “For God’s sake, if this is a teach-in go home and read something.” The professor claimed that many teach-ins set bad examples, leaving people confused and not knowing whose word to trust. He added that, “It is a sign of the times.” By JOHN EARL OfJhe_Emeralril___ Jacobs spoke on a wide range of Mid-East related subjects, from how it is influenced by the Watergate crisis to how it is affected by the two big superpowers, the U.S. and Russia. Jacobs claimed that Watergate made Israel very nervous. “You have no idea how nervous Watergate makes friends of Israel. How nervous Vietnam does. There’s so much confusion all around. When I was in Israel I had to convince a colonel or two that Vietnam was not on our borders.” However, Jacobs questions just how good a friend the U.S. has really been to Israel. “Has anybody really read what we did and how accidentally and absent-mindedly we did it in 1948? ” The professor said it was not enough for Americans to say they recognize Israel and said he wanted more hard-headedness from the UJS. and less talk. He criticized the proposed McGovem-Hatfield amendment as being “dreadfully redundant. The only American troops that landed in the Middle East in this century were to protect Christian Moslems from Lebanese Moslems, and that’s the only kind of landing I think America would ever embark upon.” The only insurance the people of Israel have, according to Jacobs, “is that Mrs. Meir has not announced that she is in a box.” He added that tomorrow we may know if the U.S. has done any good, that it was too hard to tell from the last-minute news reports. But he defended recent actions taken by the U.S. to meet Soviet escalation because the escalation was clearly there before we got there with dead men all over the Suez.” Jacobs pointed out that it was fashionable these days to think of U.S. foreign policy decisions as always being in the wrong, but the evidence shows that it isn’t always the case. He said that the Arabs have been known to run out of soldiers but never to have their arms supply rim dry. Jacobs claimed that Israel did not get the kind of support from the U.S. that Russia gave Egypt, for better or for worse. “So much for detente as it relates to the Mid-East situation, he said. Jacobs accused the Egyptians of always wanting to discuss discussion only after Israel has pulled back to the old borders, which would put Israel in a dangerous position, surrounded by Arab coun tries with no buffer zones. He claimed that the Israelis were not a people greedy for war, but that they were not about to give up their land, and that they would get tougher and tougher. On the role of oil in the Mid-East situation Jacobs claimed that if there were no oil involved the two big super-powers would not be in volved. He admitted that he may have been wrong in the past to think that oil had more influence on the American government than American Jewry. He stated, however, that it has had an effect on Japan, which must import a substantial portion of its oil supplies. The professor pointed out that there are no Datsuns in Israel. Jacobs also said that the Russians are a major oil producer and supply oil to Israel. He suggested that the Soviets could have large oil supplies in Siberia, which would be good in easing tensions in Japan. On the Palestinian refugees Jacobs said that he recognizes Palestinians. “Palestinians exist,’’ he stated, adding that everybody knew they did. “I recognize Palestinians. If sometimes the old guard, like Golda Meir, says they don’t, they are being a little quaint.’’ It was no exaggeration, according to Jacobs, to say that it is the Arab countries, not Israel, who have ignored the refugee problem. Jacobs claimed that when Israel was born it stated that refugee lands would be restored “once we’ve come to the table. Last night on television Mr. Sadat, smiling victoriously over the skulls of millions, said he could wipe out these people and that he could almost not restrain his generals from renewing battle, and he said they will never sit at the table. The clock winds on.’’ Jacobs claimed that only Jordan, to its credit, gave refugees citizenship, and that they were ignored by the other Arab countries. He wondered why there was no Palestinian government in exile, stating that he would recognize it if there were. He accused Egypt of tabling the motion everytime it came up. “Wonder of wonders, Egypt doesn’t know what to do with it.” Of the two super-powers Jacobs said, “I’m very nervous about giants and the way they step around this world. He also said that “In absence of giants there would be no clear and absolute solution. But you know what they do? They give you toys to play with. That kill* Without the toys these people (Arabs and Israelis) would be disliking each other but not be killing one another so smoothly.” And he added that “everywhere giants tread the little Dean If crumble ” s 1 I Wilderness slide program planned One of the more unique North American wilderness ex- ■: peditions of recent times will be the subject of a slide program :j sponsored by the Outdoor Program at 7 p.m. tonight in 150 :j science. \ Last February, four Idaho State University (ISU) students i embarked on a month-long 200 mile cross country ski tour over :■ the Idaho Primitive Area. It was the first such winter expedition :■ in this preserved wilderness. Eon Watters, expedition coor- \ dinator, will present a program of slides, music and com- •: mentarv describing this trek. “Wnat we saw,” Watters said, “is nature’s unique sane- :■ tuary. It belongs not to man but to the mountains. There’s :■ probably only one other place in the U.S. where you could spend \ 30 days crossing a wilderness area—Alaska.” •: The trip followed a course through the sub-zero tem peratures of the Big Horn Crags, over Snowshoe Summit and : down into the Salmon River’s Middle Fork. The slide show in- : eludes the first winter pictures of the ice-country’s spectacular \ Big Horn Crags. :• The expedition was part of the Outdoor Program’s Winter j: ’73 Cooperative Wilderness Adventures. It was also sponsored •: by the ISU Outdoor Program. :• Business firms face inevitability of crackdown on electricity use Business firms who refuse to :• cooperate with Gov. Tom Mc ; Call’s outdoor advertising ban may find themselves without any i electrical power at all. : Atty. Gen. Lee Johnson brought \ up the possibility when he an nounced that he has recom mended to Public Commissioner ■: Richard Sabin that he issue that type of order to all private electrical utilities. Sabin is considering the idea and plans to make a decision by Friday. Johnson explained that the commissioner has broad powers to act on during an emergency situation such as the energy shortage. “There have been some in dications in the last day or so that people are beginning to turn their \ lights on because they feel t they're being placed in a Sustaining Fund begun Eugene's food co-ops, medical agencies and recycling groups need a stable funding source, according to Eugene Augur staff member Brian Livingston. To fill that need a small group of people drawn from such organizations as Switchboard, BRING, (Begin recycling In Natural Groups) Growers Market and White Bird medical clinic are establishing a Community Sustaining Fund. The new Fund would provide money for setting up community service organizations as well as for helping existing organzations begin new services or meet urgent short-term financial problems. Fund organizers, headed by Jim Bowers of the Growers Market, Diana of Switchboard and Livingston, hope to finance the Fund with con tributions collected by local merchants from their customers. Record shops and food stores are the prime sources of expected revenue. Organizers hope to collect an amount equal to two percent of retail sales from each store. Hie Fund has already collected $150 from the Renaissance Fair and $100 from the “Walk for Development” held earlier this year. But it will have to become a non-profit cor poration before it begins distributing money. Some by-laws, including provisions for a semi-annual election of a board of directors, have already been drawn up. However, the group is looking for a lawyer to complete the papers of incorporation The idea for the Fund came out of the Com munity Meeting, a monthly gathering of representatives from local service agencies and non-profit stores. Since June of this year the Fund has been taking shape at these meetings. Largely by consensus, the group meetings have resolved that the Fund should not furnish money to political organizations and that it should refer all loan requests to O.U.R. Credit Union. The two most difficult problems now facing organizers are defining membership and makii^ the Fund known to merchants and shoppers. After these two problems are straightened out and the Fund incorporates, the organizers will move onto the next step—getting the money. disadvantaged position,” Johnson said. Some businessmen have complained that their com pliance with the ban threatens their ability to attract customers over their competitors who leave their outside lights on. It was expected when McCall first issued the order that his authority to make such a move would be questioned in a test case, however no such challenge ever appeared. At the first of this week, the governor’s office was estimating that compliance with the order was about 80-86 per cent. There has been some challenges to the governor’s .authority to order the businessmen to turn the lights out, Johnson said, and that is why the other method of power reduction under the PUC was suggested. Sabin used his powers for the first time Tuesday when he issued an order allowing California-Pacific Utilities Co. to refuse applications for firm natural gas service from new industrial and commercial customers. OSU is not off-limits to UO student courts Can you be tried in the University’s student courts for unkind words painted on the walls of Gill Coliseum? According to the Student Conduct Code, expulsion, suspension or lesser sanctions may be imposed for this and twelve other violations. Damage and vandalism committed on the University’s campus or any other campus comes under the jurisdiction of the student courts. Other violations range from cheating and hazing to forgery. The procedures and jurisdictions of these student courts were discussed by Steve Barnes, Conduct Co-ordinator, with represen tatives from the dorms, Interfraternity Council (IFC), and Panhellenic Council in an informal meeting Friday. Barnes explained that the Student Conduct Committee, composed of four faculty and four students, has concurrent jurisdiction over all student cases. If the violation involves a student or University property, it falls under the student courts jurisdiction. For crimes that may involve the community, the University usually defers to the Eugene police. Sometimes the jurisdiction is rather hazy. For example, an act of hazing occuring off campus is liable in the student courts because students were involved. Barnes said whether the perron involved is a student or not is the primary factor in determining jurisdiction. The University keeps a file of students found guilty in the University’s Appeals Court. These records are supposed to be kept a year after graduation, but are currently being pulled upon graduation. The flies are strictly confidential.
