Semantics
White Monathama Altalabah s
glowing treatise on Zionistic ter
rorism” was eloquent, it was lit
tered with far too many words in
quotation marks.
Although the political question
of Palestinian peoples’ rights is a
hotly contested issue, terrorism is
still terrorism and definitely not
"terrorism.”
Murder — whether by Zionist
bullets or Palestinian bomb attack
— reeks of the same horrible
stench no matter who is to blame
and no matter what word, in quota
tion marks or not, is used.
Albert Abrahms
465 Lindale Dr.
Springfield
Judge for yourself
One of the purposes of the
Emerald article on April 3, 1978
headlined “Bookstore thieves
hard to defend” was apparently to
caution people about the conse
quences of shoplifting at the Uni
versity of Oregon Bookstore. The
purpose of this tetter is to provide
some additional information on
how the University Bookstore op
erates and some additional con
sequences of arrest so that pat
rons of the University of Oregon
Bookstore are fully aware of the
business they are patronizing.
The University Bookstore emp
loys security guards who make
citizen's arrests of individuals
whom they believe have commit
ted a crime. The current man
agement of the University Book
store apparently feels that this im
portant responsibility can be given
to a 17-year-old high school stu
dent since such a person worked
for the Bookstore in recent years
and made arrests.
If you are arrested by the Uni
versity Bookstore, plead not
guilty, and the charges are subse
quently dropped by the District At
torney, you nevertheless have a
permanent arrest record — one
which can never be removed, ac
cording to the State of Oregon's
archive laws. This arrest record is
sent automatically to law en
forcement agencies throughout
the state and can be sent to Fed
eral agencies such as the FBI. In
addition, since the arrest record
includes a complete set of finger
prints and mug shorts, you can be
called at any time to participate in
a police line-up.
You can be arrested by the Uni
versity Bookstore and receive a
permanent arrest record not only
for shoplifting but also for “inten
tional underpayment.” A recent
case dramatizes this fact. In this
case, a University graduate stu
dent paid what she thought was
the correct price for an item ($1.20
for a package of manila file fol
ders), only to be informed later
that the package cost $1.65. She
was not given the opportunity to
return the folders, make up the dif
ference in price, or, most impor
tantly, discuss the matter with the
Bookstore Manager. Rather, she
, CLONING INC.
U . EXPEmENTALUB
mx
was arrested by the 17-year-old
Bookstore security guard (who at
no time consulted the cashier to
determine why the lower price
was paid).
The University Bookstore,
through its agents, the Manager
and his security staff, has demon
strated a uniform policy towards
people they perceive as shoplif
ters and intentional underpayers:
the matter is settled in court. Al
though the Bookstore Manager,
James Williams, says in the
Emerald article, “We’re not trying
to create a hostile environ
ment...,” you can judge 1or your
self. As a member of the faculty at
the University, I am a member of
the University Bookstore, Inc. and
thus am allowed to patronize this
store. I shall forego this opportun
ity for as long as I reside in
Eugene.
Ira Herskowitz
Associate Professor of Biology
_opinion
Not “natural”
h
r<
E
In response to Rita Mae n
Browne's statement that people c
use their Christianity as a vehicle r
to fanatically destroy the lives of
others: n
To be compassionate and to- t
lerant of people with different lifes- c
tyles is not to condone that life- }
style The Homosexual Movement (
should make a point to define |
what it is they are after. Homosex- <
uals implicitly state they want <
basic human rights; yet in addition |
to human rights, they attempt to i
persuade others to see their lifes- f
tyle as “natural" — or at least not
unnatural. i
If a ballot were put before i
Eugene residents today concern- i
ing rights for homosexuals and
lesbians I would vote in favor of
rights for these people. But my
fear is that a vote for homosexual
rights would be interpreted as a
vote favoring the practice of a
homosexual lifestyle.
Every human being should
ave certain unalienable rights
jgardless of sexual preferences
ut tolerant or compassionate as I
lay be towards these people, I
an not perceive their lifestyle as
atural.
Anita Bryant has done much to
lobilize the homosexual popula
on in America. She has suffered
ireatly for her stand against
omosexual's rights. Browne se
nsed Chnstians of using their re
gion as “a vehicle to fanatically
lestroy people’s lives.”
Strangely enough, though
lomosexuals have used their na
ional coalition as a vehicle to
anatically destroy Bryant's life
If homosexual preferences are
ndeed "natural" then I appeal to
he homosexual population to pa
tently practice tolerance and
compassion until we heterosexu
als can see the light.
Chairman of the heterosexual
movement.
Dan Jones
Junior, Journalism
A look at the historical facts of the Middle East
Submitted by Simcha Braun
of the Jewish Student Union
In the present “war of words” over the Middle East
there has been a tendency for facts to be usurped by
propaganda and history by rhetoric. It is not enough to
horrify the reader with catch phrases like racism and
imperialism, or to woo him with words like liberation and
self-determination when the historical facts say other
Although few will argue that the present plight of the
Palestinians is not bad, it is vital to determine who is
responsible for this situation. This question can only be
answered by going back into the historical, documentable
record and discovering the truth.
In 1867 Mark Twain reported, "...of all the lands there
are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the Pnnce.
The hills are barren. The valleys are unsightly deserts. It is
a hopeless, dreary, heartbroken land...over it broods the
spell of a curse that has withered its fields and fettered its
energies...nothing grows but weeds." in fact the tableau
was so extreme that he went on to write, Palestine is
desolate and unlovely,...can the curse of the Deity
beautify a land?” (Innocents Abroad, 1869).
The point is that Palestine was a “ruined” country,
unable to sustain a people until the cultivation of the land
by the Jews
“The Palestinian used to leave his country,
wandering...in every direction. His native soil could not
retain him.” (At Quibla, Mecca, No. 183, Mar. 23, 1918,
and attributed to the first King Hussein before a house
committee on foreign affairs 1944).
“The Arabs cannot say that the Jews are driving
them out of their country. If not a single Jew had come to
Palestine after 1918, I believe the Arab population of
Palestine would still have been around 600,000, at which
it had been stable under Turkish rule. It is because the
Jews who have come to Palestine bring modern health
services and other advantages that Arab men and women
who would have been dead are alive today.” (British
Secretary of State MacDonald, Nov. 1938).
“ the land now carrying orange groves was sand
dunes or swamp and uncultivated when it was pur
chased.” (Royal Commission of Lord Peel, 1937).
“All know that at the beginning of the century and
during the British Mandate the marshy plains and stony
hills were sold to the Zionists for gold,...(those who) inha
Page 4
bited the frontier regions know full well what the green
plains the afforested hills and the flowering fields of
today’s Israel were like before.” (the exiled Algenan wnter
Abdel Razak Kader).
The Peel Commission report makes it quite dear,
that Palestine, a land of traditional emigration, began
attracting Arabs only after Jewish settlers improved the
land, and increased dramatically only in those areas of
Jewish settlement. Since 1844, Jews were the single
largest group in Jerusalem and constituted a majority in
the areas alloted to them.
Since 1875 Jews around the world had collected
money to buy land from absentee Arab landlords and
Ottoman owners, in 1944 paying $1100 per acre while
prime Iowa farm land sold for $110 per acre. (U.S. Dept.
Agriculture).
Jews settled the land, attracted Arabs with a better
life, and urged people to stay and contribute to the coun
try.
It was during the war of Independence that the sur
rounding Arab States used propaganda, intimidation and
threats of dire consequence to cause the Arab flight from
the land and not the Jews, (culled from information in Ash
Sha’ab 1/30/48, London Economist 10/2/48, U.S. Gen
eral Consul in Haifa Aubrey Lippincott).
The London Times from April 1948 to June 1948 ran
11 major articles on the events of the Mid-East, including
many eyewitness accounts, none of which mentioned
Jews forcing Arabs from the country. This has been cor
roborated by the statements of Monsignor George Hakim,
Greek Catholic Archbishop of Galilee in the Lebanese
paper Sada al-Janub (August 16, 1948) and even by
Emile Ghoury, Secretary of the Palestine Arab Higher
Committee. In an interview in the Beirut Telegraph
(6/6/48); “that there are these refugees is the direct con
sequence of the act of the Arab states in opposing parti
tion and the Jewish State.”
Misguided exponents of the Palestinian cause site
Deir Yassin as an example of Jewish terrorism and a
reason for the Arab exodus. Yet the record shows that this
flight had begun before this incident. Of the incident itself
Yunes Ahmad Assad, a prominent Arab survivor of Deir
Yassin said, “The Jews never intended to hurl the popula
tion of the village, but were forced to do so after they met
enemy fire which killed the Irgun commander. (Al Urdan,
April 9.1955) Many were helped to flee before the fighting
began and the evidence indicates that those civilians ien
in the village were hostages of the Arab soldiers.
Israel, since its conception, has always wanted
good relations with its neighbors. It has always been a
tenet of Jewish phillosophy “to do the right thing towards
other people.”
Zionism is not a racist philosophy. “They (the Jews)
have done more than any other people in history to ex
pose and condemn racism and refute all claims of racial
inferiority and superiority. To condemn the Jewish survi
val doctrine of Zionism as racism is a travestry upon the
truth.” (Eldridge Cleaver, "statement from pnson Oak
land, Ca. 1/76). n_
Zionism is simply the desire of Jews, after 2,0UU
years, to return to their homeland. The simple existence
of a state to escape to when the world turns its back on the
defenseless
"The lives of a million Jews in Moslem countries will
be jeopardized by the establishment of the Jewish state.
(Egyptian delegate before the U.N., 1947).
When Israel managed to defeat the Arab armies,
there swept through the Arab world a wave of resentment
that drove 750,000 Jews from their homes. While Israel
absorbed most of these refugees, the Arab states prefer
red to maintain their brethren (of an almost equal number)
in camps, and to flood them with vociferous anti-Jewisn
propaganda (Brothers in Blood, Scribners, 1978) and to
turn them into a political football, an excuse for “Jihad, to
abrogate and usurp their rights, even the truth of their
history and fill them with misdirected hate, and with toot y
smile ask Israel to embrace them now.
I have purposefully refrained in this essay from using
Israeli government or Jewish researchers’ findings les
some consider them suspect, and have focused rather on
independent British, American, and Arab sources.
Because of space limitations I have focused mam y
on one part of the controversy, a most important part and
tried to present facts rather than spread misinformation
The tragedy of the Palestinians is very real. If we
believe people like Yasser Arafat, who rewrote history like
fiction, assassinate Palestinian moderates and other
Arab men of peace, to represent their people and not their
own dreams of personal power we do the Palestinians, as
well as the Israelis, a grave injustice.
To turn one's back on the truth is to refute freedo
Monday, April 17, 1978