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Managing Editor: Jessica Blanchard
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EDITORIAL EDITOR: MICHAEL J. KLECKNER opededitor@journalist.com
The Middle East has exploded again.
This latest war has been going on for
almost two months, ever since a
right-wing member of Israel’s Knes
set pushed his way into a Muslim holy site
also revered by Israelis. Almost immediately,
Israeli army troops faced rock-throwing
Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank
area and armed Palestinians in the Gaza
Strip.
The violence here is, of course, nothing
new. Both sides have committed untenable
atrocities. Both sides have shot children who
happened to be in the line of fire. Communi
ties have been razed. In the Gaza Strip, three
Israeli reservists were beaten to death in a po
lice station. In full view of television cam
eras, their bodies were thrown out a window
and their murderers waved bloody hands in
triumph. It’s time for the United States to step
out of the blood and let the Israelis and Pales
tinians decide if they can ever end the
killing.
The most recent violent eruption has
brought an end to the latest round of peace
talks. The main sticking point in Israeli-Pales
tinian peace negotiations is the city of
Jerusalem. In a way, this isn’t surprising. The
city is the holy center of three major religions.
To the Jews, it holds the ruins of their most
sacred temple and was the Torahic capital for
King David. Christians revere it as the main
city in which Joshua ben-Joseph, or Jesus
Christ, gave his sermons and where he was cru
cified and resurrected. Muslims hold the city
holy as the place in which the Prophet Mo
hammed ascended into Heaven at the Dome of
the Rock.
Outside of religion, Jerusalem has rarely
seen peace. In Biblical times, the city was a ma
jor axis of wars between the Jews and
Philistines. Roman legions looted the city in 49
B.C. and razed it in A.D. 70, Crusaders brought
a bloodbath in 1099, and World War I found
the British fighting the Germans on the bloody
soil.
After World War n, Great Britain and the
United Nations created the state of Israel as a
haven for Jewish refugees of the Holocaust.
The Muslims almost immediately objected and
attacked the nascent country in 1949, sparking
the Six-Day War. Even national peace brought
strife to Jerusalem, as in the 1980s and ‘90s, a
wave of terror called the Intifadah began in the
city, culminating in a wave of suicide bomb
ings on bus routes.
The most sickening aspect of all of this con
flict is that one of the sides fighting is a people
who should have learned from its own bitter
experience about the destruction of the Jewish.
This is a people who has endured hateful
racism from time immemorial, finally culmi
nating in the unspeakable horror of the Holo
caust.
The United States has been there for Israel
and the Arab world since the Carter adminis
tration. We have given aid to both sides. We
have brokered peace deals. We have done
everything except forge both parties’ signatures
on a final peace document.
Unfortunately, this hand-holding has done
nothing to end the cycle of violence. It can’t
end. The people don’t want it to end. They
have been urged on by political and religious
leaders, and every slight they or their people
may have received by the other side is magni
fied into a massive insult. It’s much easier to
pick a fight with someone than build a trust
ing relationship, especially with such ill will
permeating both sides.
As hard as it is to say, it’s time we
stepped back from the region. We should
n’t be in the business of aiding, even unin
tentionally, mutual genocide. Perhaps we
should let them fight it out until both
sides finally come to their senses, and
with a clear voice they say, “No more
blood should be
shed. It’s time we
put down our
weapons and fi
nally begin to see
one another as fellow humans,
rather them as Arab and Jew.”
Until that day, however, the
United States can’t make
them see eye-to-eye. We
aren’t the world’s parent.
We can’t give them both
a “time out” and tell
them to behave. We
can’t send troops to
the region to
keep them apart.
There is a
more hu
mane sug
gestion I
can make,
although the
possibility is
remote. The
entire world
must give up all
claims to
Jerusalem and
declare it an open
city. Too much
blood has been
pointlessly shed for
religious ideology.
Adding ironic insult
to the carnage is the
fact that the Muslim
and Judaic religions
come from the same
SALEM
Mohammed thought of
himself and Moses as bear
ers of the same
message from
arguably the flV
same deity.
Jews, Chris
tians and
Muslims are all con
sidered “People of the
Book” ac
cording to
Muslim
scholars. Is
rael and Palestine
should manage
Jerusalem in joint
stewardship.
It’s only fit- 0
ting that a
city that £ .
has seen
too much
bloodshed in its
time should be given a
rest.
Pat Payne is a columnist for the
Oregon Daily Emerald. His views do
not necessarily represent those of the
Emerald. He can be reached at
Macross_SD@hotmail.com.
i , i
WTO protesters
still fighting the
good fight
Nov. 30 is the first anniversary of
the "Battle in Seattle." As thou
sands of students joined with
trade unionists, environmental
ists and others to demonstrate against the
World Trade Organization, a new era of
protest was dawning.
Many in the media have tended to por
tray the student protesters as thrill-seekers
with little understanding of the issues and
a questionable level of long-term commit
ment. Interviews I've conducted with near
ly 50 student activists from national and
campus organizations suggest a different
picture.
Over the past year, these new young
leaders have remained committed to their
causes and have begun a process of ad
dressing some difficult challenges, such as
the lack of racial inclusion in the protests
and the absence of a unifying vision.
"What we've got going thrives on a diver
sity of visions," says Dale Weaver, a gradu
ate student organizer with United Students
Against Sweatshops at San Jose State Uni
versity. "Having one vision could exclude
potential allies."
Student groups that organize around
sweatshops, the environment and corpo
rate accountability are often stereotyped as
"privileged white kids." Many students are
acutely aware of this criticism and are
making constructive efforts to be more in
clusive, such as approaching national
African-American organizations and giving
informational talks at meetings of ethnic
organizations on campus.
"At the protest against the World Bank
and IMF, I was talking to two black deputy
officers who said that if we were marching
in the streets for urban poverty, they would
be happy to march with us," says Jesse
Dickerman, co-founder of Rice Students for
Global Justice at Rice University. "For the
movement to be inclusive, organizing on
the community level needs to be done by
the same people who show up at the
protests.
What will the students who were protest
ing the World Trade Organization in Seattle
do once they graduate? Cynics expect that
their activist ideals will slip away as they
grab the first job that offers stock options. By
contrast, 36 out of 40 students I interviewed
said they plan to join social justice, labor or
environmental-rights organizations in the
United States and abroad.
William Winters, a member of the Stu
dent Environmental Action Coalition at
Louisiana State University, says, "Through
organizing in minority communities my
contribution will be getting people from
different cultural, racial, and economic
backgrounds involved in the movement."
Rachel Grad, a writer for Ruckus, a so
cial-justice magazine at the University of
Washington, says, "Through progressive
journalism, I want to enable everybody to
have an audible voice."
During the past year, these young veter
ans of the "Battle of Seattle" have demon
strated staying power and sophistication.
They — and the movement against corpo
rate globalization — are not going away
anytime soon.
Bhumika Muchhala is a research assistant at the In
stitute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., writing
for Knight-Ridder Tribune.