Activist discusses U.S. influence on Israel conflict
Zane Rrrr | Photographer
Phyllis Bennis, senior analyst at the Institute for Policy Studies and anti-war activist speaks
in the Walnut Room of the EMU.
Phyllis Bennis shared her opinions on American
support and 'special interest' in warfare tactics
BY KATY GAGNON
NEWS REPORTER
The United States is partially
responsible for the conflict between
Israel and Palestine because it
ignores international law and
supports Israel’s military occupa
tion of neighboring regions, author
and political activist Phyllis
Bennis told a crowd of about 20 stu
dents, educators, and community
members Tuesday.
“The U.S. does say they want a
Palestinian state, but everything
they’re doing is having the effect of
undermining their capacity of a true
state,” said Bennis, who is a senior
analyst at the Institute for Policy
Studies and has written about Unit
ed Nations and Middle East issues
for almost 20 years.
Israeli occupation in Palestine
and U.S. occupation in Iraq are
linked and are set within the U.S.
strategy, she said.
Bennis said the United States has
shared a strategic alliance and “spe
cial relationship” with Israel, granti
ng economic and political support
since the 1967 war, when Israel
seized large tracts of land from
neighboring countries. In April
2002, Israel violated international
law when it relaunched a military
assault on a refugee camp in Jenin
and killed 29 civilians, Bennis said.
Following the Jenin invasion, the
United States provided political sup
port to Israel and used the invasion
as a model for urban warfare,
she said.
Throughout the war in Iraq, es
pecially during the seizure of Fallu
jah, the U.S. military used tactics Is
raelis used in Jenin, Bennis said.
In August 2005, the Israeli gov
ernment ordered Israeli Jews to
leave settlements in the Gaza Strip.
After the disengagement, Bennis
said, there was a moment of
celebration and people were grate
ful the occupants were gone, but
Palestinians are still not granted any
real independence.
“There’s no money. There’s no
economy. There’s no way to export
goods,” she said. “There’s supposed
to be negotiations underway, but
there’s no indication, given the dis
parity in power, that anything new
is going to change.”
Bennis said education and action
are key to changing conditions in
CRAZY, page 4
Torrey: Candidate forced to drop out of college because of tuition costs
Continued from page 1
the past. One such endeavor was the
City of Eugene’s Growth Management
Study, which Weeks said was a very
broad and deep process utilizing pub
lic participation. Torrey was the princi
ple sponsor and architect of the study,
which set the tone for planning and
development in Eugene over the next
nine years, Weeks said.
“It shows to me an impressive de
gree of respect for citizens,” he said.
Torrey said he spent a great deal of
time working with smaller communi
ties in Oregon when he was mayor and
used the University to reach out to
them in an attempt to find ways to
make the cities economically stable
and viable.
“One of the best awards I received
was being recognized by the PPPM
school as being Oregon’s Outstanding
Volunteer,” Torrey said. “I can’t tell you
the number of times that I’ve been in
meetings with Dave Frohnmayer
where I have to say to people that
aren’t from Eugene ‘remember, it’s not
the University of Oregon in Eugene;
it’s the University of Oregon.’
That’s important.”
Torrey is more concerned with
elementary school than he is with
higher education. He said that if no
more revenue is generated, the best
thing that could be done with the
money Oregon already has is extend
public schooling to 3- and 4-year-olds
and make kindergarten full-day.
“We’re entering into a new world
where the competitors for my 5-year
old granddaughter — the job she’s
going to want when she’s 25 — won’t
just be surrounding this state, they’ll
be in Asia, they’ll be in other places in
the world, and what is it that we have
to do to compete? We must start our
children earlier,” he said.
Torrey said one of the main prob
lems is the number of non-English
speaking children in the classrooms.
“In the United States we have the
responsibility of educating every
child, whether that child is in our
country legally or illegally,” he said.
When some of the foreign children
enter the first grade without much in
teraction with other kids and basic
knowledge before-hand, he said, “it
forces us to lower the common de
nominator for education of all of our
children... it’s just a fact of life. It takes
an awful lot of time for some of these
non-English speaking students to be
cared for by the teachers in their
classroom, and when they’re being
cared for by these teachers, they are
taking away from the other students
in the classroom who could be
moving faster.”
He believes that if the children start
school earlier, they will do better when
introduced to an English-speaking first
grade classroom.
Torrey said it will cost a lot of money
to start every Oregon child’s education
earlier, but “it will be a tremendous
success and it will get a tremendous re
turn on that investment. ”
He said it’s the most reasonable and
fair approach to economic develop
ment, and if Oregon has the best work
force, then large companies will want
to bring jobs, and people who already
live in the state will be able to take ad
vantage of that workforce to create
new products.
“If Oregon is a great place for kids,
it will be a great place for everyone,”
Torrey said.
Good jobs generate tax revenue,
children will have safe places to be and
even senior citizens will benefit be
cause they won’t have to dig deeper
into their wallets to pay for additional
property taxes, he said.
“First thing I plan to do is hopefully
serve as a change agent. The definition
of insanity is doing the same thing over
and over again with the same results.
That’s what we’ve been doing in
Salem for session after session after
session,” Torrey said. “What I believe
the major problem is that there are re
ally well meaning people on both sides
of the isle — both Republicans and De
mocrats — and my objective is going
to be to find people who are willing to
set aside their partisan differences and
focus on certain key issues.”
He said the first issues that should
be focused on are education and in
creasing the number of quality jobs in
the state.
“They really go hand in hand,”
he said.
When Torrey started running for
public office 12 years ago, he said he
wanted to have the community be the
kind of place his grandchildren would
want and be able to live in. Now he
wants to bring that same objective to
the state senate.
He said that rather than give incen
tives like tax breaks to big companies
in order to bring them to Oregon, he
would rather take that money and put
it into schools which will create a
stronger workforce, and that in itself
will attract new businesses.
“I’m a proponent of a quality envi
ronment; there will be times that I
won’t always agree with the most
green of the greens, but the city of Eu
gene is a perfect example of a commu
nity that has these opposing points of
view, very strong environmental
stance and in many instances a very
strong pro-business stance,” he said.
“The fact is these two groups always
end up keeping Eugene a place where
people want to live. ”
According to the Eugene Weekly,
Torrey faced criticism from environ
mentalists and other city planners
for his support of the West Eugene
Parkway project, which proposes to
build a route through the endan
gered wetlands west of Eugene.
Torrey said Eugene needs the
road and he has told people for a
long time that if they show him an
other responsible solution to the
problem, he would consider it, but
as of today, no one has showed him
an alternative.
Torrey has been a coach for Kid
sports for 37 years and is currently
volunteering as the organization’s
executive director. He fathered four
children and has five grandchildren,
one of whom he took on a recent
trip to India to observe the country’s
school system.
esmith@dailyemerald. com
RRC: ASUO Executive Vice President Kyla Coy to serve as tie-breaker vote
Continued from page 1
Goward has not yet submitted
documentation to the Court.
The four new RRC members,
Stephanie Carriere, Mike Filippelli,
Kristin Kato and Scott Lu, asked a
multitude of questions at the first
meeting on Monday, one of which
was how they will reassure
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programs leaders of the RRC’s ob
jectivity while reviewing groups.
Lu, programs representative for
the PFC, said he is worried that if
bylaws are not created soon, pro
gram leaders may be skeptical of the
new committee.
“One of my main concerns is that
it’s a way that groups can really feel
like this is a structured organization
or committee with bylaws,” Lu said.
Goward announced at the
meeting that ASUO Vice President
Kyla Coy will serve as an ex-officio
member on the RRC, voting only to
break ties.
Former Senator Khanh Le, the
only non-RRC member in atten
dance, expressed concerns over
why Coy will be voting.
“My worry is that I didn’t know
Kyla was voting,” he said. “I
just thought the five members
were voting.”
Le asked how a tie would be bro
ken if Goward and Coy, who are
members of the ASUO Executive,
refrained from voting at the Execu
tive’s hearing to avoid a conflict
of interest.
“I don’t know what will happen,”
Goward said.
Contact the campus and
federal politics reporter at
nwilbur@dailyemerald.com
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