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Krg Frances Schoen-Nevspaper fioca U n iv e r s it y o f Oregon L ib r a r y fcugtne, Oregon 07403 War in the Middle East The meaning of Christmas Read continuing in-depth analysie by Catherine Siegner. Street Beat W hat Portland thlnka about avants in Poland. Page 2 Page 1 P O R T E N D OBSERVER Golan takeover: War in the Middle East? by Catherine Siegner The Israeli government’s recent annexation o f the G o lan H eights represents one m ore exam ple o f Prime Minister Bcgin’s increasingly militaristic policy in the West Bank area o f the Middle East. U n der Israeli arm y occupation since the 1967 w a r, the G olan H eights, along w ith the occupied West Bank and Gaza, has existed as a p o litic a lly am orphous e n tity — neither "occupied" nor "annexed,” in legal terms. There are some very specific diplom atic reasons why the Israeli government has continued to keep the G olan Heights in this state o f legal lim bo, and their explanation should fu rth e r illu s tra te why last week's annexation is provoking such an international outcry. M. BEGIN First, the failure to establish the status o f the Golan Heights left the occupying forces considerable room to govern the area in any way they saw fit. Calling it an “ occupied" territory would mean that provisions o f inter national law, such as that embodied in the Geneva and Hague C o nventio n s, w ould apply to residents o f the Golan Heights, and the Israeli governm ent’ s authority consequently would be reduced. Second, the Israeli government has been successful in avoiding direct annexation, and its inevitable subsequent criticism , by declaring the area "adm inistered te rrito ry ." This m o n iker avoided the legal requirem ents o f the "o c c u p ie d ’ ’ status as well as continuing the government’s free hand in disposing o f la n d , w ater, n atu ra l resources and public p ro p erty — meaning in most cases, for the benefit o f the Israeli economy. And, as "administered territory” the O o la n H eig h ts' residents, es pecially Palestinians, were left w ithout any d efin itiv e status, and the question o f self-determination, never one the Israeli government has been eager to face, was indefinitely ignored. As Johnathan K u tta b writes in A ra b Perspectives magazine, this state o f affairs allowed the Israeli government to "have their cake and eat it, too,” and " ...fre e to exercise all the perogatives o f a sovereign w ith o u t in currin g any o f the responsibilities that are usually commensurate with these powers." The question then posed is. why. a fte r a rriv in g at such a neat disposition o f (he G o lan Heights status pro b lem , w ould the Begin {Please turn to page 4 column I) the bird on the field I t i Ivq wu.s hurt 1 rtt/i/ Io Arif.-» < We pit ib r lit J in I ho Iv x . f MW >. went to' the Audubon Vcidij m the w hrq wiii hen' i/k’ b / r j i/ will put a splint ¿n hen will i|/i<' it r<m cm /S i > ovd to eat 1 felt sad when 1 tank- ft jut kippi wlvn —- I ,/i bn J 4<t,.»nn» ( ,wt' 11 it/ Adrienne Qerrlson, student at Humboldt 8chool, was awarded honorary membership in the Audubon Society after she saved a wounded seagull and took It to the Society for medical care (Photo: Richard J. Brown) Tw o Sections Poland: Another view by T.D . Altman Pacific News Service C o n tra ry to much o f the im m e diate reaction in the West, General Wojciech Jaruzelski’s imposition o f m artial law may be remembered as the mom ent when Poland at long last freed itse lf o f the suffocating oppression o f the Polish Com m un ist Party and its petty bureaucrats— if all goes well. Though Moscow seems delighted, and Washington gravely alarm ed, the im position o f m artial law may also have forever foreclosed the pos sibility o f a Soviet invasion, and o f Poland becoming another Hungary or Czechoslovakia— if all goes well, and if all does not go well? Not just Poland and not just all o f Europe, East and West, but the Superpowers themselves will be face to face with one o f the watershed crises o f the post-World W ar II world. from Afghanistan and the Chinese fro n tie r to m ount such an o p era tion. A d d itio n a lly , a Soviet invasion, at the least, would eliminate the Pol ish army as a factor in the m ilitary balance between N A T O and the Warsaw Pact. The Soviet leadership at least a year ago therefore opted for a wait ing game in which direct military in tervention was the last option Mos cow wished to emphasize. But there is another, equally im portant reason a Soviet invasion has been unlikely. This is that patriotic Poles were prepared to do almost anything to deny the Soviets cause fo r invasion. Thus Lech W alesa for months has tou red the mines and factories o f Poland, urging his supporters to m oderate th e ir de mands and curtail their strikes. And General Jaruzelski has made it clear repeatedly that the one thing he would not do— either as Prime M in- Whatever its results, Jaruzelski’ s attempt to resolve the current crisis . »tei or party secretary— was to de liver the Polish nation to the Rus in Poland has brought Poland and sians on a silver platter. By impos the rest o f the w o rld face to face ing m a rtia l la w , the G eneral may with the internal and external real have curtailed many o f P o la n d ’ s ities o f Poland to d a y — realities newly won freedoms, but he has al which many in the West have ig so checked any im m ed iate possi nored for too long. bility o f Soviet intervention. F irst, for more than a year, the likelihood o f a Soviet invasion has Another common misunderstand been overestim ated in the W est. ing about Poland is that the real Since late 1980, when the Polish na drama is not the possibility o f Soviet tional upheavals produced the first intervention, but whether the Poles great triumphs for Solidarity, it has themselves could define their new been clear that a direct Soviet inva freedom in terms that bear any real sion could only achieve a strategic istic relationship to the internal and reversal o f awesome proportions for external realities o f Poland. the Soviet Union itself. Western in For months, the internal realities telligence sources estimate that it o f Poland have been elastic in the would take at least 50 divisions to extrem e. The chances are that the occupy Poland, and that the Soviets cou n try could have w ithstood would have to w ith d raw troops another winter o f strikes, economic The true meaning o f Christmas A Bird Was / Au/ December 24, 1981 Volume XII, Number 11 25C Per Copy Grassrool News, V IF. — In these days and times the true meaning o f Christmas can get lost in the com m e rcializatio n o f the images o f Christmas, and in the alienation o f people who arc caught up in the de pression o f 1981. In all this confu sion Mrs. Viola Webster, 72, stands as a beacon with the true meaning o f Christmas. " I l means love. It's a time o f giv ing. When you give your family and friends cards to say you love them and you want them to know it. Christmas only comes once a year and I celebrate it. You see, I love God and he gave his only son. Jesus came down and wus born by the vir gin Mary. For 33 years he was teach ing and healing. Doing things for human beings. Then he gave his life on the cross. Someone who goes through all that for me I can’t help but love them ." Mrs. Webster holds fast to this re ligious interpretation o f Christmas. I he birth o f Jesus Christ. She says she has called upon this religious base many times fo r strength throughout her 72 years. "Y o u gave different gifts because it's a time for g iv in g ." M rs. W eb ster doesn't feel there is anything wrong w ith buying one thousand dollars worth o f gifts or one dollar's worth as long as they’re given in the spirit o f love. Also she doesn't be lieve that people should celebrate Christmas by getting drunk. "W hen I was a child we didn’t ge, apples, candies or oranges un til (. hristmas. But today children get that year around. And I ’ m glad my children didn’ t have to go through what I did. I thank God that he let me live to enjoy some o f the good things, like washing machines. You just push a button. I remember the winters when I was young that I went in to the woods to get Pine Knots. T h at’s a stump that you cut up to start fires. Now, you just press a button." M rs. W ebster w ill spend C hristm as w ith oth ei Senior Citizens and will eat dinner with her children and g ra n d c h ild re n . " I really enjoy Christmas," Mrs. Web ster concludes her thoughts w ith holiday cheer beam ing fro m her face. " I even enjoy the lights from the small tree I put up in my front window. I celebrate Christmas be cause I believe in Christmas. I be lieve in love." GENERAL W. JARUZELSKI stagnation and social discontents— so long as at the end o f that long w in ter Poland w o u ld have been somewhat closer to a solution to its problems. It seems no exaggeration to state that there were virtually no internal question on which the gov ernm ent m ight not com prom ise. The sole source o f inflexibility^vas the question o f P o la n d ’ s strategic and international, not economic and domestic, relations. On these external issues, G en. Jaruzelski stood firm . P o la n d ’ s strategic com mittment to the W a r saw Pact, he repeatedly made clear, was non-negotiable. H e, like Lech Walesa, realized that to tamper with the Warsaw Pact was not merely to provoke the Soviet Union. It would be to tamper with the entire balance o f power that since the end o f World War I I has given Europe and most o f the rest o f the w orld and epock o f general peace. The break down o f that order might not neces- LECH WALESA sarily lead to W o rld W a r I I I . But certainly any such breakdown could only bode tragedy for Poland itself — the inevitable victim o f every gen eral European war, no matter how limited others may choose to regard it. The third thing many in the West, especially in America, have ignored about Poland is that although de m ocracy is a w o n d e rfu l th in g , it , too, can lead to tragedy when the exercise o f freedom drags a country " to the edge o f an abyss,” as Jarul- ski put it recently. Last week Poland, in general, and S o lid a rity , in p a rtic u la r, plunged closer to the edge o f that abyss than ever before when Solidarity radicals urged a referendum intended, in ef fect, to overthrow not merely the Polish system o f government but to elim in ate P o la n d ’ s strategic rela tionship with the Soviet Union. It would be difficult to judge who (Please turn to page 2 column I)
