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)
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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
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