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h- ^ilil Page 2 The Blue Banner April 4,2002 Opevjions Israel, take action Xj%nMe!c}md ommntst As a frequent columnist and edi torialist, I wish the Jewish students and faculty on campus a Chag Semach and a truly blessed Pass- over. The holiday of Passover among the festive Seders and cel ebrations is most importantly about renewal of the continuing strength of the Jewish people. At this very moment, like in the days of Nazi Germany, Jews are being slaughtered on Passover,this time not by Germans but by the Arab world. As Israelis were sitting in the Park Hotel in the coastal city of Netanya, celebrating, socializing and enjoy ing each others company, a barbar ian Palestinian terrorist blew him self up, killing over 20 innocent people, and by the end of this ar ticle that number will increase sub stantially. Notwithstanding the attacks on Israelis from the Palestinian Ter rorist Infrastructure, every single Arab country, from North Africa to Iraq, has been complacent in sup port of terrorism against Israel and the Jewish people. The Arab World knows without a doubt that defeating Israel on the battlefield is impossible. For instance, even when Israel had no army in 1948, the Arabs massed five organized, well-trained armies trained by the British, armed by British, and in the case of General John Glubb Pasha who commanded the Jordanian Army, were even com manded by active duty British of ficers. After one year of fighting and 6,000 Israelis killed, which consti tuted around one percent of the population, Israel was victorious. However, the Arab world has learned that since Israel is a democ racy, which embraces a liberal demo cratic philosophy where a King ora dictatorship does not control every aspect of the citizens’ lives, terror ism and barbaric violence can be used as a negotiating tool. Since the signing of the Oslo Agreement in 1993 between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin and Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat, Israel has en gaged in capitulation to the Pales tinians and to the Arab World. The attack in Netanya, and more than 350 Israelis killed only be cause they were Jews are proof that peace is not on the minds of the Arab world. Thus, what is the goal of continu ing terrorism on Israel? Simply stated, the destruction of Israel. The hope of the Arab world is that first Israel’s army will withdraw from Judea and Samaria (West Bank) along with 200,000 Israeli civilians who live productive modern lives in the province of Judea. By withdrawing from Judea, Is rael would be in essence from the coast of the Mediterranean in Tel- Aviv to the border of a future Pales tinian state and would be only 13 miles long. No country, even Israel with its overwhelming military, can defend itself against a combined Palestin ian and greater Arab alliance. It is the view of the author that no Palestinian state is created, Arafat and his infrastructure be destroyed, and Israel re-conquer Judea. After eight years of Israeli compliance of the Oslo Agreement, what has been the Jewish people’s return, 350 dead men, women and children? In addition, I am sure that some enlightened individual will con clude the following: Hey, more Pal estinians have been killed than Is raelis, so the Palestinians are the innocents. The fact of the matter is, the Palestinian terrorists supported by Arafat, the royal family in Saudi Arabia, the Islamic Republic oflran, Syria, Lebanon and even Iraq (no tice a pattern) are waging a cam paign of terrorism against Israel to weaken her resolve and strength. It is important to note that not a single democracy exists in the Arab world, nor does the respect of hu man life exist in the same standard as in Israel and the U.S. Yet, the world remains quiet and steadfast in the face of Jews being massacred. Where is Amnesty International, where is the enlightened United Nations, and wait a minute, what about Europe? Where is the leader ship of the enlightened of the world? Once again, Jewish life is cheap and non-existent in the world commu nity. As I turn on the news, bodies of innocent Jews are being piled up on the sidewalk. Girls are walking the streets in a daze. The Palestinians are celebrating! To that there must be a clear response. Israel, you must take the steps to destroy terrorism and you must dis regard what some Ivy League-edu- cated bureaucrat thinks is the right approach. Israel overcame the an cient Egyptians and Islamic Egyp tians. Israel will overcome the Pal estinians and reclaim the biblical land of Israel. , -■ . • ^ "f *■ In support of cheerleaders Dear Editor; I have been intrigued by the re cent arguments related to cheerleading. Some writers have made the claim that cheerleading is an activity of lesser stature than ‘other’ sports. Please allow me to express a view based on my experi ence with the subject. As a student of traditional budo and martial arts disciplines, I have had the opportunity to interact with many individuals from various ‘sport’ backgrounds. Traditional martial arts training includes rigorous endurance exer cises and mental conditioning drills that rival in difficulty any legal ‘sporting’ activity in modern times. The second most successful group of students I have ever worked around or with was dancers. The hardest-working, most committed, determined and technically profi cient students, however, were cheer leaders. Their work ethic is unrivaled. Their ability to push themselves beyond self-perceived limits is worth noting, and their commitment to a task is remarkable. When the big and strong gave in because their bigness didn’t serve them, the cheerleaders kept with it. The turnover rates of male ‘ath letes’ in martial arts is high, perhaps because the ego is not celebrated. Patience, perfection of technique, good leadership skills and an affin ity for hard work-these are the traits of the cheerleaders I have known. My highest-ranking student is an ex-cheerleader. She represents our style well in many areas. Please reconsider limited views on the worthiness of some of the hard est working members of any cam pus. Spencer Bolejack Senior, history Know someone who’s graduating?? Place a congratulatory “grad ad” for them in The Blue Banner! $10 for 3 inch ad. $15 for 4 inch ad. Mail check, text to put in ad and a picture if de sired to: The Blue Banner, 244 Karpen Hall, One University Heights, Asheville, NC 28804, Response to SewelFs column Dear Editor: Words can kill. The Nazis under stood and took full advantage of the destructive power of words. In his recent Blue Banner column, “Irony found in Israel,” Glennie Sewell compares Israel to Nazi Ger many and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to Hitler. Isn’t it ironic, Sewell argues, that the people who were once victims of the Nazis have become just like Nazis themselves. Intended to shock, Sewell’s comparison is false, unconstructive and cliched. The language Sewell uses attempts to demonize Israeli Jews. It repre sents a gross oversimplification of history. It perpetuates anti-Semitic stereotypes. Can one criticize some of the poli cies implemented by Israel with regard to its treatment of Palestin ians living in the West Bank and Gaza? Yes. Can one criticize Israel for its un fair treatment of its Arab citizens, those living within the green line? Again, yes. Does Israel have a right to act to protect its citizens from horrific attacks in crowded public places? Unquestionably. After the bombing at a hotel where Jews were celebrating the Passover seder (ritual meal), Israel exercised restraint in its response to allow American General Zinni time to continue trying to broker a cease fire. After several more bombings, how ever, Israel felt “it must bring to bear its military power in order to minimize the violent element that Arafat has incorporated in his ma neuvering over the cease-fire,” write the editors of Ha ’aretz, a lib eral Israeli daily newspaper. But, according to the editors, mili tary force is not enough. It must be coupled with “an acceptable and achievable political goal toward which it is moving,” something which, the editors conclude, the Sharon government appears to lack. Israelis openly criticize govern ment policy without fear of recrimi nation. Indeed, the editors of this paper urge the democratically elected government to initiate a dialogue with the Arab world on the basis of the recently concluded Arab League Summit in Beirut. Are there extremists on the Israeli side? Yes, but they comprise a very small minority of the population. A survey published within the last two weeks in another leading daily Israeli newspaper, Ma’ariv, found that 71 percent of Israelis favor “unilateral separation” from the Pal estinians. According to a recent editorial in The Forward, an American Jewish weekly newspaper, “such a plan would entail a pullback to a defen sible line, marking off a border with barbed wire and dismantling the Jewish settlements on the other side, by force if necessary. A Palestinian state would arise, and would be free to negotiate final borders with Is rael whenever it was ready to talk Israel is a democracy, a society in which public debate is vigorous and in which free elections are con ducted on a regular basis in a legal manner. Everyone in Israel, from the taxi driver to the violinist in the sym phony, has an opinion about how Israel should solve its external and internal problems. Disagreement is the air Israelis breathe. Any one of the Israeli government’s policies with regard to the Palestinians may be wrong. But together, the policies do not add up to a methodical plan to eliminate the Palestinians. Every day, Israelis and Palestin ians suffer tragic losses. The careless use of terms such as “Nazis” to characterize people on one side or the other will not help the Israelis and the Palestinians move toward a just, secure peace. Rather, language such as this per petuates a climate in which today one group is portrayed as demons in need of control or extermination and tomorrow another. Words can kill. Words can also create peace. Wliat we need are bold thinkers who can fashion a language of peace that will enable the Israelis and Palestinians to live together, in the words of the late Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai, “If not in peace, then in the absence ofwar.’’ Rick Chess Associate professor of Literature and Language Director, the Center for Jewish Studies ‘Bad vibes’in recent articles Dear Editor: Perhaps it’s a by-product of Asheville culture, but I’m starting to feel a definite sense of“ bad vibes” from the students represented in The Banner. Essentially, the negativity towards UNCA is ridiculous. I am sick to death of hearing about everything UNCA “isn’t.” UNCA isn’t “diverse” (whatever the bloody hell that means, or why it’s so critically important. I went to a high school that was 42 percent black, and I could certainly not detect any measurable gains from this “diversity”). UNCA’s student government “has no power,” as if they’re a governing body and not a representative one. If the students want real power, they should do something for them selves, rather than complain about how the representatives they prob ably didn’t even vote for can’t re place their math requirement with a free muffler upgrade. We don’t have a football team. We don’t have “comprehensive” Arts 310 and Humanities courses (students apparently missing the point that if they loved everything about a course, it would be fun, not school). We don’t fill potholes at the drop of a hat. And on and on and on. What else does UNCA not have? How about rapes in our parking lots? Students dying from cocaine overdoses? Or, if crime isn’t your area, what about inept grad stu dents teaching our classes? Professors who actually know and care about the students (heck, I ate a muffin with one of mine in Cafe Ramsey the other day). We don’t have two-mile hikes between classes, or thousands of cars winding their way through cam pus every day. We don’t have dorms dating into the last century (our oldest are Governors Village, those being torn down as we speak). Why not portray a UNCA that’i worth going to, rather than finding negative things to focus on? As a newspaper paid for by stu dent fees, The Banner\i2S a respon sibility to speak the truth about the school. And the truth is, UNCA isn’t all that bad. Alan Moore Junior, political science Editor’s note: Most The Blue % funding comes from adver tising revenue. Thank you for reading The Blue Bannei\ Visit us online at www.unca.edu/banner Bush administration annoimces broad value shift Zey Friedman ■C-- Columnist To the great surprise of environ mental and social activists world wide, President George W. Bush gave a speech at a press conference in Detroit (where he hosted a fundraiser for General Motors) de tailing a profound reorganization of the nation’s priorities. Amidst the friendly drone of early morning Detroit traffic. Bush made it clear that he now realizes the current resource consumption para digm the United States has clung to against the protests of other na tions, and many U.S. citizens must be reconstructed with no further delay to fit the realities of shrinking biodiversity and a burgeoning hu man population. “No matter how far you are down the wrong road—turn around,” Bush exhorted to the automobile and petroleum industry CEOs. Ex hibiting some of his speechwriters’ most poignant verbiage to date. Bush spoke eloquently of his new vision for the future, asserting that, “We must acknowledge that we stand at a defining moment in his tory, when we as the most consum ing nation have the opportunity to sustain a healthy, vibrant world that enables human happiness, or the grim authority to continuously con centrate wealth while our ecosys tems fail and humans suffer. Re ally, there is no choice.” Maintaining the bold atmosphere he had created. Bush went further, delineating the policies with which he intends to implement his new ideals. “When I get back to Washington, some things are gonna change real quick,” he spoke deliberately to a room of tense silence. “The first agenda item will be Kyoto ratifica tion; the U.S. produces a third of the world’s greenhouse gases, and no attempt to abate global climate change will be meaningful until we take a leading role. The next prior ity is a sincere nuclear weapons disarmament schedule. I do not want my loved ones living under constant threat of nuclear war due to intentional proliferation of ‘battlefield’ scale nuclear arms, nor am I willing to put up with the environmental devastation wrought by the industrial infrastructure nec essary for continued nuclear activ ity. I will be in Oakridge, Tennes see at the Y-12 plant, the only re maining nuclear weapons produc tion facility in the U.S., for the protest on April 12 to assure pro testers that I share their view, that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bad enough. “In addition, I plan to submit a revised energy plan to Congress later this week that will withdraw more than half of the funding tradition ally reserved as subsidies for coal and oil to fund alternative energy research; if our nation really wants to be independent of OPEC, we need to start getting our energy some other way. “This initiative will also reduce pressure on remaining wild places in the southwestern U.S. and the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, allowing us to preserve them as beautiful havens for humans and other life rather than exploiting them for brief energy yields.” Bush went on for more than half an hour, elaborating to an increas ingly incredulous audience on a wide spectrum of policy recom mendations that have the potential to drastically alter the approach the U.S.maintains towards land use, resource consumption and human rights. The administration’s abrupt change of tact has caught many policy makers, advocacy groups and corporations by surprise. Asked by a New York Times reporter how he justified his change of perspective despite the likely response he might receive from his corporate constitu encies, Bush replied to a roomful of chuckles, “I guess I just realized that no matter how big the tailpipe is that you’re sucking on, it’s stilla tailpipe.” In an interview with an anony mous top executive of the nuclear energy industry, the executive frustratedly replied to a series of questions by assuring the reporter that, “We really don’t understand what happened either. For a long time. Bush has really been our man, identifying deeply with our belief that the economy is the highest good, and that individual and eco logical sacrifice is an acceptable anil often necessary price to pay for» strong flow of dollars to the wealthi est one percent of our nation. Ouf scientists suspect that the president is the victim of a subtle biological warfare agent engineered by terror ists that infects its hosts with a sense of moral responsibility.” This article was written April 1. Go figure.
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