Letters to the Editor

On divestment

To the Editor:

Angela Migally's promotion of the "divestment" campaign implies that Penn should target Israel because of criticism from "human rights" groups ("Clearing the fog over divestment," The Daily Pennsylvanian, 10/31/02).

Well, you'd be hard pressed to find a major country that doesn't offend Amnesty International's standards. Visit amnesty.org. The United States is condemned for its response to terrorism just as Israel is. Even the death penalty is considered a rights violation. Still, I've yet to see Migally and her comrades call for divestment from the U.S.

She also calls the post-1967 war occupation "illegal," without explaining why. United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 specifies that "withdrawal should take place to secure and recognized boundaries," according to its British sponsor, Lord Caradon. He saw the 1967 lines as "not a satisfactory border," as President Johnson did, and knew that it must be settled by negotiation to bring security to the region.

Israel did enter negotiations, allowing the Palestine Liberation Organization, a prominent terrorist group, to transmute itself into the "Palestinian Authority," given autonomy to prepare for eventual statehood. Negotiations broke down, but the vast majority of Israelis still want to withdraw to secure borders as long as they can live in peace.

Unfortunately, terrorist groups like Hamas, which receive funding and arms from Iran, Iraq and Syria, declare that they will fight until Israel itself is ended. When civilians are murdered consistently, it would be insane to expect Israel to pull back and rely on the PA for its security.

Human Rights Watch recently called Arafat's PA complicit in allowing terrorism to take root in their territory and promoting a sense of "impunity." Our nation has identified terrorism as a threat to civilization which must be fought vigorously. Divesting from Israel would send precisely the opposite message.

Louis Shamie Wharton '06

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To the Editor:

Although the stated purpose of Angela Migally's column was to "clarify the objectives of Penn's divestment campaign," the only thing which was made clear was the not-so-subtle anti-Israel political agenda of such campaigns.

Beginning in the first paragraph, the column is rife with loaded terms -- "occupation," "illegal colonies" and "settlements" -- and this is surely no accident. This manipulation of language is a potent tool that has been espoused by anti-Israel forces and manifests itself in two ways.

The first is an attempt to garner sympathy for the Palestinian people by portraying Israel as a brutal, land-hungry imperialist power bent only on the "illegal" acquisition of more territory, while terms like "occupied territories" and "settlements" seek to delegitimize Israel as a nation. Similarly, Israel is often compared to Apartheid South Africa and, even more ridiculously, to Nazi Germany in order to emphasize the supposed "racism" of the state.

The second appears to be a deliberate attempt to simplify what are clearly extraordinarily complicated issues. For instance, calling the land Israel acquired in a defensive war initiated by numerous invading Arab armies "occupied territories" is to simplify the controversy surrounding the legal status of these disputed lands.

Likewise, labeling Israel a "human rights violator" ignores the complexities surrounding such classifications. At the sham "conference on racism" held in Durban, condemnations of Israel's human rights record were issued by nations such as Syria, Libya, Sudan, China and Russia. Surely the objectivity of such statements needs to be called in to question.

Certainly, the "discourse of occupation" is not to be taken lightly. It is already taking hold on campuses across America and seems to be well established in Europe. Kudos to the University on its ability to see that the divestment movement was political in its nature all along and not to be swayed by the discourse of occupation.

Geoffrey Neimark Department of Psychology

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