The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 64, No. 32, Ed. 1 Monday, February 14, 1977 Page: 2 of 12
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threshing-it-out
challenged,
participation invited
To the editor:
In response to Hiram
Berry's letter exposing the
reactionary role of Zionism
and defending the just
national liberation struggles
of the Palestinian people,
several letters attacking his
position were printed in the
Thresher. These defenses of
Zionism were based on the
very distortions of which
Berry was accused and
served only to confuse the
issues involved.
What is the real nature of
Zionism? Zionism is the
political movement developed
by European Jewish bour-
geoisie to force the creation of
the state of Israel on the
territory of Palestine. The
wealthy Jews leading the
movement claimed that
Palestine was intended by God
to belong to the Jews, and to be
ruled by themselves. The took
advantage of the historic
oppression of the Jewish
people by the European ruling
classes to advance the goals of
a few Jewish capitalists. Prior
to WWII the Zionists had little
support among the Jewish
masses for their nation-state
scheme. While the Jewish
people were heroically
resisting the Fascists'
program of genocide, the
Zionists were saying that
resistance was useless and
that only migration to the
Palestinian "homeland" could
solve their problems. Created
through massive military and
economic aid, mainly from the
U.S., Israel was established to
serve as a military outpost and
source of political influence in
the oil-rich Mideast. To this
day, Israel is kept afloat only
by continuous infusions of aid
from the U.S. imperialists.
In their letters, Shapiro,
Schreiber and Rakoover claim
that Arabs in Israel enjoy the
same rights with Jews and
that those in the occupied
territories share in Israeli
"democracy" and prosperity.
A majority of Palestinians are
workers, many exploited side
by side with Jewish workers.
Palestinians, however, suffer
significantly higher unem-
ployment, and are restricted to
the hardest, most marginal,
lowest paying jobs. For easy
identification, Palestinians
are forced to carry specially
marked identity cards, Nazi
style. Arab political parties are
banned. These "full citizens"
are barred from the army and
not allowed to bear arms. After
nearly 30 years^ of Zionist
terror and expulsion, only 15%
of Israel's population,
excluding those in areas seized
in 1967, remains Palestinian.
Yet, even this minority is
seen as a threat to Zionist rule,
and is dealt with harshly. In
the region of Galilee the
Palestinian population had ,
slowly increased from 42% in
1948 to a majority. The
government decided they must
end this Palestinian majority
and "Judaize" Galilee. They
passed a law seizing
thousands of acres from local
landowners for the establish-
ment of Jewish farming
communities which also serve
as military outposts. Against
this background of oppression
Palestinians and other Arabs
in the Galilee and West Bank
rose in widespread rebellion
last spring. They demanded
the end of Israeli occupation of
Arab lands and the liberation
of Palestine; demonstrations
and general strikes swept the
areas. The government
responded in its characteristic
fashion—troops killed several
and wounded dozens, many of
whom were children; militant
young Palestinians running
for office in local Galilean
elections were muzzled. Mr.
Klein may be right when he
claims that civil rights are
denied only to suspected
terrorists—to the Zionists,
every Palestinian is a
suspected terrorist. All this
reveals the sham claims of
Israel democracy.
Several of the letters attempt
to equivocate any armed
resistance to Zionist aggres-
sion with terrorism. In typical
Zionist fashion they spotlight
isolated acts of naive
adventurers and provaca-
teurs, many of them not even
Arabs. Portrayal of these acts
as representative of the
Palestinian people, or attri-
buting them to the PLO is
just cheap slander. The PLO
has consistently denounced
adventuristic acts. They point
out that the only road to
liberation is armed struggle by
the masses of people.
The Zionists ignore that the
real terrorism stems from
the Israeli government:
bombing and shelling of
Palestinian refugee camps;
Mossad assassination of PLO
leaders in foreign lands;
massacre of 250 Arab civilians
at Deir Yaseen; supply of arms
and munitions to the
reactionary forces in Lebanon;
shooting down demonstrators.
Many of letters attacking
Berry equate his anti-Zionism
with antisemitism. This is
slanderous falsehood. Pales-
tinians and other Arabs are
just as Semitic as Jews.
Neither did he put forth anti-
Jewish views. The solution
which he shares with the PLO,
that of a secular democratic
state in which Jews,
Christians, and Moslems live
peacefully together as equals
is the only viable alternative
for the Jewish people.
Due to limitations not all
of the issues brought up by the
supporters of Zionism could be
answered. We, the supporters
of Palestinian national
liberation, challenge the
Zionists to participate with us
in a public forum, to be held
within several weeks at Rice.
For further information
contact:
Travis F. Morales
WRC '74
523-1018
CA
Coed college discussion
To the editor:
This whole discussion about
coed colleges seems to be
getting ridiculous and out of
hand (reading this week's
Threshers). Basically, it's a
local problem and single-sex
dorms are only accidents of
history. But it seems that I
may have something to
contribute as one of the few
people on campus who has
lived in a single-sex and a coed
college, even though I don't
especially want to get
involved.
The first point to be made is
that sexual segregation is not
culturally or psychologically
natural, and even if single-sex
colleges don't actively
encourage that segregation,
they do make it easy for people
to avoid solving problems of
relationships between the
sexes by simply not actively
seeking such relationships.
The only comment to add to
make that into a personal
history is to say that e^ch year
spent in a single-sex college
makes it harder for an
individual to achieve a normal
relationship with members of
the opposite sex, reinforcing a
loner's belief that he can go it
alone, as well as allowing the
individual to be classified as
celibate by the rest of the
community. What I'm
basically arguing here is that
single-sex colleges can
contribute to non-normal
psychological development.
The original justification for
single-sex dormitories is
rooted in ideas that sex is bad
and Platonic thought can't
survive sexual contact.
Poppycock and balderdash.
Sex is something we all have
and we're all going to have to
live with (eunuchs and
transvestites excepted) and we
may as well enjoy it. And a lot
of studying does go on in those
coed colleges. Lacking the
data, I am unable to say
whether the GPA is higher in
single-sex or coed colleges, but
that isn't even an issue if the
purpose of college is to produce
mature leaders and innova-
tors, as I would contend. Sex is
a normal part of being human
and coed colleges acknowledge
that fact.
Rice does have the special
problem of "the ratio", which
should be eliminated as a
problem as quickly as possible.
But we do have to consider
Rice's academic reputation
before acting, since it is
desirable to maintain and
even improve that. It is
obvious that we should find
out how Cal Tech and MIT,
etc., have dealt with similar
issues, important information
which seems to be lacking. But
I can offer evidence to the
effect that sexual segregation
does not exist at many state
schools; the entire issue is dead
for many (probably most)
college students. Some of those
schools have "ratios", as does
Baker, but no one seems to
consider it a problem. Maybe
the real problem is the rational
use of "the ratio" to justify
action (or inaction).
A final major item to be
considered is the isolationist
charge. But isn't part of the
idea of the college system to
create small social communi-
ties, and doesn't the very
tendency of the coed college to
become withdrawn show the
system to be working.
University-wide events are the
responsibility of the Student
Association and specifically
the RPC, not the colleges, and
the questioning of the RPC's
success is a completely
different issue. Nor will the
colleges simply abandon
traditional events simply
because they are coed
(Hanszen's Mardi Gras and
Baker's Shakespearean
Festival as proofs). To call the
coed colleges isolationist is to
tailor the crime to fit.
This writer obviously favors
making all the colleges
coeducational on simple
grounds of normalcy. People
who don't want sexual
associations don't go beserk
from being in a coed college
and no one can be forced into
undesired friendships, in
Baker or in any coed college,
the weanies are still going to
be around Rice no matter what
(pre-meds, Chinese, and other
desperadoes). So if even most
of the members of the single-
sex colleges want to go coed, in
spite of the human (and
especially Rice peoples')
conservatism towards the
familiar, then why don't they
get it done.
Shannon Jacobs
Baker '78
_JfHE ikA CARLA McFARLAND
Ipw Editor
HICB W W CATHERINE M. EGAN
Business Manager
1 flfegnef Steven M. Setser
Advertising Manager
Philip H. Parker Candidate
Kim D. Brown Candidate
Thomas E. Brown Ex-Candidate (he got smart)
Walter Underwood Photography Editor
Jay Shilstone Fine Arts Editor
Steve Sullivan De Facto Everything Editor
Jim Fowler Dull-wit Editor
Barry L. Jones Sports Editor Emeritus
Bill Barron Circulation Manager
Mark §. Linimon Caffiene Editor
Art Staff Dale Charletta, Jeff Kerr
Copy Editor Cindy Childress
Editorial Staff Jeanmarie Amend, Jim Beall, Juli Jones,
Karen Moross, Matt Muller
Sports Staff Asuka Nakahara, Larry Nettles,
Philip Parker, Marc Siegel
Photography Staff Mark Catlett, Paul Fong, Rich Jensen,
Ann Shaw, Beth Stickney
Production Staff Steve Glaser, Lee Holder, Marty Hood, Robert Miller,
Belle Sheppard, Mark Stoll, Esther Talacki,
Bill Studabakej, Mark Linimon, and gru/iGY
The Rice Thresher, official student newspaper at l8ce University since 1916, is
published semi-weekly on Mondays and Thursdays during the school year, except
during examination periods and holidays, by the students of Rice University,
527-4801. Advertising information is available on request, 527-4802. Editorial and
business offices are located on the second floor of the suddenly rodent-free Rice
Memorial Center and Grungy's Storeroom, P.O. Box 1892, Houston, Texas 77001.
Mail subscription rate, 15 dollars per year. The opinions expressed herein are not
necessarily those of anyone except the writer.
Obviously.
"Copyright 1977, The Rice Thresher. All rights reserved.
Unless. . .
the rice thresher, february 14, 1977 — page 2
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McFarland, Carla. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 64, No. 32, Ed. 1 Monday, February 14, 1977, newspaper, February 14, 1977; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245323/m1/2/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.