Fall 2002, the first day of another school year at the University of Michigan, I fear that once again I enter the battleground of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, location Ann Arbor, Michigan. Having witnessed numerous clashes between the two sides in past years, I notice that sadly most, though not all, of the participants in this campus war are Jews with the pro-Israel views and Arabs fighting for the pro-Palestine side. The rest of the University student body is either apathetic about the issue or is irritated at the continuing propaganda war on the Middle East.

Most troubling are the attempts by pro-Palestinian advocates to mislead students who are uneducated and disinterested in the conflict with their fallacious and demagogic arguments. They hope that the liberal-minded always-ready-to-right-a-wrong college student will give in to the pleas to support the "poor Palestinians suffering under brutal occupation" and will reprimand Israel for abusing its power.

All those little, unimportant facts such as suicide bombers, terrorist organizations and the threat of destruction that Israel faces on a daily basis are conveniently left out of the pro-Palestine discourse in an effort to mislead students. Similarly left unmentioned are human rights abuses of the Palestinian Authority under the corrupt and dictatorial leadership of Yassir Arafat.

I believe it is time that college students realize why Israel needs and deserves their support, regardless of how tear-drawing the demagogic speeches of the pro-Palestinian activists are. It is time that students take a stand for the values in which this liberal campus takes so much pride: The values of liberty, equality and social justice. It is time to see that Israel is the only hope for the survival of those values in the Middle East.

Israel is not perfect, like any other country in the world it has flaws and problems dealing with complex issues like gender, poverty and race. At the same time the one undeniable truth in this conflict is that Israel is the only true democracy in the Middle East. Next to the despotism of the Middle East dictatorships, Israel guarantees that its government will be "based on freedom, justice, peace ... it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture." Israel doesn't always accomplish these goals - but at least it tries. No other country in the Middle East comes even close to promising their people these freedoms. On the contrary, their propaganda focuses on bashing the Western democratic ideals and repressing their citizens.

Furthermore, as a loyal ally, Israel fights our enemies in our "War Against Terrorism." Israel shared the pain of our losses from terrorism, the pain it suffers on almost a daily basis at the hands of those same innocent and helpless Palestinians portrayed in the anti-Israel rhetoric. Israelis condemn and fight against terrorism at the same time as Palestinians riot because one of the leaders of Hamas or Hizbullah (two terrorist organizations) was put under temporary house arrest. As Israeli civilians are dying in clubs, restaurants, hotels and buses, Hizbullah recruits are working with al Qaeda to destroy Israel and America (see Washington Post 06/30/02). And Arafat's corrupt regime is doing zilch to stop them. How can we support the regime whose actions contradict every moral value on which America is based?

These are the questions that as students we must address. How much do we value democracy and what are we willing to do to preserve it? The current focus of the campus battle is the infamous divestment petition that the pro-Palestinian leaders are incessantly advocating. The petition would call on the University to end all of "the University's financial investments in the Israeli market and in corporations with significant financial connections with Israel."

The divestment petition disregards any possibilities of negotiations for peace, calling on Israel to give up all its rights to safe and secure borders. They talk of the "illegal" occupation, forgetting that the reason Israel is in control of the disputed territories is because it defeated the aggressor states when it was attacked by them in 1967. They talk of the UN resolutions which direct Israel to give up the territories, conveniently leaving out the parts of the resolutions that demand the recognition of Israel's right to safe and secure borders. They talk of Israel's imperial claims, avoiding the reality that there is a widespread desire among Israelis for a long term and peaceful solution, while the majority of Palestinians refuse to recognize the right of Israel to exist. They neglect to mention that in Israel 70 percent support territorial compromise and peace, while in the Palestinian territories 68 percent support suicide bombings.