Hanink is off-base, meetings, lounges open to everyone

To the Daily:

I think it is interesting that the Daily printed Jim Trout's letter ('Double standards' favoring minorities unfair to majority, 09/23/03), regarding Johanna Hanink's column ('Members-only' diversity, 09/22/03), as his comments about his visit to the University with his son dangerously introduces, if not perpetuates, the idea that the African-American lounges are restricted to blacks only. Though (hopefully) all of the upperclassmen of the University know that Trout's son didn't know what the bloody hell he was talking about when he made that glaring, obviously uneducated mistake in telling that to his dad, I can still imagine some encouragable freshman with a snot bubble coming out of his nose reading the response and jumping to that ridiculous conclusion that there would actually be a lounge in a University reserved exclusively for one ethnicity.

Almost more dangerous was the error that Hanink makes in the column itself. She speaks of the "minorities only" meeting that took place last fall term in the wake of the Daily boycott, but she was very off-base with her factual information. Had Hanink even attempted to attend the meeting herself, she would have learned not only was it not restricted to minorities, but that she would have been in good company with other white representatives of the Daily! She cites an e-mail as advertising it as "minorities only," though I and no one else I have spoken to received an e-mail with that specific wording, and Hanink's journalistic background should allow her to know better than to anonymously cite any e-mails as reference points.

I doubt this letter will make it in the paper, but, not for lack of trying, some very important facts needed to be cleared up in this mess of crass assumptions.

Dustin J. Seibert

LSA senior

Wagner's argument flawed, Israel a Jewish theocracy that deprives Palestinians of rights

To the Daily:

In his letter (Divesting from Israel contrary to U.S. policies supporting democracy in Middle East, 09/20/03), Stuart Wagner refers to Israel as a "secular democratic state." However, as a self-proclaimed "Jewish state," Israel cannot, by definition, qualify as a secular democratic state. A theocratic state, Israel has over 20 policies that discriminate against its non-Jewish citizens.

The crux of Wagner's argument, that because Israel is a democratic state we should not divest from it, is in itself flawed. Last week, Avraham Burg, former Israeli Knesset speaker and the keynote speaker of last year's "Israel: Piecing Together the Puzzle" conference, surprised Israeli society and admitted, "We cannot keep a Palestinian majority under an Israeli boot and at the same time think ourselves the only democracy in the Middle East. There cannot be democracy without equal rights for all who live here, Arab as well as Jew."

Referring to Israel's 36 year occupation of 3.6 million Palestinians, Burg further stated, "Traveling on the fast highway that skirts barely a half-mile west of the Palestinian roadblocks, it's hard to comprehend the humiliating experience of the despised Arab who must creep for hours along the pocked, blockaded roads assigned to him. One road for the occupier, one road for the occupied."

Of the 5 million Palestinians under Israeli control, only 30 percent have the right to vote. Of that minority, not a single indigenous, non-Jewish Palestinian enjoys full benefits or equality under the law. This "democracy" certainly should not be lauded as Wagner suggests. Rather, a growing number of academics, scholars, and South African anti-apartheid heroes have correctly characterized this as apartheid, and a plausible course of action then would be divestment.

Hassan Abraham

LSA junior

Vice Chair, Students Allied for Freedom and Equality

Word snob bashes fellow word snob's use of 'fascist' in battle of literary proportions

To the Daily:

I can't express how happy I am see to that some at the Daily are very picky about the meanings of the words they use (People who use words they don't know are (not) ironic fascists, 09/23/03). It's been a major gripe of mine for many years. Unfortunately Aubrey Henretty could not quite divorce the political implications of words from what they actually mean.

She regrets that the "War on Iraq" became the "War in Iraq" in the first days of the conflict. Perhaps the preposition changed because now the war had moved into Iraq. "In," in this case, is more descriptive. Though I'm sure Henretty would have preferred "War Against Iraq," as would I, but the words are correct, and "on" is such an awkward phasing.