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| Response to Last Month’s Article Khaldi Visit Angers Israel Critics |
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Scott [last name, title of article, date]—You did a reasonably good job on your article on Khalid’s visit and talk. But let me clarify the key point. The statement that Israel is an apartheid state has nothing to do with how Israeli Arabs are treated, and everything to do with how the 3 million plus Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories (Gaza and the West Bank) are treated. Since 1967—forty plus years—they have lived under Israeli military administration without the rights given to the people inside Israel. They are stateless—no one, certainly not Israel, will give them a passport. They have been in the past allowed to work in Israel—but not to stay over night. This is exactly how Black South Africans were treated under apartheid. Israel today has no intention of form a sovereign state in the West Bank and Gaza, but if they were, it would certainly be formed in three non-contiguous blocks and entirely surrounded by Israel—exactly like the Bantustans of South Africa under apartheid. The charge of “apartheid” certainly can’t be dismissed out of hand. In fact, there are many Israelis who use the term themselves in describing the situation. As for how the speaker was treated by two or three in the audience, it may be deplorable but certainly understandable if it were coming from someone living in or acquainted with the present situation on the West Bank, with the myriads of settlements (illegal according to the Geneva Conventions), roads connecting them, check points, and the wall. And there’s the problem of living and being treated as a conquered people for the past forty years while the world ignores them. Mr. al-Khaldi sounds like a well-intentioned person—but you should note that he is a Bedouin. There are around 100,000 Bedouins in Israel. There are another two and a half million Israeli Arabs—and they are no[t] allowed to bear arms, serve in the army, and haven’t since the founding of the state. They are Arabs. They aren’t trusted. Look, all of these are facts that everyone in Israel knows. Unfortunately, too many Americans don’t. That’s why I teach my course “Palestine/Israel”. Could I persuade you to take it? You’ll find that these are complicated issues, too numerous and complicated to dismiss over a couple of hotheads. Yours, Jon Mandaville History Department PSU Editorial Response: First of all, Mr. Mandaville, with regard to your assertion that “…how the speaker was treated by two or three in the audience, it may be deplorable but certainly understandable…:” This was not an issue of a couple of spectators misbehaving. Waddah Sofan was the party described as the one miming spitting on Mr. Khaldi. This is an issue of a person who represents PSU acting in an entirely disgusting and unacceptable way in public toward a guest of the university. If he is so “understandably” angry that he cannot be trusted to control his childish impulses toward emotional display and conduct himself in a manner that befits a representative of the university, he should be removed from that position. Waddah Sofan has embarrassed all of us as students, members of PSU and as humans. You should be embarrassed, as well, Mr. Mandaville, for the incredible short-sightedness and obvious bias that it takes to defend a person like that in this case. Want another spanking? Turn to page 15. Rebekah Hunt Editor In Chief Portland State Rearguard  |
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