University of South Carolina Libraries
Initiative New Sena The Student Senate meeting Wedne surprising and productive session of th< Instead of the usual lack of orgai Senate committees came forth with pi plight of USC students. The Residential Life Committee ind to study the ARA food price increase, s dorm visitation rules, and hoping to campus. VARIOUS OTHER committees rep related problems, such as inviting suggestion boxes. The Community Re to arrange student discounts at certain It is apparent that some senators, w least attempting to do their jobs. It senators are taking initiative toward r< Senators, especially the newly ele thing; these proposals must be followe past, Senate proposals, well intende< internal squabbling or the massive a ministrative side of the division of Stud We feel the past Senates have lister from administrative personnel instep they feel is in the best interests of the si STUDENTS CAN BETTER relate tl elected representatives than to a unive Student Affairs' purpose is to better s< provided. The question is, how much ii in deciding the real issues and policies': Student Government can, and shoul This group can help voice the issues improvement provided they are not los start, senators. Lettf WUSC offei /?/ To the Editor: Congratulations on the "Out in Left 1 paper. It took a lot of courage to write ( It is up to the students here to come t it is too late. By printing the article may have found a starting point. It is about time we showed the bo* tired of being made the laughing stocl This interference comes from selfish n themselves that the people they repres If after all the protest the board dc some sort of student movement shoul< from office. This letter is designed to show the W McGuire and the university athletic f results that will satisfy the student bod gamecock Founded 1 908 Tom'Travis Editor in Chief Leigh Grogan Copy Desk Chief Michael Gooding News Editor I Brott Friedlander Sports Editor Lehman Stiles Entertainment Editor , Russell Pace. Graphics Editor Brian Duncan . Editorial Page Editor < Janet Gibson Wire Editor Mark Platte Assistant News Editor Steve Riddell Assistant Sports Editor Mark Chevalier . . . Asst. Entertainment Editor Carl Babcock Graduate Assistant Anthony Gray Advertising Manager n o?j..-.: ki ? ? a 11 uouiyo luuutuun iviauayur Bill Outlaw General Manager Sam McKoe Business Manager Mark Ethridge Jr Adviser Newsroom: 777-7181 Advertising: 777-4249 Business Office: 777 3888 Sola reproduction rights granted to the Associated Press. All other material contained hereto may not be reprinted without the permiso.^n of the editor. Dpimons expressed in the Gamecock a'e those, it signed, of the writer and, if unsigned, of ihe f enior editorial staff. I ignen I tm^in rr IKs l/JL J 111^ isday night was by far the most e "new regime." nization and confusion, several roposals aimed at improving the icated they would be attempting tudying the possibility of revising provide better lighting around orted progress in other student \ more student input through lations Committee is even trying local stores. hether experienced or not, are at is encouraging that some new ^presenting the students. cted ones, must remember one <1 through. Too many times in the 1, have failed either because of mount of influence from the adlent Affairs. ted too closely to suggestions (?) i rl nf frxl 1 nuiintl f hrni 1 (tVi An mil o f IU VA AV1IV/TT 1115 UUVU^AI VII TTIIUV :u dents. ieir needs and objectives to their rsity department. The division of jrve students, and that service is nfluence does student input have Id, work in the student interest, at hand and help work toward t in the bureaucratic maze. It's a BPS ~$ support Field" article in last Wednesday's :hat and even more to print it. 0 the aid of coach McGuire before without pulling any punches, we ird of trustees that students are k of the collegiate athletic world, nen who are more concerned with ent. es not reconsider their decision, 1 be formed to remove these men USC staff will also support coach urogram until we get satisfactory iy. Howard Cornfield sports director Ron Marsh station manager Opinion Letters The Gamecock welcomes letters from its readers. All letters must be typewritten and triole snared on a RS-snace line and ghotild he a maximum of 300 words. Letters must be signed with the writer's correct name, telephone, mailing address, class standing and major. Pseudonyms are unacceptable, but the writer's name may be withheld by request if circumstances warrant. We reserve the right to edit letters for space and style. Address letters to: Campus Opinion, The Gamecock, Drawer A, USC, Columbia, S.C. 29208. Columns In an effort to increase reader input inti future issues, the Gamecock offers a weekh guest column. Columns must be limited to one newsworth; subject and must be no more than four type* pages. All columns must be typewritten am triple spaced on a 65-space line. All facta mus be accurate. The editorial page editor reserve the right to reject any column for any reasoi and edit for space, content, style and ac curacy. vxmtmns must De signeu wnn correti namt address, telephone, major and class standin or faculty position. Address columns to: Guet Column, The Gamecock, Drawer A, USC Columbia, S.C. 29206. Gl Middle E I By Sharrough Akhai associate professor Dept. of Government & International Studies In a radio broadcast on 1 October 1939 Winston Churchill described Soviet foreign policy as a "riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." Without the gift of prophecy, none could hope to penetrate the veil of secrecy surrounding the process and goals of Stalin's rule. Yet, Churchill was optimistic, if the following words be any measure: "But perhaps there is a key. That key is (Soviet) national interest." After the October 1973 War, observers trying to make sense of Middle East oolitics resorted to a humorous paraphrase of Churchillian language: "Middle East politics is a riddle, wrapped around a sphinx inside a pastrami sandwich," wrote Leslie Gelb, then a reporter for The New York Times and subsequently Director of the Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs in the State Department of the Carter administration. INVOKING IMAGES of kosher delicatessens and wiley pharaohs is the analyst's way of saying that politics in this part of the world can only be explained in the culturally and historically specific context of developments in that region. Regardless of where one stands on this point, is there a key to the perennial Middle East conflict? No and yes. The substantive issues that for years have pitted civilian, paramilitary and military formations in Arab states against those in Israel are much too complex to be resolved by a supposed master solution. Yet at a symbolic levpl we seem to be witnessing movement in the direction of addressing a key issue that for years since the creation of the Israeli state in 1948 had been } deliberately and, at times, un1 wittingly, ignored. v I am referring to the i problematic of Palestine and 1 Palestinians. There is a certain I irony in this, considering earlier n attentions to Palestinian points of view. For although the British ad!: ministration in Palestine and the it Foreign Office and Colonial Office in London did not act with any degree of consistency during the A we. neh/ g&p ku5m " lest i_,oiun ast politics i Mandate period (approximately 1917-1947), at least the Commissions of Inquiry dispatched to Palestine in those years did seek to discover what the Palestinians wanted. (I must hasten to add. however, that the British government consistently failed to implement the recommendations of their own Commission Reports and White Papers.) From 1948-1975, on the other hand, Palestine and Palestinians existed only as terms that referred to the period prior to the declaration of the independent state of Israel. IN THE LAST four or five years opinion in the United States has shown increasing sensitivity to the Palestine issue. In November 1975, the State Department's Director of Intelligence and Research, Harold Saunders, testified before the House International Relations Committee that Palestine was "in many ways...at the heart of that (i.e., the Arab-Israeli) conflict." In December of that year the prestigious Brookings Institution report, which was originally cosigned by Zbigniew K. Brzezinski and William B. Quandt (later to serve respectively as National Security Advisor and chief Middle East specialist on the National Security Council staff), endorsed a Palestinian state. President Carter came to office with the following statement, uttered before the National Democratic Issues Conference in Louisville, Kentucky on 23 November 1975: "I think one of the integral parts of an ultimate settlement has to be the recognition of the Palestinians as a people, as a nation..." While space limitations nrohihit a close examination of the shifts over the last few years in the American position, one may say that a very substantial change in perceptions has occurred. No doubt the energy crisis has had a major role in this; but I would 8U00efit thflt nil nhruilH ^ CPt, considered the "key." THE MERE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT that Palestine is at the core of the Middle East conflict does not resolve the many issues comprising it. Recognition, important as it is, is only the point of in a 'riddle' departure for a realistic search for solutions, ii may oe ODjeciea mai previous proposals did not overlook the Palestinians. And there is a degree of truth to that conclusion since these plans carried the language of repatriation, compensation and resettlement. And who was the object of these terms? The Palestinians who had left their homes in 1947-48 and 1967. Yet, if they were acknowledged, it was as stateless persons ana refugees, not as a people, not as a nation. And that is the rub. I want to make it crystal clear these ruminations are only a portion of my personal views on the whole range of issues involved in the Middle East conflict. IN DISCUSSING PALESTINE and Palestinians, I am not passing judgement on the merits of positions adopted by numerous Palestinian or Israeli leaders. It seems to me that where we go from hfirfl is fnr thp ITnitpH Staffs to declare it will support the legitimate rights of Palestinians to self-determination and suggest the West Bank and Gaza Strip as the place for the expression of these rights. But the U.S. must tie this commitment to the contingency that Palestinians recognize the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Israel within mutually agreed borders. This declaration wil do nothing to resolve the thorny issues of borders, the nature of the new entity, !tL iw iciauuiia wiui sunuunuine states, the form of guarantees given to Israel,' and so on. Its usefulness lies in the likelihood it will stimulate serious debate in the Palestinian mmmunitv about objectives, strategies, ideology and tactics. ULTIMATELY, we are confronted with the following situation: the Palestinians by themselves are too weak to resolve the Middle East conflict in their own preferred manner, however 1- A mcjf me sirung enougn 10 uiw* those proposals which seek to overlook them. That is the reality which we must face as we look down the road of future ArabIsraeli relations.