Tuesday, February 10, 2004

by Brendan Moriarty
Gazette Reporter

Our largest lecture hall was filled to capacity last night as Dr.
Diana
Buttu, legal advisor to the Palestinian Liberation Organization, spoke
about
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a peaceable audience, largely
composed
of students. She is a Canadian born daughter of a Palestinian refugee
with
degrees from the University of Toronto, Queens College and Stanford
University. In a phrase she was to repeat throughout the one-hour
lecture,
she portrayed the policy of Israel to ³confine the Palestinians
into as
little land as possible, while taking as much of their land as
possible.²
Dr. Buttu constructed her argument by describing the territorial
developments in the occupied territories of the West Band and the Gaza
Strip
since the Oslo peace accords in 1993.

She identified the developing Israeli security wall in the West Bank
as a
primary obstacle to peace. When completed in the near future, the wall
will
run about 145 km in length and cost $__ millions. The ³West²
has justified
the wall as a security measure, while Dr. Buttu saw it instead as
another
mechanism of the Israeli strategy to ³confine and take.² She
described the
plight of one Palestinian town in particular, Qalqilya, which has seen
its
economy fall by 45% and its population flee since encirclement. Dr.
Buttu
encouraged activists to focus their resources on opposing the
construction
of the security wall.

Fielding a student question, Dr. Buttu described her vision for
peace. ³I
want peace between people; I do not want peace between
governments.² She
hopes that Palestinians and Israelis can one day walk away from
negotiations
and feel that they have been treated as equals. She stated that her
primary
policy requirement is for the internationally recognized border between
the
two nations to be recognized by Israel. Settlers would be allowed to
remain
in what are now the occupied territories but would be subject to the
laws of
a sovereign Palestinian state. Palestinian refugees would need to be
given
options: they could choose to remain where they are, return to their
homes
or move to an entirely different country. Jerusalem would become an
³open
city² for visitors of all religious faiths and would require no
passport for
entrance. She did not say how authority would be distributed.

Dr. Buttu blamed the escalation of violence over the last several
years on
her claim that power, not law, has formed the basis of peace
negotiations.
She cited the fact that the security wall is being built within the
West
Bank despite international law intended to bar Israel from this
territory.

Other messages included the growing single state movement among
Palestinian
supporters and the importance of recognizing dissent for Israeli
foreign
policy among Israeli citizens.

For the most part, Dr. Buttu avoided discussing American foreign
policy.
However she did accuse, in passing, the United States of following a
double
standard in its treatment of Israel vis-à-vis Iraq.

In a move that appeared to take much of the audience by surprise, a
representative of the sponsoring Students Against the Occupation,
preceded
question-and-answers by announcing the presence of two public safety
officers positioned at the back of the room.

Her visit marked the second in a series of appearances at North
American
universities arranged by a consortium of pro-Palestinian student
groups.
Before returning to Ramallah on the 20th, Dr. Buttu will speak at Yale,
Columbia, Brown, Williams and several other schools. The Cooper
Foundation
provided funding for the event.

*****

This past weekend, the Swarthmore College Bowl team sent three teams
to the NAQT Sectionals at Princeton, and returned with two top four
finishes as well as at least one invitation to Nationals in April.

The Division I team of Will Schricker ’04, Chris White ’05, Emily
Ullman ’06, and Matt Fowles ’04 finished in a tie for second at 8-5,
and won the undergraduate championship as the highest-finishing team in
the field without any graduate students. Will was the fifth highest
scorer, and Chris was seventh. Their performance automatically
qualified them for NAQT Nationals, in St. Louis, in April.

Swarthmore also had two teams compete in the novice Division II: the
A team of Arthur Chu ’06, Micaela Baranello ’07, Ben Bagley ’04, and
Alex Glick ’06 tied for fourth with a 10-3 record, and is likely to
qualify for Nationals as well. The B team of Adam Oleksa ’05, Scott
Blaha ’07 and Miriam Newman ’07 also performed well, managing to get
eighth place despite being shorthanded. Arthur was eighth individually
among Div. II players.

*****

* On Monday, medical experts convened before a federal panel to
discuss whether a mercury-based preservative, thimerosal, in
vaccinations routinely given to children, was the cause of the
increasing rates of autism in the United States. While most of the
epidemiologists that testified believe that thimerosal is not
responsible for the rise in cases of autism, the toxicologists are
convinced that a link exists. Toxicologists told the panel that higher
levels of mercury are found in children with autism. Mercury has been
gradually removed from most vaccines (it can still be found in some flu
vaccines), but many scientists suggest that the rise in reported autism
cases is due to increased awareness in parents, teachers, and doctors.

* Ivan P. Rybkin, one of Vladimir V. Putin’s challengers in the
Russian presidential election, has been missing since Thursday evening.
According to Russian law, a person is not considered missing until
after three days have passed. This incident is just one of the latest
acts of violence that have rocked the Rybkin campaign; in the past
eighteen months, two members of his campaign have been shot to death
under suspicious circumstances. Another party leader, Mikhail N.
Kodanev, has been charged with the murder. Elections are scheduled to
be held March 14, but Putin is expected to win easily.

* Two chinstrap penguins, Roy and Silo, at the Central Park Zoo in
Manhattan have been a gay couple for six years now. Their keepers have
noted their “ecstatic behavior,” including intertwining necks,
vocalizing to each other, and having sex. The two penguins were even
eager to incubate an egg, going as far as obtaining a rock in their
nest and sitting on it. Rob Gramzy, their chief keeper, finally gave
them a real egg to incubate, and the pair hatched a girl, Tango. Roy
and Silo are not unique—there are other penguins that exhibit
homosexual behavior in other zoos, and “gay groups argue that if
homosexual behavior occurs in animals, it is natural, and therefore the
rights of homosexuals should be protected.”

*****

Kitao Gallery Opening
Kitao Gallery, 5:30 p.m.

Living Wage Campaign Meeting
Kohlberg 228, 6:30 p.m.

Resume/Interview Workshop
Bond, 7:00 p.m.

Lecture: Arthur Schlesinger
LPAC, 7:30 p.m.

*****

SPORTS UPDATE

Today:
Women’s Basketball at Muhlenberg, 7:00 p.m.

Tomorrow:
Swimming at Washington, 6:00 p.m.
Men’s Basketball at Muhlenberg, 8:00 p.m

*****

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“A fool’s brain digests philosophy into folly, science into
superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.”
–George Bernard Shaw

*****

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