Three students protest Israeli peace talks

Three students stood near a table covered with signs proclaiming, "This peace is killing us," in a protest of the Israeli peace process on College Green yesterday afternoon. The small group handed out flyers to those who walked past, many of whom paused to read the signs or talk with the protesters. According to College freshman Dave Crystal, who organized the rally, the event was originally intended to take place in response to Sunday's bombings in Israel. But the group postponed the protest because they did not want it to interfere with Monday night's memorial vigil for the victims of the bombings. "We did not want to turn such a solemn moment into a political rally," said Crystal, a Daily Pennsylvanian columnist. While the protesters said they are in favor of peace, they added that they disagree with the goals of Israel's Labor Party, which is currently in power. College freshman Sarah Polon, one of the protesters, said she does not believe that giving up land will prevent more incidents of Palestinian violence against Jews, like the recent bombings. "The people responsible for the bombings won't be satisfied if we give them the West Bank," she said. "They want us off the map." But Polon added that she would not be against giving up land for peace at a slower rate. "I am definitely pro-peace and not anti-giving up some land, but too much is going too fast," she explained. Crystal said he believes that the Labor government has betrayed the Israeli people. One of the flyers handed out by the group quotes the assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin as supporting Israeli control of the Golan, currently an area of contention in the Israel-Syria peace talks. "It is inconceivable that even in peacetime we should leave the Golan," Rabin said, according to the flyer. "Anyone proposing to leave the Golan is abandoning Israel's security." The flyer claims that Rabin made this statement in October, 1992. But according to Crystal, Rabin used the Golan in peace negotiations just two months later. "The Labor Party was elected on the premise that it was not going to leave the Golan, not going to establish a Palestinian state and not going to divide Jerusalem," he explained. "So far, they've been doing just that in contradiction to their promises." The protesters said they want the right-wing Likud Party to take power. "[Likud leader] Bibi Netanyahu must be elected as prime minister because, unlike Peres, he has the courage to be a tough bargainer in the peace talks," Crystal said. Polon agreed that there should be a change in the Israeli government. "I want the Labor government out and the Likud government back in because they will reevaluate the peace process," she said. Crystal said Israel should adopt a policy of retaliation. "We must set up a system whereby there is true peace through mutual fear," he said. "If the Arabs fear attacking us, they won't. "If there is a terrorist from Gaza, we should bomb his house and all houses adjacent to it," Crystal explained. "That way, the community takes responsibility for its terrorists." Some of the students who stopped to talk to the protesters, like College junior Jared Miller, said they did not agree with the protest's message. "While I may just be a liberal American Jew who is not in the midst of the conflict, I can't see how killing an Arab will save a Jew," Miller explained. "If violent retaliation is a last resort, they haven't searched hard enough."

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