A just response
To the Editor: It is unfortunate that I have to write this letter, but the falsities that Salem Samra brings ("Stop the abuse of Arabs' rights," The Daily Pennsylvanian, 10/11/00) are so widespread that I must present the truth myself. Israeli soldiers don't fight rocks with guns. Israeli policy forbids firing live bullets in response to stone-throwing. Only in the worst cases are soldiers permitted to fire in the air or to use non-lethal mediums like tear gas. Since the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in May, there have been daily bombardments of the Israeli "Fatma Gate" outpost, which lies inside Israeli territory by all accounts. Rioters gather at the border fence and hurl rocks and firebombs at the outpost. Several Israeli soldiers have sustained severe injuries, yet the Israeli forces do not respond unless the rioters charge across the border. I've had stones thrown at me on four occasions, and I've never fired back. Why are Israeli soldiers now firing at the Palestinian rioters? Because in the midst of these riots are armed Palestinian police officers who have opened fire on the Israeli positions. Israeli soldiers will return fire when fired upon. The fact that these "policemen" choose to fire on the Israelis from inside a crowd of violent civilians does not negate the right of the Israelis to defend themselves against the Palestinian gunfire. Chairman Arafat is not a commander; with this I agree. But Israel cannot allow a Palestinian state of violent anarchy. Yet, while Israel cannot ask Chairman Arafat to stop the violence, Israel does require that the Palestinian Authority stop calling for violence. The PA is still promoting violent rallies, and is still ordering their Tanzim troops to attack Israeli positions. Mr. Samra is entitled to his opinions. But the readers are entitled to the facts.Shimon Brooks College '04
The writer is a lieutenant in the Israeli Defense Force.
An ominous precedent
To the Editor: I was an undergrad at Penn, and am currently working toward my Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, another school in a long-ignored, now somewhat more fashionable neighborhood in a large city. The U of C purchased much of the housing near its campus back in the 1950s. People still argue about the fairness of this, but its end result seems to be something that Penn is now interested in: a large stock of University-owned housing near campus ("U. planning to buy out area landlords," DP, 10/17/00). For what it's worth, I can tell you what happened here. U of C does do a noticeably better job, in particular with safety and repairs, than the vast majority of the other landlords in Hyde Park. However, as rents have gone up during the last few years, U of C apartments have not been a haven of affordable housing. The rents in the building I first moved into in 1996 went up by between 20 and 25 percent during the next four years, which was about typical for Hyde Park. The housing office claims its costs have risen, but the University, unlike private landlords, does not pay property taxes, so it's hard to see where. My building manager still drives a beat-up Mazda. The apartment market in Hyde Park doesn't seem monopolistic; there are still very cheap apartments around, though increasingly they're at the edges of the neighborhoods where almost no students lived a few years ago. But students looking for inexpensive housing near campus only rarely end up in U of C housing; they end up in the same kind of buildings that my friends lived in when I was at Penn. It would be admirably charitable if Penn were buying this property to ensure inexpensive housing for its students, and maybe this is the case. Most people are more sympathetic to their undergrad than their graduate schools, so I'd certainly be happy if Penn turned out to be the less mercenary of the two.James Walsh College '94
No quick conclusions
To the Editor: Alex Wong's column ("Stem cell research should be restricted," DP, 10/9/00) suggests that adult precursor cells, found in various tissues, are the equivalent of embryonic stem cells. I do not think any researcher in this field would say that that was a proven or even likely case. Nor can the cells be simply described as "better." The Wall Street Journal is a fine enough newspaper, but not a very good source of scientific information. We are a very long way from even understanding the difference between these two types of cells, let alone deciding which may be more useful for what purposes. Anti-abortion and anti-stem research activists make an initial difficult claim that a collection of a few dozen cells is the moral equivalent of a human being. I can respect this argument, however, despite disagreeing with it. Critics do not help their case by casting aspersions on the character of scientists engaged in medical research -- surely among the most moral members of our society -- or by making inaccurate claims.Ian Kaplan College '01
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