To the Editor:
Last Tuesday's editorial concerning the pro-Israel petition circulated on the Dartmouth campus ("Standing Up in Support," The Dartmouth, Jan. 21) gives the mistaken impression that Israel is a democratic state similar in disposition to "Western" countries like the U.S., France, Germany and Canada. This is sadly far from the truth. Israel is run by an expansionist, intolerant regime dominated by a military elite. Israel remains the only country in the world that has never declared its frontiers. It maintains a brutal, humiliating occupation of foreign, sovereign territories, discriminates on the basis of race and religion, refuses international peacekeepers under U.N. mandate to mitigate or monitor its draconian rule over those who do not belong to its dominant ethnicity, and -- most frighteningly of all -- commands a potent nuclear arsenal for which it declines to disavow first use. The international journalists organization Reporters Without Borders, in its most recent ranking of press freedom throughout the world, placed Israel 92nd among the 139 states and territories surveyed (by way of comparison, the areas under the control of the Palestinian Authority placed 82nd).
It is nonetheless undeniably true that the Israeli regime permits a substantial degree of what Americans would normally consider to be democracy to certain segments of the population under its control. Israel does deserve support from our community, and the populations inside Israel do have a right to security. The author is correct in asserting that the U.S. government holds the key to peace in the region. It should pressure Israel to come to the table with the world community (represented by the U.S., UN, European Union and Russia) and the leadership of the "occupied territories" in Palestine at an international peace conference to set the frontiers of this state in law, once and for all.
The United States is better placed than any other power to help Israel find guarantees for future security and evolve toward "Western-style democracy" and civil society by guiding it firmly toward a peace conference. By doing so, the government of this country would place itself on the side of justice, do wonders for the hopes of wider peace and democratization in a volatile region, and likely spare many innocent Israelis, Palestinians and Americans from falling victim to this conflict and others which reverberate from it in the future.
