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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (7898)	9/13/2003 11:58:51 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793759

You will have probably read this in the paper, John September 14, 2003 OP-ED COLUMNIST One Wall, One Man, One Vote By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN ALQILYA, West Bank If there is one iron law that has shaped the history of Arab-Israeli relations, it's the law of unintended consequences. For instance, Israel is still wrestling with all the unintended consequences of its victory in 1967. Today, Israel is building a fence and walls around the West Bank to deter suicide bombers. But, having looked at this wall extensively from both sides, I am ready to make a prediction: It will be the mother of all unintended consequences. Rather than create the outlines of a two-state solution, this wall will kill that idea for Palestinians, and drive them, over time, to demand instead a one-state solution — where they and the Jews would have equal rights in one state. And since by 2010 there will be more Palestinian Arabs than Jews living in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza combined, this transformation of the Palestinian cause will be very problematic for Israel. If American Jews think it's hard to defend Israel today on college campuses, imagine what it will be like when their kids have to argue against the principle of one man, one vote. Why is this happening? First, because the fence is not being built on the 1967 border. It is being built on Palestinian land across the border, inside the West Bank. And since the fence is really a strip — up to 100 yards wide — of razor wire, trenches, sensors and cameras, more slices of Palestinian land are being confiscated to build it and farmers are being separated from their fields. "If the Israelis want to build the wall on the 1967 Green Line — no problem, they could build it 100 meters high," said Nidal Jaloud, spokesman for the West Bank Palestinian border town of Qalqilya, where Israel put a 24-foot-high wall after five suicide bombers came out of there. "But it is not being built on the Green Line — it is built on our lands." More important, Israelis just see a fence from their side. But for the Palestinians, the fence is part of a web of Israeli checkpoints and fences inside the West Bank, and the sealing of all exits but one from many Palestinian villages. This has transformed the West Bank into a series of cages. Qalqilya is surrounded by fences on three sides — to shut it off not only from Israel proper to the west, but also from West Bank Jewish settlements to the north and south. You can get out of Qalqilya only by going through a single Israeli checkpoint, where Palestinians often wait in line for hours. "I am trying to get to Al Funduk village — 10 minutes from here by car," Luay Tayyem, a Palestinian aid worker, told me as he stood in line to get out of Qalqilya. "Today it will take me three hours. When I tell the soldiers I am going to Al Funduk they ask me in broken Hebrew: `Where is that?' They speak to each other in Russian. I speak better Hebrew than they do. . . . I have been here 30 years, they've been here two." If the Israelis were building a fence around the West Bank, and then removing all the checkpoints inside, it would make great sense. But they can't, because the West Bank Jewish settlements also have to be protected — hence the fences and checkpoints all over the place, which are choking commerce and creating cages that will become factories of despair. As Palestinians find themselves isolated in pockets next to Jewish settlers — who have the rule of law, the right to vote, welfare, jobs, etc. — and as hope for a contiguous Palestinian state fades, it's inevitable that many of them will throw in the towel and ask for the right to vote in Israel. Khalil Shikaki, a Palestinian pollster, has already found 25 to 30 percent of Palestinians now supporting this idea — a stunning figure, considering it's never been proposed by any Palestinian or Israeli party. Mohammed Dahleh, the first Israeli Arab to clerk on the Israeli Supreme Court, said to me: "If Palestinians lose their dream to have an independent state, then the only thing that might guarantee for them a dignified life will be asking for the right to live in one state with the Israelis. When this struggle starts, it will find allies among the one million Palestinian Arabs inside Israel. . . . We will say, `Don't evacuate even a single West Bank settlement. Just give us the vote and let us be part of one community,' " since Israel has made it into one space anyway. "This call will find great resonance within the international community." I have enormous sympathy for Israelis trying to deter suicide bombers. But to build a fence without a border, and without facing up to the contradiction of having Jews on both sides of it, will only bring more troubles. nytimes.com

To: JohnM who wrote (7898)	9/14/2003 6:15:15 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793759

Vouching for Children By George F. Will Sunday, September 14, 2003; Page B07 Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) no longer attends the annual picnic held here by District of Columbia supporters of school choice. During the picnic there are lottery drawings to award scholarships empowering a few children to escape from the nation's worst -- and, in per-pupil spending, third-most lavishly funded -- school system. Boehner stopped attending because he could not bear the desperate anxiety, and crushing disappointment, of parents whose hopes for their children hung on the lottery. "I'd stand there and cry the whole time," he says. Bill Clinton, who could cry out of one eye, was dry-eyed about the plight of D.C.'s poor: He vetoed a school-choice bill for them in 1998. He felt the pain of the strong, the teachers' unions who were feeling menaced by the weak -- by poor parents trying to emancipate their children from the public education plantation. Boehner, who understands the patience of politics, began championing school choice as a state legislator two decades ago. Last Tuesday the House passed a small ($10 million) experimental school choice voucher program for at least 1,300 of the District's 68,000 students. This bill, skillfully managed by Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) passed, 209-208, only because two Democratic members, presidential candidates Dick Gephardt and Dennis Kucinich, were in Baltimore at a debate sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus, proclaiming their compassion for poor people. "I have 11 brothers and sisters -- my father owned a bar," says Boehner, who is not suggesting effect and cause but rather that "growing up in a large family and around a bar was great training for what I do every day" -- an intriguing commentary on the House. Boehner understands the privations parents often must endure to give their children educational opportunities. He knows D.C. parents are motivated by research showing that the longer a child attends D.C.'s schools, the worse are the child's chances in life. Also, the D.C. teachers union, a tentacle of the national unions fighting to prevent what they call the "flight" of parents to better schools, has been looted of millions of dollars, much of it allegedly spent by some union officials on personal purchases of luxury goods. For years opponents of school choice for poor children have leapt from one sinking argument to another. All their arguments have now sunk: Choice programs that empower parents to choose religious schools are unconstitutional? Seven consecutive Supreme Court decisions say otherwise. Choice programs take money from public schools? The D.C. program takes not a penny -- the $10 million would be new money. Choice programs skim the best students from the public system? Davis's bill gives priority to students in the District's 15 worst-performing schools. Choice programs lack accountability? The academic progress of participants in the program will be measured against the progress of the students who sought but failed to get any of the 1,300 scholarships. Given all this, why did the D.C. program barely pass? With states' budgets forcing painful cuts, it can be difficult to vote money for D.C. children. Even more important is the fact that teachers unions are especially effective at the state level, where they establish relationships with legislators -- and 233 current representatives and 42 senators are former state legislators. In the Senate committee vote on D.C. school choice, two Democrats, West Virginia's Robert Byrd and California's Dianne Feinstein, supported the program. Mary Landrieu, the Louisiana Democrat who abstained, explained to some disappointed D.C. parents that the maximum grant under the proposed D.C. program -- $7,500 -- would not be enough to send a poor child to the $21,000-a-year private school her children attend. Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter, recently selected by National Review as "the worst Republican senator," showed why by opposing the D.C. program. His challenger in Pennsylvania's Republican primary, Rep. Pat Toomey, says he "definitely" expects conservatives around the country to increase their support for him because of Specter's obedience to the teachers' unions that are already campaigning for him. School choice for poor children is, Boehner says, today's principal civil rights fight. The lottery of life, not choice, determines a child's parents and family situation. There should be choice about schools for children placed by life's lottery in difficult conditions. Otherwise, Boehner says, "It's like saying you can only buy bread in the grocery store closest to your house -- and the government will run the grocery store." It is a pity that "pro-choice" Democrats do not remain pro-choice when poor children make it past birth and reach school age.