Letters to the Editor

David Horowitz can actually be a liberal's best friend

I found David Horowitz's case against reparations offensive and counterproductive. Blaming the blacks of Africa for slavery and congratulating the whites of America for black liberation violates our most basic sense of historical truth and social justice. In fact, black revolutionaries played a large part in freeing the slaves, while whites played a significant role in perpetuating servitude even after blacks' emancipation through Jim Crow laws, poll taxes and voting restrictions.

Luckily for the 'crazy left-wing element' that pervades Princeton, Horowitz's brand of conservatism is its own worst enemy. Horowitz advocates freedom of expression. Yet his hate speech is a reason to limit it. He demands that right-wing professors be given equal standing with the left. However, his racist conduct is the reason that conservative thinkers appear so unscholarly. He vehemently opposes reparations, but his intentionally insulting presentation of facts is the reason why so many support them. To advance his own interests, Horowitz would be best to keep his mouth shut. Fortunately for us liberals, he appears too stubborn too realize that he is his movement's own demise. Seth Green '01

Lecture series does not have as great a bias as Wikas claims

I was disappointed to read Seth Wikas' attack on recent lectures concerning the Palestinian-Israeli issue organized by the Transregional Institute, and I was dismayed by Wikas' criticism of the Institute itself.

I should say that I am not affiliated with the Institute and played no role in organizing or promoting these talks. I should also say that I only attended three of the six talks he mentioned that have taken place over the past few months — those of Sara Roy, Edward Said and Salim Tamari.

It's unclear from Wikas' piece if he attended any of these lectures (excepting Edward Said's appearance, which he admirably defended in these pages), and it's troubling that he should suggest that we judge them based on their titles (which, to my ears, seem rather innocuous in the main). Of the seven speakers (Amira Hass speaks this Thursday) he's targeted, two are Palestinian, two are Israeli, one is Lebanese, one is British and one is an American Jew. Wikas' claim that the speakers condemned Israel as "an oppressive and dispossessing monster" is patently false.

Of the speakers I've heard, none has denied Israel's right to exist, and each has looked for practical solutions to the current impasse in the peace process. Salim Tamari's lecture was particularly impressive in this regard, combining a survey of the scholarly resources on the Palestinian refugee problem with some candid realpolitik about the weakness of the Palestinian Authority and the likely outcome of the peace process.

As a whole, these talks have been helpful precisely because they've moved beyond rhetoric about Israel or a possible 'Palestine' to discuss the realities of settlement expansion, continuing occupation and the political prospects inside Israeli and Palestinian society.

The talks have come almost exclusively from people who live and work in Israel and the Occupied Territories, and they've been commendable precisely because they've concentrated on the details of the collapsed peace process rather than pale rhetoric. The fact that these perspectives are not always heard in the United States does not mark them out as "extreme" or "unbalanced," but merely gives us a sense of the skewed expectations of "pro-Israel individuals" (to use Wikas' term) on and beyond campus. Nick Guyatt GS