Letters to the Editor

Campus activism should be better-informed

The Daily Princetonian made an interesting statement by only briefly mentioning the protest calling for divestment [withdrawal of University funds from companies based or with subsidiaries in Israel] — and entirely leaving out the counter-demonstration — with a stand-alone photo on the front page of Friday's paper.

The divestment rally, combined with the active pro-Israel opposition, proved that there are people on campus willing to take a stand, to fight for something they believe in, to demonstrate their passion for a cause. Such a high level of enthusiasm is noteworthy; at the same time, the fact that it's not something we see here exceedingly often calls for reflection. The 'Prince' would have done well to include coverage along with the picture.

Both those who come here for the first time and those who have been here for years say Princeton students are unconcerned with and disengaged from the world around us. Nevermind whether there's absolute truth behind that claim — there is a problem with such a characterization. Unless that's how we want to be seen (or, more importantly, how we actually want to be), it's time to change things around here.

While activists — at least the type of student activists that people customarily associate with college campuses — are hardly omnipresent at Princeton, they are here. That's indisputable. Thursday's action is both proof of their existence and strength and a point of departure for dispelling the 'uninvolved' reputation we as a student body seem to have built up.

Demonstrations, of course, are only one component of the fight for social justice, on or off-campus. And of the others, perhaps the most important is education — certainly, for participants, it's a prerequisite for all action. Substantive debate over difficult problems is fundamental to their solution, and that can only be founded on well-reasoned, well-researched viewpoints. At this university, we have access to exceptional professors and a wealth of information on all sides of these issues. We shouldn't be satisfied to blindly accept any one position, but should instead interrogate them all. But at the same time, we must also accept that all information we have is limited and contextual and be confident enough to act without perfect knowledge.

Having said that, we will each ultimately have to look back on the causes we chose and ask ourselves whether we were truly working to create a better world. But the first important step is that we become informed and truly understand what our positions entail. Then, we — we who desire peace and work for justice — can take a stand.

Activism at Princeton, however you conceptualize or choose to view it, exists — but it could, without a doubt, be more powerful. More students must seize this opportunity to reclaim a non-sluggish identity, to reengage with the outside world, to demonstrate that students here care about doing what's right — not just for ourselves, but in pursuit of larger goals. Karen Wolfgang '05

Israeli occupation is not 'illegal'

In "A Colonizing Power" (opinion, April 23, 2002), Nicholas Guyatt contends that Israel's occupation of the disputed territories is illegal. This view is contradicted by opinions from legal experts such as George P. Fletcher, who notes that "it is not illegal for victorious powers to occupy hostile territory seized in the course of war until they are able to negotiate a successful peace treaty with their former enemies." Israel has tried time and time again to negotiate a just peace with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, but to no avail. Thus, the occupation continues — legally.

Mr. Guyatt's second fallacy is in his contention that the Israel's occupation is illegal because transferring civilian population into occupied territories is a violation of international law. However, Israel is not forcibly transferring its civilian population to the disputed territories — the settlers are moving to them out of their own volition!

Of course, Mr. Guyatt's entire opinion is based on the faulty premise that settlements are an obstacle to peace. Eighty percent of the settlements are little more than suburbs of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and could be absorbed into mainland Israel with very minor changes to the 1967 borders. Furthermore, negotiations at Camp David and Taba dealt with the settlement issue. But rather than negotiate with Israel, Yasser Arafat, realizing that he wasn't going to get 100 percent of what he wanted, left to start the second Intifada. Elliott Marc Davis Cornell University