New group seeking to inform community about Middle East

On Tuesday, 100 students, professors, and community members joined to watch "The Hidden Wars of Desert Storm," a film sponsored by the newly formed Alliance for Peace and Justice in the Middle East (APJME). The movie questions United States policies and military practices before and during the Gulf War. Ambassador David Dunford, who was in Saudi Arabia during the war and is now a professor in the political science department, led a discussion following the movie.

About 100 people came to learn more about the Middle East, about the government our country has promised to overthrow, and about the war that threatens our futures as well as the lives of Iraqis. I believe students are interested because they understand the questionable nature of the war and realize White House officials seem to want war.

APJME's goal is to provide ample educational opportunities about Middle Eastern conflicts. The American Friends Service Committee and APJME are co-sponsoring a lecture by Palestinian scholar and peace activist, Jean Zaru, at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 16, at First Christian Church, located on the corner of Speedway and Euclid. This is a wonderful opportunity for students to learn more about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, another complex and tragic conflict in the Middle East.

Noah Haiduc-Dale
Co-Founder and Vice-President, APJME

Guest column was an example of simple anti-Semitic rhetoric

The column titled "U.S. Agression against Iraq Criminal,"seen in Monday's Arizona Daily Wildcat, which was written by Julian Kunnie, a professor at this university, is just anti-Semitic rhetoric. Kunnie makes several statements such as Israel is spared criticism because it is white. Israel is not white; it is a Jewish state with white members as well as Middle Eastern and African Jews, as well as citizens who are both Christian and Muslim who share rights like representation in parliament.

Perhaps when he said "white" he meant "Israel is Jewish." This could explain why he defends Iraq, which also has minorities. However, neither the minorities nor the majority can vote and the government of Iraq oppresses ethnic groups such as the Kurds. Because of Kunnie's white vs. black, racist war rhetoric, perhaps he forgot that.

Furthermore, he says, "The United States possesses no right to make moral judgments on issues of peace in the Middle East precisely because of its perverted policy of endorsing and funding the colonization of Palestinians by Israel."

Many of the U.N. General Assembly resolutions he mentions in his article as condemning Israel are based on countries criticizing Israel unjustly, and some resolutions are based on lies such as a supposed massacre in Jenin that never happened, and the statement that Zionism is racism. Countries like Iraq and Syria have no right to try and make moral judgments on issues of peace in the Middle East because of their stance against Israel's right to exist and their human rights records.

Kunnie makes reference to the fact that Israel has a nuclear arsenal. Is he worried that Israel will use it on its neighbors? That would be more of an Iraqi thing to do. Kunnie may defend his arguments as just anti-Israel and not anti-Semitic, but the way he repeats lies and generalizes Israel and the current conflict show how he really views Jews.

Avi Margolin
political science freshman

White Îignorance' is evident in letters against Kunnie column

Now it is my turn to rant and rave like all the white, ignorant students that have been "blasting" Julian Kunnie for his column titled "U.S. Agression against Iraq Criminal,"seen in Monday's Wildcat. But my views are different because I'm not white and, most importantly, I'm not ignorant.

Let's talk about weapons. The United States is the world's largest weapons dealer. The United States gave chemical arms to Iraq back in the 1980s. The United States hires out retired five star generals to various countries around the world (to murder innocent people and destroy freedom fighters) and multinational corporations have been benefiting from such lucrative activity.

The United States gives billions of dollars to Israel a year, which Israel used to buy weapons from the United States. Iraq is fighting the United States because it does not want to become another Israel (colony) of the United States But what do Euro-Americans know about being colonized? I mean, they know how to colonize. The United States wants oil, and if it sets up a puppet regime in Iraq, it will control one the world's most coveted natural resources.

My sources for my truths come from the following works of Ward Churchill, David Stannard and Marie Clarie. I suggest you check them out. Oh, but most importantly, I have almost 510 years of colonization as my supporting evidence.

Good for Julian Kunnie ÷ he speaks truth. Those who do not like it? Well, stop supporting "terrorism" and ride a bicycle instead of driving your daddy's gas-guzzling SUV.

Jesus Jimenez
Pascua Yaqui Indian
psychology doctoral student

Kunnie column clearly driven by racism and his own self-interest

I don't have the time or the motivation to write a letter disputing the dozens of moronic accusations contained in Prof. Julian Kunnie's column titled "U.S. Agression against Iraq Criminal," seen in Monday's Wildcat. To argue point-by-point with someone who makes idiotic accusations about "uranium bombs" and other such nonsense would be truly pointless. It is more useful to talk about why he has decided to side with the terrorists rather than his own countrymen.

The obvious reason is race. Kunnie clearly feels a brotherhood with our country's enemies simply because they are non-white, which strikes me as being rather racist. But there is another less obvious reason: money. Kunnie gets paid over $100,000 a year to spew his hatred for white people at naive college students. If you read the last paragraph of his column closely, you will see that behind all his alleged moral outrage is a fear that the cost of a war might cost him part of this welfare check.

As the great black scholar Booker T. Washington put it, "There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs ÷ partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs."

Prof. Kunnie fears the war on terrorism because he is afraid that it will cause all Americans to put aside their petty differences and unite as one people. Prof. Kunnie is an embarrassment to hardworking and patriotic minorities everywhere and also a disgrace to this university. It is high time Americans of all colors told people like him to shut up and to get a real job.

Gavin Murphy
history senior