SERIOUS PUBLIC DISCUSSION

To the Editors of The Crimson:

In response to Professor Martin Kilson's letter (March 8, 1975) which pleads for "serious public discussion in The Crimson," I would like to offer the following comments.

Professor Kilson decries the "ethnocentric and chauvinistic exclusionism which informs the Israeli state today." He expresses confidence that Arabs really want to turn Israel into an egalitarian binational state, regardless of what they have said or done. In light of this claim it is only fair to bring to view some of the statements and acts of the Arab leadership.

As recently as November 1974. Yasir Arafat "endorsed" binationalism by saying "Palestine is only a small drop in the great Arab ocean. Our nation is the Arab nation extending from the Atlantic Sea to the Red Sea and beyond." The Arab people have shown their "desires to live in peace" with minorities in the Middle East by systematically depriving minorities of their rights throughout the Arab world. One need only mention the Kurds and Jews in Syria, Greek and Coptic Christians in Egypt, Berbers in Algeria, and Assyrians in Iraq to recall the magnitude of this campaign of Arab subjugation. One needn't cite (to a binationalist) the massacres of thousands of Kurds in Iraq and half a million Blacks in Sudan; after all, the argument goes, these people had it coming to them for opting out of binationalism.

Professor Kilson's confidence in the desire of Arabs to coexist with minorities seems rather astounding for a historian. If the Arabs are truly serious about binationalistic countries, they have many minorities to experiment upon before they could convince the Israells to volunteer. Michael Segal '76