ANTI-SEMITISM AND THE PALESTINIAN CAUSE

To the Editors of The Crimson:

May I express concern over indications of a growing anti-Semitic feeling in the United States. I hope that the Middle East conflict can be kept in proper perspective.

It is important that one prevent the Palestinian question from degeneration into an issue of the Jews as a race. After all, Palestinian Muslims and Christians are Semites, like the Jews. Palestinian sympathizers must realize that their adversary is not the Jew, but the anti-Semite. It is the anti-Semite who distorts a political issue relating to the nature of a state, with racial prejudice relating to the nature of a people.

The anti-Semite feels not a humanistic concern for the fate of the Palestinian people, but rather a vicious hatred for the Jews as an aggressive and intelligent race. His superficialties with Palestinian sympathizers are based not upon any moral principle, but rather upon purely racist sentiment. For this reason it is imperative that those who conscientiously support the right of the Palestinian people to a homeland divorce themselves and their cause absolutely from those who oppose the State of Israel solely on the basis of racial prejudice. The former must see in the anti-Semite not an important ally, but rather a bigot who finds in the Palestinian cause a cheap way of expressing his hatred for the Jews. Rick J. Joseph '74