Vote 'No'

AS PART OF the movement among minority groups to bolster third world unity, the national Black American Law Students Association (BALSA) will consider at its national convention later this week a resolution endorsing the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. The Harvard Black Law Students Association (BLSA) which last spring formed a Third World Coalition with other minority law student groups, will consider the resolution today.

Though such a move might well bolster third world unity, for any group to declare formal support for the PLO would be misguided. Despite the show put on by PLO leader Yassir Arafat for Western journalists last summer, the PLO is a violent terrorist organization, not a political representative of the Palestinian people.

The PLO's refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist should disqualify the organization in any political settlement. The purpose of the PLO, as delineated its charter is the destruction of Israel. And the means employed-the bombing of northern Israel, the terrorizing of southern Lebanon, and the holding of civilians in Beirut last summer-discount the PLO from participation in the peace process.

Unless the PLO recants both these means and ends, it cannot be seen as a political group working in the best interest of the Palestinian people.

Sympathy for the Palestinian people is a worthy sentiment for over 30 years. Palestinians have been bounced around the Middle East locked in refugee camps, and used as pawns in political and military struggles. But merely to endorse one group without further, consideration on the larger issue, as the national BALSA would, is an overly simplistic and unproductive solution to a complex problem.

The Harvard BLSA has a commendable record of supporting progressive movements: affirmative action, student input in Law School administrative affairs, curriculum reforms. But third world units should not translate into endorsement of the PLO.