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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (July 25, 1986)
Friday, July 25, 1986 Page 4 Daily Nebraskan Nebraskan University of Nebraska-Lincoln Meeting a step rn his week's meeting between I Morocco's King Hassan II and Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres can't help but be viewed in a positive light. Even though the meeting produced no "substantive" progress, the simple fact that an Israeli prime minister met with a non-Egyptian Arab is significant. First, Hassan's action helps to solidify Egypt's previous action in beginning a reconciliation with Israel. Now there is at least a group albeit a small group of Arabs that are at least talking to Israel. Hopefully this break through will encourage other more moderate Arab states to take similar action and begin a serious drive toward establish ing peace in the Middle East. Additionally, Hassan's position as chairman of the Arab League and president of the Jerusalem Committee of the Islamic Confer ence can only encourage Arab states to seriously reflect on taking similar steps. Laudable as this recent meet ing, is, however, Israel could do more to aid the process. After all, at this point Egypt and Morocco have taken serious risk even personal risk in pursuing reapproachment while Israel has only benefited and has taken relatively little risk. These Arabs Train stopped. Governor praised for action Gov. Bob Kerrey's decision to stop a Union Pacific train carrying nuclear waste Tuesday night should be applaud ed by the people of Nebraska. The train was held over in Marysville, Kan., and not allowed to cross the Nebraska border until Kerrey was satisfied that the train's cargo carried no danger to the people of Nebraska. Kerrey was reportedly upset because the state was not offic ially notified of the train's planned route through Nebraska. "This is the first major ship ment, and I consider it a signifi cant breach of faith on the part of the federal government," Kerrey told United Press International. "It makes it very difficult for states to feel any assurances that we're going to have any say in this." While stopping a train might not be the most practical thing in the world to accomplish, the significance of Kerrey's gesture is great. In so many words, Kerrey told the federal government, Editorial Policy Unsigned editorials represent official policy of the summer 1986 Daily Nebraskan. Policy is set by the Daily Nebraskan Editorial Board. Its members are Bob Asmussen, editor; James Rogers, editorial page editor; Kent Endacott, news editor; Jeff Bob Asmuascn, Editor, 472,17GC lames Rogers, Editorial Pa ye Editor Kent Eiulacott, News Editor Jeff Korbelik, Associate News Editor Jeff Apel, Spirts Editor Charles Lieurance, Arts X- Entertain mevt Editor towards peace good-faith actions deserve a sub stantive quid pro quo. According to press reports, in his meeting with Peres, Hassan was articulating a position to ward resolving the Middle East struggle based on a plan adopted by Arab nations at an earlier conference. This plan calls for recognition of Israel and peace in exchange for, Israel's with drawal from occupied Arab ter ritory. Israel rejected the plan when it was first proposed and ap parently rejected it again. Evi dently the call for Israel to give up east Jerusalem and sit down with the PLO prior to their recognition of Israel's right to exist is still the sticking point. However, Israel's no-compromise position does an injustice to the bravery evidenced by Morocco and Egypt. The U.S. should encourage Israel in no uncertain terms to at least sit down with the PLO for talks and to at least consider placing east Jerusalem under, say, joint con trol. The bottom line is that the U.S. should facilitate the peace process in a more substantive fashion and put a little pressure on Israel for compromise. If it does hopefully it won't take years and years until another Arab state begins to talk with Israel. specifically the Nuclear Regu latory Commission and the De partment of Energy, that Nebra ska wants to be aware of hazard . ous material passing through the state. As Kerrey said, it isn't a prob lem until an accident occurs involving the nuclear waste. Then, liability for any personal injury or property damage might fall into the lap of the state. That is something Kerrey wants to avoid. Some might think of Kerrey's decision as simply grandstand ing, but, then a motive has to be found. Kerrey isn't running for re-election, so that can't have anything to do with his actions. Kerrey made the right decision in stopping the train. His major concern in this instance seemed to be the health and well-being of the people of Nebraska that he represents as governor. No fault can ever be found in that. Thanks should go to Kerrey for taking the right stand. Korbelik, associate news editor; Jeff Apel, sports editor; Charles Lieur ance, arts and entertainment editor. Editorials do not necessarily re flect the views of the university, its employees, the students or the NU Board of Regents. 50V1HT-SJ7LG fit y ,., ,t ft x A -if CUBAN 4 4'A' iff ! ft , Happy anniversaiy9 Nicaragua Ortega backed into corner by $100 million in Washington bullets The seventh anniversary of the Nicaraguan revolution was not exactly the party it should have been. In a nation once run by terror alone, that has managed to reduce national illiteracy from 57 to 12, build hundreds of health clinics and schools, and redistribute hoarded land to 60,000 landless peasants, the anni versary should have drawn joyful tears of fulfillment from those who partici pated in the "poet's revolution" seven years earlier along with shouts of hope from the younger generations. Perhaps it was the anniversary gift from the United States that hushed the crowd in Managua and reduced the Sandinista anthem to a pitiful murmur. The U.S. House of Representatives buckled under the hysterically para noid pressure of President Reagan and wrapped up a $100 million aid package to the contra rebels. The package was tied neatly with a ribbon of administra tion manipulation, invention and lies and came to Managua as a promise of continued war. The present served to turn Ortega and the Sandinista into what the Rea gan administration has erroneously accused them of being for the past seven years. Ortega is now aligned with the Soviet Union and has resorted to shut ting down newspapers and shelving social programs in the interests of defense. But none of this was apparent at the inception of the revolution. The U.S. has finally terrorized the Sandi nista into knee-jerk reactions. Parents fight for religion, against pluralism in educating children In one way or another, the public schools have always been teaching math to society. It's the schools that tried to find a common denomina tor for all the fractions of society, to make a whole out of the sum of our children. . This math has been a controversial subject. My own immigrant grandpar ents, like others, turned their sons over to a school system that was dedicated to wiping the Old World imprint off their young. They were "brainwashed" into becoming Americans. I do not know how my grandparents felt about this. Probably mixed. But I know that more than once, more than a dozen times, the values taught in my public school, and then in my daugh ter's, conflicted with what we were taught at home. My teachers and parents did not always mark the same answers as cor rect. Homework sometimes included a family debate over the lessons. Out of this conflict, I learned many things. I learned that adults disagree, and cm n MD5TBE AWflJLDf MIAMI Since the Sandinista backed dicta tor Anastasio Somoza up against the Pacific Ocean on July 17, 1979, the U.S. has sent over $250 million in aid to th j contras. Reagan has dubbed the con tras "the moral equivalent of the founding fathers" when in fact the con tras are nothing more than upper class landowners, the remains of Somoza's National Guard, criminals and those deposed of their privileges by the revolution. This unsavory elements scrambled into Honduras, El Salvador and Gua temala to spread the terrorist tactics in which they were schooled so well by Somoza and the CIA. 0f j Charles 1 T ;v Lieurance j In 1981, Reagan cancelled Nicara guan credits for the purchase of wheat. That April he cancelled $15 million in aid leftover from Carter's Nicaraguan aid package. When the Sandinista approached the United States for arms in order to fight off the contras, they were refused by a conservative back lash, possibly confused by our unflag ging support of Somoza. As the facts of U.S. involvement in the bloody, anti-populist Somoza regime surfaced, Reagan tried to make the American people forget Somoza and learned how to live in a pluralistic society. Now in Tennessee, 12 parents are again wrestling with the public-school system for control of the information delivered to their children. This time, in a Greenville courtroom, they have sued to protect their children from textbooks they regard as hostile to their fundamentalist religion. Ellen Goodman The objections these parents raise are easily the stuff of parodies. The parents object to the tale of "Goldi !ocks" because she is never punished for breaking and entering the bears' house. They object to the dance around the burning wolf in "The Three Little Pigs" because it promotes witchcraft. f J 1 nil V V IV T concentrate on the idea of the Nicara guan revolution as a "failed" revolu tion. Why was it "failed?" Because it now received arms to fight off a well equipped army of contras from the Soviet Union? Well, at the time of the taking of Managua by Sandinista for ces, there was no revolutionary Nicara guan army. The U.S. refused them aid. Where were they to go to defend the popular coup many had given their lives for? The Reagan administration has built a complex web of lies around Nicara gua, attempting to prove some kind of International Sandinista conspiracy. All plots, from the polygraphing of con tras to reveal infiltrators to the hyper bolized "Honduran invasion" of last spring, have backfired. The FBI has even taken to harassing travellers to and from Nicaragua because they claim Nicaragua is sending its spies abroad. Meanwhile, as it creates a screen of deception around the Sandinista, the administration has managed to create a Somoza-esque chamber of horrors in El Salvador. Duarte's forces, well-armed by the U.S. and trained by the CIA are bombing, strafing, mortaring and mas sacring the civilian population of that nation. So now Ortega is a threat to U.S. interests. Because we have made him so, he is an oppressor. Backed into a corner by a gun loaded with hundreds of millions of dollars in Washington bullets, Ortega is reacting with fear. Do you blame him? Happy Anniversary, Nicaragua. On the first day of testimony, Vicki Frost, a mother and central figure in this controversy, was on the stand for hours, cataloging the myriad ways in which the textbooks violated her reli gious beliefs: pacifism and interna tionalism, Satanism and humanism. A seventh-grade reader called on child ren to use their imagination, "the pow erful and magical eye inside your head." This, said Frost, was an "occult prac tice." But the emotions and the issues behind this trial are not so easy to dismiss. They have come up in contro versies over evolution. They will come up again in a similar case in Alabama this fall. The parents contend that forcing their fundamentalist children to read these textbooks is like forcing a Black Muslim child to read white-supremacist literature. They demand an alternate reading list of religiously "correct" books. See GOODMAN on 5