Debates will not solve conflict

In the Oct. 18 column, “The Jews,” Philip Kurian made many errors in his argument about Jewish motives. He errs throughout the letter and insults the deeply oppressed Jewish minority.

Firstly he begins with the assumption that Jews constitute a “unfairly” high percentage of students in top 10 universities. While this may be true in some cases, Kurian fails to remember that other minorities also are represented disproportionately. Because of Affirmative Action all minorities are given more “leeway” with prestigious schools.

In fact, the largest group of people in the United States, the nationally born Caucasians, aren’t represented anywhere near proportionately in top universities. Also to comment on why Jewish students make up such large percentages, perhaps they are raised with very good work ethics and are very qualified in these universities. Surely that’s highly likely.

The comment Kurian made on “Jewish association with whiteness and the privileges white skin affords,” is too ridiculous to deserve comment. However I will comment on Kurian’s insulting the “Holocaust Industry.” He states that this program stifles the economic and social struggles for equality that black Americans and others face. However, he fails to understand that Jewish people think they are fighting a war against millions of Arabs who wish to destroy them.

Diplomacy is too difficult when parties are unreasonable, and the only end to the Israeli-Palestinian struggle is war. Bilateral talks are pointless, because neither party is willing to give what the other wants. Israel will do what it must to protect itself, and I think the United States should be behind them as much as possible. Israel will disarm Iran if they build nukes. And they will do what they feel is necessary to protect themselves from suicide bombers. To expect different of Israelis is just absurd.

Opposing religions will only lead to fighting, there can be no “debate” as Kurian likes to believe. If Arabs have a deep seated hatred for the Jewish people for reclaiming their God given land, that won’t simply go away in place of debates.

Matthew Rich