Campus Has Arab-Jew Arguments

Campus Has Arab-Jew Arguments

The Arab Student Association at the University today set up tables on the diagonal in front of the U-M General Library to pass out leaflets and answer questions explaining the Arab position in the Middle East crisis.

As the morning passed, a crowd of some 50 persons had gathered around the tables with heated arguments taking place between the four Arab students distributing the leaflets and others, including Jewish students at the U-M.

No violence had taken place by noon, but arguments were getting hotter and the shouting could be heard from some distance away.

One of the leaflets being passed out is an "open letter" to the American citizens on the Middle East Crisis. It is signed by Imad Khadduri, president of the U-M Arab Student Association.

Pointing out that “what is urgently needed is peace,” Khadduri said: "The U. S. government would do well to refrain from intensifying the conflict by restraining its military power and trying to recognize objectively the crucial interests involved, bearing in mind the interests of all the people and the states involved as well as its own.

“It then will be very wise for the U. S. government to direct all of its power in fully suporting the United Nations in its efforts at securing peace in the troubled Middle East.

Mohammed Mikdashi, a member of the Arab Student Organization, called it a day-long peaceful demonstration to give the Arab point of view.

"We are for peace, we are not war mongers,” he said.

Pinned down on what would have to be the solution for the long-standing Arab-Israeli problem, one Arab student suggested that it would be either that the Jews leave Israel or that Israel become an Arab state.