News
Progressive Labor Party Organizes Solidarity March With Harvard Yard Encampment
News
Encampment Protesters Briefly Raise 3 Palestinian Flags Over Harvard Yard
News
Mayor Wu Cancels Harvard Event After Affinity Groups Withdraw Over Emerson Encampment Police Response
News
Harvard Yard To Remain Indefinitely Closed Amid Encampment
News
HUPD Chief Says Harvard Yard Encampment is Peaceful, Defends Students’ Right to Protest
To the editors:
I must admit that when I read "An Unfinished Venture" by Adam J. Levitin (Opinion, April 29), I was moved.
Levitin's historical comparisons of contemporary Israel to ancient Sparta and Athens was especially remarkable, simply because they ring so true. Like the ancient Athenian democracy, Israel is an armed citizen-state that must remain continually wary of its neighbors. And while we sitting comfortably here in the West might see an Israel at peace with Egypt and Jordan, our "reality" may well turn out to be an illusion. If either of these countries were to ever fall to the forces of Islamic-fundamentalism, the "situation on the ground" would be dramatically transformed. Israel would most certainly find itself in mortal danger.
While many eyes will be on the parades in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv this spring and summer to mark Israel's five decades of statehood, there is an equally important nation to monitor: Algeria. As this letter is being written Algeria is teetering on the verge of disaster. Its civil war has claimed tens of thousands of lives, and we could very well be looking at an Iranian-like fundamentalist regime in that part of the region within two or three years.
If Algeria could fall, so could Egypt, and so could Jordan, and so could Saudi Arabia. The menace of Islamic fundamentalism requires Israel to maintain one foot in "Sparta" and the other in "Athens." DANIEL B. KURZ Rutgers University April 30, 1998
Want to keep up with breaking news? Subscribe to our email newsletter.