The appearance of Mark Feldstein's article "A Kibbutz Diary From the Invasion of Southern Lebanon" in last Wednesday's Crimson reflects either a deliberate case of media perversion, or, hopefully, a lack of discernment or responsibility on The Crimson's part to avoid carrying articles that present biased distortions rather than substantive perspectives on heated political issues. It is rather pathetic that this newspaper chose to publish this diary-type article on such a weighted issue as the dilemma of Palestinian-Israeli confrontation along the southern Lebanese-northern Israeli border, because the article's limited and distorting scope essentially reduces this complex subject to simply a matter of "fanatic Palestinian terrorists vs. innocent kibbutzniks."

This lengthy, full-page narrative account of life in kibbutz Hanita seems only to serve as the author's attempt to fuel sympathies against what he depicts as war-hungry, ruthless Palestinian terrorists "firing 82-mm, and 120-mm. mortars, in addition to the Soviet Katyusha rockets" against helpless and terrified kibbutzniks. Feldstein presents a one-sided portrayal of each party in this dilemma: the "bad guy Palestinian" is depicted simply as a massacring Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) terrorist while the "good guy Israeli" is seen only as a defenseless kibbutznik victim. There is only one enemy to be degraded in this complex Palestinian situation: the Palestinian killer.

Feldstein is relentless in his over-simplification of the conflict in as much as he reveals only the kibbutznik as the sufferer. As Feldstein describes how the Palestinian onslaught is taking a psychological toll on innocent kibbutznik children and grownups, he unfortunately magnifies the one-sided image of the Palestinian as a violent PLO terrorist.

Feldstein consumes an entire page in what his title indicates is a desperate attempt to rationalize the March Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon. But in so doing, he considers it unnecessary to provide any political-historical context behind the aggressive Israeli move, and instead finds it a sufficient justification to engross the reader in emotional details of the physical and psychological traumas experienced by northern Israeli kibbutzniks who are under perpetual fear of Palestinian rockets launched from southern Lebanon.

He exalts the image of the courageous Israelis whose psychological defenses enable them to momentarily endure dangers induced by bombarding "PLO terrorists." These Israelis are portrayed as fearful, chain-smoking adults who act in defiance of Palestinian mortar attacks by "telling jokes and bawdy stories" and keeping their children preoccupied by their frenzied-like laughter, singing and dancing to Hebrew tunes. But the nearby explosions eventually cause their defenses to crumble, and Feldstein describes scenes of "dazed kibbutzniks" huddled stiffly in a bomb shelter.

I am not contending that the psychological tolls suffered by Israeli kibbutzniks are not a significant factor with which any substantive perspective on the issue of Palestinian-Israeli border confrontation should deal. My point is, rather, that Feldstein need not present such a marring image of the Palestinian--whom he cites as the cause of inflicting such psychological and physical suffering--to strengthen emotional sympathies toward the Israeli victims.

Instead, his tactic of totally debasing the enemy by casting him only as a "PLO lunatic" discredits his very personal appraisal of the situation, for it causes one to wonder why he needed to adopt such an emotionally defensive perspective. By outlandishly equating the Palestinians with the Nazis and the North Vietnamese, Feldstein shows the extreme degree to which he attempts to debase the Palestinian enemy:

A middle-aged German Jew, especially frightened because he has lived through such nightmares before, fears that PLO terrorists could sneak into the kibbutz during the night and massacre us as we huddle in the shelters. He decides to stand guard outside the shelter for most of the night.... At the height of the explosions, which are now shaking the kibbutz and drowning out even the loudest singing, the group bursts into a Hebrew chorus of a tune that sounds familiar to me. It is "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" --a vestige of some long-ago childhood memories of the Vietnam protests.

Another young American is in the room, who understands what that song means to our generation, looks at me with a haunted expression on his face. It is a sort of Vietnam deja-vu, combined with the horrors of our own decade of ten years later.... In order to gain the reader's sympathies, Feldstein has desperately associated his emotional reflections toward this war situation with the markedly different nature of suffering inflicted by the Nazi Germans and North Vietnamese within very contrasting circumstances.

I do not deny that kibbutzniks are caught as powerless victims of occasional Palestinian bombardments. I feel, however, that The Crimson's choice of publishing this particular narrative as a "first-hand experience of a war situation" reflects an irresponsible policy in accepting opinionated articles, because the article distorts an understanding of the Israeli trauma.

The article presents the terrifying atmosphere pervading northern Israeli kibbutz life, but fails to incorporate any political-historical context (by perhaps a lead-in article summarizing the general situation) for interpreting the author's personalized, emotional reflections and his implicitly biased conceptions of the "enemy" with the proper perspective. Feldstein's narrow and distorted portrayal of the Palestinian is perhaps indicative of his general misunderstanding of the entire political situation, a situation that appears only to him as an "unfathomable chess game:"

The whole scene is so bizarre as to be seen as almost unreal. Palestinian terrorists are actually trying to kill me, and yet I am unable to get angry or even upset about it. The rockets are exploding around me, and yet it is somehow still so impersonal that it is almost impossible to deal with. It's a cliche, but it's true: My life has become a pawn in some large and unfathomable chess game.

When Feldstein portrays the entire situation as a simply "bizarre" and almost "unreal" scene, in which children, mothers and fathers are forever in fear of their kibbutzes being the target of Palestinian bombing, one must adopt a more analytical and less emotionalist perspective, and ask why the Palestinians are firing. Indeed, when viewed within an historical-political scenario, the scene is certainly not of some bizarre nature where Israeli kibbutzniks just happened to be chosen as Palestinian targets.

A review of the "30-year diaspora" of the Palestinian refugees shows that substantially mounting pressures and injustices inflicted by neglectful parties in the Arab and international arenas, as well as the Begin government's expansionist actions in violation of settlement policies in occupied territories (prescribed by U.N. international law), have brought the Palestinians to resort to occasional bombardment of the northern Israeli region in order to draw long-overdue attention to their cause.

It is vital to consider several questions that might broaden one's understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian issue and allow one to realize that Feldstein blindly portrays it as simply "innocent kibbutznik vs. fanatic PLO terrorist:"