most effectively repress the drug epidemic or who can repress violent crime. Rightfully angry at the destructive consequences of drug use, our society cannot begin to consider the possibility that drug use might not be stopped by repression, because it is re?ective of people?s deep and pervasive unhappiness. Many Americans ?nd solace through drugs, alcohol, television, and dozens of other mechanisms of escape. For those in power it may be too frightening to ask, ?What aspects of this society make people so unhappy that they are willing to break the law and pay dearly for some vehicles of escape?? It may be easier for public of?cials and the media to define tens of millions of people as criminals than to seriously confront the human needs that are not being met and to consider what changes would be necessary in order to meet them. Liberals often trivialize this discussion by reducing the problem to economic dis- crimination, and then are confounded when they ?nd that some of those engaged in violent crimes or random acts of violence or heavy drug use are not economically deprived. Nor is it particularly helpful to talk about these issues in terms of ?individual who support the legalization of drugs, for example, don?t usually focus on the fundamental issue of the pain in people?s lives that induces them to use drugs, pain that is often rooted in the frustration of these most basic human needs. In complex and subtle ways virtually every existing social orderfrastrates our basic human needs. Nothing can succeed in totally silencing our unmet human needs. That?s why when we think of 1789, or when we see the struggle of the Chinese students in 1989, we can?t help feeling new hope. The struggle to heal, repair, and transform the world so that it will no longer sti?e our human needs, though at times it seems to have been defeated, remains the central item on the collective agenda of humanity. The reason that the struggle of Chinese students could excite the American public in ways that the Democratic party or sections of the social change move- ments have failed is not merely a re?ection of the American media?s desire to expose the failures of com- munism. Most Americans have lost interest in liberal politics because the liberals and the Democrats fail to present any visionary conception of how things might be changed fundamentally enough to allow our frustrated fundamental needs to be met. Flashing the Sign: Sedition in Israel? Israelis have been traveling to the West Bank to meet with Palestinians and show them that many Israelis oppose Prime Minister Shamir?s policies. Ti/eleun editorial board member Adi O?r helped create ?The Twenty-First Year? (of occupation), and Ti/ekun editorial board member Sidra Ezrahi helped create ?Israelis by Choice? (a group of former Americans who made aliyah and are now attempting to promote democratic values). These peace groups have regularly helped arrange the ?solidarity? visits. Typically, Israeli peace activists play a cat-and-mouse game with the Israeli army, since the army often declares a ?restricted military security zone? around any area that peaceniks intend to visit. The peace forces then try to sneak into the Arab villages through back roads or over hills and farmland; they are often arrested and removed, and then released by the army. On May 26 the rules were suddenly changed for twenty-seven solidarity visitors to the West Bank. This group, including not only Adi Ophir but also Tikkan?s two representatives in Israel (Aaron Back and Beth Sandweiss), were arrested during a solidarity visit after the IDF troops were outraged by the group ?ashing the sign to Palestinian villagers. They were held for ?ve days and were charged with encouraging Palestinian rebellion (in US. judicial terms: sedition). They face long jail sentences for a totally nonviolent act of political solidarity. Ironically, the very same week a group of West Bank settlers entered a Palestinian village ?ring guns, wound- ing several Palestinians and murdering one teenage girl. Israeli civil libertarians report that at least seventeen cases of settler-caused Palestinian deaths have been documented but not prosecuted, and dozens of Pales- tinians wounded. According to the Israeli newspaper Ha?aretz, right-wing Jewish settlers in the West Bank ?are organizing by the hundreds to perpetrate acts of vengeance against Arab villages, and are prepared, for the ?rst time, to physically harm army of?cers who seek to prevent them from carrying out their illegal actions.? One theory holds that Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin has decided that he must stop the escalation of settler vigilante actions that increasingly have the ap- pearance of random pogroms against Palestinians?but to cover his tracks and not appear too partisan he has decided to crack down on the left as well. Another theory holds that the new level of repression against the Israeli peace, movement was inevitable?once a government starts to quash civil liberties, the boundaries de?ning rom the early months of the intifada, groups of EDITORIAL 13 who is an appropriate subject of repression usually widen to include domestic dissenters. Dust Either way, it?s a serious escalation of repression against a totally nonviolent Israeli peace movement. Susan Lz'twack Constantly reincarnating itself, it sits on the shelf where a still parade of greeting cards offers it unending praise. Religiously self-satis?ed, it sinks into the frying pan like a lost tribe of spices, settles on silk lampshades and communes with common drains. It caresses the bedsheets, and whole dunes are evolving underneath the mattress, burying me softly in dusty dreams. I am ?ve at Revere Beach, caked in black sand, while my brother towers over me, a sister pie about to be basted by the tide, baked by the stark New England sun and left for the child-crunching ?ies. Have mercy! I confess! I am not one of the Elect. We came from the Old Country and swept into eastern ports only to spread west, dust snowballing on the soles of our feet, tucked behind our ears, stuck between our teeth. It landed where we landed, architects of survival, immigrants like us. I am the messiah at eight, but no alchemist. I do not put my faith in mere, ephemeral ?akes. I simply allow them to coexist. I bring home the smelly, half-eaten shells to stink up the stairs so the neighbors talk. I don?t dust the bottoms, or even the tops of the chairs every day or?God forbid?once a week. 14 TIKKUN VOL. 4, No. 4 I permit base elements to accumulate, while sun streams in the picture window, pointing its accusing rays. Only after threats of deprivation or death, do I unlovingly erase the weekly portion of family history. This is where I write my name, where my toes dip, and my ?ngertips mark their delible entry. I rub each table leg like a genie, recite the domestic slave blessing, and wait. It takes all morning to do the den. To ?nish off the house would require the lifetimes of our pets, and I am led to ?ick-of?the-rag, guerrilla tactics, until a dirty turncoat?but free at last, I wave the white rag and embrace the birthright of nomadic carelessness. For I know in my exhausted heart, if dust is useless, I am useless; planting ?owers I am digging an early grave, cavorting in the same, seamy earth I was taught to eradicate, becoming Dustmagus, dusty-eyed lover, dust-ridden scapegoat of the family?s break with the Bible?s very ?rst page. Dear God, who gives us our daily dust, admit to having created the only skin we accept to cover our layers of thin, unrelenting consciousness. Remember when dust fell from the sky and our belief that it was manna saved us from the hunger of self-righteousness, for a while.