ture, are central to the curriculum.nHowever much Arabs and Palestiniansnin particular view the United Statesnas Israel’s sugar daddy, it is still truenthat the American way of undergraduateneducation commands admiration.nThe historical record is a distinguishednone, including the American Universitynof Beirut, the American Universitynin Cairo, and the University of Petroleumnand Minerals in Dhahran, SaudinArabia, to name only three. In today’snPalestinian lands this American traditionnfinds its most successful exemplarnin Birzeit University, located not farnfrom Jerusalem. The first graduatingnclass left the school in 1976. By thenacademic year 1987-88, the college,nwith 190 faculty members in the humanitiesnand physical sciences, offerednthe best education available to Palestiniansnliving in the occupied territories.nIn the cultural studies program studentsnare expected to read Homer,nSophocles, Plato, Vergil, Aquinas,nAverroes, Avicenna, Hegel, Marx^ andnFreud. Contemporary Mideastern authorsninclude nationalist Jamal al-Dinnal-Afghani and the Egyptian reformernMuhammed Abduh. Politics intrudesnon this idyll in the form of studentnfactions demanding that the universitynadopt a more overtly nationalist character.nSullivan, who confesses to a traditionalistnview of liberal education, cautionsnthat Birzeit, as well as the othernPalestinian colleges, “must remain onnthe alert to safeguard its integritynagainst . . . internal challenges.”nBut Sullivan admits that politics cannotnbe banished from campus. Palestiniansncan consider themselves fortunatenthat they have four privatenuniversities among which to choose. Incan think of no other Arab countrynwhere freedom on this scale is availablento students. With due respect to somennotable exceptions, the state-run universitiesnof the Arab countries providenmass education of the least-commondenominatornvariety. But the four universitiesnin Palestine — Birzeit, Bethlehem,nal-Najah in Nablus, and GazanIslamic University—are viewed by Israelinadministrators as laboratories fornpolitical agitation. In a study publishednearlier this year, Abraham Ashkenasinobserved that campus elections shownoverwhelming student sympathy fornthe PLO and, at Bethlehem University,nfor far more radical groups. Benja­nmin Netanyahu has gone so far as tonconclude of the universities that thenPLO has attempted to “turn them intoncenters of incitement, extremism andnterror.” The authorities can always findnjustification for banning books fromnlibraries and classrooms or for sendingnstudents home for weeks at a time.nPalestinian intellectuals in the territoriesnand abroad dispute this assessment;nthey focus on the high quality ofninstruction and academic freedom, asnwell as the need to educate youngnPalestinians, who since 1967 have notnbeen eligible to come and go as theynplease across international borders.nSullivan says that it is natural thatnPalestinians look to university studentsnas leaders in resisting Jewish encroachmentsnon Arab land and in opposingnabusive treatment of Arabs in Israelinjails. As the uprising passes its firstnanniversary, it is impossible to be optimisticnabout the chances of survival ofnthe academic enterprise in Palestine.nAt the very least it will continue tonlurch between the Scylla of nationalistnagitation and the Charybdis of Israelinrepression. Why shouldn’t the Israelisntake this occasion to close the schools,nwhich they claim have little academicnpurpose? My prediction is that theynwill, and that Palestinian students willnbe obliged once more to go into exilenfor higher education.nMichael W. Albin is a librarian bynprofession and a student of Arab andnIslamic culture. He lives in Virginia.nBlood Relationsnby S.L. VarnadonBitter Blood: A True Storynof Southern Pride,nMadness and Multiple Murdernby Jerry BledsoenNew York: E.P. Dutton;n468 pp., $ J 9.95nIn 1840, when Edgar Allan Poe wrotenthe first modern detective story,n”The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” annunsuspecting public scarcely realized itnwas witnessing the birth of a new genrenthat would actually become the mostnecumenical of all literary forms.nSince Poe’s time, the detective storynhas flourished among readers of everynnncreed, class, and nationality. There arenclerical detectives (Father Brown andnRabbi David Small); aristocratic detectivesn(Lord Peter Wimsey); sleazy detectivesn(Sam Spade); French, Spanish,nand Indian detectives (InspectorsnMaigret, Alvarez, and Ghote); septua-n•genarian detectives (Miss Marple); andneven a blind detective (Max Carrados).nIndeed, the profession has become sonovercrowded in recent years that TrumannCapote hit upon the idea of wideningnthe field by transforming thenfictional crime story into the factualncrime story. The result was his amazinglynsuccessful In Cold Blood, whichnspawned a host of imitators. Today, then”true crime story” is as popular as itsnfictional counterpart.nJerry Bledsoe’s Bitter Blood is one ofnthe latest entries in this new form.nBledsoe, a reporter for the GoldsboronNews & Record in North Carolina,nbases his tale of murder and mayhemnon a group of award-winning newsnstories that he wrote in 1985. Thenbook recounts a series of multiple murdersnoccurring in 1984-85 amongnthree prominent and wealthy familiesnin Kentucky and North Carolina. Ultimately,nnine people lost their lives innthis Grand Guignol. In an afterword tonthe book, Bledsoe informs the readernthat he wrote the story in an attempt tonunderstand why the tragedies happened.nThis is an ambitious goal, and itngives Bledsoe’s work an integrity andnseriousness it might otherwise havenlacked.nBledsoe’s scenario is a complex one.nOn a quiet Sunday morning in Julyn1984, Dolores Lynch, a wealthy sixtyeight-year-oldnwidow, and her daughternJanie were found in their suburbannhome outside Louisville, Kentucky,nbrutally gunned down by an unknownnassailant. Since nothing in the housenhad been touched, police were baffiednby a lack of motive for the crime. Thenfollowing year, three members of thensocially prominent Newsom family ofnNorth Carolina were found murderednin the living room of their large andnelegant home in Winston-Salem.nAgain, no motive for the brutal slayingsnwas apparent.nAt first, the two crimes seemednunrelated, but as police dug deepernthey began to wonder if a link mightnexist between them. The investigationneventually focused on Susie SharpnMARCH 1989/35n