{"id":8948,"date":"2012-01-19T08:34:11","date_gmt":"2012-01-19T08:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gaza.haimbresheeth.com\/?p=8948"},"modified":"2012-01-20T11:26:36","modified_gmt":"2012-01-20T11:26:36","slug":"january-19-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/2012\/01\/19\/january-19-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"January 19, 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

EDITOR<\/strong>: BDS is getting stronger across America<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the signs of the growing strength of the BDS movement across the US, is the growing opposition to it by the leaders of American Zionism, ironically. The more widespread and ubiquitous BDS becomes, the more action is required from Zionists to try and defeat it. In the article below, you can read about the great power wielded by Zionist Jews in the US academic sector, and how they use their power to advance aggressive and militarist Zionist colonialism. They will be defeated, nonetheless, like the similar action was defeated in South Africa.<\/span><\/p>\n

College Leaders Balance Israel and Speech<\/a>: Forward<\/h3>\n

Jewish Presidents Often Find They Must Leave Loyalty Behind<\/strong>
\nBy Naomi Zeveloff
\nPublished January 17, 2012, issue of January 20, 2012.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
No Easy Answers: Jewish college presidents, like David Leebron of Rice, say they are sometimes caught between their own strongly held beliefs and the requirement to nurture a culture of diversity.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As the debate about Israel rages on college campuses across America, there is one figure for whom the conversation takes on strikingly personal dimensions: the Jewish college president.
\nAbout 20 Jewish men and women hold the highest positions at universities across the country, including campuses that have become hotbeds of political activism on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For these individuals, the role of president entails a constant balancing act between encouraging free speech on campus and honoring their personal, often supportive, views of Israel.<\/p>\n

In a series of interviews with the Forward, 10 current and former Jewish college presidents held forth on what the University of California\u2019s Mark Yudof described as the \u201cschizophrenia\u201d of the Jewish college president \u2014 the moments when one\u2019s Jewish identity bumps up against the interests of the institution. For many college presidents, the movement to boycott, divest from and implement sanctions against Israel \u2014 commonly known as BDS \u2014 represented a red line: Presidents who were previously disinclined to speak out against anti-Israel activity on campus in the name of preserving open dialogue found themselves publicly opposing the movement.
\nBut going public on Israel had its limits. Several presidents voiced exasperation with the Jewish community\u2019s scrutiny of campus events, preferring to mediate the Israel-Palestine debate internally. Still others described their efforts to extinguish sparks before they flared into small fires, by coaching Jewish and Muslim students in civil dialogue.
\nYudof, who has run the 10-college U.C. system since 2008, is one president for whom the topic of BDS merited not only public condemnation, but also action. A self-described \u201cstrong defender of Israel\u201d who oversees some of the most combustive campuses in America, Yudof has been alternately portrayed as a First Amendment wonk out of step with Jewish interests and an unblinking Zionist beholden to them.
\nIn 2010, when U.C. Berkeley and U.C. San Diego students introduced bills in their student governments calling for divestment from General Electric Co. and United Technologies \u2014 two companies that manufacture Israeli military gear \u2014 Yudof felt compelled to take a decisive step. That May, he issued a statement saying that the Board of Regents would not consider BDS, since it was the board\u2019s policy to take up divestment only if America\u2019s government said that the regime in question was committing genocide. But for Yudof, there was a secondary reason.<\/p>\n

click here to see the map<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI thought there was a double standard with Israel,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was unimaginable. Other countries were given a pass, and they were going to enforce this boycott against a tiny country in the Middle East. In my judgment, but for it being the Jewish state, it would not be on their list for a boycott.\u201d
\nIn the end, neither school adopted the bills.
\nJudith Shapiro, who served as president of Barnard College from 1994 to 2008, cited similar reasons for publicly opposing the BDS movement at Columbia University and Barnard in 2002. Her term at Barnard saw a major flare-up on the topic of Israel when Jewish alumni and community members vociferously opposed the tenure of professor Nadia Abu El Haj, contending that her book, \u201cFacts on the Ground,\u201d called into question the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel. Shapiro took a hands-off approach in this instance, reassuring alumni that the tenure process would examine El Haj \u2014 who was eventually hired \u2014 fairly and vigorously.
\nBut in the case of a faculty and student call for BDS, Shapiro went public. She issued a statement with Columbia President Lee Bollinger, saying that the two opposed BDS in part because it squelched public debate about the conflict on campus. The university\u2019s Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing took up the question of divesting from companies that benefit from the Israeli occupation, but the proposal was ultimately rejected.
\n\u201cI felt that I needed to make a statement, because just as I don\u2019t like making Israel so sacred that it can\u2019t be criticized \u2014 and by the way, there is way more freedom and diversity of political views in Israel than in the American Jewish community \u2014 I don\u2019t like Israel being singled out as a great evil that we have to focus on,\u201d Shapiro said. \u201cWhen I make a statement about something, I am not expecting everyone to agree with me, but I think presidents need to take a stand on a variety of issues.\u201d
\nBut for one college president, his commitment to open dialogue on campus trumped his desire to speak out against BDS. Former University of Vermont president Daniel Fogel, who served from 2002 until last July, said that his personal aversion to a divestment campaign on campus in spring 2011 was so strong that he would have stepped down if it had been implemented. \u201cI think divestment from Israel would have been a travesty. To me it would have been an expression of anti-Semitism,\u201d he said. \u201cHad the university gone in that direction, I don\u2019t think I would have continued as president.\u201d
\nBut Fogel said that his personal feelings on BDS should not have gotten in the way of the university\u2019s procedures for dealing with thorny questions. When the BDS proposal made its way to UVM\u2019s Socially Responsible Investing Working Group, Fogel began to field calls from Jewish alumni and donors who were concerned, he said, that the university was going to take an anti-Semitic position that \u201cwould have ended their relationship with the community and their support for it.\u201d Fogel held his ground, privately reassuring donors that the university would give the BDS question a thorough review. The working group ended up tabling the proposal.
\n\u201cI feel myself to be a strong supporter of Israel. And I am personally deeply offended by the idea that the State of Israel should be held to markedly higher standards than any other nation state when its survival is at issue,\u201d Fogel said. \u201cBut that is a personal view. I don\u2019t indulge myself in expressing my personal view at the expense of building the political capital of the university to achieve the highest possible levels of public support consistent with my fiduciary responsibility as the leader of the institution.\u201d
\nFogel wasn\u2019t the only president to describe pressure from alumni and community members to quash perceived anti-Israel activity on campus. But not every Jewish college president welcomed such community input. Some presidents said that outsiders looking in held distorted views of the Israel discussion on campus, often seeing fires where there weren\u2019t any.
\nA prime example of this phenomenon is at Brandeis University; its historic ties with the Jewish community make it the subject of special attention from Jewish organizations and individuals.
\nAs noted in a recent Anti-Defamation League report, in the past academic year, the campus\u2019s Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace chapters hosted Israeli Occupation Awareness Week, featuring speeches by Noam Chomsky, Massachusetts Institute of Technology linguist and noted Israel critic, and Diana Buttu, a former Palestinian negotiator. President Frederick Lawrence \u2014 who is widely considered a moderate on Israel in comparison with his predecessor, Jehuda Reinharz \u2014 said he was unsurprised by the Israel conversation on campus.
\n\u201cIf anything surprised me, and maybe it shouldn\u2019t surprise me, it is the way in which the world and specifically the Jewish world will blow some things that happen here out of proportion,\u201d he said. \u201cIf a group of students decide to distribute leaflets on a certain position, some people will think that the university supports that position. What it means is that the university has supported the right of students to have that point of view.
\n\u201cI think we have an obligation to have a fact-based and reasonable discussion of Middle East issues that has to take place within the context of civility. I don\u2019t feel that for Israel to come out well in a discussion, certain viewpoints have to be taken off the table. In a full and reasonable and civil discussion of the Middle East, Israel will come out fine.\u201d
\nAt Rice University, in Houston, President David Leebron echoed this viewpoint, saying that the Israeli-Palestinian debate on campus is the subject of outsized, critical attention in the community, particularly in the local Jewish newspaper, which often prints negative articles about biased events at Rice. For instance, the local community made a fuss about the presence of Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian legislator, on Rice\u2019s campus. But soon after, Rice hosted Israeli ambassador Michael Oren, a favorite target of pro-Palestinian groups.
\n\u201cSometimes what happens is that off-campus people who are very issue oriented take that one event out of context and try to draw conclusions about the institution, and that is just not the way you can judge an academic institution,\u201d Leebron said. \u201cThe idea that every time there is a speaker you don\u2019t like you should register outrage is foreign to the concept of an academic institution. This is where a lot of the tension comes from.\u201d
\nPerhaps the starkest example of outside groups involving themselves in campus life is in the use of federal civil rights law to protect Jewish students from anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activity. In 2010, more than a dozen major Jewish organizations banded together to lobby the Department of Education to expand its definition of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to cover Jewish students, among other groups. Since then, there have been a handful of complaints filed with the Office for Civil Rights. Many of them originated with outside Jewish organizations.
\nWhile several college presidents expressed support for the inclusion of Jewish students under Title VI, others seemed skeptical of both the need for and the implementation of the law. University of Hartford President Walter Harrison said that while his campus is rather apolitical on the topic of Israel, he is well aware of the bitter debates at other schools \u2014 and he\u2019s unsure of the value of Title VI.
\n\u201cI prefer people at the university to try to work things out themselves,\u201d he said.
\nWhen asked about the recent filing of a Title VI complaint at Columbia, Shapiro also questioned the need for federal protection. \u201cThe issues around blacks and Latinos are very different from the issues around Jews,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t think that unless you are a serious victim, this whole victim stuff \u2014 even among groups like Latinos or African Americans, or women \u2014 is a strengthening thing to do. As far as Columbia is concerned, I hardly think that is a place where Jews should be fearful and disempowered.\u201d
\nAnd at the University of California, where there are two outstanding Title VI complaints at U.C. Berkeley and U.C. Santa Cruz, Yudof said that while he felt \u201cgood\u201d about the extension of Title VI, it would be difficult to prove that the students and faculty in question faced a pervasive, hostile atmosphere. \u201cThese cases have to be carefully crafted with a fact pattern that is compelling. I don\u2019t think in either of these cases these fact patterns exist,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it is about people engaged in abhorrent speech on our campuses. But I am skeptical at the end of the day that with those two instances we will be found to be in violation of Title VI.\u201d
\nBut if some Jewish college presidents felt the need to protect their campuses from outside interference, they also expressed the desire to bolster their campuses from the inside out, taking preventative steps to avoid flare-ups. Stephen Trachtenberg, who served as president of George Washington University from 1988 to 2007, said that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the source of lively, civil discussion on campus.
\n\u201cMy way of dealing with these issues \u2014 and we did have a significant Islamic population, both domestic and international \u2014 was to be proactive,\u201d he said. \u201cI initiated programs before there were any issues.\u201d
\nMidway into his tenure, Trachtenberg asked the campus Hillel if it would volunteer to host an Iftar, or evening meal, during Ramadan. The dinner has since become a quasi-diplomatic event in Washington each year, with representatives from the Israeli and Arab embassies, kosher and halal food, and Arab and Israeli music. The only tensions that have arisen have been cultural, when some religious Muslim students preferred to sit separately, based on gender. \u201cWhat we did is, we said to the students: \u2018If you want to sit at an all-male table, sit at an all-male table. The only thing you can\u2019t do is sit with just Muslims or Jews.\u201d
\nAcross the country, at San Diego State University, President Elliot Hirshman said he hopes to avoid the clashes that have rippled across other California schools.
\n\u201cIf on campus we simply leave a group of 19- to 20-year-olds to sort things out amongst themselves, I don\u2019t anticipate things ending well,\u201d he said. \u201cOften what you see is that the first interactions that students have is that they are discussing the historical conflict from their personal perspectives. But what we are working on at San Diego State is to have ongoing positive relationships from students of different groups.\u201d
\nIf there is one common thread in the experiences of Jewish college presidents today, it is their unanimous subscription to the maxim that the remedy for hate speech is more speech. \u201cCensorship is not the way of the People of the Book,\u201d Yudof told Hadassah at its national conference in 2008. \u201cIf there has ever been a people in the history of humankind that have benefited from the First Amendment protections of free exercise of religion and of limits on an established state religion, which obviously wouldn\u2019t include Jews, and have ever benefited from freedom of the press and freedom of speech, it is the Jewish people in this country. This is not a principle that we should take lightly and should seek to undo lightly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more: http:\/\/www.forward.com\/articles\/149684\/?p=all#ixzz1jtL08MS7<\/p>\n

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EDITOR: BDS is getting stronger across America One of the signs of the growing strength of the BDS movement across the US, is the growing opposition to it by the leaders of American Zionism, ironically. The more widespread and ubiquitous BDS becomes, the more action is required from Zionists to try and defeat it. In … Continue reading January 19, 2012<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8948"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8948"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8958,"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8948\/revisions\/8958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haimbresheeth.com\/gaza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}