ACADEMICS AGAINST ISRAEL AND THE JEWS AAca_02.indbca_02.indb 1 003/11/20073/11/2007 114:47:114:47:11 Books by the Same Author Revaluing Italy, with Lorenzo Necci (Italian), 1992 Environment and Confusion: An Introduction to a Messy Subject, 1993 Israel’s New Future: Interviews, 1994 The State as a Business: Do-It-Yourself Political Forecasting (Italian), 1994 Judaism, Environmentalism and the Environment, 1998 The Environment in the Jewish Tradition: A Sustainable World (Hebrew), 2002 Europe’s Crumbling Myths: The Post-Holocaust Origins of Today’s Anti-Semitism, 2003 American Jewry’s Challenge: Conversations Confronting the 21st Century, 2004 Israel and Europe: An Expanding Abyss? 2005 European-Israeli Relations: Between Confusion and Change? 2006 Books Edited The New Clothes of European Anti-Semitism, with Shmuel Trigano (French), 2004 Monograph The Autumn 2005 Riots in France: Their Possible Impact on Israel and the Jews, 2006 AAca_02.indbca_02.indb 2 003/11/20073/11/2007 114:47:154:47:15 ACADEMICS AGAINST ISRAEL AND THE JEWS Edited by Manfred Gerstenfeld Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs AAca_02.indbca_02.indb 3 003/11/20073/11/2007 114:47:154:47:15 Copyright © 2007 by Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) and Manfred Gerstenfeld All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system—except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews—without written permission from the JCPA, 13 Tel Hai Street, Jerusalem, 92107, Israel. Tel: +972 2 561 9281, Fax: + 972 2 561 9112. E-mail: [email protected], www.jcpa.org ISBN: 965-218-057-2 Set in New Times New Roman at Marek Lasman, Jerusalem Printed at Ahva—Coop. Printing Press Ltd Cover design by Rami & Jacky AAca_02.indbca_02.indb 4 003/11/20073/11/2007 114:47:154:47:15 Dedicated to all those who fight against the demonizers and defamers of Israel and Jews on campuses worldwide AAca_02.indbca_02.indb 5 003/11/20073/11/2007 114:47:154:47:15 AAca_02.indbca_02.indb 6 003/11/20073/11/2007 114:47:154:47:15 Table of Contents Acknowledgments 9 Introduction 11 Natan Sharansky: Foreword 13 Manfred Gerstenfeld: Academics against Israel and the Jews 17 ESSAYS Rebecca Leibowitz: Defeating Anti-Israeli and Anti-Semitic Activity on Campus: A Case Study: Rutgers University 83 Noah Liben: The Columbia University Report on Its Middle Eastern Department’s Problems: A Paradigm for Obscuring Structural Flaws 95 Martin Kramer: Columbia University: The Future of Middle Eastern Studies at Stake 103 Jonathan Jaffit: Fighting Sheikh Zayed’s Funding of Islamic Studies at Harvard Divinity School 108 Leila Beckwith: Anti-Zionism/Anti-Semitism at the University of California-Irvine 115 Leila Beckwith, Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, and Ilan Benjamin: Faculty Efforts to Combat Anti-Semitism and Anti-Israeli Bias at the University of California-Santa Cruz 122 Edward S. Beck: Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME): Fighting Anti-Israelism and Anti-Semitism on the University Campuses Worldwide 134 Roz Rothstein: StandWithUs: A Grassroots Advocacy Organization Also on Campus 147 Alain Goldschläger: The Canadian Campus Scene 154 AAca_02.indbca_02.indb 7 003/11/20073/11/2007 114:47:154:47:15 Corinne Berzon: Anti-Israeli Activity at Concordia University 2000-2003 163 Aryeh Green: European Universities and the New Anti-Semitism: Issues, Examples, Prescriptions 174 Ruth Contreras: On the Situation in Austrian Universities 184 Ronnie Fraser: The Academic Boycott of Israel: Why Britain? 198 Manfred Gerstenfeld: The UCU May 2007 Boycott Resolution and Its Aftermath 214 Gavin Gross: Anti-Israeli Activity at the School of Oriental and African Studies: How Jewish Students Started to Fight Back 224 Manfred Gerstenfeld: Utrecht University: The Myth of Jewish Cannibalism, Censorship, and Fear of Muslim Intimidation 236 Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook: Anti-Semitism among Palestinian Authority Academics 242 Ted Lapkin: Academic Anti-Zionism in Australia 250 List of Contributors 259 Index 263 AAca_02.indbca_02.indb 8 003/11/20073/11/2007 114:47:154:47:15 Acknowledgments Several donors who wish to remain anonymous have supported parts of this project over the past few years. I express my gratitude to them for helping generously in this way. I would like to thank the following people at JCPA: Dore Gold and Chaya Herskovic, president and director-general, respectively, for their supportive attitude since the project’s beginning; Edna Weinstock-Gabay, who was responsible for the production of this book; Elizabeth Mayman, who has guided several student interns in the research for their articles; Tamas Berzi, for his observations on the book’s content as well as his technical assistance; and, last but not least, Ashley Perry for all his help. I learned much from Anne Herzberg’s legal comments. Many thanks are due as well to David Hornik for his copyediting. I would like to thank all the student interns who, over the past five years, have collected material for this book. Naming only some of them would do injustice to many others. Manfred Gerstenfeld 9 AAca_02.indbca_02.indb 1 003/11/20073/11/2007 114:47:154:47:15 AAca_02.indbca_02.indb 2 003/11/20073/11/2007 114:47:154:47:15 Introduction In the new century, many attempts to discriminate against Israel, its academic institutions, and its scholars have been made in several Western countries. These include issues such as boycotting Israeli universities and academics as well as calling for the divestment of Israeli securities. The campaigns frequently use anti- Semitic motifs and sometimes also involve violent anti-Semitic acts. Although the phenomena on campus are heterogeneous, the assailants come mainly from two specific segments of the academic world: the extreme Left and Muslims. The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs has been following the developments in the academic world since the first call for a boycott over five years ago. Various lecturers visiting the JCPA have provided us with knowledge and perspective. We are also extremely grateful to many others who have shared with us their insights on campus developments. Students from all over the world interning at the JCPA have been an additional source of information as we discussed their personal experiences with them. It is difficult to obtain a grip on dispersed, multifaceted phenomena. They involve many countries, each with its own peculiarities as far as academia’s functioning and organization are concerned. The process of defaming and demonizing Israel has many aspects as do the reactions to it by faculty, students, as well as nonacademic bodies and individuals. The introductory overview essay lays the broad infrastructure for understanding the complexities of the issue in question. This book also contains eighteen essays dealing with its key facets on four continents. The authors of the essays highlight the great variety of the problem’s characteristics in a number of countries. Some are academic teachers; others are present or former student leaders; yet others are monitors of academia from the outside. This not only leads to varying perspectives but also to very diverse writing styles and approaches. Some articles cover specific periods. Many thanks are due to all the authors for having made the effort to analyze so many aspects of the campaign against Israel and Jews at universities. The attacks on Israel and Jews in academia are part of a large and dynamic process. Many of the problems described in these essays will not disappear. One purpose of this book is thus to lay the groundwork for ongoing monitoring of the demonization and defamation of Israel and Jews in the academic world, as well as the efforts to fight these trends. Because part of the information for this text comes from the Internet, much of it may no longer be available in a few years. This book, therefore, fulfills another function as well: it documents for future reference many details of the initial years of this process and the attitudes of important proponents. While not being comprehensive, it aims to capture the mood of this period. 11 AAca_02.indbca_02.indb 1 003/11/20073/11/2007 114:47:154:47:15 AAca_02.indbca_02.indb 2 003/11/20073/11/2007 114:47:154:47:15 Natan Sharansky Foreword Anti-Semites succeeded in murdering six million Jews only after significant parts of the supposedly enlightened world accepted as a matter of fact that Jews were dangerous and inferior beings. Genocide became legitimate when this attitude permeated universities, the intelligentsia, and other elites. Against this historical background the inroads of the anti-Israeli campaign into the Western academic world are extremely worrying. The infrastructure for future crimes or even genocide is being laid by ideologists at universities of the free world. To demonstrate how academic freedom is regularly abused on campuses I have developed the “three Ds” test, which stands for Demonization, the application of Double standards against Israel, and its Delegitimization. After I became minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora affairs in 2003, I invented this test of the “three Ds” to distinguish new anti-Semitism from legitimate criticism of Israel. It is anti-Semitism and demonization when comparisons are being made between Israelis and Nazis, or between Palestinian refugee camps and Auschwitz. It is equally anti-Semitic when Israel is singled out by the United Nations for human rights abuses while the behavior of major abusers such as China, Iran, Cuba, and Syria is ignored. Similarly it is anti-Semitism when only Israel’s fundamental right to exist—alone among all the people of the world—is questioned.1 Examples from Personal Experience In light of these observations, when I was minister I visited many dozens of university campuses abroad to gain firsthand knowledge of the defamation of Israel and the discrimination against those who support it in the academic world as well as to encourage the resistance of activists.