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| Pâ•qidꞋ Yi•rᵊmᵊyâhꞋu |
2003.02.13 from 2002.12.17, excerpts from a The Wall Street Journal article by Ruth R. Wisse (2002.12.15) – "Faculty at Georgetown, Michigan and Harvard have gone out of their way to invite speakers best known for their defamation of Israel and the Jews.
"To be sure, hundreds of university presidents have either spoken out publicly or signed a statement deploring the presence of anti-Semitism on campus. But none has tried to explain the phenomenon, much less undertaken to do anything about it…
"Most university professors and students who support divestment do so in the misguided belief that it will force Israel to improve its human-rights record in the West Bank and Gaza. What they fail to recognize is that, far from championing human rights, the divestment petition is a springboard for the spread of anti-Semitic hostility to American campuses…
"…This antipathy to Israel grows from a campus culture that is selectively repressive. All the while that students, in the spirit of diversity, are actively discouraged from making pejorative comments about other vulnerable minorities, some Arab and Muslim students have been actively fomenting hatred of Israel as an expression of their "identity." On campuses with a large Arab presence, such as Wayne State in Detroit, this has resulted in a palpable threat to Jewish students, and outbreaks of physical violence have actually occurred at San Francisco State and Concordia University in Montreal. Since Arab and Muslim students are currently the only ones who exuberantly defame another group, and who blame that group rather than Arab and Muslim governments for the failings of their own anti-democratic societies, it is hardly surprising that they should be joined by others looking for a villain or scapegoat. Anti-Semitism thrives because slandering Israel is the only aggression against a minority that is encouraged by the rules of political correctness.
"Along similar lines, universities have allowed Middle East departments to disseminate anti-Israel propaganda to an extent unimaginable a generation ago, representing violations of intellectual honesty and academic impartiality that may be unique in our academic life. Martin Kramer's book on Middle East Studies in America, "Ivory Towers on Sand," points out the conditions that encourage this abuse. Instead of scrutinizing the obsession with Israel that has retarded the development of Arab societies, many professors of Arab and Muslim civilization have themselves become obsessed with the obsession. [This is largely due to the Saudi investments in schoolbooks and hiring teachers from elementary school level through a number of eminent universities. Money, Saudi $, has corrupted – and continues to further corrupt.] Here the damage to America is at least as great as to Israel, for had these scholars been submitting Arab regimes to honest scrutiny, they would have long since have been investigating the connections between anti-Semitism, opposition to democracy, and hostility to the U.S. Why has it been left to private think tanks to inform us about the rise and nature of terrorism in the Middle East?
The last thing university authorities ought to do in addressing this latest outbreak of what has been called "the longest hatred" is to enforce the kind of speech codes that have been invoked to protect other sensitive minorities. What is wanted is more honest debate, not less, but honest debate on both sides of the issue. Anti-Semitism works by making Jews the defendants of a political charge. Its hostile agenda invites counter-scrutiny. The more the Arab world and its defenders try to blame Israel, the more critically we should be studying the Arab world to see how it uses anti-Semitism to divert attention from its problems, and where the responsibility for those problems really lies.
"Anti-semitism perverts the ideal of a mutually tolerant campus. The faculty and administration, and students who wish to uphold that ideal, will have to exercise their free speech to address the function and the roots of this virulent phenomenon."
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