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Students' Work The Middle East Crisis at Columbia By Danielle Slutzky All The News That’s Fit To Distort? By Alan J. Feder

Students' Work

THE MIDDLE EAST CRISIS AT COLUMBIA
By Danielle Slutzky
The Frisch School of Northern New Jersey

Pro-Palestinian Teachers at Columbia:
Unfortunately, there are many professors and figureheads who promote anti-Israel sentiments at Columbia University. Campus Watch (www.campuswatch.org), a website that aims to monitor anti-Israel bias by naming schools and professors who encourage such feelings, features two Columbia University professors, Joseph Massad and Hamid Dabashi on its website. Joseph Massad, the only historian of the modern Middle East at Columbia, is a loyal follower of Edward Said, an English professor at Columbia who is notorious for his ardent stance against Israel and who helped launch a divestiture campaign at the school. Dabashi, the chair of the Middle East Asian Languages and Cultures department , said he has “felt no pressure whatsoever here at Columbia” when it comes to his views pro-Palestinian views about the Middle East. “Quite to the contrary,” he said. “All I have seen is moral support from higher administration, from my colleagues, and most importantly from my students.”

Another Middle East Professor known for his anti-Israel views is George Saliba, a teacher who, like Dabashi, has canceled classes to speak at pro-Palestinian rallies at Columbia. And as if Columbia University had a shortage of Pro-Palestinian professors in the Middle East department, the university urged Rashid Khalidi, professor of Middle East History and director of the Center for International Studies at the University of Chicago, to be the holder of the Edward Said chair with an anonymous donor in the Middle Eastern Studies at Columbia. In response, the University of Chicago’s has offered Khalidi a counter-offer. However, if he chooses to be recruited to Columbia, Khalidi will join the numerous other anti-Israel Middle East faculty members in teaching Columbia students slanted history.

A study of the divestment signatories portrays the imbalance of Arab and Israeli representation in the Middle East department at Columbia. While the divestment petition is overwhelmingly supported by Middle East faculty, its counter petition boasts almost no Middle East faculty signatories.

But Columbia students have protested this imbalance. Many wrote letters to the university newspaper, The Spectator, and to the School of International Relations newsletter, accusing Massad of anti-Semitism following a lecture he gave on Israeli racism. In addition, Massad said that he has been targeted by the pro-Israel groups on campus and off campus due to his teaching of a course called “Palestinian and Israeli Politics and Societies”. According to him, four out of about 85 of his students harassed him last spring semester by “constant interruption of the lecture”, and one of his students attempted to circulate a petition demanding his firing.

Also, Dabashi said that since he has been posted on the website he has been bombarded with numerous “obscene, racist, and threatening” phone messages and e-mails. Comparing himself to Jews oppressed during World War II and referring to CampusWatch.org as the oppressors, Dabashi said “This is a campaign of terror and intimidation. First… identifying us as anti-Americans and then sending their lunatic allies our way to harass us are Gestapo tactics once used against German Jewish intellectuals. I am honored to have joined their rank.”

On the other hand, some pro-Israel students view the classes taught by pro-Palestinian teachers as opportunities. Freshman Tamar Zeffren will be taking a required class next semester taught by Professor George Saliba for her Middle Eastern civilization major. “I can’t run away from people who have different views than me,” she said. “I want to see the proofs that Saliba uses to back up his views so that I will learn how to counter them. Also, it is always beneficial to see how varying sides interpret events.”

Columbia University’s Petitions:
Unlike other university petitions calling for complete divestment from Israel, the Columbia University’s petition is less radical. To gain widespread support at the university, the plan only calls for divestment from firms selling arms to Israel. Luckily however, two weeks after the petition was announced, Columbia University president Lee Bollinger expressed his opposition to this plan, saying, “the petition alleges human rights abuses and compares Israel to South Africa at the time of apartheid, an analogy I believe is both grotesque and offensive.” Barnard President Shapiro followed suit. Likewise, national director of the Anti-Defamation League Abraham H. Foxman called the movement “hideous”, agreeing with many who consider the divestment campaign anti-Semitic. Responding to this view, Columbia University Professor Edward Said said, “This charge of anti-Semitism is utter nonsense. It is really a form of paranoia to deflect attention away from Israeli human rights abuses and war crimes. Israel has been in occupation of Palestinian territory for 35 years. . . . In light of that, a divestment campaign modeled on the campaign in South Africa seems to be the mildest and most decorous of responses."

Charles Hailey, Brinkley Messick, Mahmood Mamdani, and Philip Kitcher, four Columbia Professors who have signed the divestment petition, said that they did so to engender campus debate on the issue, which they believed has been severely lacking up to this point.

But despite the many Middle East faculty members who pushed for divestment, the anti-divestment movement of Columbia University was a huge success, boasting a total of 33,258 signatures compared to the mere 540 pro-divestment signatures and the university decided not to divest from Israel.

Other petitions included one in support of the American friendship and coalition with Israel. Students such as Ted Weintrob went to every door on their dorm and asked hundreds to sign the petition. About 11,000 signatures were gathered.

Pro-Israel and Pro-Palestinian Activities on Campus:
In addition to forming petitions, students and organizations try to advance their cause through rallies and protests.

Recalling the pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian activities that happened last year, Shifra Koyfman said there were many pro-Palestinian rallies last year on Fridays. “But the worst rally of all happened last Yom Haatzmaut,” she said. Koyfman was referring to a major sit-in that took place last April 18 in support of the Palestinian cause. The rally as sponsored primarily by Turath, Columbia University's North African and Middle Eastern Club, but it also gained the support of other Columbia organizations such as People for Peace, Students for Justice in Palestine, Columbia Anti-War Collective and socialist groups. Across the Low Library where the pro-Palestinian protest took place, pro-Israelis celebrated Yom Haatzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day and gave out informative flyers.

Before the anti-Israel rally, on April 17th, several Columbia teachers used the university’s e-mail list-serves to promote the rally, and many teachers canceled their classes. But what infuriated Koyfman the most about this rally were the comments Columbia professors made during the rally. Massad called Israel “a Jewish supremacist and racist state,” and said that “every racist state should be threatened.” Another Professor who shared anti-Israel sentiments, Nicholas De Genova, declared that “the heritage of the victims of the Holocaust belongs to the Palestinian people. The state of Israel has no claim to the heritage of the Holocaust.”

Other controversial events that occurred on Columbia included the showing of a compelling anti-Israel film, The Gaza Strip, at the university’s Graduate School of Business that was followed by a heated debate last February. In addition, according to a statement made by the American Jewish Committee signed by 309 college presidents that was published in the New York Times, "in the past few months, students who are Jewish or supporters of Israel -- Zionists -- have received death threats and threats of violence. Property connected to Jewish organizations has been defaced or destroyed. Posters and websites displaying libelous information or images have been widely circulated, creating an atmosphere of intimidation."

Although a swastika was recently found on the Law School building at Columbia, according to Zeffren, the general and most common expression of anti-Semitism on campus is in the form of media and anti-Israel editorials or articles. “The same anti-Israel phrases have always been repeated, but now it is even more disturbing to hear them because one expects that at Columbia University people would be more intelligent.”

To counter the anti-Israel events on campus LionPAC, the major pro-Israel club on campus, organizes media-watch and letter-writing campaigns, petitions, meetings with noted speakers, donations to Israel, and information sessions in which students learn how to fight for their cause effectively and table with efficacy. According to LionPAC president, Noah Liben, there are about 10% of ardent pro-Israelis on campus and about 10% ardent anti-Israeli’s on campus whose minds cannot be changed. But there are about 80% of “unaffiliated” students on campus, said Liben, who LionPAC tries to inform and represent Israel in the most favorable light. LionPAC especially tries to reach the leaders of various clubs at Columbia “because they will eventually be the leaders of CNN, the New York Times, and others,” said Liben.

Unlike in previous years, this year LionPAC is not a “reactive” club that responds to every anti-Israeli activity on campus, said Liben. Rather, it is a “level headed” group that avoids name calling and violence and welcomes left, right, and middle winged supporters of Israel.

Constantly involved with a LionPAC activity, Liben said that the overwhelming and active Jewish community at Columbia makes his job much easier. Weintrub, who eats at Barnard because of the kosher meal plan and always talks to fellow Jewish students about the Arab-Israeli conflict, agreed with Liben. “I love Columbia and I love Israel,” he said. Fortunately, “the two are not mutually exclusive.”

BIBLIOGRAPHY

www.Campuswatch.org
www.electricintifada.net
Columbia Spectator/University Wire
Associate Press
The Nation

Interviews:

Noah Liben
Ted Wientrub
Tamar Zeffren
Shifra Koyfman