Brandeis Defunded by Rich Likudniks
Super-wealthy donors have retaliated against Brandeis University for inviting former president Jimmy Carter to speak on campus in connection with his book on Israeli Apartheid in the West Bank. They said they will withold further donations to the school.
The president of Brandeis, Jehuda Reinharz, once commented on Middle East Centers at major American universities, saying, "My problem is not the anti-Zionism or even that many of them are anti-American, but that they are third-rate." Why exactly should he judge their scholarship by whether or not they are Zionists? Does everyone have to be a Zionist? As for the Red-baiting and vague, general put-down of the works of other academics, it is too despicable for words. Reinharz notoriously thought well of the "scholarship" of Joan Peters, whose "From Time Immemorial" was dismissed by Israeli historian Yehoshua Porath as a forgery.
So I have to say it is delicious that Reinharz himself is now having the economic plug pulled on him by rich old bullies who think, by virtue of his invitation to Jimmy Carter, that he is anti-Zionist, anti-American and third rate.
Carter's book, by the way, is mostly just Christian Zionism. It ignores 1400 years of Muslim history in Palestine and Jerusalem, accepts Peters's false thesis of significant in-migration of Arabs in the interwar period, and only dares raise some timid protests about the execrable treatment of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories by Israeli occupiers and colonists.
If even Carter can't protest even this much without causing a whole university to be defunded, then there is something radically wrong with higher education in the United States. And what is wrong with it has nothing to do with the (quite high) standard of scholarship in Middle Eastern studies. It has to do with radical intolerance of any views that depart from a rightwing Zionist orthodoxy, and a willingness by upholders of that orthodoxy to deploy big money to punish anyone or any institution that departs from it.
By the way, I have several friends on the Brandeis faculty, and their academic scholarship is first-rate. I hope they can go on enlightening us. Scholarship, pace Reinharz, is not a zero sum game. We are all enriched by the work of good scholars everywhere.
posted by Juan Cole @ 2/16/2007 12:11:00 AM
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4 Comments:
Prof. Cole,
Sorry, it appears I posted the comment on Peters in the wrong posting by accident. The comment was directed to this post. My apologies.
Ian Maley
I don't know that I agree with your assessment of Carter's book. He may not be a historian, but his book focused on the last 30 years. I don't think it was supposed to be a history book about Palestine over the last 2,000 years.
Also I think his depiction of the occupation, for those who know little or nothing about it, was better than "timid." I'm sure the oppression of the Palestinians as detailed in the book came as a shock to some readers who know nothing more than what CNN tells them.
Carter may not be an intellectual, historian or deep thinker, but he deserves credit for stating facts, and writing a book that he must have known would cause him to be branded an "anti-Semite" and lead to funding losses for his non-profit group and for institutions such as Brandeis that allowed him to discuss his impressions.
It isn't clear to what extent Brandeis has been "defunded". There is surely a lot of static and discontent. It could be, for instance, that such damage is exaggerated by those who would prefer the more liberal minded to stand down. Nobody really knows yet. It's too early to tell.
The article in the Jewish Week cited by Prof. Cole, despite its title ("Brandeis Donors Exact Revenge for Carter Visit"), contains some very encouraging information.
For example, Prof. Jonathan Sarna, a Brandeis professor "who maintains close ties with the administration" (says the article), makes clear that inviting speakers does not mean that the university endorses their views---and I think that this should always be true. Said Sarna,
“The American Jewish community understands the visit by Carter to Brandeis to be reflecting a heksher [a stamp of approval] from the university. They see it as a statement that Brandeis certifies him as kosher. The faculty views it very differently, that Brandeis is a forum; that views are uttered in that forum, some of which we agree with and some of which we don’t. But the faculty does not view his appearance as a heksher. It’s that gap in perception that seems to require greater dialogue between the two entities so at least one understands the other."
It's exactly that institutional neutrality which allows all sorts of speakers to come in and all sorts of opinions to be considered.
Equally encouraging are the words of Michael Berenbaum quoted in the Jewish Week article---he was once project director of the Holocaust Museum in Washington:
“I think everyone was surprised at how well he [Carter] was received. That may be the most important part of the story. Instead of coming as partisans, they listened to Carter attentively, asked tough questions and gave him an audience. The Jewish community may have a more significant generation gap than they understand between what young people are prepared to hear and what older activists are prepared to hear.”
President Carter's visit to Brandeis may have changed few minds about politics in the Middle East, but may have changed a lot of minds about what universities can do, and about what people can say. When people start to talk differently, they start to think differently. These are all causes for optimism.
Harry Mairson
Professor of Computer Science
Brandeis University
As a student at Brandeis from 1981-1985, I was part of a group that considered inviting Meir Kahane to campus. We turned him down after much consideration that having him there indicated that our student group condoned his hate speech.
Jimmy Carter has never done anything but strive for peace and greater understanding in the Middle East. The word "apartheid" in his title is used very frequently in letters to the editor of The Jerusalem Post and other Israeli newspapers. That some big donor bullies are raising a ruckus indicates the close-mindedness of some of the AIPAC cabal. Too bad they object to a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize indicating that their fiefdom over American foreign policy is bad for Israel and the cause of peace.
As one foreign policy expert in the Atlantic Monthly, pointed out in regard to US-Israel relations: "Friends don't let friends drive drunk." What we have endorsed in Israeli behavior in terms of Palestine, Lebanon, and the greater Middle East is nothing short of bad for Israel and bad for the entire region.
I'm hardly a big donor to the Alumni fund, but at this moment I'm very proud to be a Brandeis alum.
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