Divestment petition is not anti-Semitic

By Faculty Members at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 10/4/2002

This article was written by a group of faculty members a t Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology:

John Assad, assistant professor of neurobiology, Harvard; Danny Fox, professor of linguistics, MIT; Nancy Kanwisher, professor of brain and cognitive sciences, MIT; Ken Nakayama, Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology, Harvard; Mary C. Potter, professor of brain and cognitive sciences, MIT; and Elizabeth Spelke, professor of psychology, Harvard.

THE HEART-BREAKING conflict between Israelis and Palestinians raises understandable concerns over the rise of anti-Semitism and anti-Arab sentiment, the future of the state of Israel and of the Palestinian people, and the prospects for peace and human rights throughout the world.

The best hope for addressing these concerns would come, we believe, from the establishment of a secure, democratic, economically viable Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza alongside the state of Israel and from a renewed commitment by all countries to international conventions on human rights. That is why we have signed a petition asking our government and our universities to make future aid to and investment in Israel subject to four conditions.

To receive our aid, Israel must return to its internationally recognized, pre-1967 borders, vacate all settlements in the occupied territories, renounce its policies of deportation, targeted assassination, and collective punishment of its perceived enemies, and compensate Palestinian refugees.

The conditions specified in the Harvard-MIT divestment petition accord with UN Security Council resolutions and the Fourth Geneva Convention, are uncontroversial in most of the world, and have considerable support in Israel itself. Nevertheless, the petition has raised a firestorm of criticism. It has been denounced as a one-sided attempt to harm Israel by undermining its security, and it has been characterized as anti-Semitic by Harvard University's president, Lawrence Summers, and his defenders.

These claims are false, and they divert attention from the central question of how to bring peace and security to all people in the Middle East.

The divestment petition calls for unilateral actions by Israel to address a dangerous imbalance in the Middle East. Tragedies, errors, and wrongs have occurred on both sides of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but the conflict is not symmetric. Israel is an independent nation, Palestine is not. Palestinians live under Israeli occupation, not the reverse. Palestinians are killed by the Israeli military acting under orders from the government; Israelis are killed by individuals with no sovereign government to represent or restrain them.

Under these conditions, ''even-handed'' calls that make an end to the occupation contingent on an end to Palestinian acts of violence give individual extremists the power to veto any peace accord. For Americans, the Middle East conflict is asymmetric in a second way. Israel is the largest recipient of US foreign aid while Palestinians receive little from our government or businesses. The Israeli Army uses US-supplied arms and helicopters to demolish Palestinian homes and lives. If our government were arming suicide bombers, it would be appropriate for us to call for an end to US aid for both sides of the conflict. This, however, is not the case.

Our petition does not seek to undermine Israel's security. On the contrary, we believe that continued occupation of Palestinian territories poses the greatest threat to the security of Israelis, Palestinians, and Americans. By destroying Palestinian lives and livelihoods, confiscating their lands, and preventing access to such basic necessities as medical care and education, Israeli government actions give Palestinians little reason to believe in the possibility of peace.

Every aggressive act committed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's army is therefore a gift to those who favor terrorist actions in Israel and the United States and to those who would foment anti-Semitism throughout the world. The best protection for Israel would come from a renewed commitment to international law and human rights and from the creation of a state that will provide Palestinians with the same security and prosperity that Israelis rightly desire for themselves. No one will be safe in the Middle East until everyone is.

Finally, why do we target Israel when wrongs are committed by governments everywhere? Are we holding Israel to a higher standard?

This suggestion is triply wrong. First, any political action must be focused if it is to be effective, but one action does not preclude other actions focused on other problems. Indeed, many signers of this petition have been involved in a variety of efforts to end human rights abuses around the world. Second, the target of the petition is not the state of Israel but its policy of occupation. Third, Israel is held to no standard at all when any criticism of its government's policies is branded anti-Semitic. The silent acquiescence of the United States in Sharon's actions benefits only the minority of extremists on both sides who are bent on mutual destruction.

In the name of peace, we call for an end to the occupation and for an open discussion of these issues, both within our university communities and beyond.