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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/18604/full/18604/u-c-profs-slam-harvard-president-s-divestment-stance/ <br /><br /> <b>U.C. profs slam Harvard president’s divestment stance</b> <br /> Friday, October 11, 2002 | by <p>JOE ESKENAZI </p> <br /><br /><p>Who are you calling an anti-Semite?<br /><br /> That's the question a score of U.C. Berkeley professors are posing to Harvard President Lawrence Summers after the former Treasury Secretary said last month divestment movements singling out Israel are "anti-Semitic in their effect if not their intent."<br /><br /> Twenty-two professors, the vast majority from U.C. Berkeley, instead claim via a sardonically written statement that Summers' arguments are "shameful deceptions—in their effect if not in their intent."<br /><br /> "Mr. Summers thinks, as many good Jews do, that we are anti-Semites, and I'm also getting e-mails telling me I'm a Nazi. The Jewish community and the world in general doesn't know the color gray. Either you're Nazis or you do what Sharon wants you to do," said Rutie Adler, a Tel Aviv-born Hebrew lecturer at U.C. Berkeley.<br /><br /> Like the statement's other 21 signers, Adler also signed an Israeli divestment petition earlier this year.<br /><br /> "If one more person calls me anti-Israel, I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm more pro-Israel than your newspaper and many Jews who think they are. I'm pro-Israel and I'm pro-Palestine; there is no contradiction…You don't have to agree with me; just don't call me an anti-Semite."<br /><br /> The statement, which began circulating last Monday, claims that "labeling gentiles as anti-Semitic for calling attention to this injustice is like accusing opponents of South African apartheid of being anti-Dutch…We among this list of signatories who are Jews feel an added responsibility to speak out against Mr. Summers' brand of slander, just as we feel responsible to denounce the daily atrocities committed by the Israeli government in the name of Jews."<br /><br /> Responding to the charge that Israel is being singled out among far worse human rights abusers, the statement reads: "Unlike most of these other countries, Israel receives billions of dollars each year from the United States. Israel, in fact, receives more U.S. aid than does any other nation."<br /><br /> Professor Samer Madanat, one of the statement's primary authors, added that he is certainly not singling Israel out. In addition to supporting Israeli divestment, he also signed a Burmese divestment petition and has been active in causes relating to Latin America.<br /><br /> "A situation of grave injustice is happening in the Middle East. There are violations of human rights in many countries, but this is a grave injustice and an injustice in which our government is, frankly, not speaking out against and is kind of complicit in," said Madanat, a professor of transportation engineering.<br /><br /> Summers, he added, is "using the fear of anti-Semitism—which is real, of course—to cover up or blunt criticism of the state of Israel, which is very legitimate. I think we have the right to defend ourselves against what is really a slanderous accusation: that we are all racists. That is exactly the opposite of what we're standing for."<br /><br /> Madanat noted that former Ku Klux Klan leader and Louisiana gubernatorial candidate David Duke had held an anti-Israel rally, pointing out that "activists who support the Palestinian cause" protested the rally.<br /><br /> Adler also acknowledged that anti-Semites are taking advantage of the Israeli divestment petition to further their own causes, but said she believed people who hate Muslims are jumping on the pro-Israel bandwagon.<br /><br /> "We don't want to be called anti-Semites just because we critique the policies of Israel. If the American government treated Israel as they treat Iraq with all their misbehavior, maybe we would have peace in Palestine by now," said Adler. "We are not anti-Semites and we don't like to be called anti-Semites."</p> <p> </p>

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