Atlanta Jewish Times

A union of British academics tried to boycott Israeli institutions but it backfired and ended in humiliation for them.

In May, the University and College Union (UCU) of Britain voted to boycott Israeli institutions of higher learning, a violation of the basic principles of higher education and intellectual inquiry. On Sept. 28, the same union's strategy and finance committee called it off on the grounds that "a boycott call would be unlawful and cannot be implemented." This humiliating reversal ends the infamous boycott.

We ought to thank the UCU for a great gift to Israel's cause. Because in just the four months or so between the boycott and its abandonment, it caused an unprecedented outpouring of sympathy for Israel's boycotted academies from America's university and college presidents.

In a full-page ad created by Lee Bollinger of Columbia University, sponsored by the American Jewish Committee and published in The New York Times on Aug. 8, 286 leaders of U.S. academic institutions signed a strongly worded petition against the boycott. It read in bold letters: "Boycott Israeli Universities? Boycott Ours Too!"

By Sept. 25, 160 more institutional leaders had signed on, for an astounding total of 446.

Some people seem to be under the misconception that the ad proposed a counterboycott. It did nothing of the kind. It dramatically invited the UCU to put the signatory institutions in the same category as the UCU sought for the Israeli academic world.

The 446 university and college presidents who signed the petition included the majority of presidents of the top 20, 30 and 50 national universities, according to U.S. News & World Report, the majority of the top 20, 30 and 50 liberal arts colleges, and all four named "top public universities."

In Georgia, we can be proud: The ad was signed by the presidents of the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, Georgia State, Oglethorpe, Agnes Scott, Kennesaw State, Spelman, the University of West Georgia, and Augusta State.

That did leave out Emory, my institution. None of the signatory Georgia institutions can match Emory for its Jewish population of students, alumni and potential donors. Yet all Emory President James Wagner saw fit to do was to write a letter saying academic boycotts are not in the spirit of university inquiry.

That is a weak message. A far stronger message was sent by his refusal to sign the petition. It is an irreversible embarrassment.

In the South, the petition was signed by the presidents of Vanderbilt, Clemson, Furman, Washington University of St. Louis, Tulane, Louisiana State, Florida State, the University of Miami, Florida Atlantic, Florida International, and the Universities of Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee and Louisville, among others.

Elsewhere, it was signed by the presidents of Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, Cal Tech, MIT, Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, the four top branches of the University of California, the Universities of Texas, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois and Massachusetts, numerous Christian colleges and seminaries, and hundreds more.

Some good universities and colleges are not represented, but they are a minority in all categories, and in Georgia, except for Emory, we have just about a clean sweep.

An estimated one-third of Emory's student body is Jewish, and therefore a third of alumni and of potential donors to Emory soon will be. Most of the institutions named above cannot say the same, yet they wanted to say not just the obvious – "Boycotts aren't nice" – but the bold and symbolically powerful – "Boycott ours too!" They stood on principle. Emory missed its chance.

The boycott galvanized the leaders of American higher education and showed the world how strongly they felt. Academic freedom, Israel and the Jewish community have all scored an important victory.

Atlanta Jewish Times

Jimmy Carter claims he wants debate, but has refused to debate anyone. What is Carter afraid of?

Emory University seems set to fail a crucial exam Feb. 22, when Jimmy Carter is due to appear with the university's complete official support before a tame audience of ill-informed, adoring students, shielded, at his own insistence, from grown-up criticism.

In a similarly staged and sanitized event at Brandeis, Carter finally apologized, calling a passage in his book that condones terrorism "improper and stupid." It was too little, too late.

His book and media blitz are rife with statements that need apologies. For example – on Al-Jazeera, no less – he baldly stated that rocket barrages against homes in Israel are not terrorist acts.

But his whole vindictive, anti-Israel and anti-Jewish campaign encourages terror. In his book and in many self-serving events propelling it toward the top of the best-seller lists, he absolves Arabs from any responsibility in the tragic impasse, blaming Israel alone, proclaiming that as soon as Israel has made enough one-sided concessions, all will be well not only in Palestine, but throughout the Middle East.

All who know the facts consider this ridiculous. Respected syndicated columnist Tom Teepen wrote recently that "to anathematize Israel," Carter "dodges, ignores or even twists history to serve that agenda."

Dennis Ross, Bill Clinton's chief envoy in the peace talks of 2000 – when Israel offered at least 95 percent of the occupied territories as an opening offer, flatly rejected – wrote that Carter is trying "to rewrite history" and that "peace can never be built on these myths."

Ethan Bronner, the deputy foreign editor of The New York Times, called the book "a distortion."

Even Palestinians are far more fair than Carter. A January poll by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion found that 25.6 percent of Palestinians blame Israel for their current crisis, while 54.5 percent blame Palestinian or Arab factions or leaders.

Carter blames Israel, only Israel.

Deborah Lipstadt, Emory's distinguished Holocaust historian, wrote in The Washington Post that Carter "ignores a legacy of mistreatment, expulsion and murder committed against Jews" and that his "minimalization of the Holocaust" gives comfort to deniers and misses the point of Israel's existence.

Veteran Congressman John Conyers, a co-founder of the Congressional Black Caucus, said Carter's "apartheid" libel "does not serve the cause of peace, and the use of it against the Jewish people in particular, who have been victims of the worst kind of discrimination, discrimination resulting in death, is offensive and wrong."

Also on Al-Jazeera, Carter claimed that "most of the condemnations of my book came from Jewish-American organizations." Is this another "improper and stupid" wording? It is certainly false, as the quotations above and countless others prove, but not all falsehoods are honest mistakes.

Carter invigorates America's worst elements by insinuating that Jews control Congress and the media. Stormfront, the oldest white supremacist Web site, wrote: "I see the whole world beginning to sense the end of Jewish political power. That's why Mel [Gibson] and Jimmy Carter are saying and doing the things they are. … Now who is afraid of the big bad Jew?"

Stormfront added: "We need to encourage Jimmy in any way we can."

Another racist Web site, the Vanguard News Network, quoted one of Carter's insinuations and said, "Translation: 'The United States has a Zionist Occupied Government.' Amen."

Mark Weber, an infamous Holocaust denier, calls Carter's book a great achievement, showing "the growing awareness of Zionist-Jewish power."

We can't blame Carter for his admirers, you say? He has played right into their hands.

To get an idea of what Carter thinks, go to the Simon Wiesenthal Center' s Web site. You will find a brief note to Rabbi Marvin Hier in Carter's handwriting, dated Jan. 26, in response to a petition signed by 25,000 Jews. The Carter response reads in full, "To Rabbi Marvin Hier: I don't believe Simon Wiesenthal would have resorted to falsehood and slander to raise funds. Sincerely, Jimmy Carter."

This astounding smear against one of Jewish Americans' most revered institutions attempts to hijack Wiesenthal's memory and accuses a leading rabbi of lying to get money. That is Carter's response – on the official stationery of the Carter Presidential Center – to the opinions of 25,000 Jews.

Is Jimmy Carter anti-Semitic? His statements certainly fall within many definitions of anti-Semitism, and they strongly encourage hatred of Jews. It has been many decades since an American of Carter's stature has faced this question; it will lie like a long shadow across his legacy.

Emory University may now fall under the same shadow. By Carter's own demand, faithfully followed by Emory's leaders, Carter will have the stage to himself, with pre-picked softball questions, no follow-up questions and no exchange with experts. He shrank from debating Alan Dershowitz at Brandeis, and he has refused to debate Ross or anyone else at Emory.

Yet he will have the university's seal of approval, being introduced by President James Wagner and moderated by Provost Earl Lewis.

In the latest outrage, Gary Hauk, an Emory vice president and deputy to the president, wrote to the entire faculty to ask us to consider excusing students from classes to attend Carter's self-serving political exercise. In other words, Carter's errors, distortions and insinuations about the Jews take precedence over the normal teaching functions performed by hundreds of dedicated professors in every field of knowledge – this at a university whose student body is one-third Jewish and that is constantly trying to raise money from Jewish alumni.

Even at Brandeis, recent reports say major donors have withdrawn support because the university gave Carter an open platform to air his distortions without criticism.

But Brandeis, seen as a Jewish institution, cannot be accused of coddling anti-Semitism. Emory can. A university's central purpose is the search for truth, and Carter has distorted the truth with impunity. If he appears at my university without qualified, expert criticism, Emory will deserve any condemnation it gets.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A one-time honest broker is now a biased advocate and an obstacle to peace.

We are in that season when Jews celebrate one of their few successful rebellions against oppression. Christians celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace. How ironic, then, that Jewish-Americans are embroiled in a grim struggle against a Christian former president who is tainting our holiday joy.

A former president whose legacy has rested on bringing about peace between Arabs and Jews has turned his back on that to become a partisan. A man whose Christian values made him see both sides in a tragic conflict has become blind to one side's suffering. A man who walked in paths of peace has now become an obstacle to peace.

For me, it means the loss of one of my greatest heroes. I have never allowed a snide remark about Jimmy Carter's "failed" presidency to pass without contradicting it. I have said countless times that he is the greatest former president, setting a new standard for that role.

I don't recognize Carter any more. I am afraid of him now, for myself and for my children. He has not just turned his back on the balance and fairness that all peacemaking depends on. He has become a spokesman for the enemies of my people. He has become an apologist for terrorists.

At this holiday season, Jews remember a time when our existence was threatened in our homeland; it is threatened again now. Christians remember the birth of a baby boy long dreamed of, to a Jewish mother who had to flee from terror to protect him. Jewish mothers shrink from terror in the same place today.

Carter hates the wall their leaders have built to protect their children. I hate it too, and so do most Israelis. But the simple fact, disputed by no one, is that it has saved hundreds of innocent Jewish lives. It will come down when our enemies give up terror and acknowledge our right to live as a free people in our homeland.

Carter calls the Hamas leaders men of peace, a claim that flies in the face of every known reality. He wants Israel to back down unilaterally, to believe the promises of people who are its sworn enemy. Israel withdrew from Gaza just last year, removing Jewish settlers by force. The result was relentless rocket attacks and the killing and kidnapping of Jewish soldiers within Israel.

I have read with shock and sadness Carter's biased, harmful book "Palestine: Peace not Apartheid." I have watched as Carter was interviewed in the media. He told CNN's Larry King that President Bill Clinton and envoy Dennis Ross were misrepresenting their peace efforts in 2000, insisting that only he knew the truth, even though they were there and he was not.

When Soledad O'Brien of CNN, showing deep concern about the severe criticisms directed against the book, asked him how he would respond, he laughed. He has not once answered the many specific criticisms except to say, again and again, that his book is completely accurate.

He has said or hinted repeatedly that Jews control the Congress and the media, a classic anti-Semitic slur. It seems that Cuban-Americans can speak up on Cuba, Irish-Americans can support the IRA, Mexican-Americans can lobby on immigration law, but when Jewish-Americans speak our minds about Israel, we don't deserve the same constitutional protections and a former president can try to silence us.

Carter has changed. Something has happened to his judgment. I don't understand what it is, but I know it is very dangerous. At a minimum, his legacy is irrevocably tarnished, and he will never again be a factor in the quest for Middle East peace. At worst, he is emboldening terrorists and their apologists in the Arab world, encouraging them to go on with their terror campaign and refuse even to recognize Israel's right to just exist.

We know what happens when the right of Jews to exist is denied, but Carter has forgotten. The "Historical Chronology" at the beginning of his book starts with Abraham and grows more detailed in modern times. But between 1939 and 1947 there is . . . nothing!

In the text, the history of Jewish suffering is accorded five lines, and the Holocaust is barely mentioned in passing. But as both Hanukkah and Christmas remind us, Jews are history's most persecuted people, and Israel, where we started, is our last, best refuge. Carter's bizarre book is a poisoned holiday gift for Jews and Christians, and a danger to Jews throughout the world.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

With luck, a tragic war may lead to a more stable region and a setback for the forces of terror.

The press in Israel reported this week that Egypt is increasing its supply of palm leaves to the mostly Jewish country to meet the demand for lulavs, the bundle of four plant species used in the forthcoming holy days.

So? Well, not so long ago Egypt was Israel's archenemy, sworn to destroy it and trying every chance it got. But thanks to a handshake on the White House lawn under Jimmy Carter's gaze, Egypt has changed from existential threat to active trading partner. As for Jordan, once a hotbed of terrorism, the joint economic and technological projects with Israel are too numerous to mention.

After a costly monthlong war, a question mark hangs over the Middle East and the world that could be answered with hopelessness. It doesn't have to be.

Yes, Hezbollah is still strong in Lebanon — and don't forget, these are the very same people who killed 241 U.S. servicemen, mainly Marines, in 1983, including five Georgians.

That barracks bombing was the biggest one-day death toll for our Marines since World War II and the deadliest terrorist attack until Sept. 11. So Israel is fighting our enemies, too.

It's also true that Iran, the real power behind these terrorists, is as strong as ever, and (unlike Saddam Hussein) close to going nuclear. When Adolf Hitler said he would get rid of the Jews, neither the Jews nor the world believed him. Now we take these things very, very seriously.

President Ronald Reagan called the Lebanese terrorists "cowardly, skulking barbarians," but he was blocked by some in his administration from taking timely action against them. Those who think Israel should not have responded the way it did in Lebanon should listen to Osama bin Laden's tapes from the '80s and '90s. He said the Marine bombing proved the United States would not stand up to terror, and he went on to kill thousands of Americans.

Still, as many in Israel say, you make peace with your enemies, not your friends. Israelis are a bit discouraged right now because the victory in Lebanon was not decisive enough, and they fear that it will have to be done all over again. But some very important things have changed.

Hezbollah suffered substantial losses. It never allowed its fighters to be shown during this war, even on Arab TV, alive or dead. We were only allowed to see civilian casualties. But the terrorists were there, and they were killed in substantial numbers. The small portable rockets never stopped, but the larger, much more dangerous missiles were destroyed by Israeli planes. And the supply routes that allow Hezbollah to stock and restock weapons were severely damaged.

Most important, the balance of forces has been changed. Ever since the days of the Marine barracks bombing, the Lebanese army was too afraid of Hezbollah to deploy in the south or the east, so Lebanon left a large portion of its own land to be controlled by Iran's terrorist clients. Now 15,000 Lebanese army troops are where they should have been all along, protecting and stabilizing the entire country.

But no one thinks this alone will do the job. That is why the U.N. Security Council made the cease-fire hinge on the deployment of an equal-size international force, with the skill and courage to really protect Lebanon and Israel from terror.

Will this work? Ask the French. After beating the drum for a strong international peacekeeping force, led by them, they initially offered to provide — count them — 400 soldiers. They have now increased that offer to 2,000.

Fortunately, other nations are stepping up to the plate. Italy has pledged 3,000 troops, and multilateral negotiations in Brussels are focused on building this force up properly.

In the past five years, we Americans have learned that it is hard to defeat people who claim to love death. Like us, Israelis love life, and so do most Lebanese.

If the international community puts its power where its mouth is, Lebanon may soon be free of Iranian-sponsored terror and become a partner for Israel, just as Egypt and Jordan did. That could be the lasting legacy of this latest Lebanon war.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

If peace can trump hatred in Northern Ireland after centuries, there is hope for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

It was a blessing to join my daughter for St. Patrick's Day in Northern Ireland. One surprise was a TV news story about the festival in Savannah. What fascinated people in that strife-torn country was that Savannah's Catholics and Protestants celebrate together.

People in Northern Ireland would have to be fascinated, since for centuries they have not found the unity these upstart Americans take for granted.

My previous visit to Northern Ireland, in 1998 for a conference in Derry on the social science of peace, took place during the week the Northern Ireland Assembly met for the first time. This put fierce enemies in the same room, and it was marred by a walkout. Worse, the next night, synchronized bombings damaged Catholic churches in eight locations around the country. No one was hurt, but clearly there were still forces against peace.

Tragically, there were more bombings, once as recently as September. But overall the peace held; the assembly has survived. We met with a senior republican, toured North Belfast and attended an inquiry into Bloody Sunday. Everyone we spoke to said the time for violence is over.

The Emerald Isle is prospering. Bill Clinton and George Mitchell, American peacemaker-heroes, are revered for their role in healing the old rift. But above all, people in Northern Ireland are tired of a life tinged with fear; they are bored with hatred. They care far more about having a civilized life than about their religious differences.

As an American Jew who loves Israel, I could only watch sadly from my safe Irish haven as the Middle East burst into flames; now the fire is blazing. Back in July when I visited there I saw signs of hope; today it is almost gone. To put things in perspective, half as many people have been killed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the past 18 months as in the whole modern history of the Northern Irish Troubles. Twice as many Jews died in Israel's war for independence alone when it was nearly killed in its cradle by six invading Arab armies as the multigeneration Irish total of around 3,000.

There are parallels, to be sure, but the Middle East conflict is fiercer, the region far less civilized than Ireland. Too many on both sides are not yet ready for peace. Palestinian terrorists destroy pizza parlors and discotheques, supermarkets and seders, not military targets, in a terror campaign unprecedented in history.

But Jewish settlers continue to build illegal extensions of their settlements, adding to Palestinians' loss of hope. The fanatical acts on the two sides are hardly comparable, yet both help to sustain the endless war.

At Camp David in 2000, Yasser Arafat rejected an offer of more than 90 percent of the land he wants, yet he wouldn't even negotiate from that as a starting point, a place from which to work toward a free, coherent state. Israel's government can in time remove many settlements; it can control its few extremists. But Arafat can't or won't control his, and their actions echo Sept. 11 every day.

No one who knows Israel thinks it can stand by while hundreds of women and children are murdered. The Nazi shadow is too long there. And anyway, what nation would just stand by?

Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad are Israel's al-Qaida, and they will be hunted down in much the same way. As for those who harbor terrorists, they must be viewed as enemies. Right now, peace seems a vain dream. But it was not so long ago that things looked very bleak in Northern Ireland. One month a bomb went off near where Catholic children walked to school, yet the next month the IRA laid down thousands of weapons. Men who had given their lives to violence now dedicate them to peace.

Yitzhak Rabin, murdered by a Jewish fanatic for seeking peace, said, "You don't make peace with your friends; you make peace with your enemies." Israel today calls Arafat its enemy, but ultimately it must make peace with him or someone like him. We may still cherish the hope that the Middle East will some day follow the Irish example. In the end, there is no other way.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Voices of sympathy on both sides bring hope to a land fraught with conflict.

A week ago I returned from two intense weeks in Israel, a personal fact-finding tour combined with visits to old friends. I felt the tension, of course, but I also found sources of hope.

The first phone call I received was from a young Palestinian friend who works for a prominent figure in his people’s leadership. He is from a centuries-old Muslim family in Jerusalem, with homes in the Old City and in even more ancient Jericho. I saw their generations-old deed to land on the Mount of Olives, now occupied by a Jewish cemetery. I picked up the phone in my rented apartment to hear his remarkable first words: “Welcome home.” “How is this my home? You can welcome me to your home.” “You also have ancient roots here. It’s your home too.”

The next day I was with Louie Williams and Susan Lourenco, a formerly English couple who live in Jaffa, in a uniquely integrated Arab and Jewish community. Louie moved to Israel in 1950, fought in several of its wars, and served as a lifelong spokesman for the Israel Defense Force, even authoring its official English-language history. But now he and Susan spend their days fighting alongside their neighbors for Arab rights. They go to court and to demonstrations to end the unfair treatment—including summary arrests and police brutality—that since the start of the current troubles has blurred the distinction between Arabs in Israel and those outside. This threatens to destabilize the generations-long loyalty to Israel shown by its one and a half million Arab citizens.  I sat with Louie and his friend Omar, whose sons were wrongly arrested and detained, and heard about their common fight for equality under the law.

A day after that I was with other friends–sabras, or native Israelis—at their home in Binyamina. Michael, a software engineer and former helicopter pilot, told me that the Camp David offer made to Arafat by Israel was undignified and could not have been accepted. Pazit, a clinical psychologist, finds that almost all her patients suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, lingering mental damage from past wars, constantly reactivated by new attacks and threats that rub salt in their hearts’ wounds. A combat veteran, she has them too. Yet she raised the shade and pointed just past her backyard, into the West Bank. This was Israel’s narrow waist before the 1967 war, five miles from the Arab artillery to the sea. “You see that?” she asked emphatically. “I am ready to give that back tomorrow, if we have peace.” “You are ready to have Palestinian guns in your backyard?” “Of course. What’s the matter, if we have peace? The French villages next to the German border aren’t worried. They were at war not so long ago, but now they have peace. That’s what peace means.” A few days later, after she and her son missed by a few minutes being killed by a suicide bomber, she repeated the same thing.

With David and Malka, I expected only intransigence. David and I went to high school together, but he became what most Jews would call ultra-Orthodox, and now has a grey beard that extends from his ready smile down to his waist. He teaches Greek but practices strict Jewish law. Malka is a convert, equally religious, a mathematician and novelist, who writes as Rachel Pomerantz. Her next book is on the social and cultural history of Israel, and she has studied with Arabs to learn their history. She too decries the treatment of Israel’s Arab citizens and openly criticizes the national anthem—Hatikvah, “the hope,” which sings of the two-thousand-year yearning of Jews for their homeland. “I have said for twenty-five years that the anthem has to be changed,” she said. “I don’t see how anyone can expect an Arab citizen of Israel to sing that song.”

Even in the West Bank Jewish settlement of Michmash, viewed by many as an obstacle to peace, I found openness and sympathy. My host Elli Wertman, a brilliant, sensitive physician in his fifties, chanted the Sabbath morning services. In the mishebeyrach, a prayer for those who are in trouble, he listed the names of Israelis kidnapped from their border station by Hizbollah operatives in Lebanon. Among them was “Omar ben ?Nidraa,” a Bedouin Muslim enrolled in the Israeli army. Here in this synagogue in the embattled West Bank, Orthodox Jewish men swaying in prayer shawls asked God for the safe return of an Arab-Israeli soldier. Later I talked at length with a younger man in the settlement, a stockbroker and father of five small children. He said that the Jewish treatment of West Bank Arabs had been completely unacceptable. “As Torah Jews, we should never have allowed children to be sick and hungry in our midst. Of course they are angry. We committed a sin, and now we are paying the price.” The price, he estimated, is the death of one Jewish settler every day.

Of course, these are not the only kinds of voices. There is enough hatred on both sides to produce the current headlines. But these women and men showed compassion and understanding for the plight of those who are supposed to be their adversaries. My daughter Susanna, who works in preventive diplomacy and who guided me on a tour last year through the Palestinian world, has taught me that ethnic hatreds are based in large part on wounds. At the root of hatred, look for hurt, humiliation, grief.

But as Debbie Wertman, a wise psychotherapist who lives in Michmash, said, “Yes, there are wounds, but there are also goals.” And the goals are often in conflict. Can the voices of compassion be heard above the din? Can justice prevail over anger?

There are positive signs. Ariel Sharon, a lifelong warrior who some call a fascist, has resisted right-wing pressure and continues his policy of restraint. Naïve observers are appalled by helicopter gunships. But these have been used in exquisitely targeted retaliations based on superb intelligence, and have eliminated some of the worst Palestinian terror cells with minimal loss of innocent life. Yasir Arafat, for decades a terrorist himself, has decried suicide bombings and so far has refused to incite revolution. But more must be done on both sides.

In a despicable act of barbarism two weeks ago, Jewish terrorists murdered a Palestinian family, including a baby, in cold blood. Will Israel capture and punish these murderers, as it has long insisted Arafat must do with their more numerous Palestinian counterparts? Will Arafat, for his part, rouse himself from his slumber and take simple steps to end or at least diminish the growing terror from his side?

Israel is not alone. Hundreds of violent deaths have occurred recently in Kashmir, China, Jamaica, Algeria, Spain, Northern Ireland, and even Yorkshire, England. In all these cases ethnic hatreds played a role. But the Middle East gets disproportionate attention, and Israel exaggerated, reflexive condemnation. We need to have patience. And we need to remember that even among the Middle East’s embattled, wounded peoples, there remain many open minds, many voices of sympathy.