Harvard President condemns 'anti-Semitic' divestiture in Israel

Harvard president Lawrence Summers' address at a prayer meeting last Tuesday caused debate nationwide about whether anti-Semitism is indeed making a comeback _ and whether the Israeli bond divestment campaign can be considered anti-Semitic.

Summers expressed disturbance over the fact that "profoundly anti-Israel views are increasingly finding support in progressive intellectual communities."

"Serious and thoughtful people are advocating and taking actions that are anti-Semitic in their effect if not their intent," he said.

The controversial part of Summer's speech was his condemnation of divestiture campaigns as an example of renewed anti-Semitism. Divestiture campaigns ask universities to avoid investments in the Israeli government and companies which sell arms to the Israelis until certain conditions are met.

Divestiture campaigns were used in the 1980s to condemn the apartheid regime in South Africa.

The current Israeli divestiture campaign began at MIT and Harvard last semester, when the faculties of these two institutions circulated petitions demanding that their endowments not include investments in Israel until the country complied to United Nations human rights resolutions. According to The Jerusalem Post, this movement eventually garnered 590 signatures from faculty, staff, students, and alumni.

The Post also reported that the counter movement condemning the divestiture drive eventually gathered 5,800 signatures.

A divestiture petition at Tufts was started by physics professor Gary Goldstein and other faculty members last semester. It currently has 16 Tufts signatures, mostly from faculty members.

President Lawrence Bacow was quoted in The New York Times as supporting Summers' opinions, but later clarified that this was a qualified support. "I think the analogy that some are attempting to draw between divestiture from investment in South Africa and Israel is misplaced," he said. "Universities should promote open and vigorous debate on a range of issues, foreign policy included."

He pointed out that while South African apartheid was basically indefensible, "reasonable people can disagree about where the equities lie in the confrontation between Israel and the Palestinians."

Goldstein wholeheartedly disagreed with the Summers address, pointing out that "there are many people out in the world who criticize the US, but we don't say they are racist against white people."

History professor Gary Leupp, a signatory of the divestiture petition, said that he was "appalled" by the Harvard president's speech. "It was out of line and it was intimidating."

While Summers rejected divestiture as an action of anti-Semitism, even if not intended as such, Bacow opposes it because he doesn't feel that it is "appropriate for universities to take official positions through their investment policies _ to do so quashes debate. It does not encourage it," Bacow said.

The issue is complex, as sophomore Benjamin Rubinstein pointed out. "On a personal level, I feel that what is happening at this point is that anti-Semitism is being sanctioned as a somewhat politically correct view," Rubinstein said. "The line between anti-Semitism and anti-Israel can get very blurred. Sometimes people might not realize when they've crossed that line." Rubinstein is involved with Friends of Israel, a group affiliated with Hillel.

Friends of Israel is planning several fundraisers to raise money that will be given to Tufts with the stipulation that it be invested in Israel. "This would be beneficial both to Tufts and the State of Israel," Rubinstein said. "Obviously, from a purely financial point of view it is inconsequential, the point is more the symbolic demonstration."

The official website of the divestiture campaigns lists Harvard, MIT, Tufts, Cornell, Princeton, and the University of California system as having circulated petitions.