Mida@mida.org.il

ori@mida.org.il

ran@mida.org.il

ori@mida.org.il

gisrael@mida.org.il

From <https://en.mida.org.il/contact-us/>

Maintaining Columbia University’s Ties to Israel

March 2016

LINK#1 https://mida.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/facultylettermarch20.2016.pdf

LINK#2 From <https://www.columbiafacultystatement.com/>

As members of the faculty of Columbia University, we are deeply concerned by the recent war between Israel and Hamas. In the wake of this sobering conflict, we write to express our commitment to the University’s ties with Israel. Our research and teaching missions benefit from these ties, and we encourage the University to build on them.

As a democracy with constitutional protections for the individual rights of all citizens, and as the home to great universities, Israel shares values, interests and aspirations with us. Columbia benefits from ties with Israeli faculty, students, research, and technology.

Zionism—Jewish nationalism—is a millennia-old tradition, deeply rooted in Jewish history and religious practice. It is also a more recent response to the tragic failure of the diaspora to produce freedom and safety for Jews living in most places in the world.

The establishment of the state of Israel was a direct response to the Holocaust [FALSE STATEMENT - 1917 BALFOUR LETTER],  but Zionism long predates the Holocaust [FALSE STATEMENT - it's a 19th century ethno-nationalist movement that led to migrations to Palestine starting in the 1880s], and Israel has provided refuge to Jews who needed it in many instances after the Holocaust [After the Holocaust, Jews cou

To treat Zionism as an illegitimate and fundamentally oppressive movement is to ignore history and to deny Jews a measure of empathy and respect.

Many of us have relatives and friends in Israel who would not be alive if not for Zionism. We recognize that the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is one between two people each of which has a legitimate claim to the same homeland.

There have been many similar situations in the world, resolved sometimes tragically, sometimes successfully, usually somewhere in between.

This sort of conflict presents profoundly complicated issues. Indeed, we may not all agree with every policy of the Israeli government, just as the Israeli people have a range of views about the best path to a peaceful and secure coexistence with their neighbors.

Yet we at Columbia have a responsibility to recognize the complexity of the region’s politics and avoid ideologically charged language that is designed to inflame passions on both sides of the conflict. The mission of a great university is to explore and debate complex questions. We are at our best when we evaluate competing arguments, hone in on the facts, recognize nuances, and seek the truth.

We are not writing this letter to endorse any one approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but to stand up for a vision of the university. We are members of an academic community at one of the world’s great research universities. Columbia institutionally and Columbia scholars individually carry out the university’s and our profession’s basic mission of teaching and research all over the world, in a wide variety of political environments. We do so because we believe that free academic practice is a force for good.

Individual members of our community are of course welcome to make their own choices about where and with whom they engage, but to make all academic activities conditional on the policies of the government of any country where they take place would be severely limiting for the University. To apply the condition only to Israel, a democratic nation, with growing ties to other governments in the region, where Columbia’s academic activities are open to Israelis and Palestinians, would represent an unacceptably selective application of this highly problematic principle.

Proposing disengagement from Israel, in rhetoric that harshly characterizes the Jewish national project, has consequences here in New York too. At a moment when violent hate crimes, often including antisemitic violence, have erupted across the world, including here, it is all the more important for Columbia to model an environment in which students feel free to air competing perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

For all these reasons, we strongly affirm Columbia’s connection to Israel.

PETITION

ADD YOUR NAME to the growing list of faculty members who value Columbia University's ties to Israel.

This statement is co-written by Columbia University faculty members of the Academic Engagement Network [SEE LINK]:

Ester Fuchs, Professor of International and Public Affairs and Political Science, SIPA and Political Science

Nicholas Lemann, Pulitzer-Moore Professor of Journalism and Dean Emeritus, Columbia Journalism School

David M. Schizer, Dean Emeritus & Harvey R. Miller Professor of Law, Columbia Law School

Matthew Waxman, Liviu Librescu Professor of Law, Columbia Law School

Initial signatories are members of the Academic Engagement Network:

Steven A. Cohen, Professor of Practice, SIPA, Earth Institute and Senior Vice Dean, School of Professional Studies

William Eimicke, Professor of Practice in International and Public Affairs, SIPA

Awi Federgruen, Charles E. Exley Professor of Management, Columbia Business School 

Chuck Freilich, Associate Professor (Adjunct), Department of Political Science

Trevor S. Harris, Arthur J. Samberg Professor Emeritus of Professional Practice in the Faculty of Business

Judith S. Jacobson, Adjunct Associate Professor of Clinical Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health 

Irving Kalet, Professor (Adjunct since 2004), Department of Electrical Engineering 

Ran Kivetz, Philip H. Geier Professor of Business, Columbia Business School 

Clifford Stein, Professor of IEOR and CS, Associate Director for Research, Data Science Institute

SEE LINK TO 200+ SIGNERS OF THIS PETITION - SORTABLE SPREADSHEET