UNMIA

The Jewish Exponent
Advocacy Corner
September 13, 2007

Today, pro-Israel students confront a demoralizing challenge on campus defending Israel’s right to exist as a democratic Jewish state, as well as expressing views that would be labeled as “conservative.”

Some examples:

· Natana DeLong-Bas, a lecturer in theology at Boston College, as well as in the Department of Near East and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University, says that she does “not find any evidence that makes me agree that Osama bin Laden was behind the attack on the twin towers. All we have heard from him was simply praise and commendation of those who had carried out the operation.”

· Joseph Massad, a Columbia University professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual history, writes that “all those in the Arab world who deny the Holocaust are, in my opinion, Zionists.”

· Hatem Bazian, a senior lecturer in Islamic studies at University of California, Berkeley, states that “it’s about time that we have an intifada in this country that changes fundamentally the political dynamics in here.”

On the Horizon
You might think these statements were made somewhere in the Arab world or perhaps in 1930s’ Europe. Yet they are found today in U.S. classrooms. Tellingly, these scholars represent what …

by Jeff Robins
The Wall Street Journal
September 7, 2007

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118912590978320145.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

A crop of Israel’s critics — most prominently Jimmy Carter and now Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, the authors of “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” — have managed something of a feat: They express no concerns about the massive pro-Arab effort, funded in significant measure by foreign oil money, taking American Jews to task for participating in the American political process; meanwhile, they inoculate themselves against charges of anti-Jewish bias by pre-emptively predicting that “the Jewish lobby” will accuse them of it.

Messrs. Walt and Mearsheimer, in particular, have been heralded by Israel’s critics for their “courage” in attacking American Jews, who have allegedly “strangled” criticism of Israel. Their case seems one part laughable, and one part eyebrow-raising.

An anecdote from my own experience with the anti-Israel lobby may shed some light on the absurdity of the Walt-Mearsheimer offensive. Not long after Sept. 11, 2001, I received a call from a major defense contractor asking for a favor. I was serving as president of the Boston chapter of the World Affairs Council, a national organization that debates foreign policy, and the defense contractor was one of the Council’s principal sponsors.

The Saudi Arabian government …

“The Real Israel”

Conference sponsored by the Consulate General of Israel to the Southwest
Houston, Texas October 19-21 2007

Sign up today!

$36 fee will be waived if you RSVP before September 25, 2007.

For more information contact Renee Masor Cohen
at academic@houston.mfa.gov.il
or 713-627-3780, ext. 513

Open to students from Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and New Mexico

The new school year has started, and UNMIA is coming back too.

If you are interested in Israel Advocacy on campus, email info@unmia.com and get started today!
Several of our founding members have graduated, so there is plenty of opportunity for new people to have a voice in UNMIA.