JustASC

The ZOA is at it again, playing the role of one-man heksher organization for every other Jewish organization on Israel.

The ZOA wrote in a letter last week that the national Hillel movement should disinvite Univ. of Pennsylvania President Amy Guttman and University of California, Irvine Chancellor Michael Drake to its “Summit on the University and the Jewish Community” March 24-26 in Washington. ZOA  calls them “insensitive” to Jewish concerns.

According to JTA:

Six of the nine pages of the ZOA letter were dedicated to detailing the “anti-Semitic speakers and programs” that are “routinely sponsored at UCI, causing Jewish students to feel threatened, harassed and intimidated.”

Guttman was an inappropriate choice, the ZOA said, because she posed for a photo with a student dressed as a suicide bomber at a Halloween party at her home in 2006.

The first question I must ask — if you are going to hold a summit on Israel and the university, why wouldn’t you invite a president of a campus that pro-Israel activists consider problematic? Isn’t that exactly the person you want to confront, challenge, perhaps convert? What would be the point of holding a “summit” if only one side were to show up?

(Not that Drake or Guttman are necessarily on the “other” side. As Daniel Treiman points out on the Forward’s Bintel Blog,

Guttman and Drake are both signatories to an American Jewish Committee-sponsored statement strongly condemning anti-Israel academic boycotts.)

As for Guttman, after the photo got around, she called it “clearly offensive and I was offended by it” and said the photo was taken “before it was obvious to me that he was dressed as a suicide bomber.” Is there any reason to doubt her word that in the crush of a student Halloween party she didn’t notice the student’s costume? Is there anything to suggest that the Jewish president of one of the most heavily Jewish Ivies is otherwise promoting a culture supportive of suicide bombing?

All that being said, what’s with all the banning? ZOA has done this before, calling for Jewish bans on Desmond Tutu and Thomas L. Friedman (Thomas Friedman!). Why is the ZOA’s default position exactly that of Israel’s worst enemies (academic boycotts, one-sided debates, curbs on free speech)? Why not say, fine, they’re invited — but let’s hope Hillel uses the occasion to ask the attendees some tough questions about the anti-Israel climate on their campuses, to draw them out on the topic, to challenge them if they fall short of the students’ expectations?

 The good news is that’s exactly what Hillel is planning:

Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life rejected a call to disinvite two controversial speakers from its upcoming summit.

Said Hillel Executive Director Wayne Firestone:

Hillel believes that a more constructive approach to Chancellor Drake is to engage him in conversation. The Summit will provide such an opportunity.”

(While I’m at it — I don’t like the unqualified use of the word “controversial” in JTA’s lede. Drake and Guttman are controversial in this sense only because ZOA says so. If I were to issue a press release condeming, say, JTA for anti-Israel bias, that doesn’t make them controversial. It only means that I consider them controversial, unless I can show that a critical mass agrees with me. Here’s my (admittedly wordy) alternative:  

Organizers of a national Hillel conference on Israel and the university rejected the ZOA’s call to disinvite two speakers the right-wing advocacy group considers ”insensitive” to Jews.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 8th, 2008 at 11:23 am and is filed under JustASC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.