Campus Zionists Face Threats, Israeli Warns

Less than two months after he was assaulted by a pie-wielding protester at Rutgers University, a senior Israeli cabinet official said that pro-Palestinian activists are waging a campaign of intimidation on college campuses worldwide.

Speaking to college reporters via telephone from his Jerusalem office, Israeli Minister of Jerusalem and World Jewish Affairs Natan Sharansky said that elements of campus anti-Israel movements are guilty of thinly-veiled anti-Semitism.

Sharansky echoed concerns similar to those expressed by University President Lawrence H. Summers in a well-publicized speech at The Memorial Church last September.

In the wake of a petition campaign encouraging the University to withdraw from its investments in Israeli firms, Summers cautioned, “Serious and thoughtful people are advocating and taking actions that are anti-Semitic in their effect if not their intent.”

Using similar language yesterday, Sharansky praised Jewish students who buck prevalent anti-Israel trends in campus opinion.

“It is very pleasant to see Jewish activists who are not intimidated [by] the strong anti-Israel and sometimes anti-Semitic campaign,” he said.

But according to Sharansky, even well-trained activists face steep obstacles in mobilizing Zionist efforts on campuses.

He accused Palestinian activists of using brainwashing techniques to sway students’ opinions.

After visiting Harvard for a Sept. 16 speech at Hillel, Sharansky said that Zionist students here are intimidated by their anti-Israel peers.

“[O]ne [Harvard graduate] student admitted to me that she was afraid—afraid to express support for Israel, afraid to take part in pro-Israel organizations, afraid to be identified,” Sharansky wrote in the Oct. 24 edition of Forward, a New York Jewish weekly.

But Alexandra B. Vanier ’03-’05, a member of the Harvard Institute for Peace and Justice as well as Harvard Students for Israel (HSI), said that pro-Palestinian students also face intimidation when they express their views.

“Most of the time when someone voices a strong criticism of [Israeli Prime Minister] Ariel Sharon or the Israeli military, they get barraged by accusations of anti-Semitism,” Vanier said.

Pro-Israel students characterized Harvard’s campus as relatively friendly to Zionist viewpoints.

“We have strong faculty support,” said Daniel W. Shoag ’06, senior editor of the Harvard Israel Review, who highlighted the roles of Frankfurter Professor of Law Alan M. Dershowitz and Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature Ruth R. Wisse.

“On campus the discussions have been more civil,” Shoag said, but he added that he has felt “physically endangered” at pro-Israel events in Boston.

HSI President Joshua Suskewicz ’05 credited Summers’ September 2002 remarks with moderating the tenor of on-campus debate.

“I think that activists on both sides at Harvard have worked to keep [debate] civil and fair-minded,” Suskewicz said.

The Ukranian-born Sharansky, a prominent dissident in the Soviet Union who was jailed by the Kremlin from 1977 to 1986, said that human rights activists—who once made the effort to free him from prison an international cause-celebre—have since abandoned the plight of the Jews.

Though in the past he may have drawn a hero’s welcome on college campuses, he now receives sharp criticism from some for his affiliation with Sharon.

Sharansky’s Sept. 18 visit to Rutgers’ New Brunswick, N.J., campus was disrupted by a pie-hurling student from a group called Jews Against the Occupation.

New Jersey “cooks very good cakes,” quipped Sharansky, who survived the activist’s weapon of choice: a Kosher strawberry-cream pie.

Sharansky said he hopes to bridge this gap between Israel and Jews in the diaspora who have strayed from the Zionist movement.

He highlighted the role of the philanthropic partnership Birthright Israel, which has brought roughly 50,000 Jewish young adults to the Holy Land in recent years.

Sharansky, who is a member of the Knesset—Israel’s parliament—from Sharon’s right-of-center Likud Party, is also chair of Birthright’s steering committee.

Seven Harvard students will join an Ivy League Birthright trip in Israel next month, said Birthright recruiter David A. Weinfeld ’05, who is also a Crimson editor.

Jewish students returning from Birthright trips have been effective in galvanizing support for Israel at colleges, Sharansky said. He called Birthright alumni “the first line of defense” for Israel.