UCLA Middle East Profs question Israeli Spokesman

Campus Watch editors’ introduction:

On March 17, 2004, Alan Baker of the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs spoke about his country’s security fence at the law faculty of the University of California at Los Angeles. We are posting here an invitation for this event and two responses by Middle East studies professors, James L. Gelvin and Michael D. Cooperson.

Subject: [CNESCORE] Message from Dean Norm Abrams
From: Near Eastern Studies Center - CNES Faculty on behalf of Clare Coppel
To: CNESCORE@weber2.sscnet.ucla.edu
Reply To: Clare Coppel
Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2004 4:17 PM

Dear Colleagues:

I am pleased to invite you to a reception in honor of Ambassador Alan Baker, Legal Adviser and Deputy Director General of the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Ambassador Baker headed Israel‘s legal team that prepared Israel‘s statement submitted to the International Court of Justice regarding the Security Fence issue that is now before the Court.

The reception will be held on Wednesday, March 17, 2004, at 4-6 pm in the Faculty Center. Ambassador Baker will speak briefly and answer questions regarding the Fence issue. I hope that as many of you as are able to do so will plan to attend. For those who plan to attend, I would appreciate it if you could rsvp by sending me an email. abrams@law.ucla.edu

With best regards,

Norm Abrams
Interim Dean
UCLA School of Law

Subject: Re: [CNESCORE] Message from Dean Norm Abrams
From: James Gelvin
To: CNESCORE@weber2.sscnet.ucla.edu
Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2004 2:52 AM

Dear Clare: Here is a copy of the email message I sent Dean Abrams as an r.s.v.p. to his invitation:

Dear Dean Abrams:

I am writing to express my disappointment that the Law School will be holding a reception for Ambassador Alan Baker.

Many of us in the UCLA community regard the Palestine question as one of the great moral issues of our time and the quest for Palestinian rights equivalent to the American civil rights struggle of the 1960s or the anti-apartheid struggle of the 1980s as a moral imperative.

At a time when most of the international community has condemned the separation fence—particularly with respect to the suffering inflicted on over 700,000 residents of the West Bank, the illegal annexation of land by the Israeli government, and the Israeli government’s attempt to impose a unilateral solution to a problem which our own government maintains can only be resolved through negotiations—feting an apologist for Israeli actions can only undermine the reputation of UCLA.

James L. Gelvin
Associate Professor of History
UCLA

Subject: Re: [CNESCORE] Message from Dean Norm Abrams
From: Cooperson, Michael
To: CNESCORE@weber2.sscnet.ucla.edu
Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2004 9:02 PM

Dear Dean Abrams,

Thank you for the invitation. Any representative of the Israeli government certainly has many questions to answer regarding this abhorrent fence proposal. I hope the event was a productive one in that respect.

But is it necessary for UCLA to “honor” the man? I would feel the same way if we had been invited to honor a representative of the former South African government.

Sincerely,

Michael Cooperson
NELC, UCLA

Subject: Re: [CNESCORE] Message from Dean Norm Abrams
From: Baker Alan
Sent: Monday, March 29, 2004
To: Cooperson, Michael

Dear Prof. Cooperson,

I understand, from your reply to Dean Abrams, that you had some difficulty in attending a reception in my honour and a briefing I gave to faculty members at the kind invitation of Dean Abrams on March 17, 2004.

Had you chosen to attend, I am sure that you would have received answers to many of the questions and doubts that you evidently entertain regarding the nature of and justification for Israel‘s anti-terrorist fence, as well as any other matter you might have wished to raise. Is this not the essence of academic and cultured discussion?

I can only presume, from the tone and content of your response to the invitation and your refusal to attend, that your mind is made up, both regarding the fence as well as regarding Israel, and that you do not wish to be confused by the truth or the facts. That is indeed regrettable.

However, so that this exchange will not be wasted, kindly permit me to attach a copy of the summary of Israel’s Brief to the International Court of Justice regarding the fence, in the hope that perhaps you might spend a couple of minutes reading it, despite your views. The full version may be accessed via the International Court of Justice website, or via the Israel Foreign Ministry website (assuming that you would go into such a site...).

Sincerely,

Alan Baker
Ambassador
Deputy Director-General & Legal Adviser
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Jerusalem

Subject: letter from Ambassador Baker
From: Cooperson, Michael
To: Baker Alan
Date: Sat, 3 Apr 2004

Dear Ambassador Baker,

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my letter.

First, a clarification: I did not refuse to attend the event. As I now realize, I was not invited to it (it seems only the History faculty were).

In any case, it was announced only one day before it was scheduled to take place, making it impossible, intentionally or otherwise, for many to attend.

Invited or not, I stand by my statement. “Academic and cultured discussion” means that proponents of controversial positions be invited to debate in a public forum. A reception in your honor does not meet that requirement: attending it presumes approval of whatever you have to say. More broadly, it gives UCLA the appearance of endorsing your position, which I do not believe it befits the University to do.

I am not sure what you mean when you say that I “refuse to be confused by the truth or the facts.” It is disingenuous to claim that the Arab-Israeli conflict is open to one interpretation, all deviations from which stem from a denial of reality. With regard to the wall, there are Israelis who agree with me that it is a bad idea (see, for example, http://www.gush-shalom.org/thewall/).

Regarding your brief, I can certainly understand the impulse to protect oneself from terrorism by any means necessary. But just as the relevant Palestinian statements refuse to discuss terrorism, the Israeli brief refuses to discuss military occupation and illegal settlements. (Nor does it acknowledge that Israel itself helped create the very organizations it is now trying to destroy.) If anything is based on a denial of reality, it is

the policy of illegal settlement, which imagines that an entire people does not exist, and that the right to self-determination applies to Israelis but not to Palestinians.

Fortunately, there are some signs that reality is sinking in. Last week on BBC World’s Hard Talk, Ehud Olmert was asked whether the pullout from Gaza was being proposed because the occupation was untenable or because it was wrong. He replied: “Both.” If Mr. Olmert can say that the occupation is wrong, surely I can too.

Normally, the policies of foreign governments should be none of my business. But I and millions of other American taxpayers are forced to finance Israel, right or wrong, and thus to be complicit in policies that are clearly doing neither side any good. If this were not the case, I would not have put you or myself to the trouble of discussing it.

Sincerely,

Michael Cooperson
NELC, UCLA