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Too Hot to Handle
by Jack Halpern
The question for students and administrators at Brandeis, UC Irvine, Penn State, and other schools is this: Why is it so hard to talk about Israel in an open, civil, and constructive manner? After all, our college campuses have long provided a forum for discussing the nation's most divisive and controversial issues - including date rape, racism, abortion, and gay rights. So why, exactly, is the subject of Israel so difficult to discuss? The answer in part is that Christian, Jewish, and Muslim college students are more organized than they ever have been - and more outspoken, especially when it comes to Israel. (Boston Globe)
Emory: Carter's Anti-Israel Agenda
by Jonathan Feldstein
 You don't need to read former President Jimmy Carter's latest book about the Middle East to know what it says. The title, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," says it all. Although Carter is proud of his efforts to promote democracy, he irresponsibly places all the blame for the Israel-Palestine conflict on Israel. Carter's rhetoric only serves to embolden those who fight against peace, who oppose democracy and who use terrorism as a means to achieve political goals. The writer is an Emory alumnus living in Israel. (Emory Wheel)
Georgetown: Israelis Raised to Defend
by Moises D. Mendoza
 18-year-old Asher Bublick is an Israeli-American college student who hopes to be on an Israeli Defense Forces submarine crew somewhere in the Persian Gulf. Almost all Jewish Israelis are required to join Israel’s military or police forces and continue serving in the reserves after their several-year-long service commitment is up. Consequently, Israeli universities are filled with undergraduates who are much older than their American counterparts. But they don’t seem to mind. Over and over again, young people like Bublick said they were proud to serve in the military. They plan on defending their country - to the death if necessary. The writer participated in an ADL trip to Israel for college journalists. (The Hoya)
Interdisciplinary Center: The New Nuclear Age
by Amnon Rubinstein
  We can expect the Arab Middle East to arm itself with nuclear weapons too, and we cannot ignore the possibility that a nuclear "Islamic bomb" may find its way from Pakistan to new rulers who might identify with al-Qaida. All this is forcing Israel and the Western world to confront a new nuclear age far more dangerous than the Cold War. Although the Soviet Union was a cruel empire, its members were rational, calculated people who were deeply aware of the balance of terror, which prevented a nuclear Holocaust. In this new nuclear age, the bombs will be in the hands of madmen who have enshrined the idea of suicide and death. (Jerusalem Post)
Maine: Secrecy, Interrogation and the Rule of Law
by James Friedman
 Israel has had a greater percentage of its population killed and wounded by terrorist attacks than has the United States. Israel is hardly seen as soft on terrorism, but it has not abandoned the rule of law. As Israeli Justice Aharon Barak has said, democratic values may at times require a democratic state to fight terrorism with one hand tied behind its back, but more importantly those same values give democracies the upper hand. Democracies abandon the law at their peril. The writer is a professor at the University of Maine School of Law. (JURIST)
Monash: After Lebanon: a Personal Reflection on Israel and Palestine
by Philip Mendes
 Israel has always viewed peace in highly western terms as the cessation of war and violence following negotiations and mutual compromise. Conflict resolution will be based on a reasonable mid-way point between the conflicting Israeli and Palestinian narratives. Peace is seen as an end in itself. In contrast, Palestinians seem to define peace not as the absence of war per se, but rather as the restoration of their national, territorial, and political rights. This is not a tangible or concrete concept that is easily resolved via western-style negotiations. The writer is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Work at Monash University. (Online Opinion)
Penn State: The Cultural Foundations of the US/Israel Alliance
by Michelle Mart
 Following the intense debate unleashed by the publication earlier this year of John Mearsheimer’s and Stephen Walt’s essay The Israel Lobby on the political origins of the American-Israeli relationship, it is worth broadening the discussion to include the cultural as well as the political realm. An examination of the cultural underpinnings of the American-Israeli relationship in no way denies the importance of political, strategic, and economic factors in understanding these ties. Rather, it provides a broader and more nuanced way of understanding “the special relationship.” The writer is an Associate Professor of History. (Tikkun)
Wisconsin: New Hope for Israel as Hamas Falters
by Danny Tenenbaum
 “Peace in the Middle East” is so far off that it no longer carries meaning. And those who see a bombastic “clash of civilizations” are equally guilty of idealizing the Arab-Israeli conflict. Both catchphrases resort to the fatalistic rhetoric of a generation itching to write a concluding sentence to an unfinished paragraph. Absolute peace may be an abstract idea at this point, and absolute war often seems certain, but recent developments show that productive dialogue is both possible and inevitable. (Badger Herald)
See also Middle East Fence Necessary by Emily Singer
I think that Danny Tenenbaum’s article has some serious problems. He comments in the beginning of the article that there has not been a suicide bombing in Israel’s borders in the past nine months. This statement is totally false. (Badger Herald)
Why Islamic Hate on British Campuses Needs to Be Tackled
by Sean O'Neill
 Student unions and vice-chancellors have made various attempts to tackle the problem but have always held back from really dealing with it because they fear being accused of Islamophobia. The radical groups have continued to organize and indoctrinate, often under false names, and have found the process increasingly easy in the climate of anger surrounding the Iraq war. (Times-UK)
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Chicago: Oriental Institute Museum Denies Accusations of Pro-Muslim Bias
by Hassan S. Ali
 An article in last week’s History News Network (HNN) online magazine alleged factual inaccuracies and pro-Muslim bias in one of the Oriental Institute Museum’s exhibits. The article, entitled “Muslim Propaganda at the University of Chicago,” took issue with a set of captions written on a plaque in the museum’s Ancient Israel gallery. "There really is no issue here,” said Geoff Emberling, director of the Oriental Institute Museum, in response to Muir’s recent allegations. “We have no political ax to grind, no political position that we’re trying to take.” (Maroon)
Georgetown: Israel Right to Protect Its Borders
by Mark Lerner
 Despite what people say about Israel's defense barrier, in reality it has saved many lives. The barrier was built because the people of Israel need defense and need protection. The mother of Samir Hammad who murdered my friend Daniel along with 10 other innocent people said she would be proud if her other sons died by committing these terrorist actions. To any sane person, this is sickening. Daniel loved life. He was killed by hate. Anyone can see from recent negotiations that Israel believes in peace. (The Hoya)
Harvard: Idealism Gone Astray
by Jacob M. Victor
 Rachel Corrie deserves to be remembered as another tragic casualty in a war that has consumed so many lives, not as the idealized heroic freedom fighter that the play “My Name is Rachel Corrie” presents her to be. Corrie, at the time of her death, was probably doing more harm than good towards bringing about a peaceful settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian clash. It is only when those on both sides of the conflict can shed this kind of misplaced idealization that a true peace settlement will be possible. The writer is co-deputy director for political affairs for Harvard Students for Israel.(Harvard Crimson)
Iowa: Israel: The Rest of the Story
by James Eaves-Johnson, IU '02
 Why is there a security barrier snaking into the West Bank? During the first three years of the second intifada, 73 suicide attacks originating in Samaria caused 293 deaths and 1,950 casualties. After the barrier was built, suicide bombings from Samaria dropped by more than 90 percent. It is a burden on Palestinians, but the security barrier saves lives. Palestinian terrorism is the root cause of Palestinian suffering. Israel implements security measures because it prevents Israeli suffering. (Daily Iowan)
Melbourne: Israel Still Has No Genuine Peace Partner
by Daniel Mandel
 The Arab desire to dismember Israel, expressed in several wars launched by Arab states, has accompanied Israel from the moment of its birth in 1948; the Israeli conquest of the West Bank and Gaza dates from the 1967 Six Day War. Israeli occupation is a symptom, not a cause, of Arab belligerence. To this day, PA maps and atlases pretend Israel does not exist. Why the studious avoidance of the abundant evidence of Palestinian intentions and conduct? Because it is apparently difficult to accept that when people say they mean to kill Jews and eliminate Israel, they actually mean it.The writer is a fellow in history at University of Melbourne. (The Age-Australia)
Pennsylvania: Are There No Moral Barometers on Campus?
by Asaf Ramirowsky
 At a recent Halloween costume party at the home of University president Amy Gutmann, engineering student Saad Saadi showed up dressed as a suicide bomber. This is not the first time the University of Pennsylvania has allowed such viewpoints to be expressed in such an open fashion. Middle East studies departments consistently fails to examine, much less condemn, terrorism or jihadism. Moreover, such an atmosphere allows for intolerable ideas to become accepted as the norm. This kind of thinking is what needs to be challenged by all those concerned about the health of academia, as well as the continued well-being of Israel. (Jewish Advocate)
Stanford: What Apartheid Is and Is Not
by Amichai Magen
 Apartheid - the official policy of racial “apartness” - strangled South African nonwhites for decades, crippling countless lives with laws involving political, legal, and economic discrimination based on racial hatred. The politicized claims of Israeli “apartheid” distort the historical record and denigrate the suffering of Black South African victims. The analogy between apartheid and Israel is absurd. The revival of national sovereignty in the Jewish homeland is not a manifestation of European colonialism, in contrast to the white settlers (Afrikaans, English and others) who created Johannesburg and Pretoria. Anyone who has ever visited Israel knows that it is one of the most diverse multi-ethnic democracies in the world. (Stanford Daily)
Yale: Terrorist Groups are to Blame for Conflict
by Rachel Bayefsky and Harry Etra
 Hamas and the other Palestinian terrorist organizations do not genuinely desire to aid the civilian population or to negotiate with Israel in good faith. What Hamas wants is to destroy Israel, a goal that its own covenant makes plain. "The Islamic Resistance Movement...strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine....The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him." As a consequence, Hamas is willing to go to brutal lengths to achieve its aims, with unfortunate results for both Palestinian and Israeli civilians. The writers are co-presidents of the Yale Friends of Israel. (Yale Daily News)
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