Friday, March 2, 2007
On the 20th of last month, I highlighted two events happening at local universities -- a forum featuring Norman Finkelstein at Harvard, and one featuring Rabbi Dovid Weiss and Imam Mohammed Alasi at MIT: The Subsidized Fifth Column -- Finkelstein at Harvard, MIT sponsors Holocaust Denier.
I received an email this morning from Ali Wyne, President of the Forum on American Progress (FAP) -- one of the two student groups sponsoring the MIT event -- anxious to clarify his group's role in the invitation and event. He forwarded me a series of questions sent to him by a local journalist and his answers to those questions and invited me to repost them. I am glad to do so and the exchange, which I believe folks will find interesting, is reproduced below.
The MIT event caused a great deal of consternation, probably contributing to the feeling in the general public that universities have become breeding grounds for indoctrination, not platforms from which to launch an informed life. From The Jewish Advocate's story on the event (MIT welcomes rabbi who calls for destruction of Jewish state)
“Whoever invited them did it for scandal’s sake,†said Lipstadt...
Indeed. Inviting two fringe extremists to discourse with one another (Aside: I think Alasi -- al-Asi -- is at least as insidious a figure as Weiss, though Weiss has gotten most of the attention in this) educates the audience on...fringe thinking, which by definition is next to useless. I mean, if you were going to host a forum to educate and discuss American Foreign Policy, are these the two characters you'd be spending your time on? To what end? I do not agree with the administrator who states that such an invitation conveys no legitimacy. That's a technicality and a cop out. An invitation to present at a major American university certainly conveys weight to a resume, though I admit I have no ready answer to the dilemma.
If people had more faith in today's university community sort the crazy from the sane, there wouldn't be half the scandal there's been. That should tell you something.
Here is the exchange between the journalist and Wyne, along with Wyne's introduction. Wyne's answers strike me as reasonable and illuminating:
As you can imagine, we (meaning, the organizers and cosponsors of last Thursday’s forum) have received several inquiries in the past few days as to our motivations, and are responding to each one individually. I recently conducted an electronic interview with [a local jouranlist]. Immediately below is his message, and attached here, for your review, are my responses to his questions. Please feel free to reproduce them in full on your website. I endeavor that this document will be of some use in addressing the concerns that you posed in your column.
I look forward to hearing from you and to sustaining our dialogue on this important subject.
Sincerely,
Ali Wyne
President, Forum on American Progress (FAP)
P.S. You may be interested to know that FAP is arranging for David Horowitz to lecture at MIT at some point in the near future.
Forum on American Progress (FAP) and the MIT Social Justice Cooperative (SJC) are both student groups.
What will the event entail? What is the purpose of this talk?
What do you hope will be touched upon? What are you intending to accomplish through this event?
The purpose of tonight’s event was to explore the nexus of social justice and American foreign policy from two distinct religious perspective.
How did you come to choose Rabbi Dovid Weiss as a speaker? Certainly you were aware of his presence at a Holocaust denial conference, and his other views, which by many Jews and non-Jews, are considered extreme…
FAP had no role whatsoever in inviting Rabbi Dovid Weiss or Imam Muhammad al-Asi to MIT. Rather, Abdulbasier (Basier) Aziz, President of the SJC, approached them with lecture invitations, confirmed their willingness to participate in the aforementioned forum, and only then approached FAP with a request for our sponsorship. Because our organization endeavors to promote discourse on American foreign policy, I told Basier that we would only lend FAP’s imprimatur to his proposed event if the rabbi and imam discussed American foreign policy in their remarks. He assured me that they would, hence FAP’s serving as a cosponsor.
I know you changed it from “THE Jewish View†to “A Jewish View,†but certainly such a small issue of semantics doesn’t change the fact that maybe people present could construe his views (and his group’s – Nateuri Karta’s – views, which are an extreme fringe of thought) as the Jewish view, and you must be aware that that would be upsetting to large portion of the Jewish population... (that was more of a statement, but please respond)
The concern that you express is certainly valid. However, even if one was entirely unfamiliar with Neturei Karta (NK) or Rabbi Weiss prior to last night, I highly doubt that he or she could have left the forum with the impression that his thoughts align with those of mainstream Jews. Indeed, the question-and-answer session illuminated for all of those in attendance that NK is an ultra-Orthodox sect whose membership is at most a few thousand.
(cont’d) This man is so extreme, and scary to the Jewish community, his group gives lots of money to terrorist organizations, they protest Israeli events with signs promoting Hezbollah and Hamas, his group members are fanatics not academics… why would you invite them?
Again, FAP had no role in inviting Rabbi Weiss.
So, how can this event lead to a better understanding between the groups when it is these extreme views that are being presented?
Mutual understanding is best achieved through discussion. While we recognize that the rabbi’s and imam’s views are highly controversial, we were gratified to see that dozens of individuals stayed inside or right outside of the lecture hall either to converse with one of the two speakers or to talk amongst themselves. It was especially encouraging for us to see Jewish and Muslim students engaging in a post-event dialogue.
What are some other events your group has sponsored?
We have hosted or sponsored a myriad of events since our inception in June 2005. For example, we hosted a lecture by Alan M. Dershowitz, Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School (“The United States’ Role in Mediating a Resolution to the Arab-Israeli Conflictâ€), in December 2005. I should note here that I personally extended a lecture invitation to Professor Dershowitz, and that FAP was the lecture’s primary sponsor. The previous month, we hosted a lecture by Joseph S. Nye, Jr., “Soft Power and American Foreign Policy.†In addition, we recently sponsored a lecture by Eric Reeves, Professor of English Language and Literature at Smith College, and perhaps the nation’s most renowned expert on the ongoing crisis in Darfur, Sudan. FAP also helped to organize a discussion series on Iran’s nuclear program.
Do you feel it’s appropriate to invite a man to your school who attends Holocaust denial conferences? Are you giving him legitimacy? Do you think it’s misleading to say that this is a Jewish and Muslim perspective, when the Jewish view is so extreme?
While we can debate whether it is appropriate to invite certain individuals to lecture at a college campus, most people would agree that everyone is entitled to his or her viewpoints and, more importantly, the right to air them. Because FAP does not endorse any political ideology, we can sponsor an event without supporting the views of the individuals whom it features. Dr. Les Perelman, for example, strongly supported the event’s taking place, but clearly stated at the outset of the question-and-answer session that he disagreed with most of the remarks that the rabbi and imam had delivered. As his position suggests, inviting a speaker to campus does not equate to investing him or her with any legitimacy.
Shouldn’t we use these types of discussions to have a better understanding of what’s happening on the ground and work towards a solution, rather than spread propaganda, which lacks intellectual honesty? There are lots of Jewish groups (New Israel Fund, and Abraham Fund Initiatives come to mind) that are working vigorously towards social justice in Israel and equal right for Palestinians and Arabs, and represent a much larger pool of thought than Weiss, so, really, why choose such a fringe guy?
Because FAP had no role in inviting either speaker, I cannot speak to Basier’s motivations, although I am confident that he would be happy to discuss them with you in depth. I certainly agree with you that solution-oriented discussions are of tremendous benefit (hence the title of Professor Dershowitz’s address, which I noted in my response to Question 8). In my time at MIT, I have enjoyed and benefited from my interactions with MIT Hillel and MIT Students for Israel, as well as several pro-Israel advocacy groups in the Boston area, such as the Jewish Community Relations Council.
Lastly, how does this program contribute to your group’s mission statement: "To allow students, faculty, and other members of the MIT community to explore ways in which the United States can prudently exercise its power, so as to maintain and project its leadership in the 21st century, and in so doing contribute to the progress of the global community"…?
Insofar as I can gather, most political organizations on college campuses take one of two forms: activist groups or discussion groups. I consciously established FAP to be a discussion group, for it is of questionable value (indeed, it can be counterproductive) to take action on issues of which one possesses little to no understanding. We endeavor that by airing the widest possible continuum of views on crucial issues of American foreign policy, members of the MIT community can join together to produce thoughtful insights into and recommendations for the United States’ leadership on the global stage.
I am still left with the feeling that there are issues to address here. So one is approached with a request to co-sponsor an event. Wouldn't it have behooved a group like FAP to perform a little due-diligence, check out who they're being asked to co-sponsor and seriously examine the question, "Does this contribute to or detract from our group's mission?"
In any case, I thank Ali Wyne for his response.
As to the MIT Social Justice Cooperative, they, it appears, have much more to answer for.
Update: Abdulbasier (Basier) Aziz, President of the SJC, was (is?) also President of the Muslim Student Association and an officer in Palestine@MIT. Do the math.
I'm not convinced by this line of argument. People have the right to their own views and to express those views. But FAP like all groups decides who it will invite or who it will sponsor. In the process of making such decisions it is also deciding whose views to air and whose not to air. It is obviously impossible to host events with representatives of all possible views - so the vast majority of persons are selected against. One cannot claim, then, that selection does not include an endorsement of sorts... if not of the opinion, at least of the validity or widespread adoption of the perspective. It is, by its nature, a choice that lends legitimacy, credence, and the imprimatur of the group.
People who are heavily involved in some issue tend to forget that most of the world knows next to nothing about it. In this case, I'm sure Ali Wyne and the rest of FAP have absolutely no idea why Dovid Weiss is any more controversial than, say, Yossi Sarid or Michael Lerner. (I'm equally sure that Abdulbasier Aziz and his group know perfectly well what they were doing.)
I think that's right.