Stanford Faculty Statement Opposing Divestment from Israel

March 4, 2015

At the February 19, 2015 Stanford Faculty Senate meeting President John Hennessy issued a statement regarding recent campus debates and the student senate vote on divestment from Israel. Most startling was his observation that “in the nearly 15 years that I have been president, and my 30 years here as a faculty member, I have never seen a topic that has been more divisive within the university community.”

The undersigned faculty shares the same impression and this distresses us greatly. And it is precisely the single-minded ferocity of this recent campaign, its inability to take in the larger tableaux of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict when focusing on one aspect of the dilemma that unsettles us still more than the student senate resolution it produced.

We share a wide range of views regarding Israel and Palestine, the Gaza war, the wisdom of current Israeli policy, and the efficacy of divestment as a political strategy.  Included below are the signatures of faculty long engaged in peace efforts in Israel and Palestine, and many who have championed divestment as a strategy for addressing the environmental dangers of coal burning or, in years past, apartheid South Africa.

How to explain our discomfort with the singularly focused efforts leveled against Israel culminating in the student senate vote, a discomfort so acute that we have chosen to protest a student initiative? This might appear all the more discordant since the resolution’s final text, amended at the last moment after a contrary vote the previous week, is worded so as to avoid the sort of overarching condemnations of Israel that played so prominent a role in the effort culminating in the vote.

We do so because as we see it the campaign itself cannot be separated from the resolution, its intensity fueled not by disdain for Caterpillar or other companies cited in the resolution but by a one-sided condemnation of Israel. It is this campaign - and its capacity to focus campus-wide attention on Israel as a site of unprecedented oppression - that was as much, if not more so, the goal than the resolution itself.  Its immediate impact, coupled with the divestment successes achieved recently on campuses elsewhere, will likely strengthen those forces in Israel inimical to Palestinian rights in the weeks before the upcoming Israeli March election. It will help ensure that Israelis feel ever more isolated, thus undermining those in Israel and Palestine best capable of moving in the direction of peace.  

The achievement of peace has been achingly slow, thwarted repeatedly -- as many of us see it -- by forces on both sides. If peace has a chance to succeed with the emergence of a workable democracy for Palestinians as well as Israelis, Jews and non-Jews, one-sided broadsides directed at Israel are certain to be more useless now than ever. Demanded is flexibility on all sides, a capacity to see beyond past wrongs however bruising, a willingness to look forwards -- not always and ever-suspiciously -- backwards. 

The goal of our campus’ recent anti-Israel campaign wasn’t to open up discussion on these complex matters but to dictate simple, outright excoriation. In this respect divestment was less its goal than a tactic, a deceptively benign way to bring to fruition an anti-Israel resolution. Hence, the repeated reference in programs leading up to the vote linking Israel with the Ferguson tragedy, one of many efforts at collapsing Israel into whatever catastrophe felt pertinent, and readily accessible.

 

Israel deserves to be treated -- much like nearly all other states -- as a state worthy of criticism; the onslaught unleashed at Stanford suggests something far more overarching in its reach. There is real, overt and systematically murderous racism in the same part of the world in which Israel exists. This is leveled against Kurds, Yazidis, Copts, other Christians, Jews and both Shia and Sunni Moslems. We appreciate that human rights issues are often subjective.  It’s impossible to take in all of humanity’s woes, and inevitably some will loom larger than others. But in the midst of the outright terror leveled against the groups mentioned above, the horrors championed by ISIS, the genocide of hundreds of thousands in Syria, the gunning down of free speech activists on the streets of Paris and Copenhagen – and the killing of Jews in any delicatessen, school, or place of worship displaying a Jewish sign -- the simplicity of the recent Stanford campaign feels all the more off-kilter and disturbing.

Stanford is a place known for its creative intelligence, its agility in wrestling with the most intractable problems. Let’s work toward recasting what has been in the last several months a singularly contentious campaign that has done little more than pitting one side of a longstanding geo-political dispute against the other.  What we face here is a situation where neither side is altogether right or wrong but what is wrong is to seek to so besmirch one side of the dispute as to render its arguments mute, and irrelevant. 

Signed,

Anat Admati

George G.C. Parker Professor

Graduate School of Business

 

Kenneth J. Arrow

Joan Kenney Professor of Economics and Professor of Operations Research, Emeritus

 

Joseph Bankman,

Ralph M. Parsons Professor of Law and Business

Law School

 

Jonathan Bendor

Walter and Elise Haas Professor of Political Economy

Graduate School of Business

 

Jonathan Berger

Denning Family Provostial Professor of Music

 

Joseph Berger

Professor of Sociology, Emeritus

 

Jonathan Berk

A.P. Giannini Professor in Finance

Graduate School of Business

 

Russell Berman

Walter A. Haas Professor in the Humanities

Professor of Comparative Literature

 

S. David Brazer

Associate Professor (Teaching) and Director, Leadership Degree Programs

Graduate School of Education

 

Martin Breidenbach

Professor of Particle Physics and Astrophysics

SLAC

 

Paul Brest

Professor of Law, Emeritus

 

Martin Carnoy

Vida Jacks Professor of Education

 

Katrin F. Chua,

Associate Professor of Medicine

 

G. Marcus Cole

The Wm. Benjamin Scott & Luna M. Scott Professor of Law

Stanford Law School

 

Ed Colloff
Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine

David M. Cornfield

Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor in Pediatric Pulmonary Medicine 

 

Robert Daines

Pritzker Professor of Law and Business

Law School

 

Terry S. Desser

Associate Professor of Radiology

 

Larry Diamond

Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution & Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

 

Jonathan Dorfan

Professor of Particle Physics and Astrophysics, Emeritus

SLAC

 

Thomas Ehrlich

Visiting Professor of Education

 

Dan Eisenberg

Associate Professor of Surgery

 

Amir Eshel

Edward Clark Crossett Professor of Humanistic Studies

Director, Department of Comparative Literature  

Department of German Studies

 

David Feldman

Professor of Medicine Emeritus

 

Marcus W. Feldman

Burnet C. and Mildred Finley Wohlford Professor of Biological Sciences

 

S. Shirley Feldman

Senior Research Scientist in Psychiatry

Retired Associate Director, Program in Human Biology

 

John Felstiner

Professor of English Emeritus

 

Morris P. Fiorina

Wendt Family Professor of Political Science
Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution

 

Nancy J. Fischbein, MD

Professor of Radiology

 

Shelley Fisher Fishkin 
Joseph S. Atha Professor of Humanities, Professor of English, 

Director of American Studies, Stanford University 

 

Lazar Fleishman

Professor of Slavic Languages and Literature

 

 

 

Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert

Associate Professor of Religious Studies
Affiliated faculty, Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies; CCSRE
Director, Taube Center for Jewish Studies

 

Michael Fredericson

Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery

 

Grisha Freidin, Professor Emeritus

Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Emeritus

 

Barbara H. Fried
William W. and Gertrude H. Saunders Professor of Law

 

Lawrence M. Friedman

Marion Rice Kirkwood Professor

Stanford Law School

 

Judith Frydman

Professor of Biology and of Genetics

 

Francis Fukuyama
Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow
Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

 

Susan Galel

Associate Professor of Pathology, Emerita

 

Edith Gelles
Clayman Institute for Gender Research

 

Ronald J. Gilson
Meyers Professor of Law and Business

Law School

 

Claude Goldenberg

Professor of Education

 

Judith Goldstein

Professor of Political Science

 

Stuart B. Goodman

Robert  L. and Mary Ellenburg Professor of Surgery,
Professor, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and (by courtesy) Bioengineering

 

Or Gozani

Associate Professor of Biology

 

 

Mark Granovetter

Professor of Sociology

 

Avner Greif

The Bowman Family Professor in Humanities and Sciences

Department of Economics

Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

& Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research

 

F. Carl Grumet

Professor of Pathology, Emeritus

 

Joseph A. Grundfest
William A. Franke Professor of Law and Business
Stanford Law School 

 

Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht

Albert Guerard Professor in Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature

Robert E. Hall

Robert and Carole McNeil Professor of Economics

Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution

 

Robert K. Jackler, MD
Sewall Professor and Chair
Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery
School of Medicine

 

Katherine R. Jolluck

Senior Lecturer, Department of History

 

Michael Kahan

Lecture, Program On Urban Studies

 

Michael J. Kaplan

Professor, Head and Neck Surgery
Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery

 

Ari Y. Kelman

Jim Joseph Chair in Education and Jewish Studies

Graduate School of Education

 

Amalia D. Kessler

Lewis Talbot and Nadine Hearn Shelton
Professor of International Legal Studies
Stanford Law School

 

Michael Klausner
Nancy and Charles Munger Professor of Business and 
Professor of Law

 

Matthew Kohrman

Associate Professor of Anthropology

 

Roger Kornberg

Mrs. George A. Winzer Professor in Medicine

Department of Structural Biology

 

Jeffrey R. Koseff
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering

 

Elliot Krane

Professor of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine

Stanford University Medical Center

 

Stephen D. Krasner

Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations, Stanford University

Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute

Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution

 

Josh Lehrer-Graiwer

Adjunct Clinical Instructor of Medicine, Division of Cardiology

 

Jonathan Levav

Associate Professor of Marketing

Graduate School of Business

 

Josh Levin

Clinical Assistant Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery

 

Michael Levitt

Robert W. and Vivian K. Cahill Professor in Cancer Research

School of Medicine

 

Raymond E. Levitt

Kumagai Professor of Engineering

Dept of Civil & Environmental Engineering

 

Ronald Levy

Professor of Medicine

Director of the Lymphoma Program 

Stanford Medical School

 

Shoshana Levy

Professor (Research) of Medicine (Oncology)

 

Jafi A. Lipson

Assistant Professor of Radiology

School of Medicine

 

 

 

Ira Lit

Associate Professor (Teaching)

Stanford Graduate School of Education

 

David W. Lowenberg, MD
Clinical Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery
Chief, Orthopaedic Trauma Service

 

Lawrence Marshall

Professor of Law

 

Michael W. McConnell

Richard & Frances Mallery Professor, Stanford Law School

Director, Stanford Constitutional Law Center

 

David Mills

Professor of the Practice and Senior Lecturer in Law

Terry M. Moe

Professor of Political Science

 

Stephen Monismith

Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering

 

Alison Morantz

Professor of Law

 

Ian Morris

Jean and Rebecca Willard Professor in Classics

 

Bryan D. Myers

Professor of Medicine (Nephrology), Emeritus

 

Norman Naimark

Robert & Florence McDonnell Professor of E. European Studies

Department of History

 

Nathaniel Persily

James B. McClatchy Professor

Law School

 

Denise Pope

Senior Lecturer

Graduate School of Education

 

Ralph Rabkin

Emeritus Professor of Medicine/Nephrology 

 

Jack Rakove

Coe Professor of History and American Studies

and Professor of Political Science

 

Lawrence Recht

Professor of Neurology 

 

Deborah L. Rhode

Director, Center on the Legal Profession

E.W. McFarland Professor of Law

 

Richard Roberts

Frances and Charles Field Professor of History

 

Aaron Rodrigue

Charles Michael Professor in Jewish History and Culture

 

Myer H. Rosenthal

Professor (Clinical) of Anesthesia, Medicine, and Surgery, Emeritus

 

Aaron Roodman
Professor of Particle Physics & Astrophysics

SLAC

 

Myer H. Rosenthal

Professor (Clinical) of Anesthesia, Medicine, and Surgery, Emeritus

 

Janice Ross

Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies

 

Alvin Roth

Craig and Susan McCaw Professor of Economics

Senior Fellow, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research

 

Gabriella Safran,

Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures

 

Tamar Schapiro

Associate Professor of Philosophy

 

Mark Schnitzer

Associate Professor of Biology and of Applied Physics

 

Yoav Shoham

Professor of Computer Science

 

Robert D. Simoni

Donald Kennedy Professor of Humanities and Sciences
Department of Biology

 

David Spiegel

Willson Professor & Associate Chair

Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences

 

Peter Stansky

Frances and Charles Field Professor of History, Emeritus

 

Lawrence Steinman

George A. Zimmerman Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences

 

Myra Strober

Professor of Education, Emerita

 

Jeffrey D. Ullman

Professor of Computer Science, Emeritus

Irene Wapnir

Professor of Surgery

 

John Willinsky

Khosla Family Professor of Education

 

Sam Wineburg
Margaret Jacks Professor of Education

Carol Winograd

Associate Professor of Medicine, Emerita

 

Terry Winograd

Professor of Computer Science, Emeritus

 

Adam de la Zerda

Assistant Professor of Structural Biology

School of Medicine

 

Steven J. Zipperstein

Daniel E. Koshland Professor in Jewish Culture and History

Department of History 

 

 

 

 

Margaret Weissbluth

Stanford resident, spouse of late faculty member