Ignorance on Israel

A recent BBC poll found that Israel is viewed as the country with the most negative influence on the rest of the world. That’s right: Israel. A democratic country the size of New Jersey was ranked by 56 percent of the survey’s respondents as the worst country in the world.

To many, the results will definitely be surprising. If one had to guess which country might garner the ignoble position of having the most negative influence on the rest of the world, North Korea and Iran might immediately come to mind. Or even the United States. However, these guesses would all have been wrong. Incidentally, North Korea did not even make it to the top three. Instead, the United States ranked third, with an average of 51 percent of the respondents across 27 different countries viewing America’s influence in the world as mainly negative. Not to be outdone by the “great Satan”, the Islamic Republic of Iran humbly accepted the number two spot with 54 percent of the survey’s respondents viewing its influence as mainly negative.

The recent unprovoked war with Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon, albeit an important factor, remains just one reason for Israel’s negative image. Possibly more influential is the lack of education or, rather, intentional mis-education regarding Israel that occurs around the world. In this area, our own Harvard, heralded as one of the great intellectual centers both in America and across the globe, is embarrassingly guilty.

At Harvard, we have the privilege to learn from and alongside students and professors with an extraordinarily diverse range of backgrounds. Just last month, Harvard announced that it accepted students from 79 different countries for the College Class of 2011. I cannot but wonder how many of these countries have maps that make no reference to the state of Israel or textbooks that include gems like this one from the Palestinian territories: “my brother, the oppressor [referring to Israelis] has crossed the line and the time has come for jihad and martyrdom.” Harvard, with its influence both on its own students and on students everywhere, must do more to combat these dangerous perceptions.

But it does not. In our ivory tower, where moral relativism reigns supreme, America’s allies are condemned while our enemies are forgiven. In this line of thinking, Iran can be excused for all of its crimes while Israel should be boycotted and divested from.

Professor of Anthropology and of African and African American Studies J. Lorand Matory recently told the Crimson that “the criticism of Israel was appropriate because of the ‘extraordinary’ support that the country has received from the U.S. and other Western governments.” Matory’s comment indicates that he is less bothered by the crimes of countries that the U.S. does not support, like Iran and Syria; while at the same time, he completely disregards the importance of supporting our only democratic ally in the Middle East.

This is moral relativism at its most dangerous; refusing to recognize the partnership that Israel has with the United States and its allies while making it a target for condemnation on par with terrorist states is not liberal open-mindedness, its just plain wrong. Israel’s humanitarian, technological, medical, and scientific contributions must also be mentioned in any balanced debate. Their consistent omission in the academic rhetoric is what makes it so easy for the public to see Israel’s wrongs in unduly high relief. Even worse, when activists like Matory are not too busy condemning Israel, their relative silence on other human rights tragedies like Darfur speaks volumes.

A little further down JFK Street, the former academic dean of the Kennedy School of Government, Belfer Professor of International Affairs Stephen Walt has published a paper with a colleague at the University of Chicago that claims that there is an all-powerful Jewish lobby in the United States that sustains support for an immoral state of Israel. While the bias and shoddiness of the paper’s research have already been well documented, the actual message of the paper is even more troublesome.

Indeed, the authors assertions seem to mirror those found in any two-bit anti-Zionist tract, holding that Israel lacks any moral claim to American support, because the “creation of Israel entailed a moral crime against the Palestinian people,” in addition to the grossly exaggerated and inaccurate claim that Israel has continued to commit crimes against Palestinians including “massacres … and rapes by Jews.” And this is from the former academic dean of the Kennedy School. If this is what Harvard’s top professors are teaching and writing, then the BBC’s survey results holding Israel as the worst country in the world should come as very little surprise.

Judging by the discomforting and largely unacademic content of the articles and public statements emanating from Harvard, we fail the world as one of its premier universities in that we condone and even promote viewing Israel as one of the most evil countries existing today. Following Harvard’s lead, professors and students from all corners of the globe remain too busy fighting the “good fight:” against Israel, while those harbingers of democracy and human rights like Iran, Sudan, North Korea, and Russia are left relatively free to continue their oppressive and even criminal policies. A more balanced debate about Israel rather than knee-jerk condemnation will lead to better informed and better educated citizens of the world, surely a goal to which Harvard aspires.

Michael D. Schor ’07 is an economics concentrator in Lowell House. He is a member of the Harvard Chapter of the American Jewish Committee.