CUNY dancing on top of shifting ground


May 11, 2011
Sarah Benton

banksy - rolling back the wall

banksy - rolling back the wall
Behind the Tony Kushner story
The deeper reasons for CUNY’s rejection & retreat –and the coming storm
THE SHALOM CENTER
A Prophetic Voice in Jewish, Multireligious, and American Life
By Rabbi Arthur Waskow

Last night, the executive committee of the CUNY Board of Trustees reversed
the Board’s refusal of an honorary degree to Tony Kushner.

Behind the Board’s original decision and its reversal are three stories.

The first: There has been a concerted attack against the best
traditions of open debate and exploration of opinion in academia and in
Jewish life, when it comes to criticism of the Israeli government.
The second story: There is a new wave of bold resistance to such arrogance, in
the world and in the Jewish community.
The third: The Middle East is on the dizzying verge of an opening toward peace — and that infuriates some hawks on both sides of the barricades.

1. Mr. Trustee Wiesenfeld, who swept the CUNY Board into its unprecedented
refusal to honor someone nominated by the faculty of one of its constituent
campuses, was not just attacking Tony Kushner in some momentary outburst.

He had earlier temporarily won the dismissal of a Brooklyn College professor
(later reversed by the college) for the same reasons; he had led the fight
to squash the first Arabic-language charter school in New York, reviling its
professional educator Debby Almontaser; he opposed the right of Muslims to
create a community center/ mosque in Lower Manhattan. And a network of such
bigots has been haunting academia for several years.

2. The new story is that this time, a wave of outrage stopped this bigotry
in its tracks. Jews committed to Jewish values, intellectuals, artists,
academics, joined in condemning the Board’s action. (We at The Shalom Center
were among the earliest to respond. And we admire the swift and vigorous
response of Jewish Voice for Peace.)

This uprising — which we should take honorable joy in — is why Benno C.
Schmidt Jr., chairman of the CUNY board since 2003 and a former president of
Yale University, told the Times that the board had “made a mistake of
principle, and not merely of policy,” in failing to approve Tony Kushner’s
degree, at its meeting last Monday. “Freedom of thought and expression is
the bedrock of any university worthy of the name,” said Mr. Schmidt.

Duhhh! ­ It’s not likely that Mr. Schmidt was fast asleep and snoring so
loud he couldn’t hear Mr. Trustee Jeffrey S. Wiesenfeld’s “impassioned
speech” against a made-up caricature of the real Tony Kushner, when the
issue came before the Board last week.

It’s more likely Chairman Schmidt was thinking that bigots like Wiesenfeld
have more money, more glower, and more power, than gay playwrights, wimpy
professors, and soft-hearted peaceniks. If so, he was awakened by the
wave of outrage that swept over the CUNY Board.

Five years ago, or even five weeks ago, many of those who rose up might well
have rolled their eyes but kept their mouths shut.

Why now? For one thing, a new sense of ferment is bubbling, from Tahrir
Square to Madison, Wisconsin. God is troubling the Waters.

3. And the third story: The REALLY New Middle East is challenging Israel to
think anew. Its government might respond by making new wars, or seeking a
newer, broader peace.

Whichever direction it now takes, those Jews who disagree will be tenser
than ever, more fearful that the old path or any new one spells disaster.
Expect bitter fights, expect less room for shrugging off the struggle,
expect more efforts to “excommunicate” the critics.

In the last two weeks, we have seen the tiny openings for a possible though
perilous passage toward peace between Israel and Palestine.

In Israel, for the first time in years those committed to peace have raised
their voices with serious proposals for a two-state solution. Thirty crucial
veteran leaders of the military / security establishment (not the usual
peacenik suspects) have put forward a detailed plan. Hundreds of writers,
artists, scholars who are the usual suspects but have for years now kept
their mouth shut — the intellectual flower of Israel ­ have also called
for action to that end.

Among the Palestinians, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Fatah have all agreed to
halt attacks on Israel and create a caretaker government of national unity,
led by technocrats rather than political figures. Some leaders of Hamas have
said that if a majority of the Palestinian people votes for peace with
Israel, Hamas will set aside its original framework calling for the
abolition of the state of Israel.

The new government of Egypt has announced that its border with Gaza will be
opened for trade ­ import and export.

Plans are moving ahead for the UN General Assembly to admit a new Palestine,
within approximately the 1967 Green Line boundaries, as a UN member.

All this could lead in the direction of a true peace settlement, supported
by peace treaties between all Arab governments, the new state of Palestine,
and the state of Israel ­ as the Arab League has several times proposed
during the last decade. (Till now, these proposals have been ignored by the
government of Israel and the Hamas government of Gaza.)

Or the very possibility of a breakthrough for peace might drive hawks on
either or both sides, in or out of their governments, to sabotage these
openings. If that happens, there could be another wave of violence as both
the Israeli government and some parts of the Palestinian leadership react
with fear and rage to yet another collapse of hope for peace.

So far, the Netanyahu government and the Obama government have rejected the
notion of a Palestinian government of national unity that includes Hamas;
have rejected the notion of a UN role in establishing Palestinian
independence; and have failed to end the blockade of civilian goods from
entering or leaving Gaza, to end the demolition of Palestinian homes in East
Jerusalem, and to stop the settlement of Israelis in the West Bank. This
triple rejection makes peace impossible.

A great deal depends on what American Jews, speaking both to their own
government and to the government and people of Israel, say and do at this
moment.

The ever-quivering Jewish nerve of fear, honed by many many generations of
oppression, has been sharpened in our own day by moments of murderous
attacks upon Israeli civilians. But as Prime Minister Rabin argued in every
Israeli town and village before he was murdered, Jews are no longer victims
but possess great power. Ignoring that truth, and strumming only on the
nerve of fear, would bring again the screeching music of Forever War.

But if American as well as Israeli Jews could see how strong the worldwide
Jewish people is today, no longer pariahs, no longer victims, possessed of
powerful weapons and a strong economy, it might be possible for them to
choose the risks of peace ­- far less dangerous in the long run than
choosing the short-run habit of Forever War.

On the Palestinian side, giving up the wistful hope that not only actual
refugees of 1949 and 1967 might return to their old homes inside what is now
Israel, but also their children and their grandchildren and their
great-grandchildren in millions ­- would mean leaving behind a fantasy in
favor of a liberated reality — a state with its capital in East Jerusalem,
ports and airports in Gaza, a thriving culture and economy and politics
throughout.

There is no hope of peace without Hamas. There is no hope of peace without
the Israeli center-right. Those who say they want peace but only without
Hamas, do not in fact want peace. Those who say they want peace but only on
condition that millions of Palestinian refugee families can return within
the borders of the State of Israel do not in fact want peace.

Those who claim to be for peace but refuse to take the only risks that can
make peace possible, should recognize the truth: In actual practice, in
reality, in truth, they are unwilling to make peace.

Martin Buber once said, “The real barricades are not between nations; the
real barriers are not between political parties; the real barricades are
within each human being.”

Within each of us — each Israeli, each Palestinian, each Jew, each Arab,
each Muslim, of whatever nation and whatever political party — is the
barricade between fear and rage on the one side, desire and hope and even
love on the other. On which side of our internal barricade do we choose to
live, to act?

In the four decades and more since the Israeli occupation of the West Bank,
Gaza, and East Jerusalem began, there have been many moments when those who
really did want peace have warned that a failure to move forward would bring
not merely a longer uneasy stalemate, but war.

They (we) were right: the first Lebanon War, the Second Intifada, the
Second Lebanon War, the Gaza War all poured new blood upon the sand. The
blood of Israelis, Palestinians, Lebanese, Egyptians, Europeans, Americans,
has indeed been drawn inexorably into the bloody sandstorm of war after war,
terror after terror, torture after torture, fear after fear, rage after
rage, hatred after hatred.

Now we are again at such a moment.

The United States government can make a difference, but so far it has
refused to. American Jews, Christians, Muslims, and those of other religious
and ethical communities could insist that our government use its influence
and power on behalf of the flowering of peace, instead of undergirding
violence and war.

Could we work out an approach that strong majorities of our communities can
embrace?

Or would we rather pour more blood into the sand?

This is no mere rhetorical question. I welcome your ideas– write back!

— And to help support The Shalom Center’s work for peace, justice, and
healing, please click to our Home Page at http://www.theshalomcenter.org
Thanks!

With blessings toward shalom, salaam, peace ­- Arthur

© Copyright JFJFP 2024