Lawrence Summers has his own blind spot in that nowhere in his comments does he mention the Palestinian people who have been the victims of decades of Israeli military actions and occupation (Monitor Opinion, April 4).
When Palestinian students on campus wish to present their position on this injustice, they are smeared with the charge of anti-Semitism, when the real problem, as Summers knows full well, is the Zionist political and military actions against the Arab Christian and Muslim populations in the West Bank and Gaza. These actions have little to do with the Jewish religion as such and much to do with the violence against the Palestinian people perpetrated by the Israeli government.
Summers also neglects to mention that some of the faculty at the University of California have rejected the statement made by the regents equating Palestinian students’ free speech with anti-Semitism. If Jewish students can hold pro-Israel programs on campus, then Palestinians should be allowed to hold pro-Palestinian programs.
Finally, Summers refers to the divestiture program now gaining acceptance worldwide, calling on companies that do business with Israel to withdraw their financial support from that country, invoking comparisons with Nazi Germany. What successive Israeli governments have done since the founding of the state is to restrict Palestinian ownership of land and property deemed necessary to the state, whether in the original boundaries of the land or in the occupied territories. “First they said you cannot live among us. . . .” This was said by an Israeli statesman, Abba Eban, of the treatment of Jews in Germany in the 1930s. Now it is said by the Israeli government of the Palestinians.
CHARLES A. KENNEDY
Concord
(The writer is professor of religion, emeritus, at Virginia Tech.)