Rice professor on Oct. 7 aftermath: Two illusions blew up in our face
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Dr. Moshe Vardi
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The Oct. 7 murders and kidnapping of Israeli noncombatants by Hamas have been met by mixed reactions on U.S. college campuses. Some universities condemned Hamas’ acts of terrorism. In other schools, there was a lack of discernible criticism of Hamas.
On campus, both Jewish and Palestinian students say they aren’t getting support from administrators and staff. Campus protests have put pressure on university leaders to choose a side or curb student speech and behavior.
At Rice University, Jewish students say they are fearful of antisemitism on campus. They’ve asked the university administration to denounce pro-Palestinian speech that they say spreads hate toward Israel.
World-renowned Moshe Vardi, Ph.D., sees recent events at Rice as part of “a wave of antisemitism that has been washing over U.S. campuses.” Vardi is University Professor, Karen Ostrum George Distinguished Service Professor in Computational Engineering at Rice University and a Baker Institute for Public Policy faculty scholar at Rice.
He wrote an opinion piece that first appeared Dec. 6 under the title, “A Moral Rot At Rice University” on medium.com. His Op-Ed appeared in a slightly edited version in the Dec. 8 edition of the Houston Chronicle under the headline “Rice prof: Antisemitism is ‘Prevalent’ on Campus.”
Vardi told the JHV that he was motivated to write the article because of several lead-up events at Rice, beginning in fall 2022. That’s when a group of students sought to start a club, Students Supporting Israel (SSI), to counteract the growing activities at Rice of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). As an Israeli-American faculty member, Vardi was asked to be the club sponsor.
The students submitted the required paperwork for approval of the new club to the Rice Student Association (SA). The request then moved to the SA Executive Committee for vote.
“The club did not get the approval votes needed for the club to form,” said Vardi.
“While the executive members did not explicitly cite their reasons for not approving the club, I believe that the strong political nature focused on a contentious topic was the general reasoning,” stated a SA representative.
Vardi challenged the SA.
“Given that SJP is an approved club, an opaque negative decision concerning SSI creates an appearance of discrimination. It is not enough to assert that the decision was not discriminatory; it is incumbent on the decision-makers to remove the opacity and demonstrate that it was a good-faith decision,” he wrote.
“Within less than 24 hours, the SA decision was reversed and the SSI club was approved. A full explanation of the initial denial and then its reversal was never provided, but I could not fail to sense a whiff of antisemitism.”
In September 2023, Rice Pride cut ties with Houston Hillel over the organization’s support for Israel. Hillel had provided funding for the group’s Queer Resource Center.
On Oct. 7, Simchat Torah, invading Hamas gunmen murdered, tortured, mass- raped and mutilated some 1,200 Israelis. About 240 hostages, including women, elders, children and infants were taken hostage to Gaza.
On Oct. 28, a petition circulated among Rice faculty members. It was released as Rice University Faculty Statement of Solidarity with Palestinians.
“We are writing as educators and researchers at Rice University to denounce U.S.-backed genocidal violence against Palestinians by the Israeli state,” the faculty statement began.
“We write in grief as a political act. We grieve the loss of human life. We mourn and oppose the loss of Jewish and Israeli civilian life caused by the Hamas attack. We grieve and oppose the loss of Palestinian life by military attacks and settler violence. We grieve that not all lives are being valued as grievable. We write to express our solidarity with the people of Palestine in their struggle for liberation and call for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and demand Rice University stand with and not against Palestinian people.
“We write as scholars of global studies of race, Blackness, Indigeneity, Latinidad, state violence, colonialism, human rights, anti-imperialism, social movements, queerness, transness, gender, disability, critical medical anthropology and visual culture. We resist the binary thinking and decontextualization that is being propagated by the Israeli Zionist state and uncritically reproduced in the mainstream media and sections of the academy …
“We also write this statement specifically to Rice University. We do not agree with the University’s uneven response to the ongoing violence in Israel/Palestine …”
The petition requested that the Rice University leadership respond by releasing a statement denouncing violence and violations of international law against Palestinian civilians in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel. The petition also asked the administration to facilitate access to affordable counseling resources with professionals who are trained to provide care that addresses the impact of domestic and international forms of structural violence and issue a statement affirming and defending academic freedom, especially for those who express support for Palestinian liberation.
On Dec. 4, the Rice University Student Senate passed Senate Resolution No. 14, affirming support for the Faculty Statement of Solidarity with Palestinians. Among the demands made in the resolution was that the administration “issue a statement affirming and defending academic freedom, especially for those who express support for Palestinian liberation.”
“The Oct. 7 atrocities were not even mentioned in the resolution,” Vardi pointed out. “In spite of the well-publicized wave of antisemitism that has been washing over U.S. campuses, the resolution called on Rice’s president to affirm its commitment to a culture of care for our Palestinian, Arab and Muslim student body, faculty, staff and community. Apparently, Jews do not deserve a culture of care.
“There was some pressure on Rice president Reginald DesRoches to call for a ceasefire. I don’t remember Rice issuing a statement when Russia invaded Ukraine.
“In my opinion, a university should not issue political statements. They can issue a call for sympathy and take care of the campus. I think universities should not issue pronouncement about global political issues. Nobody outside of Rice cares about what Rice faculty thinks about the ceasefire issue. To say we are concerned about our Jewish students and our Palestinian students is appropriate.”
Some 30,000 people have viewed Vardi’s Op-Ed since it was published on medium.com and social media.
Vardi wrote: “I recognize antisemitism when I see it. You do not need to be a user of derogatory epithets to be antisemitic; using double standards qualifies. It is OK to criticize Israel, but not OK to pay lip service to Palestinian atrocities. It is OK to call for a ceasefire, but not OK to ignore the hostages. It is OK to call for a two-state solution – which I strongly support – to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is not OK to talk about Palestinian liberation, while mentioning the 1948 Nakba, implicitly suggesting ethnic cleansing of Jews in Israel.
“It is OK to express sympathy with Palestinian refugees. It is not OK to ignore close to 1 million Jews that were pushed out of Arab countries after the 1948 war. It is OK to talk about Palestinian casualties. It is not OK to ignore Jewish casualties and civilian casualties elsewhere in the Middle East. (Civil wars are raging in Syria, Yemen and Sudan.)
“It is OK to express concerns about anti-Palestinian hate crimes. It is not OK to ignore anti-Jewish hate crimes. It is OK to demand a culture of care for Palestinian, Arab and Muslim students, faculty and staff. It is not OK to ignore Jewish and Israeli students, faculty and staff.”
Vardi’s piece has met with overwhelming support.
“People have thanked me for writing this,” said Vardi. “Some antisemites have responded, but the email avalanche I’ve received has been overwhelming supportive.
“The editor of the Houston Chronicle saw it and asked if I would agree to publish it in the Chronicle as an opinion piece. On Dec. 13, it appeared in the Times of Israel. [The JHV also asked Vardi for permission to republish the Op-Ed.]
“Emotions are raw right now on campus. There are Israeli professors and Jewish students who feel uncomfortable to be on campus. Even after publishing my article, I’m not uncomfortable on the Rice campus.”
Vardi ended his post thusly: “I was well aware that antisemitism is alive and well in the U.S., but I had believed that it exists only in the margins, among the extreme left and extreme right. I have been rudely awakened. I now realize that not only is it a mainstream phenomenon, but it is also quite prevalent on my very own campus, among Rice faculty and students. This is a profoundly bitter lesson for me. I am not quite sure how to cope with it.”
The JHV asked Vardi to amplify his conclusion.
“Two illusions blew up in our face. One was in Israel. That was the situation with the Palestinians was not optimal, but manageable. We discovered it was not manageable. I think many leaders in Israel will pay a career price for this.
“Second was here in the United States. I, and many others, thought, yes, there is antisemitism, but it’s confined to the margins of the extreme right and extreme left. We didn’t think it was mainstream. What happened on campus showed we were badly deluded.
“Antisemitism in the United States is mainstream. These events just let it out.”
On campus, both Jewish and Palestinian students say they aren’t getting support from administrators and staff. Campus protests have put pressure on university leaders to choose a side or curb student speech and behavior.
At Rice University, Jewish students say they are fearful of antisemitism on campus. They’ve asked the university administration to denounce pro-Palestinian speech that they say spreads hate toward Israel.
World-renowned Moshe Vardi, Ph.D., sees recent events at Rice as part of “a wave of antisemitism that has been washing over U.S. campuses.” Vardi is University Professor, Karen Ostrum George Distinguished Service Professor in Computational Engineering at Rice University and a Baker Institute for Public Policy faculty scholar at Rice.
He wrote an opinion piece that first appeared Dec. 6 under the title, “A Moral Rot At Rice University” on medium.com. His Op-Ed appeared in a slightly edited version in the Dec. 8 edition of the Houston Chronicle under the headline “Rice prof: Antisemitism is ‘Prevalent’ on Campus.”
Vardi told the JHV that he was motivated to write the article because of several lead-up events at Rice, beginning in fall 2022. That’s when a group of students sought to start a club, Students Supporting Israel (SSI), to counteract the growing activities at Rice of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). As an Israeli-American faculty member, Vardi was asked to be the club sponsor.
The students submitted the required paperwork for approval of the new club to the Rice Student Association (SA). The request then moved to the SA Executive Committee for vote.
“The club did not get the approval votes needed for the club to form,” said Vardi.
“While the executive members did not explicitly cite their reasons for not approving the club, I believe that the strong political nature focused on a contentious topic was the general reasoning,” stated a SA representative.
Vardi challenged the SA.
“Given that SJP is an approved club, an opaque negative decision concerning SSI creates an appearance of discrimination. It is not enough to assert that the decision was not discriminatory; it is incumbent on the decision-makers to remove the opacity and demonstrate that it was a good-faith decision,” he wrote.
“Within less than 24 hours, the SA decision was reversed and the SSI club was approved. A full explanation of the initial denial and then its reversal was never provided, but I could not fail to sense a whiff of antisemitism.”
In September 2023, Rice Pride cut ties with Houston Hillel over the organization’s support for Israel. Hillel had provided funding for the group’s Queer Resource Center.
On Oct. 7, Simchat Torah, invading Hamas gunmen murdered, tortured, mass- raped and mutilated some 1,200 Israelis. About 240 hostages, including women, elders, children and infants were taken hostage to Gaza.
On Oct. 28, a petition circulated among Rice faculty members. It was released as Rice University Faculty Statement of Solidarity with Palestinians.
“We are writing as educators and researchers at Rice University to denounce U.S.-backed genocidal violence against Palestinians by the Israeli state,” the faculty statement began.
“We write in grief as a political act. We grieve the loss of human life. We mourn and oppose the loss of Jewish and Israeli civilian life caused by the Hamas attack. We grieve and oppose the loss of Palestinian life by military attacks and settler violence. We grieve that not all lives are being valued as grievable. We write to express our solidarity with the people of Palestine in their struggle for liberation and call for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and demand Rice University stand with and not against Palestinian people.
“We write as scholars of global studies of race, Blackness, Indigeneity, Latinidad, state violence, colonialism, human rights, anti-imperialism, social movements, queerness, transness, gender, disability, critical medical anthropology and visual culture. We resist the binary thinking and decontextualization that is being propagated by the Israeli Zionist state and uncritically reproduced in the mainstream media and sections of the academy …
“We also write this statement specifically to Rice University. We do not agree with the University’s uneven response to the ongoing violence in Israel/Palestine …”
The petition requested that the Rice University leadership respond by releasing a statement denouncing violence and violations of international law against Palestinian civilians in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel. The petition also asked the administration to facilitate access to affordable counseling resources with professionals who are trained to provide care that addresses the impact of domestic and international forms of structural violence and issue a statement affirming and defending academic freedom, especially for those who express support for Palestinian liberation.
On Dec. 4, the Rice University Student Senate passed Senate Resolution No. 14, affirming support for the Faculty Statement of Solidarity with Palestinians. Among the demands made in the resolution was that the administration “issue a statement affirming and defending academic freedom, especially for those who express support for Palestinian liberation.”
“The Oct. 7 atrocities were not even mentioned in the resolution,” Vardi pointed out. “In spite of the well-publicized wave of antisemitism that has been washing over U.S. campuses, the resolution called on Rice’s president to affirm its commitment to a culture of care for our Palestinian, Arab and Muslim student body, faculty, staff and community. Apparently, Jews do not deserve a culture of care.
“There was some pressure on Rice president Reginald DesRoches to call for a ceasefire. I don’t remember Rice issuing a statement when Russia invaded Ukraine.
“In my opinion, a university should not issue political statements. They can issue a call for sympathy and take care of the campus. I think universities should not issue pronouncement about global political issues. Nobody outside of Rice cares about what Rice faculty thinks about the ceasefire issue. To say we are concerned about our Jewish students and our Palestinian students is appropriate.”
Some 30,000 people have viewed Vardi’s Op-Ed since it was published on medium.com and social media.
Vardi wrote: “I recognize antisemitism when I see it. You do not need to be a user of derogatory epithets to be antisemitic; using double standards qualifies. It is OK to criticize Israel, but not OK to pay lip service to Palestinian atrocities. It is OK to call for a ceasefire, but not OK to ignore the hostages. It is OK to call for a two-state solution – which I strongly support – to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is not OK to talk about Palestinian liberation, while mentioning the 1948 Nakba, implicitly suggesting ethnic cleansing of Jews in Israel.
“It is OK to express sympathy with Palestinian refugees. It is not OK to ignore close to 1 million Jews that were pushed out of Arab countries after the 1948 war. It is OK to talk about Palestinian casualties. It is not OK to ignore Jewish casualties and civilian casualties elsewhere in the Middle East. (Civil wars are raging in Syria, Yemen and Sudan.)
“It is OK to express concerns about anti-Palestinian hate crimes. It is not OK to ignore anti-Jewish hate crimes. It is OK to demand a culture of care for Palestinian, Arab and Muslim students, faculty and staff. It is not OK to ignore Jewish and Israeli students, faculty and staff.”
Vardi’s piece has met with overwhelming support.
“People have thanked me for writing this,” said Vardi. “Some antisemites have responded, but the email avalanche I’ve received has been overwhelming supportive.
“The editor of the Houston Chronicle saw it and asked if I would agree to publish it in the Chronicle as an opinion piece. On Dec. 13, it appeared in the Times of Israel. [The JHV also asked Vardi for permission to republish the Op-Ed.]
“Emotions are raw right now on campus. There are Israeli professors and Jewish students who feel uncomfortable to be on campus. Even after publishing my article, I’m not uncomfortable on the Rice campus.”
Vardi ended his post thusly: “I was well aware that antisemitism is alive and well in the U.S., but I had believed that it exists only in the margins, among the extreme left and extreme right. I have been rudely awakened. I now realize that not only is it a mainstream phenomenon, but it is also quite prevalent on my very own campus, among Rice faculty and students. This is a profoundly bitter lesson for me. I am not quite sure how to cope with it.”
The JHV asked Vardi to amplify his conclusion.
“Two illusions blew up in our face. One was in Israel. That was the situation with the Palestinians was not optimal, but manageable. We discovered it was not manageable. I think many leaders in Israel will pay a career price for this.
“Second was here in the United States. I, and many others, thought, yes, there is antisemitism, but it’s confined to the margins of the extreme right and extreme left. We didn’t think it was mainstream. What happened on campus showed we were badly deluded.
“Antisemitism in the United States is mainstream. These events just let it out.”
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