Israeli university president says prof’s article is ‘destructive blow’ to her fundraising efforts with US Jews

Israeli writer/prof Neve Gordon has shared an angry letter that Ben Gurion University President Rivka Carmi wrote after he published this brave piece in the LA Times calling for boycott of Israel. Last week I speculated that Carmi was concerned with donors to her university, the Jewish community in the U.S., the Israel lobby. Her intemperate letter makes it clear that I was right, with repeated anguish over Jewish donors.

Remember that the first response to Walt and Mearsheimer’s paper in 2006 included threats to suspend major gifts to Harvard University, Walt’s employer. Remember that Seymour Hersh said to Amy Goodman that the politicians talking about bombing Iran were motivated by "Jewish money." Remember that Theodor Herzl spoke of the "river of gold" that Jews could bring to bear on Turkish financial woes if only the Sultan gave us Palestine in the 1890s. Remember that journalists are never allowed to talk about Jewish money.

Take it away Rivka:

Dear Faculty Members,

I would like to share a very grave matter with you, one that has unfolded in the past few days and has severe consequences for our university.

Last Thursday I returned from a trip to the US. After over a year in which there was a steep decline in donations due to the world economic crisis, I definitely felt signs of cautious optimism and a willingness [of donors] to continue cultivating a close relationship [with the university] so that – in the near future –the university’s financial needs and plans could be discussed. In all the meetings I attended, the university’s achievements were hailed, as were its academic and social reputation and its important role in developing the Negev [southern region of Israel] and the state.

Less than one hour after I had landed, I received an urgent phone call from the US notifying me of an article by Dr. Neve Gordon, one of our faculty members, that was published in a prominent place in the newspaper "The Los Angeles Times".

The article calls on the entire world to boycott Israel, which Dr. Gordon defines as an apartheid state. From that moment on, I have been receiving an unprecedented flow of enraged emails from friends and university supporters, as well as from others who merely heard about the article. I was also forced to hear very difficult things on the phone from Jewish donors and Israeli and international public figures.

This is not the first time that senior university administration members and I have had to face with such frontal attacks for similar reasons. I never shared this matter with you because I believe that confronting such issues is part of my job. Nonetheless, this time the severity and scope of the attack are unprecedented, both because of the article’s extremist line, which is perceived by many readers as an act of treason [emphasis added] against the state of Israel, and because the article was published in a newspaper with a very wide circulation, especially within the Jewish community. I have real and concrete reasons to feel that above all else, this article will likely cause a destructive blow to fundraising for the university, and the article’s potential damage to the university budget during the most difficult period in its history, and perhaps also in the future, is vast.      

I see it as my duty to share with you my fears about the damage and its dire influence on the university’s financial situation, on its academic and social reputation, on its professional prestige and the loyalty of each and every one of us.

My fellow administrators and many of you, the faculty, work hard on fundraising for the university. I am sorry to say that without these donations we have no life [emphasis added] and certainly there can be no development and progress. This task is especially difficult now, during the current world economic crisis, and the competition between different institutions, and especially the universities, is harsh.

This type of article brands the university as one unworthy of support from the Jewish world. Many of those who contacted me emphasized that they will never again support a university who employs a faculty member willing to harm the state like this and that they will recommend that their friends to follow suit. I am quoting here the bottom line of the many inquiries I have received and am receiving at this moment.

Friends, I am not discussing the content of the article, although I am personally [bold and underlined in the original] deeply disgusted by it. All I want is to share with you the distress in which, in my opinion, the university currently finds itself, to inform you of the reasons for the distress, and as stated above, to share my fears of what is likely to happen to the future and growth/flourishing of the university.

Best wishes,
Rivka Carmi