IAFI Academic Freedom Mission October 2003 Begins with High Hopes

The IAFI Academic Freedom Mission 2003 was focused on two of the core values of the foundation: promoting Academic Freedom and the open exchange of ideas by bringing international academic meetings to Israel to offset the effects of the boycott against Israeli academics, and supporting efforts of the international academic community to promote peace in the Middle East.

IAFI-Israel Executive Director David Leshnick and IAFI President Andy Marks

They meet at Ben Gurion Airport ready to support the NY Yankees in Eretz Israel…Fortunately for IAFI, the October 2003 Academic Freedom Mission was a much greater success that the Yankees World Series effort against the Marlins!

The first part of this mission was the IAFI-supported “Frontiers in Cardiovascular Science” meeting, held in Eilat October 23-26. On the way from Tel Aviv to Eilat, there was a quick stop at the home and gravesite of David Ben Gurion, whose passion was to develop the Negev as the future for the State of Israel.

David Ben Gurion’s home in the Negev

Andy visiting the well-stocked library in the home of David Ben Gurion in the Negev, where Ben Gurion strongly believed the future development of the State of Israel should and must be…

Sunset over the Sinai

Looking across the Israel-Egypt border – on the way from Tel Aviv to Eilat to attend the IAFI-supported meeting, “Frontiers in Cardiovascular Science.”

Swimming and snorkeling in the Red Sea

Spectacular corals and fish abound just a few yards off the public beaches of Eilat – the conferees found time in their crowded schedules to enjoy the wonders of the Red Sea.

Academic Freedom Conference

Participants in a lively discussion on Academic Freedom included Honorable Stefan Schlueter, Consul General of the German Embassy in NY, Manfred Gerstenfeld from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Andy Marks, Jossi Shain from Tel Aviv University and Georgetown University. Not shown is Dr. Martin Kramer from Tel Aviv University who also participated in the mini-symposium (author of the best- selling book Ivory Tower in the Sand, a critical examination of the discipline of Middle Eastern Studies at U.S. universities.)

Andy Marks and Dror Harats, a co-organizer of the IAFI- supported “Frontiers in Cardiovascular Science”

Dror represents IAFI at Tel Aviv University and Tel Hashomer Medical Center. Dror has also been advising Amit Duvashani, the student denied access to Oxford University by Prof. Andrew Wilkie, an example of the potentially damaging effects of the boycott and a case that was made known to the public initially by IAFI.

Andy Marks delivering the keynote lecture of the IAFI- supported “Frontiers in Cardiovascular Sciences” meeting in Eilat, October 2003

Dr. Marks lectured on novel therapeutic approaches to heart failure and cardiac arrhythmias based on new discoveries as to the mechanisms of these diseases, the leading causes of death in the developed world.

Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer addressing the IAFI- sponsored Academic Freedom Mission

The U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Daniel Kurtzer, ad-dressed the attendees of the IAFI-sponsored Academic Freedom Mission in Eilat, October 2003. This part of the conference was organized by IAFI board member John D. Loike. Kurtzer spoke about U.S. peace efforts in the region. “We have an important new organization promoting academic freedom and peace in the Middle East called the International Academic Friends of Israel,” said Ambassador Kurtzer during his remarks to the conferees.

IAFI Vice-President, Alan Fuchsberg, and IAFI-Israel Executive Director, David Leshnick, visiting the Emergency Room Department at Soroka Hospital in Beer-Sheva

The IAFI mission met with Dr. Yoram Snir, head of the Emergency Department. Soroka hospital provides extensive medical services to the entire Negev region – 50% of the patients cared for at the hospital are Bedouins.

The potent adverse effects of the Intifada are felt every day at Soroka Hospital. Prior to the Intifada, according to Dr. Snir, there were regular conferences attended by Palestinian physicians from Gaza, who often came to Soroka to observe procedures and gain training. “We used have medical conferences with the doctors from Gaza, and they would come over and observe us; since the Intifada, this has stopped,” said Dr. Snir. These conferences and exchanges of information have ceased during the Intifada, although Soroka Hospital continues to provide care for the more complicated cases that cannot be cared for by the Palestinian physicians in the Gaza.

IAFI-Israel Executive Director, David Leshnick; IAFI President, Andy Marks; Minister for Diaspora and Jerusalem, Natan Sharansky; and IAFI Vice-President, Alan Fuchsberg meet to discuss Academic Freedom

At the meeting held in Minister Sharansky’s office in Jerusalem, it was agreed that IAFI would help organize and co-sponsor an Academic Freedom Symposium in Jerusalem and that Minister Sharansky would support the IAFI-sponsored study of the impact of the boycott on the Israeli Academic community.

Minister Sharansky, who is famous for his upholding of human rights as a refusnik in Russia, told IAFI that based on his recent visit to 11 universities in the U.S. (including Harvard and Columbia) all but one (Princeton) had departments of Middle Eastern studies dominated by anti-Israeli scholars. He felt that this prevents students from receiving an even-handed exposure to this critical field. This concern was echoed by Dr. Martin Kramer as well. Sharansky noted that despite the fact that Jews have contributed many more resources to the U.S. universities, the more limited donations from Arabs have been highly focused on supporting departments of Middle Eastern Studies, helping to promote these imbalanced departments. Sharansky reported that “students told me they were not willing to speak out in support of Israel due to fears that their professors would hold it against them…this has a chilling effect on the students.”

Andy and Alan meeting with Dr. Rivka Carmi, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at BGU

Dr. Carmi agreed to help with the IAFI-sponsored study of the impact of the academic boycott and to help organize a genetics meeting in 2004. Dr. Carmi reported that there were three medical residents in the BGU training program who have stopped their training due to the Intifada.

“There is collaboration with the Palestinians on an informal level, but on a formal level it is impossible,” reported Dr. Carmi. “Since the Palestinian law student committed suicide terrorism, that changed everything – now it is hard for the Palestinian law and medical students to pass through security to attend classes at the university – before no one suspected these students of being suicide bombers…but now anything is possible…”

Alan, David and Andy also met with Bob Lapidot, Director of the International Division of the Israel Academy of Sciences. He shared a report written by Paul Scham, Research Fellow at the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, entitled “Arab-Israeli Research Cooperation, 1995-1999: an Analytical Study,” published in the Middle East Review of International Affairs, vol 4, no. 3 (Sept. 2003). IAFI is commissioning a similar study on the impact of the boycott on the Israeli academic community. Lapidot told the IAFI mission that a recent conference on Axial transformations (events in history that change human thought) had to be moved from Israel to Florence at the last moment due to fears that conferees would not attend a meeting in Israel because of security concerns. He went on to say that British scholars, who helped organize the meeting, set as a condition of their participation that there had to be equal numbers of Palestinian and Israeli scientists presenting at the meeting. Ironically, this was without regard to whether there were, in fact, enough Palestinian scientists in this field, creating an impossible barrier to holding such a meeting, cloaked in the veil of even- handedness, with the net result being discrimination against the Israeli academic community, Lapidot noted.

Meeting with Israel German, Senior VP of BGU

Dr. German agreed to ask his faculty to prepare a proposal for IAFI to support a scholarly study of the impact of the boycott on the Israeli academic community.

Meeting with Yoram Epstein and colleagues at the Heller Institute of Medical Research, Sheba Medical Center (Tel Aviv University) to discuss how to maintain a physiology meeting in Israel that had been moved to Rhodes

Members of the Physiology Society asked that the meeting scheduled for Israel be moved to Rhodes. IAFI suggested adding a satellite meeting to occur immediately before or after the main meeting (this is frequently done for physiology meetings) that would be held in Israel. The idea was strongly supported, and IAFI will help plan and support this satellite meeting in Israel.

Meeting with Amit Duvshani – the student denied access to Prof. Andrew Wilkie’s lab for training

Amit is planning to apply to Columbia University for graduate school and was interviewed by Andy Marks at the Café to Go, just outside Tel Aviv University. Remarkably, just a few hours later that same evening, IAFI learned that Prof. Wilkie had been suspended by Oxford University and had decided to resign his position effective immediately due to his handling of Amit’s application to study in his laboratory.

Meeting with Itamar Rabinovitch, President of Tel Aviv University, and Dror Harats (co-organizer of the Eilat cardiovascular conference)

Rabinovitch agreed to help support the IAFI-sponsored study of the impact of the boycott on the Israeli academic community.

Alan Fuchsberg and Andy Marks meeting with Michael Sela, former director of the Weizmann Institute

Professor Sela, shown holding his guest sign-in book dating back to the 1960’s and containing many famous signatures, strongly supported the IAFI mission.