Olive Tree Initiative logo
(Hat tip to OC Independent Task Force on Anti-Semitism, from which most of this posting is taken.
The below linked letters are in regards to UC-Irvine's Olive Tree Initiative, in which Jewish, Muslim, Christian and other students are sent to the Holy Land every year to be exposed to both pro-and anti-Israel voices. A controversy has erupted within Orange County's Jewish community over donations used to pay for Jewish students being exposed to activists who are allegedly working to deligitimze and ultimately destroy Israel.
What follows is a letter written by UC Santa Cruz adjunct teacher Tammi Rossman-Benjamin complaining about the OTI's program. Next is a response by OTI co-founder and director Daniel Wehrenfennig of UCI. Finally a response by Ms Rossman-Benjamin to Wehrenfennig's letter.
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"Dear Mr. Elcott and Mr. Fruchtman: (CEO of OC Jewish Federation and Director of UCI Hillel respectively)
I am a faculty member at UCSC and a Jewish educator, who has been working with many organizations and members of the community to combat anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism on my own and other UC campuses, including at UC Irvine.
Last week I received the letters which you sent on behalf of the Orange County Federation and Hillel, which shamefully attacked a member of your Jewish community for expressing deep concern about the overtly anti-Israel nature of a Federation-funded and Hillel-promoted program, the Olive Tree Initiative. I am writing to you to affirm that I and a great many others share that community member's concerns.
Here's why:
As you know, the OTI sends students for a two-week trip to Israel and the disputed territories. During that time students meet with over 50 individuals and groups, an approximately equal number of Israelis and Palestinians, with some international and Jordanian speakers. Overall, there is a clear anti-Israel pro-Palestinian tilt to the OTI.
Of the Palestinian speakers and groups who addressed the students on the most recent OTI trip (Sept. 2010), the overwhelming majority have expressed an overt animus towards the Jewish state, including by advocating for its elimination or for measures to harm her, or by allying with terrorist groups that perpetrate violence against Jews. Over one-third of the Palestinian speakers have advocated boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. Moreover, at least two of the Israeli speakers represent organizations which engage in relentless Israel bashing, and several other speakers on the Israeli side have been harshly critical of Israeli government policy. In addition, two of the four supposedly neutral international organizations, whose representatives made presentations to the OTI students, are well-known for their virulently anti-Israel bias.
The following is an alphabetized list of the 15 most egregiously anti-Israel speakers and organizations from the 2010 OTI trip, with links to their anti-Israel statements and activities:
Ayed Al Azzeh (representative of the Al-Rowwad Center)
The Al-Rowwad Center is a signatory of the Palestinian Call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions.
The Al-Rowwad Center is closely allied with organizations that engage in anti-Semitic activity and seek to harm the Jewish state, including: Badil, Al-Awda, and the Palestine Children's Welfare Fund.
Sam Bahour (Palestinian entrepreneur and businessman)
He is a signatory to the recent California Divestment from Israel Initiative, which calls on the State of California to force two public employee pension funds (with total investment portfolios of $300 billion) to divest from companies that support Israeli settlement or supply military supplies or services to Israel.
This year he published an article expressing support for BDS, in which he wrote that "the tools of boycott, divestment and sanctions are much more powerful non-violent methods than negotiating in vain with a government bent on ethnic cleansing."
Breaking the Silence (BtS) (an Israeli NGO). According to the NGO Monitor:
BtS actively promotes "war crimes" charges against Israel.
BtS conducts tours to Hebron and South Hebron Hills and are criticized by Israeli police officials for "antagoniz[ing]...settlers in the hope that the settlers will attack them."
BtS members were on the "Jews for Justice for Palestinians" boat which recently tried to violate Israel's blockade of Gaza.
Bill Van Esvald (Analyst for Human Rights Watch)
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an anti-Israel organization, whose anti-Israel bias was even criticized by Richard Bernstein, HRW's founder.
In 2004, HRW joined the anti-Israel boycott movement by calling on Caterpillar to suspend sales to Israel
John Ging (Director of UNRWA in Gaza)
He has promoted political warfare targeting Israel, including by supporting the "Free Gaza flotillas" and the demonization of Israel.
According to NGO Monitor, "UNRWA schools and other facilities are often used to teach hatred and encourage incitement; the evidence demonstrates that UNWRA staff allowed terror related activities in its camps."
Ir Amim (an Israeli NGO)
NGO Monitor accuses Ir Amim of relentless Israel bashing, promoting the Palestinian narrative, and blaming Israel for the failure of the peace process.
Yehudit Elkana, the chair of Ir Amim's board of directors, signed a 2002 petition demanding "that governments end military assistance to Israel, suspend economic ties, and support the prosecution of war criminals, and urge other states to do so."
Qadoura Mousa (Governor of Jenin)
He supports BDS and recently said that "boycott is an important measure of the will and the patience of the Palestinian people...It must succeed. We have to show the Israelis that they cannot continue to occupy our land illegally without consequences."
Prof. Mazim Qumsiyeh (Bethlehem University)
He is the co-founder of Al-Awda, an organization which opposes Israel's right to exist, has links to Hamas and Hezbollah, and is a leader in the BDS movement.
He co-founded the Boycott Israeli Goods campaign.
According to the ADL, he "often equates Israel interchangeably with apartheid South Africa and Nazi Germany and his arguments frequently focus on "Zionist" control of American foreign policy. Qumsiyeh fundamentally rejects a two-state solution..."
Munib Masri (a member of the Palestine Legislative Council and former Jordanian Cabinet Minister)
In a 2009 interview, he lionized Yassir Arafat and whitewashed Hamas leader Khaled Mashal.
George N. Rishmawi (co-founder, The International Solidarity Movement (ISM), current director of Palestinian Center for Rapprochement)
In a 2008 document which he authored in the name of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement (PCR), Rishmawi called on activists to "initiate boycotts, divestments and sanctions at all levels and including asking leaders to expel the Israeli ambassadors (an ambassador of an apartheid and rogue state)."
The PCR is under the aegis of the ISM, an organization that, according to a Jewish Federations of North America webpage, has links to terrorist organizations, openly advocates the destruction of Israel, and sends activists and unsuspecting volunteers (often university students like Rachel Corrie) into life-threatening situations in order to protect known terrorists. In addition, the ISM is a leader in the global BDS movement and has been a signatory or supporter of many BDS campaigns, including on UC campuses.
George S. Rishmawi (co-founder, The International Solidarity Movement (ISM), co-ordinator/co-founder Siraj Center for Holy Land Studies and a tour guide and primary contact of the OTI in the West Bank)
He is on staff at the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement (PCR), an organization run by his cousin George N. Rishmawi, which is under the aegis of the ISM (see above).
The Siraj Center for Holy Land Studies, which "provides alternative tours for tourists that make them more aware of the situation in Palestine," is owned by the PCR and is the main project of the PCR's Travel Department. (See above for more information on the links between the PCR and the ISM).
In a 2004 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, he (or his cousin George N. Rishmawi, see above) said that the ISM's main purpose is to increase awareness of Palestinian suffering through the involvement of foreign activists who pay their own way to the West Bank, adding that "if some of these foreign volunteers get shot or even killed, then the international media will sit up and take notice."
In 2005 he wrote, "I believe the right of return is the most important issue because it helps finishing [sic] Zionist Israel."
Ibrahim Sarsur (most senior Arab politician in the Knesset, party leader of the United Arab List)
At a 2007 conference, he called on Muslims and Arabs to "liberate Jerusalem."
Raja Shehadeh (Founder, Al Haq)
Al Haq is a Palestinian NGO which is a leader in NGO lawfare against Israel and the BDS movement.
Dr. Husam Zomlot (Deputy, Central Committee Fatah, PLO representative to the UK 2003 - 2008)
He was a Palestinian delegate to a 2007 international conference entitled "End Israeli Occupation -- Freedom for Palestine: Building a New Anti-Apartheid Movement," organized by the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, a major promoter of assaults on the Jewish state through lawfare and BDS.
In August 2010, he spoke at a conference in Cambridge Massachusetts exploring "Israel's continuing siege of Gaza in the aftermath of the massacre of peace activists taking part in the Free Gaza flotilla." Zomlot said the Free Gaza flotilla was "the most effective way of confronting Israel," and he lauded the work of the International Solidarity Movement.
Zoughbi Zoughbi (Founder and Director of the Wi'am Center)
He wrote an article in which he called for boycotting anything produced in the Israeli settlements and divesting from any business or activity that prolongs and strengthens the occupation, "as well as to impose sanctions on Israel to succumb to the international agreements."
The Wi'am Center is a signatory of the Palestinian Call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions.
Students who go on such a trip and hear such speakers cannot help but return to their UC campuses with negative feelings about the Jewish state. For example, one non-Jewish UCSC student, who participated in the 2010 OTI trip, wrote this in her blog after touring a Palestinian refugee camp: "I will never understand how Israel offers Jews from the diaspora a right of return from 4,000 years ago, and denies Palestinians the right of return from 60 years ago. The math feels racist." I believe the OTI will exacerbate the already serious problems that Jewish students face on UC campuses.
In addition, as a Jewish educator who cares deeply about fostering Jewish identity, I was very upset to see the lack of sensitivity to Jewish faith and tradition shown on the recent OTI trip. After arriving in Israel late Friday afternoon September 3rd, students were taken directly to the Old City for Shabbat dinner. However immediately after that, at 9pm on Shabbat evening, they traveled to Bethlehem, stayed in a hotel there, and spent all of Shabbat day touring Bethlehem and Ramallah. Even worse, on the following Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, Jewish students spent the two days of Rosh Hashana and Shabbat evening and morning in Jordan, touring the country and meeting with speakers, oblivious to the holiness of these days. Instead of festive Rosh Hashanah and Shabbat meals, Jewish students participated in dinners associated with the Muslim holiday of Ramadan. And ironically, although the schedule indicates that Muslim students were given the opportunity to attend prayer services during their time in Jordan, no similar opportunities were extended to Jewish students during Rosh Hashana and Shabbat.
Jewish organizations, including many of those copied on this letter, spend millions of dollars and countless man-hours each year combating the rampant anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism found on college campuses today. It is unconscionable for Jewish communal resources to be used for the support of such a program. I urge you to reconsider your funding and promotion of the Olive Tree Initiative.
Furthermore, I strongly recommend that you look at the excellent funding guidelines recently adopted by the Jewish Community Federations of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin, and Sonoma Counties. These guidelines ensure that grantees do not endorse or promote anti-Semitism, or advocate or endorse "undermining the legitimacy of Israel...through participation in the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement in whole or in part." Were you to adopt such a policy, I believe it would go a long way towards increasing confidence in your organizations within the Jewish community you serve.
I and the thousands of community members who will read this email look forward to your reply.
Sincerely,
Tammi Rossman-Benjamin
CC: Organizations that have expressed concern about anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism on UC campuses:
Americans for a Safe Israel
American Freedom Alliance
American Jewish Committee
Anti-Defamation League
CAMERA
Chabad Student Centers on UC Campuses
Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors
David Project
Hasbara Fellows
Hillels on UC campuses
International Hillel
Israel on Campus Coalition
Israel Peace Initiative
Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco the Peninsula, Marina and Sonoma Counties
Jewish Community Relations Council
Jewish Federation of the East Bay
Jewish National Fund
Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa (JIMENA)
National Council of Young Israel
Orange County Independent Task Force on Anti-Semitism
Orthodox Union
Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism
Scholars for Peace in the Middle East
Simon Wiesenthal Center
Stand With Us
United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism
USD/Hagshama World Zionist Organization
Zionist Organization of America
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Below is the response by OTI Director, Mr Wehrenfennig and Ms. Rossman-Benjamin's response. (Mr Wehrenfennig's letter is second.)
http://octaskforce.wordpress.com/2010/12/14/tammi-rossman-benjamins-response-to-dr-daniel-wehrenfennig-director-of-the-uci-olive-tree-initiative/#more-3422
Update: Today (12-15-19), I received Mr Wehrenfennig's response to Ms Rossman-Benjamin and with his permission, I attach it here.
"Dear Tammi Rossman-Benjamin,
Thank you for your response to my letter and voicing your concerns. I am
sorry if I offended you. I write this to you personally and am copying the
other people you copied in your letter below and in your previous email.
I very much value your concerns. I invite you and anyone else who is
interested to come to UCI to speak to and get to know the students and
faculty involved in the Olive Tree Initiative (OTI). This is the best way
to see evidence of the results of an educational program that enables
students to engage with different narratives of this conflict in a safe
academic environment so that they can distinguish between propaganda and
facts. This is a powerful educational tool. I encourage you and others to
talk to all the students who have been involved in the program in the past
few years about what they have learned and how they have built bridges of
understanding across the divide on our campus and beyond, one person at a
time.
I look forward to hosting you at UCI and anyone else who is interested.
Respectfully,
Daniel Wehrenfennig, Ph.D.
Director, Olive Tree Initiative
University of California, Irvine"
10 comments:
Gary, your presentation is pathetically biased. Since this is your own blog, you can be as biased as you want, but you offer a veneer in this post of "balanced" presentation of both sides. What you did was to post the entire text of the UC-Santa Cruz professor's critique, then a LINK to a site which HIGHLIGHTED her reply to OTI's response, then, way down at the bottom, actually allowed the reader to find out what OTI had to say.
You have critiqued political correctness at UC-Santa Cruz many times, in many ways, and many of your criticisms are legitimate. This particular Jewish professor is offering her own brand of political correctness.
It is to be expected that many of the Palestinians students meet with on the Olive Tree tour will be harshly critical of Israel. This represents real sentiment in much of the Palestinian population. It is something students need to understand and come to grips with. It is real. It exists. It is on the table. It must be considered and responded to in any peace process.
To characterize the entire OTI as "anti-Israel" because it introduces students to an accurate understanding of very real hostility to Israel is childish. To object to the fact that a small percentage of Jewish speakers are also critical of the Israeli government verges on the totalitarian. If there are not Israelis critical of their own government, I would question what sort of "democracy" existed in Israel.
Referencing the mass slaughter of Jewish people in Nazi-occupied Europe is intellectually bankrupt. Jews in Israel may be under seige, but they are not a vulnerable minority at the mercy of a dominant government. They are the military power of the region, benefiting from financial support from around the world, for various reasons.
Ah, the latest exchange of emails where critics of OTI cite no students, and use entirely their own thoughts and online research. Academia at it's finest
Siarlys,
I posted the entire letter because I overlooked the fact that I had previously posted it in its entirety. What I cross-posted had her response first, then Wehrenfennig's letter.
Defense is Israel can never be called politically-correct.
Matan,
I don't cite students by name either because they are students and I am a teacher.
BTW, Have you seen Rabbi Dov Fischer's latest missives? They seriously call into question the balance of the OTI.
Matan,
While you may not be aware of or simply naive with good intentions, in my opinion, the OTI is a subversive organization who uses Jewish students and resources to facilitate the objective of Israel’s enemy --- the destruction of the Jewish State.
And while I appreciated dialog with any one who disagrees with Israel, one can never reach out to an intractable enemy that created a false narrative with one objective in mind, the destruction of the Jewish state. Acquiescing to the Arab/Palis false narrative will only lead Israel to oblivion.
Palestine was never a sovereign power or that the Arabs who came there en mass to seek work since the 1920's have any legal rights to the land allocated to the Jewish people after WWI per the 1922 Palestine Mandate doc., valid to date. See www.CILR.com
The Arabs received 99.9% of the land mass that fell in the hand of the allies after WWI. But that is not enough for them, they want that tiny Israel too and for that they are willing to sacrifices their own people. They created a political entity called "Palestinians" so that Israel is destroyed. Palestinian people hood does not exist even as we speak!
The Arabs themselves despised that word "Palestinians" claiming it was a Zionist invention until it was convenient for them to use it for their ultimate goal, the destruction of Israel.
Please, study this link carefully to learn who is really Dr. Daniel Wehrenfennig and what he really believe in: http://octaskforce.wordpress.com/2010/12/14/more-criticism-of-the-olive-tree-initiative/
Dr. Daniel Wehrenfennig, Director of the Olive Tree Institute is affiliated with the most virulent anti-Israel propagandist characters such as Gershon Shafir, Richard Falk, Mazin Qumsiyeh, and George S. Rishmawi Et Al. It has already done damage confusing and frustrating Jewish impressionable minds by brain washing them with the Israel’s intractable enemy, the Arabs/Palis, false narrative. Make no bones about it!
Israel enemy is sophisticated and will use any mean to reach its shameless goal.
I was born and grew up in Israel and I am over 60 years old. I turned every stone there and saw in my own eyes. The place was mostly barren, but the Jews made the place flourish and the life of the Arab there only improved beyond their dream, but many of them are self destructive. Their hatred of the Jews eclipses their own good.
Most of the Arabs, who came there, only discovered Palestine when the Jews began to rebuild their ancestral, historical and legal home in that area.
Don't be a fool. Obviously, Siarlys Jenkins like many of the Jew Haters on this planet can’t wait to see Israel destroyed. They simply don’t get it but, Israel is in the front line defending not only her own survival but also democracy and freedom for us all. Thus must be fully supported by the West.
Let Siarlys Jenkins and the like invest their energy and resources in reforming the Arab/Muslim world. They would be a better service to humanity and the ordinary people in the Arab/Muslim world!
Anonymous needs to take lessons in political reality from William F. Buckley, Jr., who insightfully pointed out that diplomacy and compromise occur ONLY with those one CANNOT disregard or destroy or neutralize. If Israel could have eliminated the menace that exists within the Palestinian population, it would have done so by now. It hasn't.
"one can never reach out to an intractable enemy that created a false narrative with one objective in mind, the destruction of the Jewish state."
Don't be silly. If the intractable enemy cannot be eliminated, or cannot be eliminated without paying an acceptable price, the necessary alternative, however distasteful, is to reach out to them. The Palestinian Authority is responding to the reality that they cannot "drive the Jews into the sea," however much they may wish to, or have wished to. The next generation may have to learn that lesson all over again, at considerable cost to Israel as well as to themselves, if Israel doesn't make a reasonable accommodation.
It is no part of a reasonable accommodation to lay down their arms or demobilize their military. They merely have to turn over full sovereignty to the PA of territory they have separated from themselves with a very effective border fence, swap land to incorporate the existing settlements, and stop building new settlements.
Then they can stop patrolling the West Bank, and focus on protecting their own well-fenced lands. The PA, economically, needs Israel, and they know it.
Incidentally, there is no reason that Jewish or other students who take the OTI seminars need come back WON OVER to the thinking of the Palestinians they speak to. They merely need to understand that such people exist, and are part of the world any Jew or gentile needs to deal with.
Matan,
As someone who forged names on the "student letter," you're not one to talk about academic integrity. Any credibility you may have had no longer exists as a result of your unethical actions.
Siarlys Jenkins forgets for some odd reason the fact that the Arab/Palis had it all before the 1967 war. There was not even one Jew on these territories that legally belonged to the Hebrew state.
And no one deny that these Arabs/refugees/Palestinians/Jordanian citizens exist but they are not a distinct people. They exist under false identity. The PLO charter states that are integral part of the Arab nation.
Jordan is Palestine too. More than 80% of its population is comprised of Arabs now called Palestinians, Queen Rania is Palestinian, its flag is the same, a dot differed. And to top it off, Jordan in it current charter also state that its identity is the same as the people now called "Palestinians" Jordan indeed should absorb them and we might eliminate the problem for all.
Also, FYI. In the 1920's, Hebron was mostly Jewish but the Arab chased the Jews away and slaughtered many of the Jews. Gush Etzyon, Gaza and much other area were inhabited by the Jews prior to 1948. Then the British chopped up Palest and created another Arab country called Jordan from an area that was allocated to the Jews to begin with.
However, after 1967 Israel began to build roads, hospitals, schools to accommodate those Arabs Jordanian citizens. Their lives improved beyond their wildest dreams. Under the King Hussein who illegally annexed that area, the few Arabs who lived there barely had electricity, water or even toilets. But what these Arabs/Palis chose to do? Destroy their lives over night resorting to terror hoping to destroy Israel.
Let's the Arab world absorb their own people for a change. Why should the Hebrew state accommodate an intractable enemy? And I am sure William F. Buckley, Jr. would agree with me.
And how about Siarlys Jenkins gives back America to the Amerindians whose land was truly stolen and whose people were slaughtered too.
Get real, Siarlys Jenkins and the like!
It was King Abdullah who illegally annexed a portion of the British Mandate of Palestine, not his son, Hussein. He had hopes of making the Jewish settlers into useful subjects. No dice. If you look at a map of the UN plan put together in 1948, the "West Bank" was not lawfully Israeli territory, although they might have come out better if they had openly annexed it in 1967, and offered citizenship to all the residents.
Jordan's population is indeed majority Palestinian. That's why "Black September" and PFLP tried to overthrow the Jordanian monarchy. Whether that would work to Israel's benefit is another matter, especially now.
You know a few things, however anonymous you remain, but you don't put them together very well. Accommodating an independent state in the West Bank is not absorbing an Arab population - as annexation would have been. It is recognizing that the people who happen to live there are also entitled to self-determination.
You complain about Jews in Hebron, then suggest I should invite the Amerindians to take back all of North America? The Jews lost Hebron, the Indians lost America. That's on about the same moral footing, which is neither here nor there for what we do know.
The 181 UN resolution partition plan of Nov. 1947 never referrers to the area west of the Jordan River as the "West Bank" but as Judea and Samaria. That term “West Bank” only came to being by King Hussein and his father who did their best to erase Jewish history in Judea and Samaria after they illegally annexed the area. And this 181 UN Resolution was a mere recommendation, while in violation of the 1922 Palestine Mandate document and the UN own Charter chapter 80. See and www.CILR.org and http://www.mythsandfacts.com/
After the 1967 King Hussein relinquished Judea and Samaria. He knew the truth, he knew that it was legally and in accordance to the bible, if one believe in it, belong to the Jewish people.
And the Amerindian and the Jews of Hebron and Judea and Samaria did not LOOSE their land; it was STOLEN from them as well they were savagely murdered.
And Anonymous I remained because it is simply faster than registering and going through the process.
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