Professor Kanwisher's opening comments for the teach-in held on May 6th, 2002:

My name is Nancy Kanwisher. I am a faculty member at MIT and one of the organizers of this event, and I'll be acting as moderator today. I would like to make a few short remarks before we begin.

We meet here today at a very difficult time for the Middle East. Innocent Israeli and Palestinian civilians are being killed daily, and that very troubled part of the world is experiencing a new escalation in the cycle of fear, hatred, and mistrust.

Yet, despite the shocking scale of recent attacks there has been very little public discussion of these awful events on the Harvard and MIT campuses. It is one of the primary goals of this forum to initiate that discussion, addressing in a critical yet constructive way the current situation, its historical background, and what we might do about it.

A second goal of this event is to provide a forum for you to hear perspectives that have been under-represented, and background information that has been under-reported, in the mainstream media. In keeping with this goal, today's forum will take a critical look at current Israeli policy. Though the situation in the middle east is often depicted as symmetrical, with Israelis and Palestinians sharing equally in the blame for the current crisis, our speakers will point out some important asymmetries in the situation that will have to be understood if we are to find a way out of this crisis.

The fact that today's forum focuses on the history and plight of the Palestinian people does not mean that we have no concern for the plight of Israelis. We categorically condemn the recent attacks on Israeli civilians. Many of the signers of our divestment petition and many of the speakers today either live in Israel, or have close friends, family, and colleagues in Israel. We fear for their safety, and we sympathize deeply with them in the tragedy of the recent attacks.

I would like to take a minute to highlight several ideas that are distinct, but that get run together in much of the discussion of these issues:

First and foremost, a concern for Palestinian human rights is NOT the same thing as a lack of concern for Israel or Israelis.

Second, criticism of the Israeli Occupation is NOT the same thing as hatred of Israel or Israelis.

It is NOT the same thing as antisemitism.

And it is NOT the same thing as an endorsement of suicide bombings.

I think it is a confusion of these distinct ideas that has led to the striking implicit "code of silence" on our campuses against criticizing Israeli policies or expressing concern for Palestinian human rights. But these ideas are distinct. It is only the truest friend that will tell you when he or she thinks your actions are misguided. Israelis need to hear these opinions, and they need to hear them from us. They need to hear these criticisms not only because they must stop abusing the rights of Palestinians, but also because they are endangering themselves with the brutal occupation. And it is not crazy to think that current Israeli policies are also endangering us here in the US.

OK, just a few comments about the proceedings.

In the spirit of education and productive discussion, we ask that you be respectful and quiet when the speakers are talking.

The speakers will take questions after their talks. We ask you to line up at one of the microphones in the aisles. Let's have no more than three people in either line at a time. Questions will be limited to one minute each, to give as many of you as possible a chance to ask your question. As moderator, I will exercise my discretion in judging the relevance of questions, and I'll ask you to stop if I feel you are not on point, or if you are using more than your time.

OK, without further ado, I would like to introduce our first speaker.


Dr. Sara Roy is a Senior Research Scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard, where she completed her doctoral studies in international development. Trained as a political economist, Dr. Roy has worked in the Gaza Strip and West Bank since 1985, conducting research primarily on the economic, social and political development of the Gaza Strip and on U.S. foreign aid to the region. Dr. Roy 's current research, which is funded by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, examines the social and economic sectors of the Palestinian Islamic movement and the critical changes it has undergone in the last five years. Dr. Roy is the author of several books, including: The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-development (1995, 2001), now in its second edition; and The Gaza Strip Survey (1986). She is editor of The Economics of Middle East Peace: A Reassessment (1999); and is currently completing Political Islam in Palestine: From Extremism to Civism. In addition to her academic work, Dr. Roy has served as a consultant to international organizations, the U.S. government, human rights organizations, private voluntary organizations, and private business groups working in the Middle East.
Her title for today is "Why the Oslo Process Failed".

Yosef Grodzinsky is a Prof in the department of psychology iatTel-Aviv University. In addition to his professional activities, he has been a long time activist in a variety of joint Jewish-Arab political and human rights groups. He has also written extensively on Jewish History. His book "good human material", on the Zionist and Jewish Holocaust servivors in displaced person's camps, was published in Tel-Aviv in 1998.
His title is "The Only Democracy in the Middle East".

Danny Fox is a professor in the Linguistics department at MIT, and an Israeli citizen. He will say a few words about our concern for the Israeli population and about the potential relevance of anti-semitism.

Our next speaker is Professor Noam Chomsky. It is often said that a speaker needs no introduction, but this is one of the few cases in which that is literally true. I'll simply note that Professor Chomsky is one of the most important thinkers alive today. He played a major role--if not THE role--in creating my own field of cognitive science, and he continues to publish major books in that field at a remarkable rate. He is at least as well known for his unfaltering commitment to the defense of human rights around the world, and for his detailed and scholarly analyses of the US responsibility for human rights abuses from Central America to South East Asia to the Middle East.
His title is: "Our Role, Our Responsibilities".

Ra'ef Zreik received a law degree in 1988 from the Hebrew University of J **, an masters in law from Columbia in 2001, and he is now a doctoral candidate at Harvard Law School. He has practiced law for 10 years, specializing in land law, environmental law, and zoning and media law. He has also been chairperson of several nongovernmental organizations that deal with civil rights for the Palestinians in Israel. He is on the editorial board of "Theory and Criticism", a journal of philosophy, culture, and critical theory, and he has written extensively in Arabic, Hebrew, and English on issues of citizenship and identity. His title is: " Occupation: Realities and Representations"

Faisal Chaudhry is a law student at Harvard. He has been active as a member of the Boston chapter of the East TImor Action Network and in United for Justice with Peace, a Boston-wide coalition that assembled after the events of September 11 to urge a considered reaction rather than destructive military reprisal.

OK, without further ado, I would like to introduce our first speaker.