The Denver Post -- Letters to the Editor -- 09-09-02

Let voices be heard

"College under fire for speech; GOP trio tries to stop Palestinian's address," August 28th news story

Although admittedly isolated on this issue within the Jewish community, as a long-time Jewish resident of Colorado, I welcome Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, Palestinian intellectual and political leader from the West Bank, to our fair state.

I know Dr. Ashrawi to be an important and representative voice of her people, a voice of moderation within the Palestinian movement deserving to be heard.

I am compelled to write these words as the swirl of publicity surrounding Dr. Ashrawi's visit to Colorado Springs and Boulder becomes more strident. It is with sadness that I watch this campaign unfold, so mired in emotionalism. There is something profoundly undemocratic - and un-Jewish - about it all. I want no part of it.

While the organizing impetus for this campaign comes from Denver's very own homegrown Jewish Sharon supporters and fundamentalists, others have joined in the chorus too. Those whose voices are the loudest might speak for some in Denver's Jewish community, but they don't speak for me.

I know there are other voices, other tendencies within the community, that are more reasonable and humane on the Middle East and other issues - voices that don't try to hide behind the Bible to defend Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

But these voices have been rather shy of late, more so here than even in Israel. They would be doing the Jewish community - indeed all of Colorado - a service by exerting a calming influence, by countering those who thrive on fomenting the politics of fear. But for the moment, with a few exceptions, these voices are either silent or speaking very softly. Too softly to hear. A pity.

Why drag Ashrawi through the mud? Two great debates on foreign policy are taking shape at the moment: one on whether the U.S. should invade Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein; and another on the future of U.S. policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a related but separate issue.

As these debates intensify, the underlying rationale for U.S. policy throughout the region, based so much on maintaining our growing addiction to foreign oil, is coming to the surface, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict gets placed in its broader perspective, as does the ongoing campaign against Iraq.

Both debates could prove to be far-reaching, profound dialogues in the spirit of American democracy. Israel's conservative supporters are aware of these realities and have responded by doing their best to shape the emerging dialogue by limiting the scope of the participants. But the issue, which has implications for world peace (or war), is too important to be muzzled.

Denver got a taste of the Ashrawi episode about six months ago when the Denver Museum of Science and Nature held a series of educational events on the Middle East - the museum's contribution to the public discussion on post-Sept. 11 politics. As with Colorado College today, considerable pressure was put on the museum to change the speakers who, despite being professional and knowledgeable, were not to the liking of some in the Jewish community.

To its credit, the museum did not buckle under this pressure. I hope that, although the pressure is more intense this time, Colorado College follows in that democratic tradition.

The debate over the Israeli-Palestinian crisis unfolding in this country is one of the most important public discussions of the future of U.S. foreign policy. It needs to be broadened, not narrowed. Certainly, the American people have to listen carefully to the different visions of how to break the cycle of violence between the two peoples whose fates will be forever linked and to move towards peace. There will be other voices, but certainly that of Ashrawi should be considered and not so rudely swept aside.

ROB PRINCE

Denver