Hans Fisher and I would like
to thank all of you for agreeing to sign the "A Plea for Clarity" letter
that is scheduled to appear as a full-page advertisement in the Targum
on Monday, November 12th. In the interest of complete accuracy, we
have made only one small correction to the text of the ad, noting that
"part of the Pentagon" was destroyed rather than "much of the
Pentagon." We received many suggestions for improvement, but
since so many people already had agreed to sign, we decided
not to incorporate any other suggestions, no matter how useful they
might have been when the letter still was in draft form. This is
the only suggestion that we are incorporating in the interest of complete
truth.
We are e-mailing you the
letter itself and the list of signatories in both cut-and-paste form and
as attachments for those who
can download them. We are asking that you do three things:
1. Please check the spelling of your name, your rank, and your Rutgers
affiliation(s) to make sure that we have represented them
in accordance with your stated desires. We did omit the Rutgers
distinction between Professors I and II since very few people
outside of faculty understand what it represents, and we wanted to
avoid needless confusion. If there are any mistakes in this
information, please e-mail me the correct information by Monday,
November 5th at 2:00 P.M.
2. If you believe that this letter would be useful to colleagues
on the faculty of other colleges and universities, you are welcome to
encourage them to circulate it for signatures and to reprint its text
in their own campus publications or to create alternative letters
better suited to local campus conditions.
3. There is a possibility that we may be able to obtain funding
to have this letter and its signatures reprinted in a major newspaper
like The New York Times. If you would prefer to have your name
appear on only the Targum ad and not to have it
reprinted in another major newspaper should such funding become available,
please e-mail me by Monday,
November 5th at 2:00 P.M., and I will arrange to have the printer
remove your name from the reprinted copy.
If you wish to speak with
me, I can be reached at work at 732-932-8650 and at home at 732-819-8109
until 11:00 P.M.
(please do not call on the Sabbath).
Here is the cut-and-paste version of "A Plea for Clarity":
A Plea for Clarity in the Murky Academic Debate about War and Terrorism
In the wake of the September 11th terrorist attack on the United
States, once the initial shock diminished much of the response
from the academic community has come in the form of a well organized
anti-war movement. That movement has branded any
military response to terrorism by our government as proof of anti-Islamic
prejudice and essentially a form of
government-sponsored anti-Islamic terrorism. Those who have supported
our government’s efforts to root out terrorism have
been far less successful at articulating our position in a public forum
and at clarifying the terms of the debate. This letter is a plea
for such clarity.
1. There is no excuse for acts of terrorism like those that destroyed
the World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon. Terrorism
involves deliberately targeting innocent civilians for maiming and
death and aims at destroying the peaceful way of life of a civilian
population in the interest of an ideological agenda. Terrorism
has no regard for the sanctity of human life. Terrorists’ willingness
to sacrifice their own lives for a cause does not thereby cloak them
with the moral right to take the lives of the innocent.
2. Terrorism is ecumenical in its targets. Those who died in the
bombing of the World Trade Center represented citizens from at
least 48 states and at least 62 nations. There were Christians,
Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, agnostics, and atheists among the
victims, who ranged in age from infants to the elderly.
3. Our government has made every possible effort to proclaim the fact
that the American response is a war against terrorists and
not against Islam. Government officials at the national, state,
and municipal level repeatedly have met with Muslim leaders and
vigorously condemned all acts of prejudice or reprisal against those
of the Islamic faith or those who are or appear to be of Middle
Eastern origin.
4. Just as Osama bin Laden succeeded in using our own technology against
us in making plastic box cutters the instrument by
which airplanes could be hijacked and turned into bombs, so has he
succeeded in using the freedom of our press against us by
broadcasting a propaganda message in which he linked the Al Qaeda cause
to that of the Palestinians engaged in a second
Intifada against Israel. We should be proud of the freedoms of
our open society and should seek to maintain the kind of freedom
that the Taliban never allow in territory that it controls. However,
it is the responsibility of the press and the academic community
to point out that Osama bin Laden introduced the Palestinian cause
after the fact. His invocation of the Intifada was merely an
opportunistic attempt to gain some American and international support
from those who favor the Palestinian cause or who have
reservations about American and Israeli policy in the Middle East.
5. There are those who have argued that the September 11th acts of terrorism
are a response to American support of Israel and
are understandable, and perhaps even justifiable, on those grounds.
Not only is Osama bin Laden’s support for the Palestinian
cause a mere afterthought, but the Al Qaeda network of terrorists is
committed not merely to avenging specific objectionable
American acts, but rather to destroying the American way of life.
Islamic fundamentalist terrorists are opposed to all forms of
modernity, so anyone on the globe who supports modernity or lives a
modern way of life is a potential target of terrorism.
6. As a result, there is no way to appease such terrorists. The
only choice is to make every reasonable effort to root them out.
We may not all agree about the degree to which we are willing to circumscribe
our civil liberties in the interest of wartime
security. We may not all agree on the efficacy of certain military
strategies. We have a free society and should protect the right
of our citizenry and our press to criticize our government even in
wartime. However, we should unite in the aim of destroying
terrorism root and branch. Our government has made every effort
to make this war as surgically clean as possible, trying to limit
our war efforts to military and terrorist targets, and to provide food
and supplies to innocent civilians fleeing the war zone.
However, it was not our decision to launch the violence. That
decision was made by terrorists who attacked us on September
11th. It must be our resolve to insure that our world will not
be governed by terror, that the free world will resist terrorism by all
means necessary, including military means, so that all of us can live
free of terror and hopefully in peace with one another.
Here is the cut-and-paste version of the list of signatories and the blurb announcing the source of payment for the ad:
Saul Amarel, Alan M. Turing Professor of Computer Science
Myron Aronoff, Professor of Political Science
Ross Baker, Professor of Political Science
Robert Benford, Associate Professor, Department of Dance, Mason Gross
School
of the Arts
Kenneth Carlson, Professor, Graduate School of Education
Eric Davis, Associate Professor of Political Science
David Ehrenfeld, Professor, Department of Ecology, Evolution and Natural
Resources
Joan Ehrenfeld, Professor, Department of Ecology, Evolution and Natural
Resources
Yakov Epstein, Professor of Psychology, Director Center for Mathematics,
Science and Computer Education
Leslie Fishbein, Associate Professor, American Studies and Jewish Studies
Hans Fisher, Professor of Nutritional Biochemistry
Daniel Fishman, Professor, Graduate School of Professional Psychology
Gary Gigliotti, Professor of Economics
Angus Kress Gillespie, Professor, American Studies
Peter B. Golden, Professor of History, Rutgers-Newark
Alan Goldman, Professor of Chemistry
Sheldon Goldstein, Professor, Departments of Mathematics and Physics
Martha Greenblatt, Professor of Chemistry
Paul Griminger, Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Sciences
Gerald Grob, Professor Emeritus, Institute for Health, Health Care Policy
and Aging Research
Sandra Harris, Professor, Graduate School of Professional Psychology
Milton Heumann, Professor of Political Science
George Horton, Professor of Physics
Allan Horwitz, Professor of Sociology
Arnold Hyndman, Professor of Cell Biology and Neurobiology; Dean, Livingston College
Isaac Idery, Associate Professor, Department of Molecular Biology and
Biochemistry
Robert R. Kaufman, Professor of Political Science
Doyle Knight, Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Joachim Kohn, Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry
Kenneth Kressel, Professor of Psychology, Rutgers-Newark
Jerome A. Langer, Associate Professor, University of Medicine and Dentistry
of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical
School, Member Rutgers Graduate School
Paul Leath, Professor of Physics
Howard Leventhal, Board of Governors Professor of Health Psychology
Ruth Mandel, Board of Governors Professor of Politics, Eagleton Institute
Joseph V. Martin, Associate Professor of Biology, Rutgers-Camden
Patricia Mayer, Professor, Department of Dance, Mason Gross School of
the
Arts
Wilson Carey McWilliams, Professor of Political Science
Stanley Messer, Professor, Graduate School of Professional Psychology
Joachim Messing, University Professor of Molecular Biology, Director
of
Waksman Institute
Naftaly Minsky, Professor of Computer Science
Robert Moss, Louis P. Hammett Professor of Chemistry
Joseph Naus, Professor of Statistics
David M. Oshinsky, Board of Governors Professor of History
Gerald M. Pomper, Board of Governors Professor Emeritus of Political Science
Barbara S. Reed, Associate Professor, Journalism and Mass Media, School of Communication, Information and Library Studies
Helane Rosenberg, Associate Professor, Department of Learning and Teaching,
Graduate School of Education
William M. Saidel, Associate Professor of Biology, Rutgers Camden
Mahlon H. Smith, Professor of Religion
Avraham Soffer, Professor of Mathematics
Jack Spector, Professor of Art History
Harry Stark, Professor Emeritus
Hector Sussmann, Professor of Mathematics
Jackson Toby, Professor of Sociology
William Vesterman, Associate Professor of English
Marc Weiner, Teaching Assistant, Political Science; Assistant
to the Director of the Walt Whitman Center for the Culture and
Politics of Democracy
Carol Weinstein, Professor, Graduate School of Education
Myoung Chung Wilson, Social Science Librarian, Alexander Library
Richard Wilson, Professor of Political Science
Hyman Zimmerberg, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics
This letter was paid for exclusively
by present and Emeritus members
of the faculty of Rutgers/The State University of New Jersey.
***************************************************************
Hans and I are grateful for your help and hope that this ad serves to refocus the campus discourse on war and terrorism.
Sincerely,
Leslie