CARTER USING NOBEL $ TO SEND BRANDEIS STUDENTS TO "PALESTINE"

Campus club organizing trip to Palestinian territories in February (Brandeis Univ. Justice)
Almost eight months after former President Jimmy Carter encouraged Brandeis students to visit the Palestinian territories in his address to the campus last January, a group of students is making that idea a reality.

A weeklong trip initiated by campus club Students Crossing Boundaries will send a delegation of eight to 10 students to the Palestinian territories during February break. Carter, the 39th United States president, offered $25,000 of the his 2002 Nobel Peace Prize money to help defray the costs of the trip, Carter Center spokeswoman Deanna Congileo wrote in an e-mail to the Justice Monday.

It hasn't been determined yet whether the students will also visit Israel, said Justin Kang '09, who is organizing the trip. SCB, which is made up of 13 students, wants to document Palestinian life through this trip, Kang said. He explained that the initiative is an academic endeavor without a political goal.

"We want to make sure that people understand that this isn't a political thing, but a personal and an academic thing to explore for ourselves," he said.

"We want to see and understand the living conditions in socioeconomic Palestine," Deborah Laufer '08, another SCB member, said.

Carter encouraged students to visit the Palestinian territories during his speech on campus last January, when he discussed his book on Middle Eastern politics, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. A group of students headed by Kevin Montgomery '07 tried to take Carter's lead by organizing a trip at that time, but the initiative ultimately failed after support from the administration fell through.

"This was entirely unexpected," Kang said about the smoothness of planning the trip. "I just followed through to see what would happen and what could be accomplished."

The money for the trip is coming from Carter personally, Kang emphasized. The Center will advise on the trip's logistics. Carter wants his gift to serve as a motivation to other donors, Congileo wrote in the e-mail.

The trip isn't affiliated with the University, Kang said. "We are all proud Brandeis students, but the University has no affiliation with this trip," he said.

HAMAS LOOTS ARAFAT'S HOME; STEALS HIS NOBEL PRIZE

Looters raid Arafat's home, steal his Nobel Peace Prize (JPost)
Enraged Fatah leaders on Saturday accused Hamas militiamen of looting the home of former Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat in Gaza City.

"They stole almost everything inside the house, including Arafat's Nobel Peace Prize medal," said Ramallah-based Fatah spokesman Ahmed Abdel Rahman. "Hamas militiamen and gangsters blew up the main entrance to the house before storming it. They stole many of Arafat's documents and files, gifts he had received from world leaders and even his military outfits."

Abdel Rahman said the attackers also raided the second floor of the house and stole the personal belongings of his widow, Suha, and daughter, Zahwa. "They stole all the widow's clothes and shoes," he added. "They also took Arafat's pictures with his daughter."

Eyewitnesses told The Jerusalem Post that dozens of Palestinians participated in the raid, which took place late Friday.

"Most of the looters were just ordinary citizens," they said. "They stole almost everything, including furniture, tiles, water pipes, closets and beds."

According to the Fatah spokesman, the raid on Arafat's house, which has been empty since 2001, occurred despite promises from Syria-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal to prevent such an attack.

NOBEL LAUREATES CONDEMN U.K. ACADEMIC BOYCOTT OF ISRAEL

Scholars urge solidarity amid boycott (JPOST)
A group of distinguished academics has issued a call to show solidarity with their Israeli counterparts following last month's move to boycott Israel by Britain's University College Union.

Led by law Prof. Alan Dershowitz of Harvard University, Steven Weinberg, a Nobel Prize laureate in physics from the University of Texas, and a task force against boycotts set up by Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, the group is urging scholars to sign a statement of solidarity with "our Israeli academics and professional colleagues," stressing that they will not participate "in any activity from which Israeli academics are excluded."

Their statement reads: "We are academics, scholars, researchers and professionals of differing religious and political perspectives. We all agree that singling out Israelis for an academic boycott is wrong... We, the undersigned, hereby declare ourselves to be Israeli academics for purposes of any academic boycott. We will regard ourselves as Israeli academics and decline to participate in any activity from which Israeli academics are excluded."

Along with Dershowitz and Weinberg, signatories to the solidarity call include:

Alexei Alexeyevich Abrikosov, Nobel laureate in Physics, from the Argonne National Laboratory, USA.

Stanley Deser, Dirac Medal winner from Brandeis University.

David Gross, Nobel laureate in Physics, from the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Roald Hoffmann, Frant H. T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters at Cornell University.

Avram Hershko, Nobel laureate Chemistry, from the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.

Daniel Kahneman, Nobel laureate in Economics, from Princeton University.

Eric R. Kandel, Nobel laureate in Medicine, from Columbia.

Roger Kornberg, Nobel laureate in Chemistry, from Stanford.

Arthur Kornberg, Nobel laureate in Medicine, from Stanford.

Marshall W. Nirenberg, Nobel laureate in Medicine and Biochemical Genetics, National Institutes of Health.

Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, Nobel laureate in Physics, from L'Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris.

Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University.

Frank Wilczek, Nobel laureate in Physics, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

HUNGARIAN HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR WINS LITERATURE NOBEL

A Hungarian Jew who survived Auschwitz wins Nobel for literature (JTA)
BUDAPEST, Oct. 10 (JTA) — An Auschwitz survivor who recently was criticized for defending Israel became the first Hungarian to win the Nobel prize for literature. The award to Imre Kertesz, 72, was announced Thursday. Hungarian Jews said the prize was gratifying to the entire community, while

Prime Minister Peter Medgyessy told Kertesz that because of him, “the citizens of Hungary can be proud to be Hungarians.”

Kertesz was deported from Budapest to Auschwitz and from there to Buchenwald, where he was liberated in 1945. His books, all of which deal with the Holocaust, have been especially popular in Germany.

Among his most popular books are “Without Fate,” an autobiographical account of his experiences in the Holocaust, and “Kaddish for a Child Not Born,” in which he condemned a world that permitted the Holocaust.

Kertesz has been a frequent target of the Hungarian far-right. Far-right writer Istvan Csurka condemned Kertesz for saying that “my luggage is never unpacked, waiting in my house to leave Hungary.”

Kertesz has been an outspoken critic of the far-right, often writing in Hungarian newspapers to condemn the anti-Semitism espoused by the nation’s extremists.

This spring, after Kertesz visited Jerusalem for a conference of Holocaust survivors sponsored by Yad Vashem, he was criticized in a Hungarian literary journal for writing a pro-Israel article.

NOBEL WINNER CANCELS UK SPEECH TO PROTEST JOURNO BOYCOTT OF ISRAEL

Nobel winner cancels UK speech to protest journalist union’s boycott of Israel (HOTAIR)
Not the first time he’s done this sort of thing either. And from the looks of things, it won’t be the last.

[T]oday in a letter to his host at Imperial, Michael Duff, Prof Weinberg said he was withdrawing from the trip.

In the letter, the professor said his decision was triggered by an agreement by the National Union of Journalists at its national conference to boycott Israeli products.

He wrote: “I know that some will say that these boycotts are directed only against Israel, rather than generally against Jews.

“But given the history of the attacks on Israel and the oppressiveness and aggressiveness of other countries in the Middle East and elsewhere, boycotting Israel indicated a moral blindness for which it is hard to find any explanation other than anti-semitism.”…

Prof Weinberg said the only other reason he could imagine for the boycott was the NUJ’s “desire to pander to the growing Muslim minority in Britain”.

The motion to boycott was passed last month at the NUJ’s annual meeting along with motions calling for the closing of Gitmo and declaring support for Hugo Chavez. Really? Support for Chavez at a meeting of journalists?

MEANWHILE, BRITISH ACADEMICS ARE MEETING TO CONSIDER ANOTHER BOYCOTT OF ISRAEL.

Israeli, U.K. academics meet to discuss proposed academic boycott (Haaretz)
Two very different groups of academics met at the University of Brighton on Wednesday. On one side of the table were five local representatives of Britain's University and College Union, the sponsors of a resolution proposing an academic boycott of Israel. On the other were four Israeli academics who came to Britain to fight the proposal. They only managed to agree on one issue: Their argument should be conducted politely.

"Israeli universities cooperate with the occupation, and therefore, all coopertion with them should be boycotted," declared Tom Hickey, one of the Britons. "Israel commits terrible, exceptional crimes in the occupied territories."

However, he added that he would be willing to cooperate with any Israeli college that publicly denounced its government's activities.

Dr. Jonathan Rynhold of Bar-Ilan University retorted angrily: "You are imposing standards on Israel, and Israeli academe, that you do not demand of any other country, not even British academe, of which you are a part. And you treat the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as if it were completely one-sided."

"It is one-sided," responded Hickey.

The UCU proposal is part of a growing wave of British initiatives to boycott Israel. These include decisions for an academic boycott approved by the AUT and NATFHE the two lecturers' unions that later merged to form the 120,000-strong UCU in 2005 and 2006, respectively; last month's decision by Britain's National Union of Journalists to boycott Israeli products; the Anglican Church's decision to divest from companies doing business with the Israel Defense Forces; a demand for Israel's expulsion from the World Medical Association by 130 British doctors; and boycott calls by leading British architects.

Though both AUT and NATFHE approved academic boycotts, the decisions became void when the two merged last year. Therefore, Hickey has introduced a new boycott proposal at the UCU's annual conference, which takes place on May 30 and June 1. Among other things, the proposal demands that no more European Union funds reach Israeli universities.

Worried by the growing trend, Israeli academe which largely ignored the early boycott proposals has geared up to fight this one.

NOBEL WINNER: SOME ANTI-SEMITISM JUSTIFIED

Dr. Watson: Anti-Semitism Justified (NewsMax)
Scientist James D. Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA and a Nobel Prize winner, says anti-Semitism is justified, in a recent magazine interview. The ADL called Dr. Watson's remarks about Jews "disturbing" and is asking Watson to clarify them. Watson, 78, who lives in Cold Harbor, N.Y., tells Esquire magazine in its January edition that anti-Semitism, in some circumstances, is justified.

In an interview profile for the magazine Watson asks rhetorically, "Should you be allowed to make an anti-Semitic remark?" He answered: "Yes, because some anti-Semitism is justified. Just like some anti-Irish feeling is justified. If you can't be criticized, that's very dangerous. You lose the concept of a free society."

Apparently a firm believer in eugenics, Watson also feels "Ashkenazi Jews" - Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities in the area of Germany - have higher intelligence than other people. "I've wondered why people aren't more intelligent," Watson says. "Why isn't everyone as intelligent as Ashkenazi Jews? And it may be that societies work best when there's a mixture of ability - the bright people would never be an army."