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Challenges Ahead For Bard-Al-Quds Partnership
Boosting the education of Palestinians and exposing them to American academic values will contribute to a future democratic state, says Leon Botstein, president of Bard College. by Doug Chandler “Anything new is filled with a lot of unknowns,” says Leon Botstein, an educator, historian and musicologist who has headed the rural, Dutchess County college since 1975. “It’s not exactly as you envisioned it. ... If you want something certain, don’t get out of bed.” Botstein is quick to add, however, that he and his colleagues have helped run joint programs with universities abroad for some time now and that “we’ve had a lot of experience doing it.” Bard’s latest partnership is with Al-Quds University, a Palestinian institution with campuses in 
Funded initially by the Open Society Institute, founded by the liberal financier George Soros, the venture will establish three new programs: an honors college for liberal arts; a master’s degree program in teaching; and a model high school. The honors college and teaching program, both of which will grant joint degrees, are scheduled to open in the fall, while the high school is set to begin in 2010. The move comes only a few weeks after the latest setback in Israeli-Palestinian relations, the conflict in Gaza, and as the Israeli electorate moves to the right. But Botstein said in a phone interview this week that he and the president of Al-Quds, Sari Nusseibeh, began discussing a partnership a year ago and signed an agreement during the summer. Although Botstein and others at Bard described the venture as non-political, they suggested that improving education among the Palestinians — and exposing them to the values of American academia — would contribute to a future democratic state. They also sounded as if they were girding for controversy. “If you can’t engage on an equal basis in education and culture, where is the hope?” Botstein asked after spelling out his own, “impeccable” Zionist credentials. “Where is the future outside of war and violence? That would be my question.” As the conductor of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, also known as the Radio Orchestra of Israel, Botstein said he travels to Israel an average of 10 times a year. One of his grandfathers was a close friend of Vladimir Jabotinsky, founder of the right-wing Herut movement, as was an uncle who died in the Warsaw Ghetto. But “times have changed,” Botstein said, adding that he now favors a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If a mirror image of Botstein existed among the Palestinians, it could well be Sari Nusseibeh. A scholarly figure, he has been described by the Times as “the scion of one of the most distinguished Palestinian families” — one whose history in Jerusalem goes back 1,300 years. He has also earned the reputation of a moderate, having not only campaigned for a two-state solution but recognized the Jewish connection to Israel and endorsed the moral right of Israeli Jews to stay put. Under his tenure, Al-Quds has also forged relationships with other institutions of higher learning, including Brandeis University and Israeli universities. Nusseibeh has also been a vocal opponent of moves among academics to boycott Israeli colleges and universities. Nevertheless, members of Bard’s faculty charged with implementing the joint project are expecting challenges ahead, as does Botstein. “We want to make sure we create an environment of critical academic inquiry,” said Jonathan Becker, Bard’s dean of international studies. That’s bound to be a tough job, though, given that most educational systems, including the one maintained by the Palestinian Authority, encourage students to repeat what professors say, almost by rote, rather than question accepted orthodoxies. Faculty members at Al-Quds will need to yield authority in their classrooms to students, allowing them to challenge and question their lectures, Becker said. And students, too, will need to change their behavior, ingrained after years of studying under a different system. To make those changes possible, Becker said, Bard has developed a number of strategies, including a three-week course, “Language and Thinking,” in which Al-Quds professors will hold small, interactive classes with students. Bard will also use “outside evaluators” to review the project, as the college has done at Saint Petersburg State University in Russia, where it has a similar partnership, Becker said. Becker and his associates have their work cut for them, one expert suggested. “Partnerships are complicated and need a lot of work to nurture,” said Madeleine Green, who, as vice president for international initiatives at the American Council on Education, helps colleges and universities become more global. Green called the new partnership “ambitious” and “admirable.” But she added that “implementation is never easy. Lord knows it won’t be easy in Palestine, with all the things that are going on there.” In addition to the academic challenges, Botstein and others may have been right in girding for controversy. They have received scores of calls and letters since news of the project emerged, and although “the overwhelming majority” have been positive, Becker said, some alumni have objected to the venture. Objections have also come from figures outside the Bard community, including Daniel Pipes, the right-of-center scholar who directs the Middle East Forum. “Al-Quds is a problematic university,” Pipes said, referring to allegations that the school has hosted student branches of Hamas and Islamic Jihad and that campus activities have honored terrorists. “It’s worrisome that there’s this enthusiastic white-washing of Al-Quds.” Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, pointed out that much of the university’s official Web site was devoted to denying the Jewish connection to Jerusalem — something he called a lie and a disgrace. “I expect any university to tell the historic truth about any issue they deal with,” Klein said. “No university should be a propaganda mill to promote a political agenda.” Both Pipes and Klein made similar comments five years ago, when Brandeis established a partnership with Al-Quds that continues to this day. Funded by the Ford Foundation, that project focuses on improving Al-Quds’ administrative functioning, exchanging faculty members and sponsoring joint activities for students of both institutions, said Daniel Terris, Brandeis’ associate vice president for global affairs. But unlike Bard, the Brandeis venture doesn’t offer degrees to Al-Quds students, Terris said, so the two models are different. “Brandeis,” he added, “didn’t have to talk through the details of academic excellence that Bard did” in its meetings with Al-Quds officials. Praise for Bard’s move came from groups in the center and on the left. The new partnership will provide “a values orientation” for Palestinian students “in respect to democracy, human rights and tolerance — all the things that Sari has worked hard to promote for many years now,” said Larry Garber, CEO of the New Israel Fund. Meanwhile, the allegations concerning Al-Quds from the right — “as is often the case with these folks” — are so vague “that they could be about anything,” Garber said. He has no doubt, he added, that some campus leaders are associated with Hamas — reflecting a reality that can’t be ignored — but he is just as certain that the university is dedicated to open and critical inquiry. Likewise, Ori Nir, a spokesman for Americans for Peace Now, said “exposing young Palestinians to American society is the right thing to do.” He also noted the partnerships between Al-Quds and Israeli schools, including Hebrew University. “What’s good enough for Israel’s leading university should be good enough for a college in New York,” Nir said. Speaking by phone from London, Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said he doesn’t have any problem with the new project. “There are manifestations of Al-Quds that I don’t like, but then, again, there are manifestations about Berkeley that I don’t like,” Foxman said, referring to the University of California at Berkeley. “It might not be the university that you and I would go to,” but bringing light “to places of radicalism and hate” is a positive step. A spokesman for the American Jewish Committee expressed similar feelings, hailing projects that “encourage open thinking and not ideological zeal. If American universities want to advance the cause of peace, working with both Israeli and Palestinian institutions to promote cooperation and collaboration is an excellent place to start.”
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