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On Campuses, Critics of Israel Fend Off a Label

(Boston Globe) - When MIT professor Nancy Kanwisher helped launch a spring petition calling on Harvard and MIT to cut their financial ties to Israel, she saw it as a political protest against Israel's alleged violation of Palestinians' human rights. But in the months since she helped gather signatures on the two campuses, her effort has become the target of a much larger counterpetition - and, this week, a high-profile denunciation by Harvard president Lawrence H. Summers, who declared her group's actions ''anti-Semitic in effect, if not intent.'' At Princeton University, where a divestment petition began circulating last spring, a student leader of the campaign renounced the cause publicly. ''I came to the realization not only that it was impractical but that it is divisive in that the tactic isolates one group - Jews and Israeli people,'' said Taufiq Rahim, who is Muslim.
2002-09-26 00:00:00
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