Stanford Hillel and a campus pro-Israel group are refuting accusations that they blocked staunchly pro-Israel commentator Daniel Pipes from speaking on campus.
The charge was made in several national publications in recent weeks, generating a cavalcade of critical letters, phone calls and e-mails.
Both National Review columnist Stanley Kurtz and online Middle East scholar Martin Kramer recently wrote that Pipes, the founder of the Middle East Forum, had been “disinvited” from the Stanford campus, blaming the “acolytes” of Professor Joel Beinin, an outspoken critic of U.S. and Israeli policy.
Nonsense, say members of Stanford Israel Alliance, Hillel and local Jewish leaders. They claim Pipes was never formally invited to Stanford, that any invitation was strictly tentative — and say Pipes, Kurtz and Kramer never called Hillel to get its side of the story.
They are also particularly galled by the notion that Beinin — an unpopular figure in pro-Israel circles — would have any input on the speakers such groups invite to campus.
“I have complete confidence that Joel Beinin would have no influence whatsoever on the decision,” said Rabbi Doug Kahn, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council.
“The issue around Joel Beinin’s activities are completely separate from the kind of work Hillel is doing.”
Added Paul Cohen, a senior consultant to Hillel, “To indicate that the students are afraid of Joel Beinin is really outrageous. It sounds to me as if Professor Pipes is annoyed and angry he wasn’t asked, so rather than leaving the offer open for a future invitation, he has chosen to attack the students and Hillel.”
Pipes exchanged several e-mails with the Bulletin, but, when asked to explain his side, would only write that he “knows nothing more” than Kurtz and Kramer about the matter. He stressed that he had repeatedly offered to waive his speaking fee, but would not disclose what that fee is.
In a column entitled “Speech Down the Pipes” — www.
nationalreview.com/kurtz/
kurtz010703.asp — Kurtz accused the Stanford Israel Alliance of “disinviting” Pipes after offering him the chance to lecture or debate Beinen, an appearance that was “canceled by Joel Beinin’s followers.”
On his Web log — www.
martinkramer.org — Kramer wrote “word has it” that the student group and Hillel spurned Pipes, “yielding to the pressure of Beinin’s student acolytes.”
As a result of the articles, dozens of hostile correspondences have been sent to the Stanford Israel Alliance and Hillel. One accuses the groups of being “excuse-me Jews,” while another says the groups’ treatment of Pipes is a “disgrace to the memory of the 6 million.”
Beinin, for his part, said the notion that he meddled in Hillel affairs is silly.
“I’ve read that ridiculous article by Martin Kramer. It has no basis in fact. I didn’t even know this happened until some irate person sent me a complaint saying I had done this,” said the professor of Middle Eastern history.
“I said and did nothing on this matter whatsoever. And, as a matter of principle, I would oppose applying any kind of political criteria on who is or isn’t invited to speak at Stanford.”
Tali Golan, the Stanford Israel Alliance’s co-president, said that members of her group spoke last year to Pipes at the national conference of AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby. She said an invitation to speak at Stanford was tentative at best, however. She claims that the vast number of speakers make similar requests, so she was forced to decline Pipes.
Golan noted that her group helped to bring former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to campus last year, and plenty of pro-Israel speakers — including Mitchell Bard and Abraham Infeld — have appeared on Stanford’s campus in the past year.
“Daniel Pipes is not of the stature of Ehud Barak, with all due respect to Daniel Pipes,” said Professor Arnold Eisen, a Hillel board member.
“I don’t think it’s crucial that Daniel Pipes himself be invited to campus. It’s important that his point of view be represented, along with all other points of view regarding Israel. And it is.”
Hillel officials added that controversy surrounding Pipes’ founding of the Web site Campus Watch might have hindered his ability to deliver an effective pro-Israel message. While opponents of the site claim McCarthyism, Pipes and his allies point out it only monitors the public writings and utterances of college professors.
Kramer, however, maintained that Pipes’ absence at Stanford benefits Beinin and other left-wingers.
Pipes “is perfectly capable of refuting calumnies about Campus Watch — if given the chance,” Kramer, the editor of the Middle East Forum’s quarterly publication, wrote in an e-mail to the Bulletin. “To disinvite him was to play into the hands of Beinin and his acolytes, whatever the intention.”
The affair, meanwhile, has bruised feelings and used up time that could have been spent developing pro-Israel programming, say Hillel associates.
“The shame is, the only organization dedicated to pro-Israel activity on campus has to put energy into fighting people who should be acting as allies and role-models for our students,” said Debra Feldstein, Stanford Hillel’s executive director.
“If he had a problem, he should have called.”