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To the Editor: 

The president of Harvard University, Lawrence Summers, recently made public his views on a petition signed by professors at Harvard and MIT calling upon their universities to divest from corporations that do significant business with Israel. Lamenting that anti-Israeli views are increasingly finding support in progressive intellectual communities, Mr. Summers stated that such views have been “anti-Semitic in their effect if not their intent.”  

We, the undersigned, professors and lecturers at the University of California have signed a similar petition urging our institution to divest from Israel. But we reject the allegation that our opposition to state violence by the state of Israel in any way constitutes anti-Semitism, which, like all forms of racism, we unequivocally reject. 

Mr. Summers’ judgments, in their effect if not their intent, obscure the following fact. The State of Israel continues to violate the human rights of three million Palestinians in the occupied territories. Labeling gentiles as anti-Semitic for calling attention to this injustice is like accusing opponents of South African apartheid of being anti-Dutch. We among this list of signatories who are Jews feel an added responsibility to speak out against Mr. Summers' brand of slander, just as we feel responsible to denounce the daily atrocities committed by the Israeli government in the name of Jews. 

Mr. Summers enjoys support among those who claim that petitions such as ours are anti-Semitic because they single out Israel in a sea of many other countries also guilty of human rights abuses. To these, the ideological soul mates of Mr. Summers, we offer one final fact. Unlike most of these other countries, Israel receives billions of dollars each year from the United States. Israel, in fact, receives more U.S. aid than does any other nation. 

This is why our call for economic divestment from Israel is entirely appropriate. This is why the comments by Lawrence Summers and others of his stripe are shameful deceptions ... in their effect if not their intent.  

Rutie Adler, Hamid Algar,  

Daniel Boyarin, Julian Boyd, Michael Burawoy, Judith Butler, Michael Cassidy,  

Paula Chakravartty,  

Vasudha Dalmia,  

Susan Ervin-Tripp, Nancy Krusoe, Samer Madanat, Alaa Mansour, Glen Mimura, Michael Nagler, Joe Neilands, Lisa Rofel,  

Nancy Stoller, Dell Upton,  

Ling-Chi Wang, Linda Williams