March 13, 2011 by Steve Kuperberg

Are we just a bunch of dentists?

I hear the question often, in different forms. It’s not a knock on dentists, among whom I count some of the most ardent supporters of the campus Israel community that I know.

The question is how campus Israel supporters view their mission. And the issue comes down to prevention and response or positive action. As the conventional wisdom has it, a dentist hates tooth decay but knows, deep down, that without it he would be out of work. Dentists exist to fight cavities; no cavities, no dentists. And so a somewhat perverse incentive—what economists might call a “moral hazard”—exists for dentists secretly to wish for decay, so that they will have something to do.

On campus, the issue arises because of this simple fact: We are winning. There certainly is no lack of anti-Israel sentiment and activity on campus. “Apartheid walls,” anti-Israel speakers, Israel divestment petitions, biased faculty, and other efforts to demonize and delegitimize Israel still proliferate. And yet no campus has ever divested from Israel, anywhere, ever.

The early results of this year’s “Israel Apartheid Week”—that tired branding effort now in its seventh year—suggest that it has failed to spread beyond the total number of campuses it reached last year, and that backlash against the misappropriation and misapplication of the label “apartheid” continues to grow. In fact, increasingly, campus groups holding events highly critical of Israel concurrent with IAW refuse to participate in the labeling exercise.

At the same time, pro-Israel events and campus support continue to grow. Israel Peace Week, now in its second year, has spread to over 50 campuses, dwarfing the number involved in IAW across North America. Increasing numbers of student governments and student leaders continue to sign statements of support for Israel. Events featuring Israeli speakers attract significant crowds; attendance at conferences in support of Israel on campus continues to reach record numbers.

If all of that is the case, should we, like dentists, worry that success might put us out of business?

No chance.

These victories are just a beginning; we still have a long battle ahead of us against anti-Israel sentiment and activity on campus. And as any fan of college sports will attest, campus Israel supporters face a phenomenon of institutional amnesia where the bulk of the campus population turns over every four years. As a result, the process of building support for Israel on campus is continual and constant.

But more importantly, if we as a community settle for a campus environment that is merely not openly hostile to Israel, we will have fallen far short of what we set out to achieve. Leaving campus with the message that Israel is not an apartheid state and not worthy of condemnation fails to convey, particularly to those outside of the core Jewish community, that the modern state of Israel has so much to offer to the campus community.

Not only should campuses not divest from Israel, they should actually be investing more in the country. There are so many sound economic and socially responsible reasons for investing in a state that models democratic and humanitarian values, promotes environmentalism, and creates innovation in technology and other products and services that benefit the global community.

Not only should campuses not foster an environment propagating distortions about Israel’s quest for peace with its neighbors, but they should hold more serious discussions exploring what the academic community can learn from Israel’s high standards in conducting its public and private affairs and in adhering to democratic values in the face of the most serious threats that any country might face.

Not only should campus Israel supporters build basic relationships with their key campus decision-makers, but they should go deeper and further, nurturing and growing those relationships so that those campus interlocutors become not just immunized from anti-Israel sentiment but become Israel supporters themselves.

We have the great fortune to be building upon success. Unlike the dentist who sends his patients home with a good check-up and a note to see return in six months, we should build on our success by becoming even more active and ambitious. We have much more work to do.