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Bush Pressed to Limit Role of EU, UN in "Road Map"
A majority in Congress has signed onto a lobbying campaign to limit the oversight role of Washington's three Quartet peace plan partners - the EU, UN, and Russia - seen by many of Israel's supporters as biased in favor of the Palestinians. Already 83 senators and 278 members of the House of Representatives have signed letters objecting to efforts to pressure Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to make concessions until the Palestinians do more to fight terrorism, according to the pro-Israel lobby group, AIPAC. (Reuters)

Time for Arabs to Take The Lead on Freedom by Jamil Khoury
This has been most trying for me on the home front -- "home" being at least in part the American left and the Arab American community, both nearly unanimous in their opposition to the war. Much to my dismay, I found many in the antiwar movement to be uninterested in discussing the behavior of the Iraqi regime. Moreover, the fact that many on the left seemed more intent on seeing Bush fail than Hussein fall revealed a skewed sense of priorities. It bothers me that American progressives and Arab Americans woefully cede discussion of democracy in the Arab world to neoconservatives with discernibly dubious motives. Shouldn't we be the ones taking the lead on these issues? Shouldn't we be the ones brainstorming ways to support a free Iraq, instead of gloating and peddling worst-case scenarios? This is an exciting and important time for Arabs. Iraq today stands a chance of becoming a model of civil society for the entire region. The writer is an instructor in Middle East studies at the University of Chicago.

Issues on Campus:

Holocaust Memorial Commemorated This Week

Oregon State:
Holocaust Memorial Week begins Monday on the OSU campus. This is the 17th year the school will host the nationally-recognized event. This year's program will focus on non-Jewish victims of the Nazi regime, including homosexuals, females and mentally and physically disabled people. (Daily Barometer)

UMass:
A Five College effort, Holocaust Memorial Week will feature theater, film, music and services. It will include subject matter pertaining to several of the minorities persecuted during the Holocaust, including Soviet prisoners of war, Polish citizens, Gypsies, disabled persons, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals and Jews. (Daily Collegian)

UC Santa Cruz: Conference on 'Rethinking Anti-Semitism'
The UCSC Jewish Studies Program and the Holocaust Center of Northern California will present a three-day conference titled "Rethinking Anti-Semitism: The Holocaust and the Contemporary World," May 3-5. "There has never been this kind of conference connecting the Holocaust to contemporary anti-Semitism," notes Murray Baumgarten, co-coordinator of the event. Participants in the conference will examine the varieties of anti-Semitism during the Holocaust and in the current crisis, the relationship between populist and government-inspired anti-Semitism, and its various representations in literature, cinema, and popular culture. (Currents)

Marshall:
"An Evening with Madame F" will be performed by Claudia Stevens on Sunday, April 27, at Marshall University's Campus Christian Center.  This work of theater with music explores the life and death experience of music performances in concentration camps, drawing on survivor accounts including that of Fania Fenelon, who performed in the women's orchestra at Auschwitz. (Herald-Dispatch)

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Swarthmore: 'Fighting over a piece of land'
After living in Israel, traveling extensively in the Palestinian territories and talking to refugees and Israeli settlers, Jonathan Schanzer came to understand the Israel-Palestine conflict as fundamentally a territorial dispute. Schanzer was asked to speak by Im Tirtzu - Zionists for a Two State Solution. In response to student questions about how to achieve peace, Schanzer said he believed that accountability on both sides is crucial. Israel must be accountable for settlements within Palestinian territories, he said, while Palestine must be accountable for its anti-Israel media and relinquish all affiliation with terrorist organizations. Im Tirtzu is Hebrew for "if you will it." This quote is a reference to the work of Theodore Herzl, the visionary behind the Zionist movement. The group believes strongly in Israel's right to exist securely as a nation but is also committed to peace, which it envisions as a two-state solution. Diana Aronzon '05, Xan Fishman '05, Ryan Budish '04 and Aron-Dine created the group last year. (The Phoenix)

Islamic Radicals On Campus by Erick Stakelbeck
Although it presents itself as a benevolent, faith-based campus organization, the Muslim Student Association in reality serves as a North American base for Saudi-funded Islamic extremism. Created in 1963 (the University of Illinois hosted the first chapter) by the Saudi government, the MSA uses blatant anti-U.S. and anti-Israeli propaganda in its quest to mold Muslims on American college campuses into steadfast supporters of the Islamic terrorist cause. Whether playing a prominent role in the current anti-war protests, providing funding for terrorist organizations like Hamas, encouraging divestment from Israel, or defending convicted cop-killers like Imam Jamil Al-Amin (formerly known as H. Rap Brown), the MSA promotes violent nihilism and a fundamentalist Islamic dogma that is incompatible with the American way of life. (Frontpage)

Wayne State: Student Council Approves Divestment Resolution
A divestment campaign, started by Wayne State University's Students Movement for Justice (SMJ), was passed last Thursday by the Student Council. The resolution, which recommended that Wayne State divest from Israeli Apartheid, was voted on, nine to seven. Vice President for Finance and Administration John Davis recently stated that it would be difficult for WSU to divest from its investments with dozens of multinational companies, which would mean a considerable amount of money lost for WSU. No student tuition dollars are invested, but divestment would hurt student scholarship sand special programs. (The South End)

Voices from the Campus:

New Mexico: Anti-Semitism Alive Today by Scot Darnell
Today, in every corner of the world, we can find more and more people forgetting the horrors of the Holocaust - the inhumanity of its events - and instead denying that it ever took place (to them, I say: did 6 million people just disappear?), or undermining it by comparing it to other unfortunate situations in the world, such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. No one will argue that the Palestinian people exist in rather adverse conditions and it's definitely unfortunate. But what's worse is that a majority of the world is using the Jewish people as a scapegoat for the problems once again. Anti-Semitism is far from dead and is being embraced by citizens of the world to a greater degree each day. Their denials and irrational comparisons of Jewish persecution undermine the hate that bred the greatest tragedy in earth's history; if the Holocaust continues to be forgotten and trivialized, I have no doubt it will occur once again. (Daily Lobo)

UC Berkeley: Pro-Israeli Students Speak Out
The scene was a familiar one to activists on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Sproul Plaza on the U.C. Berkeley campus was awash April 9 in the red, green, black and white of the Palestinian flag, and the blue and white of the Israeli flag. Students wearing kaffiyehs milled about, as did students in kippot. But there was a new element at this demonstration: A few Jewish students with fake red explosives tied around their waists were posing as suicide bombers. April 9 also happened to be election day for U.C. Berkeley's student Senate, and many students were out campaigning for themselves, including Miya Keren, an Israeli. Like many of the other Jewish students, Keren had a sign pinned to her back reading, "Wherever I stand, I am standing with Israel." Keren said she knew her unabashed pro-Israel stance would cost her some votes, but she was willing to pay that price. "It's my responsibility to be here," as well as have a pro-Israel, pro-Jewish voice in the student Senate. (Frontpage)

Kansas: Jewish Students Form KU Israel Alliance
Three University of Kansas students from the Kansas City area have started the KU Israel Alliance with the mission to raise awareness about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict among Lawrence residents and to gain support for strong U.S.-Israel ties. Sophomores Sam Hopkins, Leo Khayet and Benjamin Simon have led the way in putting together the group. Hopkins and Khayet say they got the idea while attending AIPAC's Student Leadership Conference in January. "A lot of people's experiences on campus had been largely negative until they started being more proactive," Hopkins said. "Once people got out there, we saw a more positive response." (Jewish Chronicle)

Georgia: Israel Petition Draws Attention
With the war in Iraq winding down, students at the University are getting fired up about international advocacy. The Georgia Students for Israel, a new non-religious, non-partisan group of students, is vying for recognition from the University as an official organization. Guest speaker and Congressman Jack Kingston from the 1st District of Georgia recently spoke to the group. "I thought the purpose behind the petition was great because it showed the members of Congress that there is a good group of students that are interested in U.S. and Israeli relations," he said. The petition, which was meant to show Congress that University students support relations with Israel, received almost 1,000 signatures from University students. (Red and Black)

Observations:

It's Time to Abolish the Quartet by Martin Peretz (Ha'aretz)

• The Quartet is a work of the antebellum period - the era before the U.S. tried unsuccessfully to enlist the Europeans, the Russians, and the UN in its venture against Saddam Hussein's charnel house.
• The U.S. has no great interest in the presence of these parties in the negotiations that it hopes to convene for another go at peace between Israel and Palestinians. And Israel has no interest at all being euchred and then judged by these, its standing impugners.
• The EU, the UN, and Russia have historically been at odds with Israel, whether Labor was in power or Likud. Moscow is the place where the now expired Iraqis, the Syrians, and the Iranians routinely did their military shopping. There are times when the essential business of the UN seems to be the chastisement of Israel, and that time is almost always. The EU's hazy relevance to the Israeli-Arab conflict is a consequence only of its insistence that it is relevant. Its eminences have been Arafat's ready emissaries, and in this they have been arrayed against those Palestinians who did not want the terror to begin or, at least, arrived at the point where they wanted it to end.
• Israel ought to insist that the Quartet dissolve. The stakes are too high, for both Israelis and Palestinians, to have these jivers play. This should be a master class run by the U.S.