(Boston Globe) Jeff Jacoby - Against the backdrop of Arab anti-Semitism - the most virulent Jew-hatred since the Hitler years - the closing of a single anti-Semitic institute in the Middle East barely registers as a blip on the screen. But it shows what can be achieved when one gutsy individual decides to push back against bigotry. The story begins in July 2000, when Harvard's Divinity School accepted $2.5 million from the ruler of the United Arab Emirates, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, to endow an academic chair, the Sheik Zayed Al Nahyan Professorship in Islamic Religious Studies. The sheik was also the funder and namesake of the Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow-up, a think tank established in 1999 in his capital, Abu Dhabi, one of the Arab world's leading arenas for anti-Jewish and anti-American poison. Rachel Fish, an Islamic Studies student at the divinity school, set about researching the issue and in March took her evidence to the divinity school's dean, William Graham. Asking that Zayed's money be returned, she argued that Harvard would never accept money from a Ku Klux Klan financier. The hate funded by the sheik is no less abhorrent. An online petition urging the university to decline Zayed's money drew thousands of signatures. On Friday, Harvard announced that it would need another year to decide what to do about Sheik Zayed's money.
2003-09-02 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive