March 30, 2007
Dear Vice-Chancellor Naples,

We are very concerned about a conference entitled “Covering Lebanon:
Representations of the 2006 War”, which is scheduled to take place at
UCLA on Tuesday April 3, 2007. (See Appendix 1 for an announcement
of the event). The conference is being organized by Simona Livescu,
a student, and is funded by the Campus Programs Committee of the
Program Activity Board, with contributions from the Department of
Comparative Literature, Center for Near Easter Studies, Department of
French and Francophone Studies, and the Levantine Cultural Center.

We believe that there are several aspects of this conference that
warrant your immediate attention:

1) The conference is scheduled to be held on the first day of
Passover, an event celebrated by most Jews, regardless of degree of
religious observance. Given the highly contentious nature of the
subject of the conference, the scheduling date is egregious because
it results in an absence of any Israeli “Representation of the 2006
War.” One can imagine if such a conference were held on a holy day
in Ramadan. Professor Arnold Band, Acting Chair of Israel Studies,
has informed us that he was prepared to offer financial support and
endorsement to the conference, as well as suggesting participants,
including a UCLA visiting scholar, who would present the Israeli
perspective. But when Professor Band discovered that the conference
was to be held on Passover, he withdrew. Although he asked for the
conference to be moved to May, the graduate student committee felt
that they were not able to delay it until that date.

2) Most of the scheduled speakers at this conference on the
Lebanese-Israeli War are self-identified anti-Zionists, and have
spoken out publicly against the existence of the Jewish State, have
signed anti-Israel divestment petitions, or have written op-ed pieces
or public letters calling for the halting of all aid to Israel and
the boycotting of Israeli academics.

Although promoted as an educational endeavor, the well-known
anti-Israel political stance and advocacy efforts of most of the
conference participants, and the scheduling of the conference on the
most widely observed Jewish holiday, indicates that this conference,
although perhaps originally innocent in intent, now appears to be
politically motivated and, in any event, is very one-sided.

Although sponsored by three academic units, this conference’s
egregious political bias and its lack of diversity of legitimate
scholarly perspectives on such a complex and controversial topic
constitute a serious breach of academic integrity and a corruption of
the ideals of scholarship embodied in the mission of the University
of California and articulated in the UC Academic Personnel Policy:

While there is clearly a place in legitimate academic discourse for
analysis and criticism of policies and practices of the State of
Israel, commentary that demonizes or vilifies Israel—as we
anticipate will happen at this conference— is deemed anti-Semitic
by the U.S. Department of State in its 2005 Global Anti-Semitism
Report. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has echoed this
understanding of anti-Semitism in its 2006 Report on Campus Anti-Semitism.

We therefore request that there be a public apology at the opening of
the conference for scheduling on Passover, and an acknowledgement
that therefore the conference will not give an unbiased and
representative perspective on the Lebanese war, and that those
statements be included in any official UCLA written description of
the conference.

As executive head of Student Affairs at UCLA, it is within your
administrative authority, and, we believe, incumbent upon you to
immediately address the serious concerns we have raised about the
upcoming conference.

We look forward to hearing from you in the near future.

Sincerely,

Leila Beckwith
Professor emeritus in pediatrics

Bertram Raven
Professor emeritus in psychology

Appendix I

The Comparative Literature Graduate Student Group at UCLA

Invites you to attend the one-day conference

Covering Lebanon: Representations of the 2006 War

Tuesday, April 3, 2007
UCLA Faculty Center, California Room

9:00-9:15 AM Opening Remarks

9:15-11:00 AM Historical and Social Background of the War
Nubar Hovsepian, Chapman University
Gabriel Piterberg, UCLA
Sondra Hale, UCLA

11:00-11:15 AM Coffee Break

11:15-1:00PM The War and International Law
Richard Falk, UC Santa Barbara
Karim Makdisi, American University of
Beirut

1:00-2:00 PM Lunch Break

2:00-3:30 PM Narrating the War
Stephen Sheehi, University of South
Carolina
As’ad AbuKhalil, California State
University, Stanislaus

3:30-4:00 PM Tea Break

4:00-6:00 PM Roundtable: Media Coverage of the War
Nicholas Goldberg, Los Angeles Times
Marjorie Miller, Los Angeles Times
Josh Rushing, Al Jazeera English
As’ad AbuKhalil, California State
University, Stanislaus
Ian Masters, KPFK

Funded by the Campus Programs Committee of the Program Activity Board

With contributions from

UCLA Department of Comparative Literature
UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies
UCLA Department of French and Francophone Studies
The Levantine Cultural Center

For more information, please contact clgrad.ucla@gmail.com

This event is free and open to the public, however to reserve a space,
please RSVP to cltgrad.ucla.edu@gmail.com.