Leila Beckwith MD Joins SPME Board of Directors and Will Co-Cordinate New SPME-UCLA Chapter with Bert Raven

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Scholars for Peace is pleased to announce that Leila Beckwith MD, Professor of Pediatrics Emerita at UCLA has joined the Board of Directors of SPME and will co-coordinate the new SPME-UCLA Chapter with Bert Raven, Professor Emeritus of Psychology.

” As a new Board member, I wish for SPME to continue to grow as an effective pro-Israel voice in higher education in the United States and internationally, countering falsehoods, demonization, delegitimization, and boycotts of Israel within academia, ” states Dr. Beckwith. As chapter co-chair of SPME-UCLA she continues ” I wish for the UCLA chapter of SPME: 1) to help educate its members
and the academic community as to the myths and facts of the Israeli-Arab conflicts, and the existential threat to Israel and Western civilization from Islamic Jihadists; 2) to oppose/diminish delegitimization of Israel and Zionism on campus.”

In addition to having her appointment in Pediatrics Dr. Beckwith also earned gained her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Chicago, worked for some years as a clinical psychologist in community mental health services and at the Neuropsychiatric Institute, UCLA, becoming a faculty member in the Pediatrics Department of UCLA in 1979. She has more than 80 research
articles in child development, served on the Editorial Board of Infant Behavior and Development, and served on Research Review Groups for the National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute of Child Health and Development, the National Institute of Drug Abuse, and Head Start.

Since 2003, she has worked with SPME UC-Santa Cruz chapter co-chairs, Tammi and Ilan Benjamin to bring scholars to that campus to repair the imbalance of ideas about Israel, and to educate the campus and the local community about the existential threat to Israel and Jews from the new anti-Semitism. Additionally, she has published op-ed pieces, published in the Los Angeles Times, the Santa Cruz Sentinel, the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, and the Jerusalem Center for
Public Affairs about the anti-Israel bias at the Santa Cruz and Irvine campuses of the University of California. She recently attended a strategizing conference on the Academic Boycott of Israel Faculty as a representative of the American Jewish Congress, along with Ed Beck, representing SPME.

Bertram H. Raven is Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles, a position which he has held since 50 years, including service as chair of the department and director of the Social Psychology area.

His goals for the SPME Chapter at UCLA are to: “1) educate ourselves and the campus, 2) disseminate important information about Israel through campus and community media, 2) monitor the campus for anti-Israelism and address it when it arises, 4) separate scholarship from propaganda by exposing such material as they manifest themselves in activities, the curriculum and publications and 4) garner more for Israel by reaching out to faculty and student organizations.”

He continues, “I had stressed the importance of first educating ourselves in order to be prepared to deal with increasing sophisticated and dedicated anti-Israel propaganda. While we often hear about how useless it is to be “preaching to the choir”, in this case we need to begin by doing just that. Many friends and supporters of Israel are not really aware of the history of Israel and Zionism and are therefore are not fully capable of responding to those who are critical of
Israel…

” Recently, as you know, I took issue with a resolution passed by the Psychologists for Social Responsibility urging an immediate and unconditional cease fire, without any recognition of the dangers of such action when not accompanied for actions to reduce the power of Hezbollah and provide for an effective international security force to control the southern boundaries of Lebanon.
While the majority of the American populace appears to be supportive of Israel’s position on this matter, such does not appear to be the case among groups such as PSR, groups that we have ordinarily considered our close friends and allies on important social issues. I have received a number of responses from psychologists thanking me for my statement, saying how much they appreciated knowing that they are not alone. Only one response so far has expressed disagreement,
but asking me to answer his objections to my position.

“Just to illustrate the challenge which SPME faces, I attach here a
plea from one such social psychologist:

I’m sorry to keep bothering you with my emails, but I was wondering if
you could help give me some history of IPPN and help me to understand
what I’m reading. Each day when I check my email, I see headlines such
as today for example:Hizbullah’s attacks stem from Israeli incursions
into Lebanon. I can understand that any Peace group is going to be
against the use of military force to solve conflicts. What I cannot
understand is the completely one sided, and consistent barrage of
attacks against Israel (for engaging in war crimes, genocide, deception,
racism, fascism, etc, etc). I have yet to see even one article
criticizing Hezbollah for anything!? Maybe I missed it!? In fact, the
only reference I remember seeing about Hezbollah refers to them as a
social service organization.

In discussing this with my husband, he is convinced that this is an
anti-semitic organization. As a social psychologist, however, I find it
hard to believe that this is all based on anti-semitism, and I would
imagine that very few, if any, of these members would feel that they
harbor negative feelings towards Jews as a people. This leaves me
wondering what is motivating these emails!? I could remove my name from
the distribution list, but I feel like it is better for me to stay as
informed as possible. I can understand criticism of Israel and
the use of military force, but I don’t understand the scope of these
attacks, and why there is no critical analysis of anyone else’s role in
the conflict.”

Dr. Raven received his BA and MA degrees from Ohio State University and his PhD in Social Psychology, from the University of Michigan. While at Michigan, he was associated with the Research Center for Group Dynamics, where he worked closely first with Leon Festinger, and later with John R. French, Jr., with whom he developed the Bases of Power model with which their names are associated.

Though he has carried out research in various areas of social psychology (group performance; cooperation and competition; social comparison and self-evaluation; interdependence in group problem-solving; cognitive dissonance in attitude and behavior change), it is theory and research on interpersonal influence and social power which has held his major attention. He has attempted to apply his Power/Interaction Model to issues in health, education, school consultation, political behavior, and religion.

Raven is a fellow in the American Psychological Society and the American Psychological Association, where he has served on Council and recently as an elected member of the Ethics Committee. He has also had a long association with the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, where he has served in various capacities, including President, member of Council, and general editor of the Journal of Social Issues. SPSSI awarded him a Distinguished Contribution to SPSSI award and he was selected for the 1998 Kurt Lewin Award for contributing toward the integration of psychological research and social action. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Nijmegen (Netherlands), the London School of Economics, and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where he was also a Guggenheim Fellow.

“We are extremely fortunate to have such senior distinguished colleagues to assume this important responsibility at UCLA and look forward to the chapter working closely with already exsiting groups to promote better and higher levels of understandings about Israel and the challenges they currently face,” stated Ed Beck, President of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East.

Interested faculty at UCLA should get in touch with Drs. Beckwith and Raven at lbeckwit@ucla.edu and raven@ucla.edu

Leila Beckwith MD Joins SPME Board of Directors and Will Co-Cordinate New SPME-UCLA Chapter with Bert Raven

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AUTHOR

Edward S. Beck

Co-Founder and President Emeritus, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East

Contributing Faculty Member, Walden University


Read all stories by Edward S. Beck