Courage of her convictions

"I wasn't scared," college freshman Molly Fields told a reporter from the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle.

Fields had reason to be at least nervous: She appeared before a Feb. 1 meeting of the faculty senate at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where she's the publicity chairwoman of the small Jewish Student Organization. Her message: A resolution under consideration was "very anti-peace" and designed to "dehumanize, demoralize and delegitimize" the state of Israel.

Whether it was her message, her courage or a combination of the two, the faculty heeded her words. They shot down the resolution, which called for the UW system's board of regents "to divest from Caterpillar, General Dynamics, General Electric, Lockheed Martin, Northrop-Grumman and Raytheon based on evidence of the active role these companies play in enabling Israeli forces to engage in practices that violate international law and the human rights of the Palestinian people."

Unfortunately the vote at UW-Platteville, a school almost half the size of UW-Whitewater, went the other way; on Jan. 25, the faculty senate there voted 7 to 6 in favor of the resolution. According to the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle, that could make UW-Platteville the first university campus in the nation whose faculty governing body has approved a call for divestment of university funds from Israel.

On the face of it, the UW-Platteville event is discouraging. But there are at least three reasons to be hopeful.

One, the incident at Platteville galvanized faculty - and students like Molly Fields - to campaign against the resolution at their own, larger, university.

Two, according to Paula Simon, executive director of the Milwaukee Jewish Council for Community Relations, the Platteville case is an isolated one. And three, the passing of the resolution at Platteville may have more to do with a lack of knowledge than with any real anti-Israel sentiment. Thomas Drucker, a Jewish faculty member at UW-Whitewater and informal adviser to the Jewish Student Organization of which Fields is a member, said that there was "very little hostility" on campus, but, he added, "I think there is a fair amount of ignorance."

Hostility is tough to combat. Ignorance, however, can be dispelled with facts. Especially now that peace may be in the offing, it is imperative that we, like Molly Fields, not be afraid to speak up when we hear Israel unfairly attacked - with the emphasis on "unfairly." It isn't that there can be no legitimate criticism of Israel. In a working democracy, patriotism requires us to speak our mind, even when we oppose the acts of our government. But genuine criticism - the kind of criticism that Molly Fields presented to her faculty, for example - is grounded not in facile, melodramatic rhetoric but in fact.

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