Judea Pearl, a University of California, Los Angeles computer-science professor and father of Jewish Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan in 2002, had harsh words for UCLA after it settled with three Jewish students on Tuesday.
“There’s no mention of the word ‘Zionism’” in the agreement, a “critical and devastating” omission, Pearl told JNS.
Under the $6.45 million settlement, the public university will fund its own Initiative to Combat Antisemitism with $320,000 and will donate $2.33 million to eight groups that fight Jew-hatred.
The president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation, the professor told JNS that neglecting to mention Zionism in the settlement “weaponizes the conflation of anti-Zionism and antisemitism and gives Israel’s enemies on campus the ability to avoid consequences.”
Jewish organizations are mentioned, but Jewish faculty members, like he, are not, Pearl said. He told JNS that the university should have consulted with Jewish professors before signing the agreement.
“I think we have done more for students than most of the organizations mentioned,” he said.
The Jewish plaintiffs deserve “tremendous credit” for reaching an “unprecedented settlement in terms of size and publicity,” according to Pearl.
The professor said the UCLA chancellor ought to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of Jew-hatred and affirm that “he who denies the Jewish people the right for a homeland is committing an antisemitic form of anti-Zionism.”
Doing so is “so simple” and clearly different from criticizing Israeli government policy, Pearl told JNS.
