new: www.wholecommunity.news/2024/06/19/mark-robinowitz-why-we-need-truth-and-reconciliation/

Israel Palestine protests - April 2024

 

regarding a police assault against students and faculty at Emory University:

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Subject:	from Mark Robinowitz, BA Emory college, 1985
Date:	2024-04-27 02:41
From:	mark @ peakchoice org
To:	president@emory.edu

Dear President Fenves:

I urge you to get a copy of former President Jimmy Carter's book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid."  He was also attacked by defenders of violence for daring to speak unmentionable truths, although I don't think anyone pepper sprayed or tasered him for advocating for human dignity.

I also urge you to learn about the history of the use of police forces against Civil Rights activists.  Watching the coverage of Emory's campus in the past day reminds me of the Birmingham police using firehoses against students in 1963, among other indignities.

In my senior year at Emory I did an internship at the Carter Center, then on the top floor of the library.  That was at a particularly tense time in relations between the US and Soviet Union, yet the Carter Center held an event inviting US and Soviet officials to discuss arms control (although not nuclear disarmament).  Perhaps as reparations for the abuses this week Emory, perhaps in conjunction with the Carter Center, could make new efforts to encourage dialogue and accountability between Israel and Palestine, the US, Arab neighboring countries and other parties.  I'm sure the Carter Center has experts in these topics and contacts with other experts outside their organization who could help with such efforts.

My grandfather was born in a small Jewish town, Slonim, in what is now Belarus.  Fortunately he left with his family as a baby, and avoided the fate of that city - the Einsatzgruppen murdered all the Jews they could find after they invaded in 1941.  If you're not familiar with that history, the writings of Emory professor Deborah Lipstadt describe it in detail.  I've long wondered what the Holocaust would have been like if non-stop news coverage and the internet had existed then.  The destruction of the Gaza ghetto (among other current atrocities) suggest some clues.

I hope Emory will deeply apologize to the students, faculty and community for its overreaction to First Amendment protected activities, and offset the costs the arrestees may have suffered.  You could learn a lesson, too, from the Martin Luther King center for social justice and their decades long advocacy for Truth and Reconciliation, especially in the murder of MLK.

Speaking only for myself.

Thanks for reading.

Sincerely,

Mark Robinowitz

graduate, Emory College, BA 1985

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related websites:

JFKMLKRFK.com - by Mark Robinowitz - updated June 21, 2024