Next month, the UC Board of Regents will determine whether to restore study-abroad programs in countries, most notably Israel, which carry travel warnings from the U.S. State Department. The impact of the Board’s decision may reverberate at Stanford, where students are pressing the administration to circumvent State Dept. policy and offer an overseas seminar in Israel .

Junior David Cohen, member of the Stanford Israel Alliance, and ASSU senators Andrew Hendel, a senior, Danny Arbeiter, a sophomore, met with Bing Overseas Studies Program (BOSP) director Prof. Norman Naimark this past fall to discuss the possibility of the seminar in Israel. While there was interest from the BOSP office, University policy does not permit official travel to countries that carry government warnings, confirmed by BOSP executive director Irene Kennedy.

“There is no plan afoot for a [BOSP] program in Israel,” Naimark said. “We continue to think about the possibility, however.”

President Hennessey recently met with the Israeli General Consul in San Francisco, which led to speculation and some false outside reports that a Stanford program in Israel was in the works. But Alan Acosta, director of University communications, clarified Stanford’s interest in a statement.

“Stanford University is currently considering a pilot program in which the University would collaborate with institutions in other countries where Stanford students could study while receiving course credit at Stanford,” Acosta said the statement. “Israel is one of a number of places under consideration for such a pilot program, however, we are unlikely to initiate any undergraduate programs — temporary or permanent — in countries that are the subject of U.S. State Department travel warnings.”

Despite the University policy, Cohen is still pursuing the possibility of an overseas seminar in Israel, and he called the obstacles “surmountable.”

In response to possible constraints placed by the University’s insurance plan and liability issues, Cohen countered that Stanford graduate students and faculty members can travel to Israel if they sign a waiver. Undergrads from other schools also have been allowed to travel to Israel, he said.

Last October, Harvard repealed its policy of withholding funding and credit for study, research and travel in certain countries that the State Department identifies as risky for travel. In addition, both Yale and Brandeis have their own lists of restricted countries drawn up by faculty committees.

Cohen was undeterred by the ASSU Senate’s lack of solid support for his cause. Hendel and Arbeiter sponsored a bill last year to pledge support for an overseas seminar in Israel and continued preparation and planning for the program in the case that the State Department warning was repealed, in order to offer the seminar in September 2006.

Badawi Qawasmi, a graduate student in civil engineering and member of the Organization of Arab Students at Stanford, spoke against this bill at the Senate meeting last June. He argued that because the course would be taught at an Israeli university, the teaching would likely be one-sided and not incorporate the Palestinian viewpoint. The bill was ultimately tabled on three different occasions to give senators the opportunity to further research the matter.

“I think an abroad program in Israel is an amazing opportunity,” said junior Lyuba Wolf, also member of the Stanford Israel Alliance, who studied abroad in Israel through a non-Stanford program. “No where else can you experience such a nexus of cultures and religions and political turmoil. Whether one is interested in religion, archeology, political or security studies, there is no better place to do it.”

The seminar in question would be titled, “Two Peoples in One Land: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in Historical and Normative Perspective,” and would be taught by Jack Rakove, professor of history and political science, and earth sciences prof. Amos Nur. It would emphasize the origins and varieties of two nationalisms, paying attention to debates within the Jewish and Palestinian communities over the political, religious and socio-economic character of the states they wished to form.

Responding to the debate over possible bias in such a seminar location, Wolf responded, “Going to Israel means interacting not just with Jews, but also Arab-Israelis. It provides an opportunity see first hand the complexity of the interaction of these two peoples that is so often simplified and stereotyped by campus activists, most of whom have not experienced it first hand.”

Cohen also emphasized the value of an overseas seminar in Israel.

“For an elite university like Stanford, we really should have a program in Israel,” Cohen said. “There’s a lot to study and a lot of people that want to study there. Hopefully, it will happen soon."