Gandhi's Grandson Angers Jewish Community

Comments Critical Of Israel's "Culture Of Violence" Prompt Peace Center Co-Founder To Resign

(AP)  Arun Gandhi said he learned at his grandfather's feet that the world's major conflicts can only be tackled by first solving the little problems.

"It's the little problems that accumulate and become big problems," the fifth grandson of revered pacifist Mahatma Gandhi said when he moved his M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence to the University of Rochester last June.

Now, intemperate remarks about Israel and Jews being "the biggest players" in a global culture of violence have gotten Gandhi removed as president of the peace center he launched in 1991.

"My intention was to generate a healthy discussion on the proliferation of violence," Gandhi said Friday, a day after the institute's board accepted his resignation. "Instead, unintentionally, my words have resulted in pain, anger, confusion and embarrassment. I deeply regret these consequences."

The institute offers courses, workshops and seminars on nonviolence and will "continue its mission" at the University of Rochester, which provides office space and staff support, said the school's president, Joel Seligman.

Gandhi co-founded the center with his wife, Sunanda, at Christian Brothers University in Memphis, Tenn., and relocated it to the Rochester campus a few months after her death last February.

Gandhi's resignation "was appropriate" because his remarks "did not reflect the core values" of either the university or the institute, Seligman said in a statement. But a forum will be held later this year to allow Gandhi to discuss issues he raised with Jewish community leaders and other speakers, Seligman said.

"I think it's shameful that a peace institute would be headed up by a bigot," said Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, an international group that opposes anti-Semitism. "One would hope that the grandson of such an illustrious human being would be more sensitive to Jewish history."

Gandhi was on a panel of scholars, writers and clergy who discuss a new topic weekly on the Washington Post's "On Faith" page and his comments, posted Jan. 7, drew a torrent of criticism, much of it unfavorable.

Gandhi wrote that Jewish identity "has been locked into the holocaust experience - a German burden that the Jews have not been able to shed. It is a very good example of (how) a community can overplay a historic experience to the point that it begins to repulse friends.

"The holocaust was the result of the warped mind of an individual who was able to influence his followers into doing something dreadful. ... The world did feel sorry for the episode but when an individual or a nation refuses to forgive and move on, the regret turns into anger."

Describing Israel as "a nation that believes its survival can only be ensured by weapons and bombs," Gandhi asked whether it would "not be better to befriend those who hate you?"

"Apparently, in the modern world so determined to live by the bomb, this is an alien concept," he wrote. "You don't befriend anyone, you dominate them. We have created a culture of violence (Israel and the Jews are the biggest players) and that Culture of Violence is eventually going to destroy humanity."

Gandhi later apologized "for my poorly worded post," saying he shouldn't have implied that Israeli government policies reflected the views of all Jewish people.

"I do believe that when a people hold on to historic grievances too firmly it can lead to bitterness and the loss of support from those who would be friends," he wrote in a follow-up.

While emphasizing that Jewish suffering, particularly in the Holocaust, "was historic in its proportions" and that "it is also important not to forget the past, lest we fail to learn from it," he stood by his criticism of "the use of violence by recent Israeli governments."

"I have criticized the governments of the U.S., India and China in much the same way," he said, adding that "I want to correct statements that I made with insufficient care, and that have inflicted unnecessary hurt and caused anger."

The institute's research library contains multiple photographs, audio and videotapes, and 100 volumes of writings by his grandfather, who led India to independence in 1947 and was assassinated by a Hindu hard-liner in January 1948.

[z1313132]

I wonder if a couple of our fundamental posters here met at one of those pray yourself straight camps and had to listen to ted haggard for too long.

And do any of you christians have a comment on dana jacobson and her f jesus comment .....i see the criticism of Ghandi - isn''t what she said many times worse.....

[missingamerica]

Are we geniuses for having had the foresight to invent religion for those times when we couldn''t think up any other reason to kill each other, or what?

[khubla]

The Jews would like to forever use the holocaust to justify them killing and committing the most heinous crimes. How are they different then the Nazis? Go to Youtube and view some of the videos of Israel settlers and solders treating the Palestinians. We here in the US would be jailed if we treated animals in this manner. The Jews kill children every week for throwing stones at a tank for god sake.

[khubla]

We must not critizie Isreal or Judism, no, no, no. Israel, that *** of a little country as the French embassitor refered to it is the root cause of most of the problems in the Middle East and conductss itself as a terror state in the region, but here in the US they control the politicians and media so this is what happens when someone wants to speak the truty.

[iceman_1960]

"The Hindu Goddess Kali is mythological and never existed."
- Posted by singinrick at 07:28 AM : Jan 28, 2008

Millions have seen her.

Millions.

[terrorislam6]

Breaking News Gunmen Take 30 Students, Teachers Hostage at Pakistan High School After Failed Kidnapping

retarded fascist nazi terrorislamic slavers and murderers repeat beslan

NEVER FORGET THE RAPES OF BESLAN GIRLS!
Terror at Beslan
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1316935651894423094

RAPES IN BESLAN: IN MUHAMMAD%u2019S FOOTSTEPS
http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/News/Trifkovic04/NewsST091304.html

Forget Not the Children of Beslan
http://kenlydell.typepad.com/islamic_evil/forget_not_the_children_of_beslan/index.html

Religion of Peace??? More like a cult of death.
http://www.terrorists-suck.org/why_suck/beslan.html

Radical Islamists must be stopped:
comments on the Beslan child slaughter.
http://www.sullivan-county.com/immigration/list.htm

Rapes in Beslan: in Muhammed''s Footsteps
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1214617/posts

[iceman_1960]

"On the day of judgment Floyd will be standing there wondering why he didn"t listen."
- Posted by singinrick at 06:27 AM : Jan 28, 2008

So will singinrick, when Kali the Hindu Goddess demands to know why he failed to worship her.

But then it will be too late.

[iceman_1960]

RE: "If [Gandhi] would have said Muslims do you think he would have been forced to resign? Probably not."

No.

He would have been assassinated.

[terrorislam6]

Posted by FloydZepp at 05:58 AM : Jan 28, 2008

make me a pizza zeppo

[dmhphils]

Gandhi wrote that Jewish identity "has been locked into the holocaust experience - a German burden that the Jews have not been able to shed. It is a very good example of (how) a community can overplay a historic experience to the point that it begins to repulse friends.
===============================================
So, he is saying that Israel is just having a little pity party over six million Jews being incenerated.

So, Ghandi wants to tell them to just "shake it off and let''s move on with our lives"........what a snoof (yeh, I made that up)