Madam, - Mary Robinson is not the only one who is "hurt and dismayed" by allegations of anti-Semitism on the Emory campus. Many of us at the university, including Jewish faculty and students like me, have nothing but the deepest respect for Mrs Robinson.
Her long record of integrity, fairness, and leadership in promoting human rights and fighting poverty and underdevelopment speaks for itself. She is clearly no anti-Semite, and the accusations to that effect are baseless and reprehensible. I look forward to welcoming her to campus next month. - Yours, etc.,
HOWARD FRUMKIN,
Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health,
Rollins School of Public Health,
Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia,
USA.
Madam, - My old student era acquaintance Louis Marcus (April 17th) completely misses the point about the criticism of Mary Robinson. The complaint was that she (and Kofi Annan) allowed the 2001 UN "anti-racism" conference in Durban to be hijacked by anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli elements and that in the preparations for that conference the agenda was set by the PLO and its allies for a campaign of vilification of Israel, deleting discussion of anything to do with anti-Semitism.
Various other matters - e.g., slavery in Africa and the caste system in India - were also taken off the agenda so that the anti-Zionist platform of the conference could be emphasised.- Yours, etc.,
F. BAIGEL,
Bury,
Lancashire,
England.