Rochester, NY – 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.
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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
“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 [AP]
Mahatma Gandhi was a Goyishe Tzaddik, with all the implications.
He called (meaning identifying with) everything wrong. But no one can argue with a “holy man”.
MK Ghandi was more sympathetic to the Jews than this guy, but he was no lover of Israel.
Peace centers are an oxymoron. They are nothing more than bastions of haters who spread their liberal invective but practice Not in my back yard.
Ghandi’s statement is very unfortunate. I am confident that the U of R will replace him with someone more befitting to represent the Peace Center.