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| Cornell President Jeffrey Lehman speaks about the new Bridging the Rift Center at the cornerstone-laying ceremony on the border between Israel and Jordan, March 9. Sharing the platform with him, from left, are Khaled Toukan, Jordanian education minister; Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli finance minister and former prime minister; Bassam A-Wadallah, Jordanian minister of planning and international cooperation; Limor Livnat, Israeli minister of education; and Mati Kochavi of the Bridging the Rift Foundation. David Brand/Cornell News Service |
By David Brand
99th KILOMETER MARKER, ISRAEL/JORDAN BORDER -- President Jeffrey S. Lehman led a Cornell delegation to a dusty plain straddling the Israel/Jordan border Tuesday, March 9, for a ceremony in the desert that embraced the idea of bringing peace and hope to a tense and fractured region through education, advanced research and economic development.
For many in the area, peace and politics in the Middle East are paramount. However, Lehman stressed in a speech to a large international crowd beneath a blazing desert sun, "This ambitious project has the potential to create breakthroughs that could be critical to the preservation of life on our planet."
The occasion was the laying of the cornerstone of the Bridging the Rift Center (BTR), a life sciences research complex -- which also will train graduate students from both sides of the border -- on 150 acres donated equally by both countries, 43 miles south of the Dead Sea. Cornell's interest is in the core of the BTR Center, the Library of Life, which will develop the world's first database of all species. Led by researchers at both Cornell and Stanford University, the center will offer doctoral degrees from both institutions.
In a setting that was part Hollywood (a huge central screen with flashing images and musical flourishes) and part tradition (Bedouin tents and carpets, and young Israeli dancers), the center's cornerstone was slowly lowered into the ground. "This is an important day, good news for the Middle East for a change," said Israeli finance minister, and former prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who attended the event (and who reminded the audience that his father, the historian Benzion Netanyahu, taught history at Cornell.)
The private BTR Foundation supporting the effort had brought nearly 130 people from the United States, Israel and Jordan to the site in central Arava (called Wadi Araba on the Jordanian side) in the Jordan Rift Valley, from which the project takes its name. The foundation, which is providing seed money for the BTR Center (which ultimately will be paid for entirely with private donations), is headed by New York City businessman Mati Kochavi, a native of Israel. Kochavi invited an impressive guest list of Americans who attended the ceremony, among them Gen. Tommy Franks, the retired former commander of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf, and Jack Kemp, former U.S. congressman and secretary of housing and urban development.
Earlier in the day, the BTR guests, including Lehman and his wife, Kathy Okun, had met for breakfast at the Jerusalem residence of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. After Lehman had presented Sharon with a Cornell medallion, the prime minister pledged the Israeli government's support for the project, which, he said, he regarded as "very, very important."
The group ended the day at the Royal Jordanian Court in Amman, where Lehman presented King Abdullah II of Jordan with a medallion and a Cornell gift for Queen Rania. The king did not address the group directly, preferring instead to talk personally to his guests. He spent several minutes discussing education, and Cornell in particular, with Lehman.
 Cornell President Jeffrey Lehman discusses education with a greatly interested King Abdullah II of Jordan, right, at the Royal Palace in Amman, March 9. At left is Zane Tankel, chairman of Metro Group, New York, and a member of the Bridging the Rift Foundation board. David Brand/Cornell News Service |
 Ariel Sharon, prime minister of Israel, greets President Jeffrey Lehman at the prime minister's Jerusalem residence, March 9. Between them, rear, are Arthur Bienenstock, vice provost and dean of research and graduate policy at Stanford University, left, and Mati Kochavi of the Bridging the Rift Foundation. Yossi Zwecker |
Although the king has made clear that he supports the center, Jordan, whose population is half Palestinian, continues to have strained diplomatic relations with Israel, with which it signed a peace treaty in 1994. Only the day before, the head of the Jordanian Professional Associations had sent a letter to the Jordanian prime minister objecting to the country's students studying side by side with Israelis.
But Kochavi, who has spent four years overcoming the bureaucratic obstacles presented by Israel and Jordan, said he believes this opposition, in time, will dissipate as the educational possibilities presented by the new center become apparent. At the cornerstone ceremony he said he saw the center as "ending an age-old paradigm of hate and conflict."
The tensions in the region were only indirectly referred to by Lehman in his speech at the ceremony. "Great universities strive to advance scientific understanding," he said. "Great universities also strive to promote the peaceful and spiritually satisfying coexistence of people with one another and with our planet. The Bridging the Rift Center presents a rare opportunity to advance both these goals."
The hope is that the BTR Center will be open for business within five years, although the first graduate students will be enrolled in the program on the Cornell and Stanford campuses as early as next year. When complete, the center will become a "free education zone," which students from both Israel and Jordan will be able to enter without visas or passports, using only magnetic cards. And although Jordanian Education Minister Khaled Toukan stressed at the desert ceremony that education could promote better understanding, it is the promise of economic development in the region that attracts many to the BTR project.
The region, which in antiquity was a major commercial area and the world's chief spice route, today is sparsely populated. Its economy relies on desert agriculture -- huge greenhouse complexes growing mainly tomatoes and peppers. Regional planners see a valuable tourist industry springing from the BTR Center, and even the establishment of a border crossing between Israel and Jordan. Netanyahu mentioned ambitious plans for a new rail line to the region from Tel Aviv and even the establishment of a new city.
The director of the Library of Life at the Bridging the Rift Center is Ron Elber, an Israeli citizen who is a Cornell professor of computer science. The idea for the library was conceived by Steven Tanksley, the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of plant breeding at Cornell. The aim of the library is to assemble a digital catalog and living samples of all microbe, fungi, plants, insects, vertebrates and invertebrates in the region, creating a Library of the Desert, that will be a prototype for the library itself.
Also representing Cornell at the ceremonies were Francille Firebaugh, vice provost for land grant affairs and special assistant to the president; Robert Constable, dean for computing and information science; Susan Henry, dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and her husband, Peter; James Mingle, university counsel and secretary of the corporation; Klara Kedem, professor of computer science; Ronnie Coffman, professor and chair of plant breeding; and Jim Haldeman, director of international programs, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
