This letter was sent to the Student Senators at UC Berkeley:
Dear Members of the University of California- Berkeley Student Senate:

We, the undersigned Nobel Laureates, urge the members of the UC Berkeley student senate not to adopt an immoral resolution singling out the state of Israel, a liberal and democratic state seeking peace with the Palestinian people and neighboring Arab states, for condemnation and divestment.

We commend your idealism and desire to provide leadership to the university; but true moral leadership requires taking responsibility, accessing knowledge and making correct, not ideological and radicalized, choices. The resolution before you is wrong in many points of fact and it is unjust by intention: Israel is an imperfect democracy defending itself in a threat environment by Western standards of warfare and checking itself constantly by way of a fiercely independent judiciary committed to international standards of human rights.

A decision by the Berkeley Senate to single out Israel for condemnation, rather than any of the myriad real human rights offenders in the world - including the majority of contentious states surrounding Israel such as Iran, Libya, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon is frankly a decision of the highest moral obtuseness, which we trust you will not pursue.

It is our hope that the UC Berkeley Student Senate who represent future leadership in the world will find a more constructive and effective way - but primarily a moral and just way - to address the difficult and complex issues of Middle East peace rather than siding against one side in the conflict. In no way can your resolution advance peace, as it is an expression of the very radicalism and historical blindness that drives the conflict and blocks reconciliation.

We have faith in your ability to rise to the occasion and shed light instead of hatred on this most difficult issue. Please defeat this wrong resolution.

Roald Hoffmann

Nobel Prize-Chemistry, 1981

Cornell University

Claude Cohen-Tannoudji

Nobel Prize-Physics, 1997

College de France Paris

Dudley Herschbach

Nobel Prize-Chemistry, 1986

Harvard University

Dr. Andrew V. Schally

Miami, Florida

Nobel Prize in Medicine 1977

Steven Weinberg

University of Texas

Nobel Prize-Physics, 1979