Journalist begins Pearl lecture series

With the chancellor and Professor Judea Pearl in attendance, a
Pulitzer”“prize winning journalist opened the Daniel Pearl
Foundation’s lecture series Thursday at the UCLA Faculty
Center.

The event, co-sponsored by UCLA Hillel, attracted a crowd so
large that students sat on the floor and guests listened to the
lecture through speakers outside.

New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman said it
was a “high honor” to inaugurate the series. His
lecture, titled “American Foreign Policy in the Middle
East,” addressed the causes and consequences of Sept. 11.

Daniel Pearl was a Wall Street Journal reporter who was killed
while on assignment in Pakistan in February. His father, Judea
Pearl, is a professor of computer science at UCLA.

“The opportunity (of this series) is to take the legacy of
a person who was respected and recognized and to use that legacy to
promote tolerance and understanding,” Pearl said. “Like
Tom, Danny spent many years studying the intricacies of the Middle
East.”

Though Friedman never met the event’s namesake, he said he
learned from friends that “there may have only been a few DNA
differences between us.”

Friedman discussed his ideas about why America was targeted on
Sept 11, as well as what can be done to avoid future conflict.

“The first thing we have to do is kill the people who
perpetrated Sept. 11,” he said.

However, he also emphasized the need to win ideologically.

“Much more important than killing the bad guys is killing
their bad ideas,” he said.

Friedman also talked about the implications Sept. 11 has on the
current conflict with Iraq.

“People understand that the war in Afghanistan was a war
of no choice,” Friedman said, citing his conversations with
people while on a nationwide book tour.

But Iraq is “very much a war of choice,” and he said
he found “incredible ambivalence and uncertainty” about
whether Americans support a preemptive strike.

Other Daniel Pearl memorial events are being held nationwide,
and Chancellor Albert Carnesale said hosting Thursday’s event
reflects the university’s role as a forum for rational
discussion.