large Jewish population at the University of Michigan was highly critical of these remarks, accusing him of anti-Semitism. In the campus newspaper, The Michigan Daily, there was a prolonged back-and-forth in 1988. One student wrote: "Mazrui is completely ignorant regarding Jewish faith and history. To compare Israel to Nazi Germany is the ultimate racial slur … To digress from politics to anti-Semitic tones only fuels the fire of hatred." On the other hand, in a joint letter to the Michigan Daily, members of the Palestine Solidarity Committee wrote: "A recent letter has accused Dr. Ali Mazrui and his supporters of anti-Semitism… we categorically reject this vicious slander." Mazrui, in his own defense, stated unequivocally that he was anti-Zionist, but that that was a fundamentally different thing from anti-Semitism. He admitted to having problems with the Israeli government and the Zionist movement, but said that he held these views independent of any views about the Jewish people as an ethnicity. Nuclear proliferation Throughout his career Mazrui held the controversial position that the only way to prevent a nuclear holocaust was to arm the "Third World" (Africa in particular) with nuclear weapons. This was a view spotlighted in The Africans. Speaking largely with a mind to cold war international politics, Mazrui argued that the world needed more than two sides holding nuclear arms. By virtue of the continent's central location and relative non-alignment, he argued that Africa would be the perfect keeper of the peace between the East and the West. Furthermore, as long as the third world did not have nuclear capabilities, it would continue to be marginalized on the global stage. This view encountered heavy criticism from those who believed that the more countries with nuclear capabilities, and the more unstable those countries are politically, the greater the risk of some leader or military organization launching nuclear missiles. Positions held Professor of Political Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, U.S.A. Director, Center for Afro-American and African Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, U.S.A. Director, Institute of Global Cultural Studies, Binghamton University, State University of New York, Binghamton, New York, U.S.A. Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities, Binghamton University, State University of New York, Binghamton, New York, U.S.A. Professor of Political Science, African Studies and Philosophy, Interpretation and Culture, Binghamton University, State University of New York, Binghamton, New York, U.S.A. Chancellor, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Nairobi,