In the wee hours of the night before the start of the Malta VIII conference, Zafra Lerman was on the phone helping scientists obtain visas to attend the biennial forum, which strives to forge inroads to peace in the Middle East through science diplomacy.
Months earlier Lerman had made sure that the participants, scientists representing 14 Middle Eastern nationalities, would be allowed entry into Malta, a Mediterranean island nation south of Italy. Yet there she was at 3:00am on 10 December, trying to help Iranian scientists get on their planes to Malta via Turkey and checking that Syrian attendees had made it by car to Beirut, Lebanon, to board their flights. As she recently wrote to a Maltese minister, “In this crazy world, we have an American-Israeli-Jewish woman scientist who works sleepless nights to make sure that Iranian and Syrian Muslims can enter Malta.”
Lerman, a distinguished professor emerita of science and public policy at Columbia College Chicago, founded the Malta conference in 2003. The meeting is a rare opportunity for scientists from often feuding countries to collaborate on issues such as water and air quality, energy, education, and entrepreneurship. Besides Malta, the meetings have been held in Turkey, Jordan, Morocco, and France. There are visa problems every time, says Lerman. “But I don’t take no for an answer. So far, everyone has gotten their visas.”
Nobel laureates Roald Hoffmann and Ada Yonath attended this year. The president of the Republic of Malta opened the conference. Representatives came from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research and Innovation.
Notably missing was Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan. A strong supporter since the beginning, he sent Lerman a personal note explaining he had to cancel this year because of “the situation in the region”: President Trump’s 6 December declaration that the US would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
Before diving headfirst into the Malta conferences, Lerman researched isotope effects and developed a method of teaching science through art, music, dance, and drama. Throughout her career she has devoted herself to fighting for human rights. Among the many honors she has received are the 1999 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring; the 2014 award for science diplomacy from the American Association for the Advancement of Science; and the 2016 Andrei Sakharov Award for Human Rights from the American Physical Society.
PT: What inspired you to start the Malta conferences?
LERMAN: From 1986 to 2011, I chaired an American Chemical Society [ACS] committee on scientific freedom and human rights. I was everywhere there was trouble. In the Soviet Union, I was going after midnight, meeting with dissidents in dark alleys, giving seminars in dark attics, and bringing back information to help them get out of the country. Later, after Tiananmen Square, I was in China many times. Remember Fang Lizhi, the astrophysicist who was hiding for a year in the American Embassy in Beijing? When the human rights groups were successful in bringing him to the US in 1990, his first speech to China through the Voice of America was from my office.
Then came September 11, 2001. I always said that science education is a human right that belongs to all and that an uneducated, thirsty, unemployed young person has nothing to lose by becoming a terrorist. So I said to the ACS committee, “It looks like it’s time to focus on the Middle East.”
I suggested we organize a conference where we would bring top scientists from all the Middle East countries to develop collaborations and friendships that would overcome the chasms of mistrust and intolerance. It was 2002. To suggest something like that so soon after September 11—it was like a bomb fell in the room. You could hear people breathing.
The members of ACS asked whether people would want or be able to come. I said, “We will invite six Nobel laureates.”
“And how will you get six Nobel laureates?” they asked.
“I will make six phone calls.”
“And you think every phone call will bring a Nobel laureate?” I said I would not get off the phone until I got the answer yes. And this is exactly what happened.
PT: And you’ve been holding the meetings every two years since then?
LERMAN: Yes. The first one was in 2003. During the planning, the second intifada started. I began thinking, where is a safe place? I thought an island would be best. Let’s have it in Malta.
There was no point in doing it without the Palestinians, but how would I guarantee the Palestinians could come? By chance, there was a lecture in Chicago by Ehud Olmert, who at the time was deputy prime minister of Israel. I knew him only as mayor of Jerusalem, and he was never my favorite. But he gave a brilliant talk on the situation in the Middle East. When he finished, I went to him and told him, “Ever since I heard your name, I have hated you. But you gave such a great talk that today I fell in love with you.” Then I told him about the conference plans and gave him a list of 10 Palestinians with their cell phone numbers. I told him they needed to arrive in Malta on December 5, with no problems and everybody with a smile on their face. He gave his word.
When the Palestinians arrived, each came with a smile on their face and a story: “I was in the bank, and I got a phone call: ‘I am Shlomo, from Ehud Olmert’s office. I have to help you get smoothly to Malta. And you have to arrive with a smile on your face.’” Olmert did what he promised.
PT: How was the first meeting?
LERMAN: There were cold feet from every direction, but we went ahead. And the first night, everybody looked at each other like animals in a zoo, one species looking at another. But by the second or third day, you didn’t know anymore who belongs to whom. Everybody was talking to everybody. It was the most touching and exciting Malta conference because it was the first time that you brought all these people under one roof for five days.
PT: Whom do you invite to the conferences?
LERMAN: Good scientists and good science educators. As Prince Hassan says, the most important thing is to have the education from the beginning so we can produce the scientists we need.
You want to make sure that the people you invite are committed to work for world peace through science diplomacy. I had many contacts throughout the region. When I traveled for the ACS committee or went to international conferences, I would always seek out people from the Middle East to have contact and understanding.
Many of them were members of their national academies of science, people who want to change the curriculum or want to work on issues that require collaborations—water, energy, environment, and education. Now I rely on the ones who attend to invite new people.
PT: Do you think the meetings are successful?
LERMAN: Yes. The Israelis and Palestinians are in contact all the time. And there are very active collaborations between Jordan, Israel, and Palestine related to water and solar energy. The Malta conference is the only platform in the world where scientists from all over the Middle East can meet. As an Israeli participant said to me, “Do you know what it means for us to spend five days talking to scientists from countries that otherwise we would never have a chance to meet? We develop friendships. Where else can we do it?” Even between the Arab nations, this is a rare opportunity to collaborate.
PT: What are the challenges in holding the Malta conferences?
LERMAN: Finding host countries that will give everybody a visa. Another big problem is finding steady financial support. We do not have the money to hire a staff member.
PT: What are your goals for the Malta conference?
LERMAN: There are a lot of goals: To stop demonizing the unknown other. To have a platform where people whose governments are hostile to each other can still meet, develop collaborations, and develop friendships. To get advice to advance their science and work together on areas nobody can solve alone. The water issue you can’t solve alone—the aquifers are shared in the Middle East. Same with air pollution—the sky is shared.
The goal is to form a critical mass of scientists to start a chain reaction for peace. We have 600 scientists in the network. If we had the finances to form the critical mass needed of 250 000 scientists, we could make a significant change in the Middle East and in the world.
Billions of dollars are spent on building weapons of mass destruction. Just a small portion of that would improve the quality of life of people in the region and would lead to peace and stability. Remember, weapons of mass destruction cannot be built without scientists. So scientists have a responsibility to use their science for peace.
