Over 300 professors have signed a petition calling for the University to publicly state that it will not divest from Israel, as a group of faculty, students and staff have demanded.

Although the University has not issued a statement of its position, President Lawrence H. Summers has indicated that he opposes divestment from Israel.

Harvard should not use divestment to involve itself in the controversy in the Middle East, Summers said at a Dunster House study break last Wednesday night.

A view in support of divestment “is one I would hope and trust will not be a majority view within our community,” Summers said.

Summers’ statement came after 65 Harvard faculty members, including two House masters, signed a petition that called on Harvard and MIT to sell-off an estimated $614 million in investments in companies that do business in Israel.

The anti-divestment petition calls these demands “a one-sided attempt to delegitimize Israel” that ignores Israel’s right to respond to terrorist attacks.

“Reasonable people should work for a peacefully negotiated solution, and not single out Israel for partisan attack,” the petition reads.

While no particular group sponsored the petition, Harvard Hillel has endorsed it and has promoted it in e-mails sent by Hillel’s Executive Director Bernard Steinberg.

Yesterday, Steinberg echoed the petition’s sentiments, calling the movement for divestment offensive.

“The divestment petition is in intent and content demeaning to us as Jews,” Steinberg said. “That is particularly disturbing in the context of a resurgence of anti-semitism globally and even here at Harvard.”

Steinberg said the petition was an attempt to undermine the existence of a Jewish state in Israel. He also called the petition’s content “arguably anti-semitic.”

Opponents of divestment also said that by calling for divestment faculty had deeply offended students.

Hillel President Benjamin P. Solomon-Schwartz ’03, said that by signing the pro-divestment petition, Winthrop House Master Paul D. Hanson and Currier House Master William A. Graham had created an uncomfortable atmosphere for House residents.

Supporting divestment “is not just expressing a political view, it is expressing a political view in a way that really makes students who support Israel deeply uncomfortable,” said Solomon-Schwartz, who is also a Crimson editor.

House masters have the right to express their opinions, Steinberg said.