THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 191, August 4, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
IN ACADEMIA, HIRING TOKEN JEWS
By Asaf Romirowsky
INVOLVEMENT OF SOCALLED ISRAELI "SCHOLARS" IN UNIVERSITY MIDDLE EAST STUDIES PROGRAMS IN THE U.S.A. &
OTHER WESTERN COUNTRIES: UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENTS OF MIDDLE EAST STUDIES EMPLOYING ANTI-ISRAEL
"SCHOLARS" WHO HAIL FROM ISRAEL, ISRAELI ACADEMICS WHO HAVE BUILT THEIR REPUTATIONS ON ANALYSIS THAT
IS NOT ONLY HARSHLY CRITICAL OF ISRAELI POLICY, BUT ALSO OF ISRAEL'S VERY EXISTENCE -- HIRING A FEW ISRAELIS,
BUT RETAINING THE RADICAL, ANTI-ISRAEL, ARABIST, ISLAMIST PREJUDICES OF THE MIDDLE EAST STUDIES
DEPARTMENTS --
ENSURING THAT STUDENTS ARE TAUGHT AN AHISTORICAL, ONE-SIDED INTERPRETATION OF THE ARAB-ISRAELI
CONFLICT -- REPLACING TRUE SCHOLARSHIP WITH POLITICIZED WRITING & TEACHING -- REDEFINING ACADEMIC
FREEDOM AS THE LIBERTY TO DISPENSE WITH ACADEMIC STANDARDS
FULL STORY:
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict long ago spilled over into America's university departments of Middle East studies. In an
attempt to appear balanced in the face of charges of anti-Israel biases, some departments or programs of Middle East
studies have added Israeli scholars to their ranks — a move that, at first glance, appears welcome.
Yet, many of these Israeli academics have built their reputations on scholarship that is harshly critical not only of Israeli
policy, but also of Israel's very existence. Anti-Israel scholars who hail from Israel are cited favorably by the entire range
of Israel's critics, from pro-Palestinian groups like PSM, the Committee to Stop Demolition of Houses in Palestine, the
Committee to Stop Torture, and Breaking the Silence to Jewish anti-Zionist groups like the American Council for Judaism,
from neo-Nazis to Islamists.
The international standing of such scholars received a boost in the mid-1980s with the rise of the socalled "new
historians" in Israeli universities. These scholars sought to debunk what they claim is a distorted "Zionist narrative" in
Israeli historiography. In practice, they twisted the history of Israel's rebirth by, among other tricks, dismissing the efforts
of the Arab states to destroy the new-born Jewish state as a Zionist myth, and claiming that Israel is built on ethnic
cleansing and brutality towards the Palestinians.
Given this hostility to Israel's very existence, Middle East studies departments in the United States are tempted to hire
anti-Israeli Israelis: they inoculate the employer against charges of anti-Semitism, while seemingly legitimizing their claims
of ideological balance gained through presenting an Israeli viewpoint. All this is achieved without changing the radical,
anti-Israel, Arabist prejudices of their departments.
This problem is noted by leading Middle East historian Efraim Karsh, who in his book, Fabricating Israeli History,
observes that propaganda in the field of Middle East Studies has become the accepted norm. In other disciplines, this
would have created a serious crisis of credibility. Yet, Karsh notes:
"Not so in contemporary Middle East Studies. For such is
the politicization of this field that the New Historiography's
partisanship has been its entry ticket to the Arabist club
and its attendant access to academic journals, respected
publishing houses, and the mass media."
Today, these "new historians" teach at many North American and European universities. In practice, it ensures that
students are taught an ahistorical, one-sided interpretation of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Some recent examples illustrate the problem.
Ilan Pappe, formally of Haifa University and now with the University of Exeter in England, was one of the driving forces
behind the academic boycott movement against Israeli academics that began in the United Kingdom. Pappe believes that
Zionism is a genocidal, racialist movement. Here he describes the founding years of the Jewish state:
"The number of Jews coming into the country increased by
the day — although even at that point, during the 1930s,
the Jews were just a quarter of the population, possessing
4 percent of the land. As resistance to colonialism
strengthened, the Zionist leadership became convinced
that only through a total expulsion of the Palestinians
would they be able to create a state of their own. From its
early inception and up to the 1930s, Zionist thinkers
propagated the need to ethnically cleanse the indigenous
population of Palestine, if the dream of a Jewish state were
to come true."
Neve Gordon, of Ben Gurion University of the Negev, was a visiting professor at the University of Michigan this academic
year. He has been described by Alan Dershowitz as, "One of the world's most extreme anti-Israel academics, [an academic
who] belongs to the class of rabidly anti-Israel far-left professors whose trademark is the delight they take in comparing
Israel to apartheid South Africa and Nazi Germany." Gordon believes:
"Israel is not a democracy. One-third of the demos does not
enjoy a series of basic rights which make up the pillars of
liberal democracies. The state of Israel has existed for 55
years and has controlled the Palestinian population in the
occupied territories without giving them political rights for
two-thirds of this period. Accordingly, the notion that the
occupation is provisional or temporary should, by now, be
considered an illusion concealing the reality on the ground."
Oren Yiftachel, a geography professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and a Diller Visiting Professor at the
University of California at Berkeley, states:
"The failed Oslo process, the violent intifada and —most
acutely — Israel's renewed aggression and brutality toward
the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, have cast a
dark shadow over the joint future of the state's Palestinian
and Jewish citizens…. The actual existence of an Israeli
state (and hence citizenship) can be viewed as an illusion.
Israel has ruptured, by its own actions, the geography of
statehood, and maintained a caste-like system of
ethnic-religious-class stratification."
Sanford and Helen Diller endowed Yiftachel's position at Berkeley. Helen Diller admits that she was motivated by the
pro-Palestinian activism on campus:
"With the protesting and this and that, we need to get a
real strong Jewish studies program in there.... Hopefully,
it will be enlightening to have a visiting professor and
it'll calm down over there more."
Her comments, though well-intentioned, illustrate the core assumption that the presence of an Israeli scholar guarantees
ideological balance in a department.
Sanford Diller has noted the risks involved in trusting the university to fulfill his and his wife's wishes, and stated that it
was never their foundation's intent to supply a platform at Berkeley for someone of Yiftachel's views, to which he and his
wife are strongly in disagreement.
In Middle East studies, politicized writing and teaching have displaced scholarship, and academic freedom has been
redefined as the liberty to dispense with academic standards. Hence, Middle East departments at Columbia, University of
Michigan, Georgetown, and elsewhere are populated or even run by individuals like Rashid Khalidi, Juan Cole, and John
Esposito. Hiring token Israeli Jews who share their views eliminates debate, while providing the illusion of balance.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Education, Training, & America's Schools:
Institutions of Elementary, Secondary, & Higher Education
Israel & the Arabs -- The Israeli-Arab Conflict
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Islamism & Jihadism -- Radical Islam & Islamic Terrorism
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Asaf Romirowsky is a Campus Watch adjunct scholar for the Middle East Forum and the Manager of Israel and Middle
East Affairs for the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia.
The foregoing article by Asaf Romirowsky was originally published in the Washington Times, August 4, 2008, and
can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum, a foreign policy think tank which seeks to
define and promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam,
working for Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote
constitutional democracy in the Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly
asserting U.S. interests vis-ŕ-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian threat.
(Article URL: http://www.meforum.org/article/1965)
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
August 4, 2008
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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