Something Is Rotten in UCLA’s Center for Near East Studies

James-GelvinRecently, UCLA’s federally subsidized Center for Near Eastern Studies (CNES) has come under fire by a pro-Israel watchdog that conducted a review of the Center’s programs from 2010-2013 and concluded that many featured “anti-Semitic discourse and anti-Israel bias.”

Among the findings of the report by the AMCHA Initiative:

CNES Israel-related events had an overwhelmingly anti-Israel bias: Of the 28 Israel-related events, 93% were anti-Israel;

CNES favors speakers who engaged in anti-Semitic activity prior to speaking at CNES: Of the 31 speakers at the CNES Israel-related events, 84% have engaged in Anti-Semitic activity, including the demonization and delegitimization of Israel, denying Jews the right to self-determination, comparing Israelis to Nazis and condoning terrorism;

Each CNES director had engaged in anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activity: All three CNES directors from 2010-2013 publicly opposed the UC Israel Abroad Program, despite touting the public abroad program as part of the center’s fulfillment of the Title VI funding requirement. In addition, each of the directors endorsed boycotts of Israel, and one is a founder of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel.

Professor James Gelvin, a historian studying the Middle East, wrote a spirited defense of CNES on behalf of the Faculty Advisory Committee, which, oddly enough, appeared in an Arabic publication. Gelvin focused his rebuttal on AMCHA’s statistics regarding the number of programs regarding Israel; however, he presents no evidence to dispute the fundamental charge of anti-Israel bias. His answer to the failure to bring speakers who might balance some of the panels critical of Israel is to say that CNES also does not feel the need to “balance” the criticism of Arab states. He further justifies the faculty invited by CNES by asserting that they are “accomplished scholars presenting original work.” If you look at much of what the invited guests have said about Israel, it is highly questionable whether they deserve to be called accomplished and certainly are not presenting original critiques of Israel.

Gelvin becomes positively Orwellian when he tries to explain how a center purportedly devoted to academic freedom can tolerate directors who support the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign, including the current director who, in 2014, signed a letter calling for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions and pledging not to collaborate with Israeli institutions, attend their conferences or publish in Israeli journals. Gelvin’s response is that the BDS movement, which calls for the destruction of Israel, “is not out of the mainstream within the scholarly community” because a few hundred faculty Israel deniers support singling Israel out for special treatment.

One can’t help but wonder how “accomplished” a professor can be if they can’t recognize they are part of a concerted campaign to destroy the only democracy in the Middle East while having no qualms about the activities of China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran and the rest of the serial human rights abusers. Then again, Gelvin claims the BDS movement isn’t anti-Semitic because it is not on a State Department list of anti-Semitic activities. Rather than look to the State Department with its own dark history of anti-Semitism, he might look at the statement signed by more than 60 international Jewish organizations representing the spectrum of Jewish opinion that denounced the BDS movement as “counterproductive to the goal of peace, antithetical to freedom of speech, and part of a greater effort to undermine the Jewish people’s right to self-determination in their homeland, Israel.” The cosigners acknowledged that “individuals and groups may have legitimate criticism of Israeli policies,” but added that “criticism becomes anti-Semitism…when it demonizes Israel or its leaders, denies Israel the right to defend its citizens or seeks to denigrate Israel’s right to exist.” A similar statement was signed by 38 Nobel Prize winners.

As AMCHA reported, two former CNES directors called on the University of California to stop Education Abroad Programs in Israel. Gelvin’s excuse? They were protecting the rights of Palestinian-American students who he alleges were “either harassed or prevented entry into the country.”

Rather than take issue with professor Gelvin’s own statistics defending the programs at CNES, let’s consider just one example of a symposium that took place in 2009, before the period examined by AMCHA. This public event, “Gaza and Human Rights” featured four outspoken critics of Israel. CNES director Susan Slyomovics opened the session by telling the audience they would learn the “truth” about Gaza that had been hidden or distorted by the media. UCLA historian Gabriel Piterberg compared Zionist policy since 1900 to European colonialism that led to the extermination and enslavement of the indigenous peoples. UCSB’s Lisa Hajjar, who chairs a Law and Society Program, accused Israel of war crimes. Richard Falk, who taught international law at Princeton before being named UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian Territories, compared the Israeli treatment of Palestinians to the Nazi extermination of Jews, insisted that Hamas and its missiles posed no security threat to Israel, and labeled Israeli action in Gaza as a “savagely criminal operation.” The fourth speaker, UCLA English literature professor Saree Makdisi, said that it was Israel’s “premeditated state policy” to kill Gazans and stunt the growth of their children.

The event was later referred to as an “academic lynching,” a “one-sided witch hunt of Israel,” a “Hamas recruiting rally” or, at the very least, “a degradation of academic standards.” UCLA Chancellor Block responded to the controversy by restating UCLA’s commitment to the “free exchange of ideas … as a core value of academic freedom” and praised UCLA as one of the most invigorating intellectual campuses in the world.

The event may have violated the congressional mandate that federally supported outreach programs promote intellectual diversity and balanced debate. When asked if CNES would plan any events to present an alternative point of view, the center’s director, Susan Slyomovics, reportedly said no. Sondra Hale defended the one-sided panel and said it was necessary to criticize the “state policies that have led to this calamity.” In another example of the fox guarding the henhouse, Hale, chair of the center’s faculty advisory committee at the time, was an organizer of the academic boycott of Israel.

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  • Gettingby

    Pigs wallow in the mud, monkeys throw feces, and children of Satan repeat the lies of dear old daddy. Its all they have to offer to the world…lies.

    • Mother Nature

      Have courage: Who are you referring to? Yourself?

  • Hank Rearden

    The title of this piece could be shortened to “Something is rotten in Near East Studies.”

    Is there any Near East academic department in the entire country that is not anti-Israel? You’d think since the essence of Islam is “jihad” that Israel would be admired for IT’S “struggle.” But it doesn’t seem to work that way.

    It would itself be an interesting field of study as to why academics love totalitarians. That was true of Russia back in the 1930′s even when Stalin was liquidating intellectuals by the bushel. The Academy was the first area of civil society to go over to the Nazis in the 1933 period in Germany. The Army was the last.

    Islam is a political theory, not a religion. And as a political theory is it as repellent as any now in practice. It is a terrorist philosophy run by unaccountable old men – imams. And yet the Academy and the radical political movements are in love with it.

    Go figure.

  • quillerm

    Why do liberals hate the Jewish people? And even more bizarre, why do Jews vote democrat? Hitler convinced the Jews that his Camps were just recreation centers, liberals are pulling the same scam.

    • Mother Nature

      Not liberals, but the new left. It differs from the old left, which was anti-racist. The new left are as racist against Jews as Hitler.

      • Joatmoaf

        Depends on who you ask. The new libs are following in the footsteps of the old libs. The new libs are products of the old libs.
        Everything the new libs know has been taught to them by the old libs.
        The new libs just have better resources and are embedded in more influential positions in society now.
        Old liberal democrats have always hated the Jews.
        There’s no getting around that.

        • ratherdrive

          Do you have any support to offer for that reckless assertion?

          • Joatmoaf

            You can read can’t you? If so it’s a simple process. Simply check what I wrote with newsprint and government documentation of historical events.
            If that simple task is beyond your ability, then nothing I say will satisfy you.
            Do your own fact checking.
            How’s that for reckless?

      • Softly Bob

        Which of the ‘Old Left’ was anti-racist? Certainly not the Nazis. And yes, the Nazis were Left-Wing not Right-Wing as many people wrongly believe.

      • Cristinascar

        I was looking for the protests and rock singers and UN obsessed with the 100 times longer border fence Saudi Arabia built to steal land from Yemen ? They use more American technology and funding and no boycotte, though they kill minoritites with impunity in both thoise countries. Athiesm witchcraft are capital offenses. No artoicle in the New York Times about, that fence? Not one? No AP article? What about the anti-Shia “apartheid” in all Sunni countries in the Gulf where Shia make one third the salary of Sunnis on average. The onely 2 news sources on earth which even discuss Saudi dealings in Yemen is Putin’s RT and PressTV which rightly call it a proxy war against Iran, but obviously dont tell you the bad things Iran had done.

        • Softly Bob

          Selective blindness and deafness by the Leftist Media.

    • kiwi41

      The left are the reincarnation, worldwide, of Hitler’s Nazis.
      Look at Englandistan fot a chilling example of the rise of anti-semitism.

  • BHCh

    Informative, well researched article. Sad, really…

    In general, I get the impression that it’s not just “Middle Eastern Studies”, but all social “sciences” at academic institutions that tend to be strongly “anti-zionist”, and ultimately supportive of totalitarian discourse. Technical, engineering departments tend to be much more balanced in their outlook.

    Is it because you need to be capable of basic logic and have some grounding in reality to complete an engineering degree?

  • kasandra

    If it’s federally subsidized the most effective response would be to go after the money. Surely there must be some restrictions on government funding to prohibit it being used for propaganda and disparagement. So I’d recommend targeting the programs in the government that provide funding and petition to have that funding terminated. That might get UCLA’s attention.

    • Gee

      Boycotting Israel is illegal for companies, but academia are exempt

  • dg barrett

    Why are Israel’s foes always so obvious? And how do they reach such lofty perches to preach to the world? They attempt to come off as intellectuals who are better informed and more caring for ones who ‘cannot speak for themselves’ (like Gaza/West Bank terrorists who can’t appear on camera unless they have their head scarves on). But these experts stumble over plain truths like history, artifacts (note: they are ‘facts’) and the Bible, which is God’s history book.

  • bklyn farmer

    Good to see Dr. Bard’s articles on FrontPage always found his books informative and well written.

  • http://longhornproject.org/ Robin Rosenblatt

    Many Americans know a “Good Muslim” But they are wrong they know a “Bad Muslim” a Bad Muslim is a Good human. A “Good Muslim” would be following Sharia Law, killing and raping you. Islam in America is weak once it becomes strong many Bad Muslims will be become Good Muslims. Bill Warner, Center for the Study of Political Islam.

    “The Hebrew Bible has 5.6% of political violence; The Islamic Trilogy Koran, Sira and Hadith have 31% political violence. “The words devoted to political violence in Islam 327,547; the Bible 34,039″ The Political violence of the Koran is eternal
    and universal. The Political violence of the Bible is for a particular historical time and place.” Bill Warner, Center for the Study of Political Islam.

    Good Muslim, Bad Person

    http://youtu.be/_KAkdrb4sHI

    • Joatmoaf

      All Muslims are bad as far as I’m concerned.

      • SCREW SOCIALISM

        I assume that Muslims are pro-jihad.

        Airport checkpoints are necessary to filter out expressions of Muslim culture – 9/11, Pan Am 103, Boston Marathon…

  • Joatmoaf

    OK without reading the article I’m going to guess that Switzerland is the country being picked on the most.
    Am I right? Did I win?

  • watsa46

    The Jewish liberals, the far left and the sheiks have an incestuous relationship.

  • kiwi41

    The liberal academia need to be the ” victims ” of muggings and assaults and having inexplicable fatal accidents.

  • garyfouse

    Gelvin is a crybaby and it’s about to get worse for him and his ilk. Aimee Dorr, the Provost of the University of California, has just informed the AMCHA Initiative that their recent mandate that graduate teaching assts can not use their classrooms as soapboxes to spread their anti-Israel beliefs also applies to full-time faculty per the UC Policy on Course Content. Here is that policy.

    http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/governance/policies/2301.html

    As I read this policy, it applies not only to Israel-related matters but all topics in which professors try to force their political beliefs down the throats of students.

    We owe a huge debt of gratitude to AMCHA

  • Cristinascar

    There has never and will never be a UN organization for Jewish refugees from the Ottoman Empire, never was, never will be, end of discussion of morality. Jews were subject to the laws of Dhimmi in th eOttoman Caliphate since the time of Sallahadin. EG cant bear witness against a muslim, cant own a weapon, cant build new hous of worship, holy sites reclaimed as muslim, or destroyed, must bow head before any muslim, special clothes etc. Before that even worse laws under the Byzantines, and better ones under the Zoroastrians, The m,ost persocuted people in human history when it is all tallied, is still the most persocuted peiople, when you know how secretly there are over a million Jews in poverty today as I do, combined with the tricks lies and outright evil done to Israel since it was reborn.

  • Maynard

    It pains me to think that my hard earned tax money supports such programs. I can only say I pray to God that he will punish these antisemites and the ones who approve the support of the programs.

  • stringman

    Question: Why are there no Synagogues in Gaza? Answer: There are no Jews in Gaza. Any Jew discovered in Gaza is summarily murdered. There are, however, Mosques in Israel. Many. And many, many Muslims, too. How many rockets were fired and terrorist attacks launch from Gaza before Israel retaliated? Do the Palestinians live under a democracy?
    And finally: Why is this small group of intellectual dumbasses paid any attention, at all?

    Quote from Dad: ‘That is so stupid that only an intellectual would believe it’. Thanks, Dad.