SPME
The fall semester begins with BDS at the center of campus and national politics. BDS supporting candidates had mixed results in primaries but key figures were successful and will likely be reelected in November. On campus a series of lawsuits…
read moreCommittee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure of the AAUP just published a problematic “Statement” in which it denounced the threat to academic freedom from two – it claims – closely related efforts by “conservative” legislation to suppress freedom of…
read more
Samuel J. Abrams is a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on questions of related civic and political culture and American ideologies. He is concurrently a professor of politics and social science at Sarah Lawrence…
read more
Richard L. Cravatts, Ph.D., author of six books, is President Emeritus of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME). As a professor for the past 15 years, he has taught over 21 courses at 14 universities in Florida and…
read more
Israel is inextricably linked with the past, present and future of the Jewish people. Despite its profound centrality and importance to Jewish life, Israel remains a deeply divisive topic for American Jewry and beyond . Even as Israel is redefining…
read more
As the spring semester ends BDS remains at the center of campus and national politics. BDS resolutions and referendums from students, support from faculty organizations like MESA, and incitement from outside speakers, have worsened the environment for Israel, Jews, and…
read morePhiladelphia, PA (April 6, 2022) – SPME joined three additional leading organizations in urging a dozen U.S. universities to withdraw institutional membership from the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) after the association endorsed an academic boycott of Israel. Failure to…
read more(March 23, 2022) Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) condemns the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) membership for its ratification of BDS against Israeli universities. During MESA’s annual meeting, a press release revealed that, “the resolution would direct…
read more
Sam Westrop has headed Islamist Watch since March 2017, when MEF absorbed the counter-extremism unit of Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT), where he was the research director. Before that, he ran Stand for Peace, a London-based counter-extremism organization monitoring…
read more
As the 2022 midterms approach BDS has been pushed to the center of American politics. Democrats are split between traditional center-left stances on Israel and far-left approaches that have adopted Palestinian style ‘anti-normalization,’ most recently explicit opposition to the Abraham…
read more