SPME is unique. It is the only organized group of faculty contesting the propaganda being waged on university campuses to demonize and delegitimize Israel and its supporters. As an academic I am
appalled by intellectual dishonesty and dismissal of rules of scholarship. SPME represents faculty that expose and oppose lies and half-truths and instead, promotes academic integrity and objective,
accurate scholarship about the Middle East.

It does so by being a leading voice in garnering the support of faculty, Nobel Laureates, and University Presidents in expressing moral outrage against the UCU attempt to boycott Israeli academics. It does so by gathering faculty support against the dismissal by De Paul University of Lecturer Thomas Klocek for correcting student mistruths about Israel. It does so by organizing
scholarly conferences such as the “Postcolonial Theory and the Middle East”, now published by Routledge in the book “Postcolonial Theory and the Arab-Israel Conflict.” It does so by the Public
Health Medical Monitoring task force that identifies and responds to politically motivated and false reports of Israeli misconduct in the medical and public health literature. It does so by documenting and presenting to the Regents and Academic Senate of the University of California incidents of anti-Israelism that appear to violate University of California policies against the politicization of the
university. It does so by being available to students and faculty who seek help in counteracting anti-Israel slanders on their campuses.

While SPME recognizes that some faculty are part of the problem of defamation and double standards used against Israel and its supporters– –SPME believes that faculty are and must be part of the
solution. Those are my beliefs as well.

I belong to and support SPME because it is a community of international scholars, nearly 20,000 academics receiving the Faculty Forum, on 1,000 university campuses across the world, scholars from many disciplines, nationalities, and religions with the common purpose of combating ideological slanders and distortions that suppress debate.

My dues help maintain the Faculty Forum, that continually updates its 20,000 recipients with articles, and news about Israel, Zionism, and academia; help foster new chapters of SPME across the world, including now in Germany and Austria; and help colleagues in acting decisively against academic boycotts.

I believe that this is not the time to be complacent. A struggle of ideas is underway on university campuses and we faculty must be engaged.

Leila Beckwith, Ph.D. Professor Emerita
Department of Pediatrics
UCLA School of Medicine