Scholars for Peace in the Middle East is an independent, not-for-profit organization chartered in the State of Pennsylvania under provision 501(C)3 of the US tax code.
Governed and directed by academics, it is a grass-roots community of over 20,000 university and college professors, researchers, administrators, teachers, librarians, and students on more than 1500 campuses worldwide. All receive our SPME Faculty Forum. Nearly 30 campuses in the US and abroad now have their own chapters (see SPME Chapters ).
As our name implies, we envision and strive for peace in the Middle East: a world in which Israel exists as a sovereign Jewish state within secure borders and her neighbors achieve their legitimate
peaceful aspirations. As scholars, we commit ourselves to the promotion of research, education, and service to achieve this just peace. We also envision and strive for a region in which human rights, stability and economic development grow and benefit all the peoples of the area.
However, we observe that academic discourse is increasingly influenced by ideological distortions, politically biased scholarship, and agenda-driven speakers who demonize Israel and Zionism as bearing full responsibility for the Middle-East conflict. Such indoctrination violates academic traditions of scholarly integrity and degrades the academic enterprise. It poisons debate about the Middle East, inflames hatred of Israel, spreads anti-Semitism, incites anti-Israeli militancy, and serves to excuse or tolerate terrorist attacks and genocidal threats against Israel. Anti-Israel slanders exacerbate conflict and undermine prospects for peace.
Our mission is to inform, motivate, and encourage faculty to use their academic skills and disciplines on campus, in classrooms, and in academic publications to develop effective responses to ideological distortions, including anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist, and anti-Muslim slanders, that poison debate and work against peace. SPME opposes all manifestations of anti-Semitism in academia, including calls for an academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions. In a time when faculty members sympathetic to or merely suspected of being sympathetic to Israel may be subject to hostility and intimidation, we
also serve as a network for mutual support.
SPME welcomes scholars from all disciplines, faith groups, and nationalities who share our
desire for peace and our commitments to academic freedom, academic integrity, and honest debate.
Revision Adopted and Approved by The SPME Board of Directors
June 5, 2008
