A contingent of SPME board members were among the presenters at the June 25-27 28th Annual Conference of the Association for Israel Studies, held at the University of Haifa in Israel.
Board members Ken Marcus, Tammi Bejamin, and Richard Landes, SPME President Richard Cravatts, and SPME’s founder Ed Beck lead a roundtable on “Anti-Israelism in Higher Education,” and also used the opportunity to inform the attendees about the mission and initiatives of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, and to seek faculty and student engagement in the organization’s work.
With Professor Landes moderating, Tammi Benjamin spoke described faculty involvement in the misrepresentation of Israel on campuses and discussed how scholarship is regularly distorted in the name of the Palestinian cause. Ken Marcus outlined legal approaches to anti-Semitism in general, and to its existence on campuses and part of what creates a hostile environment for Jewish students and other pro-Israel individuals. Ed Beck discussed the BDS campaign to weaken Israel, and how campus radicals help the worldwide campaign to demonize and delegitimize the Jewish state. Richard Cravatts spoke about how the narrative about the Israel/Palestine conflict has been hijacked by anti-Israel activists, and how the negative branding of Israel helps in the effort to make the Jewish state into a pariah—particularly on campuses where the Palestinian cause is taken up by well-meaning, but misguided students and faculty in their effort to achieve social justice.
SPME’s Tel Aviv University Event
On June 28th, working in conjunction with the Alliance Center for Iranian Studies, The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, and the Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at Tel Aviv University, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East co-hosted an event to discuss “The Attacks on Israel on American Campuses.” Professor David Menashri, President of the Academic Center of Law and Business and an SPME board member, arranged the presentation.
The event was held at the Citizen’s Empowerment Center on the Tel Aviv University’s campus and the event was moderated by Professor Dina Porat of the Kantor Center. Speaking on the topic of campus anti-Israelism were Professor Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, from the University of California Santa Cruz, Kenneth L. Marcus, from the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights, and Professor Richard L. Cravatts, of Simmons College in Boston—all members of the SPME board. In attendance also was Ed Beck, SPME’s founder and former President, who also contributed to lively discussion and helped to inform attendees about the role of SPME in confronting this, and other, important issues in academia.
Ms. Benjamin, in addition to discussing faculty involvement in campus anti-Israelism, showed a short video about specific, egregious incidents of campus radicalism against Israel. Ken Marcus reviewed legal aspects of campus anti-Semitism. Richard Cravatts discussed the brand hijacking of Israel as part of the academic narrative.
And Dina Porat fielded questions from the diverse audience of students, deans, researchers, and faculty members from the University campus and centers, all of whom were also informed about SPME and how they could help set up a campus chapter and what such a chapter might undertake.
