I have argued before that title VI and Congressional oversight only put Middle East centers on the defensive and apply Zionist pressures on them for (im)balance. I think that Hebrew language studies and courses on Israel are entirely imposed from a political, non-academic perspective. Why should the language and politics and society of some 1% of the people of the Middle East be treated as being equal to some 500 million peoples of the Middle East region? Why does Israel not get the attention that Somalia or Djibouti receive on college campuses? So here are two examples of Zionist pressures and intimidation and also of the internalization of Zionist standards and criteria.
1) Brown University. The Center for Middle Eastern Studies actually sponsored a talk by a Israeli diplomat/propagandists in the wake of the murder of hundreds of Palestinian children. By what standards would the center do that? The director of the center, Bisharah Doumani (a classmate from graduate school) defended the sponsorship in two ways: a) that the logo of the center was used. Bisharah: the placement of the logo of the center is what is called sponsorship on college campuses. b) Bisharah said that the center had also sponsored a talk by the "PLO ambassador". Bisharah: there is no PLO ambassador anymore. There are PA ambassadors, and those are part of the political mini-authority in Ramallah which is funded and sponsored by the US and Israeli occupation. That is the wrong analogy. The right analogy would be if the Middle East Center at Brown had sponsored a talk by a Hamas or Hizbullah speaker. Would the Center dare sponsor such speakers? We know the answers to the questions. Also, apparently, as part of the panel on Gaza, one speaker from Brown equated the deaths of hundreds of Palestinian children with the death of Israeli killers of children thus: "In his presentation at the teach-in, Atshan sought to humanize the situation in Gaza by showing pictures of Palestinian civilian victims of Israel’s massacre as well as of the Israeli soldiers who had participated in killing them."4
2) UCLA's Center for Middle Eastern studies published a long statement in response to Zionist attacks. But that is my point about the terrible impact of title VI: that it basically put all Middle Eastern studies on the defensive and forces them to adhere to Zionist standards of (im)balance. I know that Galvin was not trying to do that, but his detailed list and breakdown of lectures seems like a full accounting presented to Zionists for approval. This is absurd. It is not the business of Zionist hoodlums to know how many lectures were about Israel and how many were not and whether speakers were pro-Palestinian or not. By succumbing to such pressures, the Zionists really win. They set the terms of the debate and they put all Centers for Middle East studies on the defensive.
1) Brown University. The Center for Middle Eastern Studies actually sponsored a talk by a Israeli diplomat/propagandists in the wake of the murder of hundreds of Palestinian children. By what standards would the center do that? The director of the center, Bisharah Doumani (a classmate from graduate school) defended the sponsorship in two ways: a) that the logo of the center was used. Bisharah: the placement of the logo of the center is what is called sponsorship on college campuses. b) Bisharah said that the center had also sponsored a talk by the "PLO ambassador". Bisharah: there is no PLO ambassador anymore. There are PA ambassadors, and those are part of the political mini-authority in Ramallah which is funded and sponsored by the US and Israeli occupation. That is the wrong analogy. The right analogy would be if the Middle East Center at Brown had sponsored a talk by a Hamas or Hizbullah speaker. Would the Center dare sponsor such speakers? We know the answers to the questions. Also, apparently, as part of the panel on Gaza, one speaker from Brown equated the deaths of hundreds of Palestinian children with the death of Israeli killers of children thus: "In his presentation at the teach-in, Atshan sought to humanize the situation in Gaza by showing pictures of Palestinian civilian victims of Israel’s massacre as well as of the Israeli soldiers who had participated in killing them."4
2) UCLA's Center for Middle Eastern studies published a long statement in response to Zionist attacks. But that is my point about the terrible impact of title VI: that it basically put all Middle Eastern studies on the defensive and forces them to adhere to Zionist standards of (im)balance. I know that Galvin was not trying to do that, but his detailed list and breakdown of lectures seems like a full accounting presented to Zionists for approval. This is absurd. It is not the business of Zionist hoodlums to know how many lectures were about Israel and how many were not and whether speakers were pro-Palestinian or not. By succumbing to such pressures, the Zionists really win. They set the terms of the debate and they put all Centers for Middle East studies on the defensive.
