The Politicization of Middle East Studies

MESA passed a resolution earlier this year praising calls for anti-Israel boycotts.

The latest Campus Watch Research is by Middle East historian Efraim Karsh along with Middle East scholar Asaf Romirowsky. The two critique the Middle East Studies Association’s (MESA) increasingly anti-Israel stances on both scholarship and activism. The piece appeared September 18 in The American Interest:

The influential Middle East Studies Association objects to the State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism, thereby giving up any pretense of professionalism it still had.

It has been a while since the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), the largest and most influential professional body for the study of the region, whose 2,700-plus members inhabit departments of Middle East studies throughout the world, dropped its original designation as a “non-political learned society” to become a hotbed of anti-Israel invective. So deep has the rot settled that the association seems totally oblivious (or rather indifferent) to the fact that its recent endorsement of the anti-Israel de-legitimization campaign, and attendant efforts to obstruct the containment of resurgent anti-Semitism on U.S. campuses, have effectively crossed the thin line between “normal” Israel-bashing and classical Jew baiting.

To read the rest of this article, pleaseclick here.

Twitter
Telegram
LinkedIn
Email
Copy
Link copied
Print

Winfield Myers

Winfield Myers is managing editor of the Middle East Forum and director of its Campus Watch project, which reviews and critiques Middle East studies in North American universities. He has taught world history and other topics at the University of Michigan, the University of Georgia, Tulane, and Xavier University of Louisiana. He was previously managing editor of The American Enterprise magazine and CEO of Democracy Project, Inc., which he co-founded. Mr. Myers has served as senior editor and communications director at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and is principal author and editor of a college guide, Choosing the Right College (1998, 2001). He was educated at the University of Georgia, Tulane, and the University of Michigan.