Federal funding is being used to fuel anti-Semitism at UCLA, according to a new study by the AMCHA Initiative.
The study examined activities from 2010-2013, uncovering widespread anti-Semitism in UCLA’s Center for Near East Studies.
The report concludes that events at the CNES included a disproportionate focus on Israel and the Israeli-Arab conflict, and 93 percent of those events were anti-Israel. In addition, 75 percent of those activities included conversation which was anti-Semitic, or hateful toward Jewish people in general.
“CNES is promoting a one-sided, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic bias to impressionable students. This completely distorts UCLA’s scholarly and educational mission and is a violation of the Higher Education Act,” Leila Beckwith, AMCHA Initiative cofounder and a UCLA emeritus professor, said.
At the time of the anti-Semitic activities, the CNES received $1.5 million from the Department of Education through the Higher Education Act.
The study found that CNES favors speakers who engaged in anti-Semitic activity prior to speaking at CNES. At the center’s Israel-related events, 26 of the 31 speakers, or 84 percent of them, engaged in anti-Semitic activity, including the demonization and deligitimization of Israel, denying Jews the right to self-determination, comparing Israelis to Nazis and condoning terrorism.
One speaker claimed that Zionism views Palestinians as “subhuman, undesirable, a population that should not exist.” Another speaker condoned violence against Jews stating, “Palestinians living under occupation... have the right to resist occupation” and “some choose armed struggle.”
At the end of one event, the audience was encouraged to sign an anti-Israel divestment petition. At the core of the problem, all three CNES directors during the three-year study had engaged in anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activity. Each of the directors endorsed boycotts of Israel, and one is a founder of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel.
“Federal funds are being used by a top-tier public university to promote one-sided, anti-Semitic programming that masquerades as scholarship. That is absolutely appalling,” Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, AMCHA co-founder and a University of California faculty member, charged.
The AMCHA Initiative is a non-profit organization dedicated to investigating and combating anti-Semitism at institutions of higher education in America.
