Middle East Scholars Complain of Being Stifled, While Promoting Boycotts of Israel

A recent survey of 513 university scholars who study the Middle East found that more than half of them oppose holding or attending academic conferences and workshops in Israel. Miriam Elman comments:

The survey findings show that the vast majority of these Middle East scholars support holding academic workshops in the UAE (65 percent), Qatar (80 percent), and Turkey (80 percent). The latter result is particularly striking, given the Erdogan government’s unconscionable attacks on higher education and large-scale purges of academics in recent years, which have basically morphed the country’s university system into an arm of the state.

There is no movement among Middle East scholars to boycott Turkey. By contrast, an overwhelming majority of them—91 percent—harbor such an intense hostility toward Israel that they support boycotts targeting it, although a third claim that they oppose boycotting Israeli academic institutions.

It is ironic that Middle East scholars who so strongly favor boycotting Israel also complain bitterly about the silencing of their own speech, even as they work hard to stifle the voices and curtail the academic freedom of Israeli academics. According to the new survey, nearly 60 percent of Middle East scholars report “treading carefully” when speaking out about the region. But when it comes to discussing Israel, it is hard to take this grievance seriously.

There are no professional risks for faculty who passionately advocate against Israel—especially when their senior colleagues are doing so. . . . The reality is that today it is Jewish faculty who increasingly feel a need to self-censor and to hide their attachments to Israel in order to avoid professional costs.

Read more at Algemeiner

More about: Academic Boycotts, Israel on campus, Middle East Studies Association

Expand Gaza into Sinai

Feb. 11 2025

Calling the proposal to depopulate Gaza completely (if temporarily) “unworkable,” Peter Berkowitz makes the case for a similar, but more feasible, plan:

The United States along with Saudi Arabia and the UAE should persuade Egypt by means of generous financial inducements to open the sparsely populated ten-to-fifteen miles of Sinai adjacent to Gaza to Palestinians seeking a fresh start and better life. Egypt would not absorb Gazans and make them citizens but rather move Gaza’s border . . . westward into Sinai. Fences would be erected along the new border. The Israel Defense Force would maintain border security on the Gaza-extension side, Egyptian forces on the other. Egypt might lease the land to the Palestinians for 75 years.

The Sinai option does not involve forced transfer of civilian populations, which the international laws of war bar. As the United States, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other partners build temporary dwellings and then apartment buildings and towns, they would provide bus service to the Gaza-extension. Palestinian families that choose to make the short trip would receive a key to a new residence and, say, $10,000.

The Sinai option is flawed. . . . Then again, all conventional options for rehabilitating and governing Gaza are terrible.

Read more at RealClear Politics

More about: Donald Trump, Egypt, Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula