How Middle Eastern Governments Encourage Anti-Semitism on Campus

While the subject of anti-Semitism at American universities has attracted significant attention, relatively little has been paid to the financial role played by countries where anti-Semitism is pervasive. Researchers at the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) have tied the problems faced by Jewish students to the phenomenon of undisclosed donations from foreign governments, often hostile ones:

Between 1986 and 2018, Middle Eastern Muslim countries donated a total of $6.5 billion to U.S. universities, but only $3.6 billion was reported to the federal government. Out of nearly $5 billion donated by Qatar to various institutions, less than $2 billion was properly reported.

ISGAP’s research has found a correlation between the funding of universities by Qatar and the Gulf States and the presence of groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which foster an anti-Semitic and aggressive atmosphere on campus. SJP, which is one of the main organizers of the annual Israel Apartheid Week on college campuses across the country, [is] an organization whose members “regularly demonize Jewish students who identify as Zionists or proud supporters of the state of Israel” and insist that “one cannot be a good Jew while still being a Zionist.”

With the bulk of all Middle Eastern donations emanating from Qatari donors, and the [state-funded] Qatar Foundation accounting for virtually all of the donations from Qatar, these funds have a significant impact on attitudes, anti-Semitic culture, and boycott, divestment, and sanction (BDS) activities. While a direct causal link has yet to be established, the correlation is too significant to ignore. . . . Research indicates that other countries, including Iran, also engage in such funding activities.

Qatar, the report goes on to note, is the major funder and supporter of Hamas, and of the Muslim Brotherhood across the globe; it also has given a prominent position to the highly influential preacher Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who “calls on all ‘true believers’ to finish the work of Hitler, i.e. to carry out genocide against the Jewish people.”

Read more at ISGAP

More about: Anti-Semitism, Israel on campus, Qatar, Students for Justice in Palestine, University

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF