December 11, 2023 | The Wall Street Journal
The College Development Officers’ Last Stand
They will offer new funding opportunities to create endowed chairs or programs to counter antisemitism.
December 11, 2023 | The Wall Street Journal
The College Development Officers’ Last Stand
They will offer new funding opportunities to create endowed chairs or programs to counter antisemitism.
Excerpt
Some philanthropists are finally pulling their funds from America’s top, antisemitic colleges (“Harvard Bans ‘Cisheterosexism’ but Shrugs at Antisemitism” by Elise Stefanik, op-ed, Dec. 8). But the college leadership and their development officers won’t go down without a fight.
They will offer new funding opportunities to create endowed chairs or programs to counter antisemitism. They will recommend funding “Israel studies” programs to provide balance to the Middle East studies departments, funded by Islamist governments like Qatar, that are cesspools of anti-Israel dogma.
Philanthropists must reject these clever overtures. The idea of Israel studies, as distinct from Middle East studies, is itself a form of discrimination. It is an attempt to make research on Israel an academic ghetto. Few Israel studies graduates will get jobs in the White House, State Department, intelligence community, media or anywhere else of real influence. Programs to counter antisemitism also will be a superficial sop to allow these colleges to continue their tolerance of Jew hatred.
Mark Dubowitz is Chief Executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).