Scholars for Peace in the Middle East is an independent, not-for-profit organization chartered in the State of Pennsylvania under provision 501(C)3 of the US tax code. Governed and directed by academics, it is a grass-roots community of over 20,000 university and college professors, researchers,...

SPME gratefully acknowledges and thanks these generous SPME Network Subscribers for the sustaining contributions and asks you to add your name to this list for this academic year or to help us start of the new academic year, 2008-2009. Thank you all for your support. Please make your contribution...

Dr. Ruth Contreras, Vienna, SPME's Secretary and SPME Austria Chapter Co-Chair as well as European Chapter Coordinator, attended the UNWatch Conference on Durban in May. This is her report. The Keynote Address by Ambassador Alfred H. Moses (Chair UN Watch) is available at The situation after...

Dear Colleagues, As the Union of Colleges and Universitys commences its boycott actions against Israeli scholars, now more than ever, it is necessary to add your name to the anti boycott statement of solidarity with Israeli academics and professionals prepared by Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg;...

As Scholars for Peace in the Middle East enters its seventh year, we continue to rely upon your generosity as a participant in our ever-growing SPME network, now quickly approaching 21,000 subscribers. Our records indicate the since our founding over 30,000 have been involved in one SPME...

Suppose that debate over the world's most obsessive issue is based on nonsense. Consider if the policy options of governments, discourse of universities, and rivers of word in the media on this matter are clearly illogical. What if thousands of diplomats, journalists, and professors are racing...

David Newman David Newman is a professor of political geography and a senior research fellow at Ben- Gurion University in Israel, where he founded the Department of Politics and Government. Editor of the international journal, Geopolitics, he has published widely on issues relating to territory...

Later this month the United Nations's Council on Human Rights will consider a report issued by the Special Rapporteur for Palestine, John Dugard. The report condones acts of terrorism against , in clear contravention of resolutions by the Security Council, the General Assembly, and a report by...

An Audio Link to Andrew Bostom's Hudson Institute presentation (to be aired on CSPAN Book TV in June)of May 21, 2008 is available now: The Problem of Muslim Anti-Semitism

On Nov. 5, 2007, we co-sponsored a talk by Benjamin Krasna, Deputy Israeli Consul General, on "Israel's Outreach to the Developing World," with a disappointing turnout. On Nov. 12, 2007, we co-sponsored Dexter Van Zile, Deacon in the United Church of Christ, and member of...

by Robert J. Lieber Washington D.C., 2008 14. pp. Robert J. Lieber Sixty years after the founding of Israel, America and the Jewish state maintain a close and unique relationship. Americans, for the most part, tend to accept this as something natural and long-standing. Foreign observers,...

Some 3 1/2 years ago, former Prisoner of Zion and Israeli cabinet minister Natan Sharansky was George W. Bush's favorite author. Sharansky earned an unexpected boost when the resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. invited him and co-author Ron Dermer to the White House and told the world that...

Is there such a thing as Islamic anti-Semitism? That is the implicit question that 's new book, "," tackles. The regrettable answer that presents itself is not based on conjecture, political correctness, anachronisms or wishful thinking - increasingly the domains and paradigms of...

I just wanted to draw to your attention a nice example of how Israeli academics try to foster peaceful solutions. In a News article in the journal Nature (vol. 452, p. 787 (2008) | doi:10.1038/452787a), it was reported that there is now a draft agreement for the disposition and investigation of...

Dear Sally and Linda, I was so impressed with your union's moral stand on the Palestinian military battle for more self determination and their ongoing right to kill or maim Israeli civilians ((both arabs and jews) in order to further their struggle. Equally impressive, is your desire to...

For complete information about this conference

The higher education minister, Bill Rammell, today hit back at claims by the Israeli ambassador that British universities are hotbeds of extremism. Ambassador Ron Prosor wrote that a "climate of hatred" had been stirred up against Israel on British campuses in an article in the...

A motion at the London School of Economics called for divestment from Israel and was passed; an attempt to make the twinning of Manchester Student Union with Al Najah conditional on the latter's condemnation of suicide bombings was heavily opposed; a protest was held outside an event at...

Joint statement of support for the Principle of the Universality of Science by the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD), the American Diabetes Association (ADA), the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) and the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE). ...

Israel is facing an intensifying campaign of delegitimization, demonization and double standards in the country that is responsible for founding it in 1948. According to Israel's ambassador to Britain, Ron Prosor, Britain has become a hotbed of radical anti-Israeli sentiment. Toward the end...

The American professors whose bestselling book, The Israel Lobby, provoked a media storm are bracing themselves for a hostile reception when they speak this week at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and in Tel Aviv. Professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer faced a barrage of criticism for...

Muslim scholars meeting in Saudi Arabia wrapped up a three-day conference Friday, calling for easing tensions within Islam and boosting dialogue with Christians and Jews. The conference in the holy city of Mecca was designed to reconcile brewing discontent between Islam's two main branches,...

Issued 6.4.08 The Board rejects all attempts to boycott Israeli academia, including the pro-boycott resolution of the University and College Union in the UK. This resolution is contrary to the principle of the Universality of Science, which prohibits all forms of discrimination in connection...

JERUSALEM: Authors of Palestinian school textbooks took small steps toward softening their harsh portrayals of Jews and Israel under the rule of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas - but progress was quickly reversed after the Islamic Hamas won a 2006 election, according to a report...

For the third time in four years, Britain's main faculty union has passed a resolution questioning the appropriateness of ties between scholars in the United Kingdom and those in Israel. While the measure adopted on a voice vote Wednesday does not formally call for a boycott of Israeli...

Government higher education minister Bill Rammell has called on lecturers not to boycott Israeli academics. He told the University and College Union's (UCU) annual congress in Manchester: "You should be entitled to decide your own policy but I have to tell you I profoundly disagree with...

The following letter was sent to Sally Hunt, General Secretary of the UCU from attorney Anthony Julius representing various members of the UCU on June 3, 2008. Sally Hunt General Secretary UCU Egmont House 25-31 Tavistock Place London WC1H 9UT United Kingdom 3 June 2008 BY...

Antisemitism has been present in Great Britain for almost a thousand years of recorded history. In the twelfth century, Catholic medieval Britain was a persecutory society, particularly when it came to Jews. It pioneered the blood libel and the church was a leader in instituting cruel legislation...

Throughout its modern history, Britain has prided itself on its liberal society, which cherishes human rights and values civil liberties. That pride was well founded, both in the international arena, when Britain stood alone in Europe facing the dark forces of the Third Reich, and in the...

While democracy has proven to be a fragile and elusive form of politics in the modern Arab world, Islamist movements have flourished--ranging from grass-roots pro-democracy activism to militant jihadism and terrorism. Whether Arab politics witnesses more political liberalization in the near...

At its annual conference on May 28, 2008, the University and College Union, the largest trade union of academics and related staff in the UK, proposed a vote to reintroduce an academic boycott of Israel. The proposed motion asked members "to consider the moral and political implications...

I was motivated to become politically active at 15, standing for my first elected position specifically to deal with the issue of bullying. I joined the trade-union movement for the same reason: to combat bullying and harassment in the workplace. These aims are the cornerstones of trade...

The union of academics and professors in the UK, the UCU, which last year tried to initiate a boycott of Israeli academics but was prevented from doing so by its own lawyers which told it that it was illegal, is trying to do the same thing again but in a trickier mode. On May 28th it pas...

Ramallah, West Bank When I reported from Israel in the mid-1980s, the big debate here was whether Israel's settlement-building in the West Bank had passed a point of no return - a point where any serious withdrawal became virtually impossible to imagine. The question was often framed...

Last Wednesday, the University and College Union Congress, the second in its short history, followed the well-worn path of its inaugural event last year, along with that of its predecessor unions, in proposing a boycott motion against Israeli academics and academic institutions. It came as no...

In [pdf] to the Stop the Boycott campaign on the legal status of the UCU boycott motion (subsequently adopted by the UCU conference on May 28, 2008), Michael Beloff QC and Pushpinder Saini QC of Blackstone Chambers, London, refer to the provisions of the Race Relations Amendment Act 2003 against...

Raymond Ibrahim the value of LTC Joseph Myers' presentation at the first annual conference of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA). Myers discussed an obscure-to the West, at least-text on Islamic war doctrine: Pakistani Brigadier S.K. Malik's The...

Britain has become a hotbed of radical anti-Israeli views, according to the country's envoy to London. Ron Prosor claims that while the UK was once admired for its liberal fairness and decency, in recent years extremists have "hijacked" its debate over Israel. He says his country has...

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have agreed to start drafting elements of a proposed peace accord, chief Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qureia said Friday. Ahmed Qureia, the veteran negotiator heading the Palestinian team, made it clear the decision did not necessarily reflect agreement on...

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - An ultra conservative Muslim seminary in India, which is said to have inspired the Taliban, issued a fatwa, or edict, against terrorism during a meeting attended by thousands of clerics and students. The Darool-Uloom Deoband, a 150-year-old institute controlling...

The 2008 General Conference affirmed its stance against Israel's expansion beyond its 1967 borders and against the settlements established on occupied Palestinian land. It overwhelmingly rejected a proposal entitled "Oppose Divestment from Israel." It rejected a call for United...

Iran is not trying to acquire nuclear weapons but Tehran should avoid "irritating" its neighbours, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Saturday in an interview with French newspaper Le Monde. Putin, who was in Paris for two days of meetings with President Nicolas Sarkozy and...

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard has scrapped plans to attend a Tel Aviv film festival after a Palestinian group urged him to boycott Israel. if(window.yzq_d==null)window.yzq_d=new Object();...