Dear SPME Colleagues, As the 2008-2009 academic year draws to a close, SPME is in grave danger of having to cut services and programs planned for 2009-2010. Our budget for the coming year's activities amounts to about $250,000.But so far this year, we have raised less than $50,000. You...

CALL FOR PAPERS FOR CONFERENCE ON: "The Islamic Republic of Iran: Multidisciplinary Analyses of Its Theocracy, Nationalism, and Assertion of Power" Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) announces a conference on "The Islamic Republic of Iran: Multidisciplinary Analyses of...

Dr. Ed Beck, Walden University and President Emeritus of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Mohammed Saif-Alden Wattad, to the newly forming SPME Legal Task Force Chaired by Dr. Kenneth Marcus Ackerman Professor of Social Policy, Baruch College,...

Scholars for Peace in the Middle East was a cosponsor of the DURBAN II COUNTER-CONFERENCE addressing the issues of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Genocide, Xenophobia, Gender Discrimination and Religious Discrimination held at Fordham University Law School under the auspices of the American...

David Newman recently provided an impassioned defense of academic freedom on these pages, but in doing so, managed to cast not a few aspersions on what he called the "McCarthy right" attitude of several organizations active in promoting Israel's case on campuses throughout the world....

"The task of forming an international coalition to thwart Iran's nuclear program will be made easier if progress is made in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has said, according to sources in Washington. Israeli TV stations had...

Dear Sir Your series regarding Health in the Occupied Palestinian Territory raises many important points. Implied as the basis for the entire series is the premise laid out clearly in the editorial, "Keys to health: justice, sovereignty and self determination" in this week's...

In autumn 2008 my book Behind the Humanitarian Mask: The Nordic Countries, Israel and the Jews appeared in English. It has since been mentioned many times in Norwegian media. Critics so far have been unable to find mistakes in it. Much publicity is however given to a variety of statements falsely...

From an existential standpoint, Israel must quickly change its strategic and diplomatic course, or prepare to disappear in increments. More specifically, with a new prime minister in place, Israel will soon need to reassess its presumed faith in the so-called Road Map to Peace in the Middle...

David Newman's attack ("Bashing the Academic Left," April 14) against me, NGO Monitor, the anti-boycott international advisory board (IAB), Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and various other targets illustrates the dangers of ideological filters. According to Newman, our...

GENEVA -- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's tirade Monday to the United Nations' "antiracism" conference should not have surprised anyone. The Iranian president denounced Israel, or the "Zionist entity" as he calls it, which, according to his version of history, was created by Europe...

The beliefs that motivate my own Zionism originate in a specific conversation with my mother in December 1979, when she finally felt able to talk to me about her experiences in Auschwitz. I vividly recall her description of the day in the spring of 1944, when she, her brother, young sister,...

The Austro-Israel Society cordially invites to a lecture by H.E. Ambassdor Dan Ashbel 61 years of Israel. Challenges and Aspects 28th of May, 19 hours, Altes Rathaus, Wipplingerstr.8, 2nd floor. 1010 Vienna. The lecture will be held in German Co-sponsored by the SPME Austria Chapter

Contributions to the lecture series "Israel at 60: Aspects from History and the Present," organized by the Austrian Chapter of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East at the University in Vienna, will be available under the title "Israel-Geschichte und Gegenwart" as Vol. 24...

Last week CNN aired a heartrending videotape of a "dying" Palestinian child receiving "CPR," ostensibly one more Gazan victim of Israel's inhumanity. It was quickly blogged on by alert medical professionals as an obvious hoax. The "war crime" was a stunt...

Behind the Humanitarian Mask: The Nordic Countries, Israel and the Jews. Edited by Manfred Gerstenfeld Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs/Simon Wiesenthal Center 256 pages; SPME Faculty Forum Editor's note: This book can be downloaded for free When Scandinavia is mentioned, we...

AU CENTER FOR ISRAEL STUDIES AND AICE PRESENT "ISRAEL AT A CROSSROAD" ACADEMIC CONFERENCE American University's Center for Israel Studies and The American Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE) are pleased to invite you to a conference featuring some of Israel's...

We are happy to announce the next meeting in our Afternoons with IPCRI* series: Obama's Developing Policy towards the Middle East Rabbi Ed Rettig, Deputy Director, American Jewish Committee, Jerusalem Mohammed Dajani, Director, American Studies Institute, Al-Quds University ...

Committee ignores legal advice and adds motions to agenda. Melanie Newman reports var pgtitle = "UCU congress to hear Israeli boycott arguments"; var byline = "Melanie Newman"; Motions on an academic boycott of Israel are set to be debated at the University and College Union...

Jewish community leaders and students at the elite Wesleyan University in Connecticut have been warned to be vigilant as a nationwide manhunt is launched for a reportedly anti-Semitic gunman, who shot and killed a 21-year-old woman. Police have obtained an arrest warrant for Stephen Morgan, a...

MIDDLETOWN - Stephen Morgan packed up all of his belongings Tuesday and told his father he was moving to Newport, R.I. But police said he had a different plan - to gun down Wesleyan University student Johanna Justin-Jinich. He also wrote in a journal of a killing spree targeting Jewish...

WASHINGTON -- The theme of this year's American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conferenceis "relationships matter" -- the significance of which should not be lost on the 193 student government presidents the lobbying group brought here for the occasion, as...

New light has recently been shed on the character of one of Cornell's jeweled alumni and benefactors: Goldwin Smith, as revealed through his own and others' writing, was an influential anti-semite. Professors Glenn Altschuler, american studies, and Isaac Kramnick, government,...

NEW YORK - Israel's first Military Medical School will open in Jerusalem this October, Hadassah National President Nancy Falchuk announced this week in New York. This fall, Israel's newest medical program will open with fifty students and function as a division of the celebrated...

Controversy has erupted at UC Santa Barbara over a professor's decision to send his students an e-mail in which he compared graphic images of Jews in the Holocaust to pictures of Palestinians caught up in Israel's recent Gaza offensive. The e-mail by tenured sociology professor William I....

NEW YORK (JTA) -- New York University canceled an anti-Israel event disguised as an event about climate change. The event, originally slated for May 4, was titled "The Hidden History of Zionism: The Road to Gaza's Killing Fields," and its organizers promoted it with flyers around the...

About 50 faculty members shuffled into 428 Pupin Thursday for a meeting open exclusively to faculty in the Arts and Sciences to probe Columbia's role in the debate on academic freedom in Palestine, and to do what academics do best: talk about talking. The latest episode in a...

College student Neil Gajare has been arrested and charged with arson in connection with a fire in Rodin College House early yesterday morning. Police were still processing Gajare's case last night, and it was unclear whether he would be released on bail, according to the Philadelphia Police....

The Durban Review Conference held in Geneva in April was set to examine progress made toward the goals of the previous conference in 2001: to eliminate racism, xenophobia and related intolerance. Many expected the conference would condemn Israel's attack on Gazan civilians, but what transpired was...

The Spanish court's decision to indict senior Israeli figures involved in Salah Shahade's assassination confirms what we already know: The courts in any country have the authority to indict individuals suspected of war crimes or crimes against humanity. The same is true for the...

In an interview published April 23, 2009 in the Saudi Daily 'Okaz, reformist thinker Ibrahim Al-Buleihi expressed his admiration for Western civilization. The interview was posted on the same day on the Elaph website. Al-Buleihi calls on the Arabs to acknowledge the greatness of Western...

Geneva In 1948, the United Nations recognized the "inherent dignity" and "the equal and inalienable rights" of all human beings when it ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Though this week's U.N. conference in Geneva claimed to stand for these noble values,...

The Obama administration, through its special Middle East envoy George Mitchell, has launched what seems to be an aggressive campaign aimed at pressuring the new Israeli government into accepting the two-state solution. But even if Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor...

A British playwright and author angered by a controversial play written to protest Israel's operation in Gaza has written a theatrical response. Richard Stirling penned "Seven Other Children," which this week began a two-week run at the New End Theater in Hampstead, northwest London. ...

GENEVA (Reuters) - International human rights experts examining alleged war crimes in the Gaza Strip said on Friday they planned to visit soon, and renewed a call for Israel to support their investigation. An Israeli government official said last month that the Jewish state would not cooperate...

The Palestinian Authority and Hamas on Tuesday rejected statements made by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to the annual meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, in which he failed to refer to a two-state solution. The Palestinians also rejected Netanyahu's demand in his Monday...

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) - The leaders of Iran and Syria reaffirmed their support on Tuesday for what they characterized as "Palestinian resistance," a defiant message to the United States and its Middle East allies, which are uneasy over American efforts to forge closer ties with Iran. ...

JERUSALEM -- The Obama administration and international negotiators are drafting a new strategy for Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and expect to unveil it within six weeks, said international Mideast envoy Tony Blair. The plan is being devised by the Obama administration, with input from...

The US-led Quartet of Middle East mediators is working on a new strategy for Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and is expected to present it in five to six weeks, Quartet envoy Tony Blair has said. The plan is being devised by the Obama administration, with input from others, Blair told...

Israel is on board with key elements of President Obama's agenda in the Middle East, Israeli President Shimon Peres told reporters Tuesday after meeting with Obama at the White House. He said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would support a two-state solution to achieve peace...

The Spanish court's decision to indict senior Israeli figures involved in Salah Shahade's assassination confirms what we already know: The courts in any country have the authority to indict individuals suspected of war crimes or crimes against humanity. The same is true for the...

LONDON - A new movement to unite trade unions and other NGOs working against boycotts of Israel began operation last week. Trade Unions Linking Israel and Palestine (TULIP) is led by labor officials from three continents - Paul Howes, national secretary of the Australian Workers Union; Stuart...

In the first case of its kind, a Palestinian Authority "military court" on Tuesday sentenced a Palestinian man to death by hanging after finding him guilty of selling land to Jews. The verdict came shortly after the PA's chief Islamic judge, Sheikh Tayseer Tamimi, issued yet another...

JERUSALEM - The Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, on Monday dismissed a demand by Israel 's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, underscoring the considerable gaps between the sides. "I do not accept it," Mr. Abbas said in a...

LONDON - The Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC), the umbrella organization of all trade unions in Scotland, has voted unanimously to endorse a boycott of Israeli goods at its annual conference in Perth, central Scotland. The STUC also voted to "review" its relationship with the...

GENEVA (JTA) -- Durban II reached its conclusion, it seemed, three days early. A day after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's tirade against Israel triggered a walkout by the European delegation and generated headlines around the world, diplomats at the U.N. forum scrambled to ratify...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent a letter to the countries that boycotted the Durban Conference in Geneva thanking them for their decision. The Prime Minister also praised the countries whose delegates walked out during the speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the event. The...

PM expresses gratitude to states that shunned UN forum, walked out during Ahmadinejad speech var agt=navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase();var is_major = parseInt(navigator.appVersion);var is_ie = ((agt.indexOf("msie") != -1) && (agt.indexOf("opera") == -1));var is_ie5 =...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Obama said Tuesday that Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent characterization of the Israeli government as "racist" was part of a disappointing pattern that threatens to undermine the prospect of warmer relations between Washington and Tehran. ...

#

Jewish groups have implemented the lessons learned from the first Durban anti-racism conference and are gearing up for next week's "Durban Review" in Geneva with extra vigor, according to various NGO leaders, some of whom are already in Europe, making the final preparations for massive...

BBC's Mideast editor rebuked for breaching impartiality and accuracy rules. function titleFontChange(inc){ var fSize = document.getElementById('titleSpan').style.fontSize fSize = fSize.substring(0,2) if(Number(fSize)32) fSize = 32; document.getElementById('titleSpan').style.fontSize =...