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Israel Studies Under Attack at US Universities, New Report Finds
Pro-Hamas demonstrators at Columbia University in New York City, US, April 29, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Caitlin Ochs
Israel Studies as an interdisciplinary field is in danger of being crowded out of American higher education by infectious ideologies which are having success in confecting a consensus that it normalizes the existence of a country which undermines progressive values, according to a new report published by The Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI).
The report — written by University of Haifa professor Sara Yael Hirschhorn and titled, “Israel Studies at American Studies at American Universities: Is There a Path Forward?” — argues Israel Studies in the American academy is in decline, a downward trend that is being accelerated by a cultural milieu fostered by a consortium of interest groups that are hostile to the existence of Israel as a Jewish nation-state and wish to see their antipathy reflected in college curricula.
“Despite the fact that the field is well-funded, has attracted the interest of both the scholarly and lay community, and could be a constructive intervention in campus debates at this moment of crisis, it is currently epistemologically and pedagogically incompatible with a campus climate since 10/7 [Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel] that is increasingly anti-Zionist, pro-BDS [boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement against Israel] and even cheers Hamas,” Hirschhorn writes.
“The prevalence of Ethnic Studies and its associated paradigms, the impact of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI])frameworks that all but exclude Jews and Zionists, the influence of lavish Middle Eastern funding on university programs and politics, and the deterioration of campus culture in the age of ‘cancel culture’ have profoundly constrained the ability of Israel Studies to flourish in the Western academy,” she adds.
Hirschhorn goes on to argue that in addition to being surrounded by enemies, Israel Studies is working through a crisis of identity caused by competing visions of its scope and mission. As an interdisciplinary field serving as a “big tent” for other disciplines relevant to the study of Israel, she says it winds up being open to “almost everyone who wants to affiliate” even as they undertake courses of study that are “haphazardly cobbled together into what has been called a discipline, with its attendant academic conferences, publications, employment, grants, and community that often lack coherence.” Israel studies scholars, she adds, betrayed the field’s nebulous characters themselves during a 2024 conference held at Charles University in Prague where virtually no one delivered a presentation which came remotely near to addressing the conference theme, which was Israel Studies from a “European and international perspective.”
The conference did not present a coherent vision, “nor did there seem to be any hierarchy of priorities between, say national security of Israel or queer histories of mandate Palestine,” she continues. “The awarding of prizes and grants at the conference were decided by closed-door committees based only on a vague set of published qualifications, leaving much of the process opaque. The balance of Israeli scholars compared to other nationalities was all quite evident and may signal a decline in the field in the West. Furthermore, attendance seemed self-selecting — many notable figures who hold chairs in the field of Israel Studies were absent.”
In its weakened state, Israel Studies is vulnerable to attacks by DEI, Hirschhorn later said, connecting the seams of her thesis.
“On its face, one might think that DEI would be beneficial for Jews as a small religious and ethnic minority in the United States, but in practice it has excluded their concerns from its remit and has even been rebuked for both ignoring and fomenting antisemitism on university campuses,” she explains. “The pro-Palestinian agenda was implicitly adopted as a correct manifestation of DEI priorities, which extended support to tent encampments and other student protests. In some cases, DEI administrators themselves were revealed to have engaged in anti-Zionist and antisemitic activity on social media … and in training materials.”
All signs, she concluds, portend Israel Studies’ becoming “administratively homeless” as BDS advocates amass power in campus bureaucracies and the field itself “takes no concrete steps toward self-definition or embraces an opportunity to ring-fence it activities with the support of increased donor funding.” In a worst-case scenario, “it might simply be absorbed into the growing field of Palestine Studies or completely abolished by university administrators.”
JPPI president Yedidia Stern implored the Jewish academic community to take Hirschhorn’s report seriously.
“This is more than a crisis of curriculum — it’s a crisis of intellectual freedom,” he said in a statement accompanying the release of the report. “Israel is being silenced in spaces that once welcomed open academic exploration. We cannot allow this erasure to continue unchecked.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Israel Studies Under Attack at US Universities, New Report Finds first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Germany’s Halt to Arms Exports to Israel Is Response to Gaza Expansion Plans, Chancellor Says
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz attends a cabinet meeting at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Aug. 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Liesa Johannssen
Germany’s decision to curb arms exports to Israel comes in response to Israel’s plan to expand its operations in the Gaza Strip, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Sunday in an interview with public broadcaster ARD.
“We cannot deliver weapons into a conflict that is now being pursued exclusively by military means,” Merz said. “We want to help diplomatically, and we are doing so.”
The worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza and Israel’s plans to expand military control over the enclave have pushed Germany to take this historically fraught step.
The chancellor said in the interview that the expansion of Israel’s operations in Gaza could claim hundreds of thousands of civilian lives and would require the evacuation of the entire city of Gaza.
“Where are these people supposed to go?” Merz said. “We can’t do that, we won’t do that, and I will not do that.”
Nevertheless, the principles of Germany’s Israel policy remain unchanged, the chancellor said.
“Germany has stood firmly by Israel’s side for 80 years. That will not change,” Merz said.
Germany is Israel’s second-biggest weapons supplier after the US and has long been one of its staunchest supporters, principally because of its historical guilt for the Nazi Holocaust – a policy known as the “Staatsraison.”
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Newsom Calls Trump’s $1 Billion UCLA Settlement Offer Extortion, Says California Won’t Bow
California Governor Gavin Newsom speaks at a press conference, accompanied by members of the Texas Democratic legislators, at the governor’s mansion in Sacramento, California, U.S., August 8, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Saturday that a $1 billion settlement offer by President Donald Trump’s administration for UCLA amounted to political extortion to which the state will not bow.
The University of California says it is reviewing a $1 billion settlement offer by the Trump administration for UCLA after the government froze hundreds of millions of dollars in funding over pro-Palestinian protests.
UCLA, which is part of the University of California system, said this week the government froze $584 million in funding. Trump has threatened to cut federal funds for universities over anti-Israel student protests.
“Donald Trump has weaponized the DOJ (Department of Justice) to kneecap America’s #1 public university system — freezing medical & science funding until @UCLA pays his $1 billion ransom,” the office of Newsom, a Democrat, said in a post.
“California won’t bow to Trump’s disgusting political extortion,” it added.
“This isn’t about protecting Jewish students – it’s a billion-dollar political shakedown from the pay-to-play president.”
The government alleges universities, including UCLA, allowed antisemitism during the protests and in doing so violated Jewish and Israeli students’ civil rights. The White House had no immediate comment beyond the offer.
Experts have raised free speech and academic freedom concerns over the Republican president’s threats. The University of California says paying such a large settlement would “completely devastate” the institution.
Large demonstrations took place at UCLA last year. Last week, UCLA agreed to pay over $6 million to settle a lawsuit by some students and a professor who alleged antisemitism. It was also sued this year over a 2024 violent mob attack on pro-Palestinian protesters.
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Trump Nominates State Dept Spokeswoman Bruce as US Deputy Representative to UN
FILE PHOTO: U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce speaks during her first press briefing at the State Department in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo
President Donald Trump said on Saturday he was nominating State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce as the next US deputy representative to the United Nations.
Bruce has been the State Department spokesperson since Trump took office in January.
In a post on social media in which Trump announced her nomination, the president said she did a “fantastic job” as State Department spokesperson. Bruce will need to be confirmed for the role by the US Senate, where Trump’s Republican Party holds a majority.
During press briefings, she has defended the Trump administration’s foreign policy decisions ranging from an immigration crackdown and visa revocations to US responses to Russia’s war in Ukraine and Israel’s war in Gaza, including a widely condemned armed private aid operation in the Palestinian territory.
Bruce was previously a political contributor and commentator on Fox News for over 20 years.
She has also authored books like “Fear Itself: Exposing the Left’s Mind-Killing Agenda” that criticized liberals and left-leaning viewpoints.
In a post after Trump’s announcement, Bruce thanked him and suggested that the role was a “few weeks” away. Neither Trump nor Bruce mentioned an exact timeline in their online posts.
“Now I’m blessed that in the next few weeks my commitment to advancing America First leadership and values continues on the global stage in this new post,” Bruce wrote on X.
Trump has picked former White House national security adviser Mike Waltz to be his U.N. envoy. Waltz’s Senate confirmation for that role, wherein he will be Bruce’s boss, is still due.
Waltz was Trump’s national security adviser until he was ousted on May 1 after he was caught up in a March scandal involving a Signal chat among top Trump national security aides on military strikes in Yemen. Trump then nominated Waltz as his U.N. ambassador.