Last week, an obscure UN body called the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations decided to “defer” the application from the Badil Resource Center, a Palestinian organization working for Palestinian refugee rights based in Bethlehem. Badil was asking for “consultative status” that would allow it to make statements at official UN gatherings. The committee was supposed to decide if Badil’s work was consistent with the purposes of the UN. Germany demanded that Badil provide a copy of every statement it has ever made on terrorism. The US demanded to hear Badil’s position on the land issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Then the US asked if Badil had anything to do with the International Solidarity Movement. Read more about At the UN, Palestinian democracy tests American and Israeli limits
The surplus oil industry wealth of the now-deceased former Samson Investment Company CEO is apparently being used to help subsidize the activity of the Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC) and its affiliated David Project. In 2004, for instance, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation — with assets of $100 million — gave a $1,050,000 grant to Hillel to support the Israel on Campus Coalition [ICC] project, according to its website. Read more about The Israel on Campus Coalition and the David Project: Sponsored by US oil and Israeli bank profits?
After a month of speculation, the New York Times and the Washington Post ran stories on 21 April 2005 that the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee had finally seen the light and fired two of its top officials as a result of an FBI espionage investigation into its activities.� Though their lawyers were reported by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency declaring that the men had “not violated any U.S. law or AIPAC policy,” Steve Rosen, AIPAC’s policy director, and Keith Weissman, senior analyst on Iran, were let go.� Ha’aretz’s reporter compared the firings to removing a cancer and expected AIPAC to emerge healthy and intact.� Read more about AIPAC Finally Fires Two Employees
The British government assisted a leading company in the UK to obtain a lucrative contract with Israel which violates UK policy and international law on the status of Occupied East Jerusalem, an EI investigation has uncovered. Under the contract, signed with the Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, UK consulting firm A4e will establish an employment center in Jerusalem. Despite assurances from officials at the British Embassy in Tel Aviv that “we cannot and will not support any work” by A4e in Occupied East Jerusalem, there is conclusive evidence that they did exactly that, damaging UK credibility as an honest broker. EI’s Ali Abunimah reports in a dual exclusive with Middle East International magazine. Read more about EI EXCLUSIVE: Britain's double game
The report recently released by Columbia’s Ad Hoc Grievance Committee is an odd document. Several people, including this author, have pointed out that the section dealing with three student grievances against two professors makes very little sense. The report seems to simply discount the word of Dr. Joseph Massad while taking the word a Dr. George Saliba at face value. In the case of a simple “he said, she said” grievance against Dr. Saliba, the Committee sided with the accused professor. In the case of “four people testify for Dr. Massad (including Dr. Massad), while three people testify for his accuser (including his accuser),” and when the testimony of Dr. Massad’s four is far more consistent and less suspect than that of the three testifying against him, the Committee sided with the accuser. Read more about Some Observations on Academic Freedom
In late 2004, claims of intimidation in the department of Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures (MEALAC) of Columbia University hit newspapers around the world after an unreleased documentary Columbia Unbecoming, which purported to reveal incidences of intimidation and anti-Semitism in the classroom. The primary target of the organized campaign was Professor Joseph Massad. Columbia University ultimately formed an ad hoc committee to investigate, which released its report on 31 March 2005. Joseph Massad responds. Read more about EI EXCLUSIVE: Joseph Massad's response to the Ad Hoc Grievance Committee Report
On 31 March 2005, Columbia University publicly released the report of a faculty Ad Hoc Grievance Committee charged with examining student complaints of intimidation in the classroom by faculty in the department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures (MEALAC). The Ad Hoc Grievance Committee, which was composed of five University faculty members and advised by First Amendment scholar and Columbia Visiting Professor Floyd Abrams, was formed in December 2004 to identify the facts underlying student concerns of intimidation in the classroom. In this exclusive, EI publishes the full text of Joseph Massad’s rebuttal. Read more about EI EXCLUSIVE: Joseph Massad's statement to Columbia University's Ad Hoc Grievance Committee
Directed by a member of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies Council and a recent head of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies (JCSS) at Tel Aviv University named Shai Feldman (no relation to this writer), the new Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University apparently won’t have to operate on a shoestring budget. According to the Boston Globe, the Crown Center for Middle East Studies already has an endowment of $25 million. “The center will seek to produce a discourse on the Middle East as dispassionate, objective and centrist as possible,” Feldman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in a recent interview. Looking at the players, this seems unlikely. Read more about Brandeis University's "objective" center for Middle East Studies undermined by Israeli and US military connections
With annual revenues of $15,112,321 and assets of $10,936,961 in 2002, the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces group assists members of the North American public in providing financial support for certain designated programs of the Association for Welfare of Soldiers in Israel. At its $1,000-a-plate 2005 New York Gala Dinner on March 15, for instance, the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces New York chapter “will once again honor the soldiers” in “the largest single fundraising event” for the U.S.-based IDF support group, according to its website at www.israelsoldiers.org. Read more about Manhattan's Friends of the Israel Defense Forces
AIPAC has been taken aback by new Mideast resolutions. Last month the House and the Senate each passed their own resolutions expressing support for the Palestinian Authority in the wake of their successful presidential elections. The Washington Jewish Week reported that many on the Hill feel the Israel lobby was caught asleep on this one. The problem for the lobby was simple: popular support and optimism after the Palestinian presidential elections took the wind out of any possible grounds for raising opposition to the resolutions. Read more about AIPAC Losing this Fight
