By Bob Taft
Bowing to the insistence of the United Nations, Congress passed the Higher Education Act of 1965. Under Title VI of that law, U.S. taxpayers began subsidizing Middle East Studies Centers at various universities, which also received, and still do, funding from several Middle East countries, led by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Iran. (1) There are now nearly 130 centers across the country. By law they must conduct outreach to the public, including designing seminars on the Middle East. The heavily subsidized centers pass out teaching materials that receive no scrutiny whatsoever. Saudi-funded foundations design the materials and train the “outreach coordinators.” The gist of the Saudi & Co. agenda is to paint Islam in glowing colors, criminalize Israel and demonize America for crimes against humanity. (2)
Since 1981 the Muslim Brotherhood has played a big role in turning American and global academia to their views. They created the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) with its headquarters in Virginia with branch offices in key cities around the globe.
Its goal: the Islamization of the social sciences worldwide. While the Brotherhood claimed their objective here was “to peacefully get inside the United States government and American universities,” their former director of academic research, Sayyid Syeed, said “Our job is to change the Constitution of America.” Their stated goals capture the organization’s true intent: “direct research and studies to develop Islamic thought and the Islamization of knowledge.”
They do this by holding specialized intellectual and cultural conferences, seminars and study circles to support researchers and scholars in universities and research centers. The IIIT operates through agreements with colleges and universities across the country, setting up conferences and establishing Muslim academic chairs in various college departments.
The most egregious and anti-Semitic example of Islamic propaganda in colleges and universities is the Boycott Divestment Sanctions program. This initiative is sponsored by American taxpayers through Title VI of the Education Act, Middle East Studies Centers, the schools themselves and Saudi Arabia through Aramco World and Iran via its Alevi Foundation. (3)
BDS is an anti-Israeli initiative which began nearly twenty years ago at Harvard and since has spread to campuses not just across this country, but across the planet. Both the Students for Justice in Palestine and the Muslim Student Associations (MSA) also contribute to BDS pro-boycott activities. The MSA is an original Muslim Brotherhood front group which serves as an umbrella group in 52 Muslim countries.
In fact, BDS is a marketing tool for the Palestinian Authority and the terror organization Hamas. (See the Israeli-Palestine Conflict.) Both groups want to destroy Israel, which is actually stated on the BDS website. The organization’s one-sided narrative tries to gain sympathy from the global community for the purpose of delegitimizing the state of Israel and encouraging its destruction through boycotting and sanctioning the entire nation. Ironically the founder of BDS, Omar Barghouti, moved to Israel in 1994 and has lived there ever since. He even pursues his PhD. at Tel Aviv University, an institution he espouses to boycott. (4)
Since the mid-1990’s, though, colleges across the country have put on BDS events with enthusiastic support from progressive professors. There is never an attempt to discuss the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict or debate its history as a liberal education is supposed to do. Instead for the past twenty some years, academia has been simply bashing Israel.
Despite the fact that the movement is backed by terrorist groups and sponsors like Iran, BDS was nominated for the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize. In considering their nomination, hopefully the august Nobel commission considered some of the consequences of BDS propaganda, such as the following.
Last year Cape Town, South Africa, had been suffering from an incredible drought. Water has literally dried up and water taps, showers, and toilets were to shut down completely. Day Zero for them was within a couple of months. Hearing of this crisis, Israel, which had developed technology to recycle nearly 90 percent of its water through sophisticated desalination processes, volunteered to help remedy Cape Town’s problems. When a conference was called to discuss possible steps to take, a pro-BDS professor refused to attend because an Israeli had also been invited. Immediately afterward, the BDS movement successfully lobbied the South African government to cancel the conference. Because of growing Muslim influence in the city, the leaders sided with BDS and rejected the Israeli offer. South Africans were said to have rejoiced at their ability to “tell off the Israelis,” ignoring the fact that such a bravado refusal could very well have led to a widespread calamity.
But the larger and more telling conundrum is this: how can an organization like BDS, whose hostility for a foe trumps salvation of a country, dupe the “intellectual” world that considered this group for the highest peace prize on earth?
Getting back to America, what started over 50 years ago to give American education an international face-lift through the Higher Education Act has morphed into a propaganda machine for Middle East countries which frankly want to bring America down. Yet progressive universities from coast to coast, led by Harvard, proudly wear the BDS banner and fervently promote the Islamic message.
Founded by Jews and named after the first Jewish Supreme Court justice, Louis Brandeis, Brandeis University rescinded an honorary degree to a critic of radical Islam while granting one to a notoriously anti-Semitic playwright. Professors have also exchanged a series of emails where they have attacked Israel and supported a program sponsored by the Muslim Brotherhood. (7) San Francisco State University authorized the president of a Hamas-backed group called the General Union of Palestinian Students to post several social media notes threatening pro-Israel students and praising not only Hamas but also another militant group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. (8) And liberal professors are all too pleased to give speeches at IIII- sponsored events well beyond the borders of their campuses.
The Islamic message, with the Muslim Brotherhood leading the way and well-backed by Saudi Arabia and their arch-foe Iran, echoes across global academia quite well. Since the West fears terrorism and sharia law, the key selling point has been the need to destroy Israel. And while Israel is the only real democracy in the Middle East and the strongest ally of the West, many in the West, because of the baseless yet quite effective BDS narrative, have turned on Israel and the Jewish people. With the overwhelming influx of Muslim refugees, Europe has become openly hostile toward the Jewish state. Here in America, university indoctrination has turned many millennials against Israel as well and the Democrat party is obediently falling into that line as well.
Consequently we saw the Democrats in Congress refuse to condemn anti-Semitism. Noted commentator and judge, Jeanine Pirro, may have lost her job for finally telling the truth about Islam and calling out Congressman Omar for her condemnation of Israel and the wearing of Islamic garb in the halls of Congress.
Even Chelsea Clinton has been thrashed for speaking her mind in a country where free speech used to be sacrosanct. It only shows that to blast Israel and the Jews is perfectly acceptable. But doing the same to Muslims condemn you as an Islamophobe. Political correctness, if that’s what spurs this perverted phenomenon, has turned our values upside down and enemies of those values know it.
And so the animus toward our true friends grows.
- Maccabee Task Force, “What is BDS and Who’s Behind It”
- Ibid.
- Kurtz, Stanley, Saudi in the Classroom, National Review, July 25, 2007
- Maccabee
- Blech, Rabbi Benjamin, “The Cape Town Water Crisis and Hating Israel,” Aishe.com, February 11, 2018
- Mauro, Ryan, “Muslim Brotherhood Inside American Colleges,” The Clarion Project, May 16, 2013. Other colleges listed include George Mason, Nazareth, Shenandoah, Hartford Seminary, Binghamton, Eastern Mennonite, Delaware and American, et al.
- David Horowitz Freedom Center, “Ten Top American Universities Most Friendly to Terrorists,”October 28, 2015. Ten schools include: Brandeis, Columbia, Harvard, Rutgers, San Francisco State, University of California, Irvine, Los Angeles and San Diego, et al.
- Ibid.
- Gallup News, Israel Maintains Positive Image in U.S.,” February 15, 2017
- Kurtz, Stanley, “Saudi in the Classroom,” National Review, July 25, 2007