The BDS Professors Come to High School

Times of Israel
June 2, 2014
by Dr. Ellen Wald
It is no longer surprising when another inaccurate or biased school assignment makes headlines. I am
regularly asked where these distortions and lies originate. When it comes to Israel and Middle East
history the answer is: a powerful subset of university faculty driven by an anti-Israel, anti-American, and
Marxist mindset.
A useful example is the material provided to students in Newton, Massachusetts, a city that has been
involved in a contentious two-year struggle over a high school curriculum on the Arab-Israeli conflict. In
Newton, the dispute between parents and the school district continues, with various Jewish groups lining
up on either side. Many have spoken on the issue, but most have spoken without understanding the
historical facts.
Some of the scholarsand I use the term broadly hereand institutions that produce this biased material
are allegedly funded by Middle-Eastern sources hostile to Jews, Israel, and the United States. Some
scholars are just predisposed to view Israel and the United States as colonialist, imperialist, and oppressive
powers in the Middle East. Anti-Israel activism is not just an extra-curricular activity for many professors,
but an integral part of their research, scholarship, and teaching. These professors and university centers
produce reams of material designed specifically for secondary schools and regularly hold teacher-training
workshops promoting these views. Some recent examples include Harvard and San Jose State.
Based on our ongoing review, Newton teachers have assigned several factually errant writings. Among
these is a booklet about the Middle East from the Choices for the 21st Century Program at Brown
University, which regularly presents incorrect facts about the Middle East and specifically the Arab-Israeli
situation. This material severely alters history to delegitimize Israel, Zionism, and the United States. The
contributors to this booklet include history, political science, international studies, and comparative
literature scholars from institutions such as Brown, Wellesley, and the Graduate Institute of International
and Development Studies in Geneva.
It is replete with errors, in one instance claiming that Great Britain promised Sharif Hussein of Mecca an
independent state across all of the Arab areas of the Ottoman Empire after [WWI]. This statement is
plainly false, as shown in the Hussein-McMahon correspondence which states, The two districts of
Mersina and Alexandretta and portions of Syria lying to the west of the districts of Damascus, Homs,
Hama and Aleppo cannot be said to be purely Arab, and should be excluded from the limits demanded.
Well-known historical research has indicated the architect of this deal, Mark Sykes, understood Palestine
to fall within this area. Legitimate scholars on this subject should be aware of this.
To describe what Israel means to Jews, the Brown University text simply states, Palestine, a significant
region in Jewish history. It makes no mention of any Biblical history, religious yearning for a return to
Zion, or the continuous Jewish population in the land of Israel. This gross understatement of the
connection between Jews and Israel is one of many attempts to minimize and delegitimize Zionism.
In addressing the British motivations behind the Balfour Declaration, the booklet whittles it down to the
common anti-Semitic trope that Jews control American policy. The British, the text states, hoped that
the declaration would rally Jewish opinion, especially in the United States, behind the Allied war effort in

World War I. Legitimate and objective scholars have offered several reasons for the British issuance of
the Balfour Declaration, including Christian Restorationism, hopes to gain European Jewish support in
WWI, and a greater perceived cultural connection with Jews than Arabs. An argument that the Balfour
Declaration was issued because of some mythical Jewish influence on U.S. policy way back in 1917 is not
supported by evidence. However, it is not the first time I have heard this claim in academia, without
evidence.
Other errors include labeling Kuwait and Saudi Arabia as British mandates, with Arab inhabitants who
saw themselves as subjects of European colonialism. Each had a distinct relationship with Britain, but
neither was a mandate or a colony. These erroneous facts are designed to support the belief, common in
academia, that the West especially America, Britain, and Israel have been and continue to be colonial
powers in the Middle East.
This obsession with colonialism permeates academia. I experienced it personally on many occasions
during my academic career. For instance, I once submitted an article about oil operations in Saudi Arabia
to a business history journal. One reviewer responded that I had failed to discuss American colonialism.
There never was American colonialism in Saudi Arabia.
Another of the egregious false histories from the Newton curriculum was written by James Gelvin, a
history professor at UCLA. He is a well-known supporter of the BDS movement, and has written
extensively on his versions of the history of Israel and the Middle East. In the excerpt given to Newton
students, Gelvin fosters the conception of Israel-as-colonizer by comparing Zionist immigration to the
French settler-plantation colony in Algeria. He equates the relationship between Zionism and Arab
Palestinians to the relationship between European anti-Semitism and Jewry. Further, he casts doubt over
Theodore Herzls experience with French anti-Semitism.
This and similar high school material comes directly from academia. It is all part of a three-fold effort to
influence perceptions of the Middle East. First, the education these professors impose on college
campuses encourages and supports the BDS movement and anti-Zionism, even amongst Jewish students.
Second, their control over academic scholarship threatens to perpetuate their agenda. Third, their
influence over secondary school curricula serves to indoctrinate an even younger crowd.
The problem of inaccuracy and bias in Middle East history is systemic in the academic and educational
sphere. The cumulative effect of what we see here is an education by prosecution with Israel as the
unrepresented defendant. It may seem like the prosecutors are in control, but the historical evidence is not
on their side. We can expose this education and scholarship, case by case, by marshaling facts and
disproving the untruths, one at a time.
Ellen R. Wald, Ph.D. is a former Middle East history professor and currently the executive director of Verity Educate. Her work
exposes biased and inaccurate educational material and helps parents and communities remove untruthful information from
schools. She currently lives in Jacksonville, Florida and writes and speaks widely about education, history, and the Middle
East.