Mideast Study Programs in U.S. Universities Focus on Arab Nations and Languages and Downplay Israel

Middle East studies programs in American universities tend to focus primarily on Arab nations and languages and to downplay Israel and the Hebrew language, according to a specialist in education and international affairs.

Moreover, declares Dr. Gary Schiff, director for program development and executive assistant to the president of the Academy for Educational Development, patterns of federal funding are in part responsible for these tendencies. The Academy is a non-profit educational research and consulting organization.

Schiff, who recently completed a survey of Middle East studies centers at seven universities — University of California at Berkeley, University of California at Los Angeles, Columbia University, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, and the Princeton University/New York University Joint Center for Near Eastern Studies — made his remarks at a news conference today introducing his just-published report on the study.

The Conference was held at the national headquarters of the American Jewish Committee, which supported Schiff’s research.

SOME OF THE FINDINGS

Noting that the Middle East institutes he examined receive funds from various sources, including the federal government, Schiff stressed that he found a “growing tendency” in these centers to “regard Israel as an entity separate from the rest of the Middle East.” Specifically, he said, he found that:

*The “expanding pattern of funding by Arab governments or pro-Arab corporations” exercised “at least a subliminal influence” on students and faculty in Middle East centers “as well as on the nature, content, and outcome of the programs.”

*Federal funding for the study or teaching of Hebrew was “virtually absent,” while federal funds were available for the study of Arabic, Kurdish, Persian, Turkish, and other Middle Eastern languages.

*With “some notable exceptions, ” courses on Israel or Zionism were “generally absent” from the curricula of the Middle East centers.

*Many federally funded “outreach” projects — lectures, literature, and other materials designed by university Middle East centers for use by high schools, business groups, the general public, etc. — “project a decidedly entrepreneurial orientation geared almost exclusively toward the Arab Middle East.”

Pointing out that the United States “will need increasing numbers of well-trained scholars and professionals who have an interdisciplinary knowledge” of the Middle East, and that, therefore, ” the nation has a vested interest in the continued viability of these area studies programs, “Schiff urged that the federal government “reevaluate its priorities for its support of language and area studies.”

Furthermore, he declared, universities offering modern Middle East studies “should exercise close oversight of appointments, course content, sources of funding, and outreach programs in the interest of preserving … scholarly objectivity …”

SITUATION IN THE UNIVERSITIES

Among the research findings reported in Schiff’s paper:

*At Berkeley’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies, “none of the doctoral candidates doing dissertations in any Middle East-related topic are dealing with … contemporary Israel, Zionism, or related fields.” However, Schiff notes, “Berkeley is one of the few centers to incorporate even a modest sum for the acquisition of Hebrew books in its request” for Federal funds.

*Columbia’s Middle East Institute “has from the very beginning included Israeli studies among its other offerings, ” and is considered, by both faculty members and graduate students, to be “objective, scholarly, and apolitical.” Schiff adds that Columbia is, however, “far less attractive to outside financial support from corporations doing business in the Middle East or from most Middle East governments” than are other Mideast centers.

*UCLA, which has a relatively small Middle East center, conducts a Jewish studies program and several programs focused on Israel, but none of these offerings are handled through the Near East Center. “Again we see,” stressed Schiff, “a trend toward the separation or segregation of Israel and activities related to Israel from the overall Middle East program.”

*Brochures from Michigan’s Center for Near Eastern and North African Studies advertise that federally funded graduate fellowships in Arabic, Kurdish, Persian, and Turkish are available, but they do not mention Hebrew. Comments Schiff, “At the undergraduate level … a large number of (mostly Jewish) students take Hebrew for their own reasons, (but) at the graduate level, where the next generation of Middle East experts is trained, few students are being afforded this opportunity.”

*At NYU, “a pattern which we have observed elsewhere appears (here) as well: Jewish graduate students interested in the Middle East tend to gravitate towards separate formal or informal … programs of Jewish studies or Hebraica, largely of the noncontemporary periods, while the vast field of the modern Middle East — often minus Israel — is left by and large to non-Jewish students.”

*At Princeton, a recent group of Middle East studies doctoral candidates included eight students whose principal research language was Arabic and one who was using Persian. “Not a single student intended to use Hebrew for doctoral level research,” remarks Schiff, adding:

“The virtual absence of federal fellowships for those who wish to study or use Hebrew as a principal language of research may well have a distinctly discouraging effect on those who might otherwise have chosen dissertation topics related to Israel.”

Explaining AJCommittee’s interest in Schiff’s study, Melvin Merians, chairman of the human relations agency’s national committee on special programs, said:”It is AJC’s hope that American universities can provide an atmosphere where Israelis and Arabs — Jews, Moslems, and Christians — can learn together and examine their biases and problems.”

The AJCommittee, he reported, plans to follow up Schiff’s report by:

Continuing to monitor the activities of the centers covered by Schiff’s survey as well as other Middle East programs around the country; collecting and evaluating outreach materials in cooperation with local community groups, teachers and professors; and meeting with university officials to discuss oversight mechanisms and review procedures in case problems arise.