A new report says that Brown University’s Middle East and Palestinian studies departments “fuel antisemitism” at the Ivy League institution in Providence.
The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) said the original aim of the 37-page report released this week was to “highlight the disturbing way in which Palestinian Studies, nestled underneath the university’s Middle East Studies department, has worked to indoctrinate students in bigoted and extremist worldviews, rather than educate critical thinkers well versed in the facts, issues and events facing Palestinians, Israelis, and the broader Middle East.”
“There is no greater evidence of this failure than the morally obscene reaction of far too many Brown University faculty members and students to the 10/7 massacre,” stated CAMERA. “The hope is that this report will serve as a call to action not just for Brown University leadership, in light of their Title VI obligations to protect Jewish and Israeli students. But the lessons of this report extend beyond Providence, Rhode Island. Those behind the radicalization at Brown University openly declare their intention to spread this particularly radical concept of Palestinian studies to other academic institutions.”
CAMERA has attracted strong support and criticism for its reports in the past.
Since the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, and the Israel invasion of Gaza, student protesters at Brown have called the U.S. and Israel “complicit in [Palestinian] genocide.”
In December, GoLocal first reported that students at Brown who are active in the Jewish community had their apartment broken into and, according to Providence Police, were targeted with an antisemitic note.
Brown University officials sent an internal email notice to faculty and staff identifying the incident not as an act of “antisemitism”, but, Brown called the incident “bias-related.” Previously, Brown had referred to antisemitic” incidents as acts of “antisemitism.”
About New Report
According to CAMERA, it was founded in Washington, DC in 1982 by Winifred Meiselman, a teacher and social worker. “Mrs. Meiselman formed CAMERA to respond to the Washington Post’s coverage of Israel’s Lebanon incursion, and to the paper’s general anti-Israel bias,” states the organization.
The new report released Wednesday is divided into several sections, and begins with a review of what happened at Birzeit University while Beshara Doumani, the founding director of Brown’s Center for Middle East Studies and the Mahmoud Darwish Professor in Palestinian Studies, served as president for two years.
In November, an exclusive review by GoLocalProv found that Brown has received millions in funding from sources in “Palestinian Territories,” according to a review of federal data, and none from Israel.
“The professor who those gifts supported is Beshara B Doumani, the Mahmoud Darwish Professor of Palestinian Studies at Brown. He also simultaneously has served as the President of Birzeit University from 2021 to 2023, located in the Palestinian West Bank territory,” wrote GoLocal. “His Brown University bio does not mention his role heading the Palestinian University, but his Birzeit bio features his role at Brown.”
When Doumani was named to the Presidency at Birzeit, the American conservation publication the American Spectator wrote, “Palestine’s ‘Terrorist University’ Picks Ivy League Prof as New President.”
“The environment at Birzeit under his tenure serves to illustrate the extremism Doumani not only tolerated but helped foster. Indeed, we have already seen the same brand of extremism found at Birzeit University begin to manifest at Brown University,” wrote CAMERA in its report.
“While the available course material provides important information about the direction of the courses, the rhetoric used in the classes themselves, behind closed doors, is unavailable for the public,” wrote CAMERA. “Based on the materials reviewed, there is little doubt that the associated commentary by instructors/professors, who have elsewhere expressed extremist anti-Israel views, are amplifying the themes outlined.”
“Brown University has a long, proud history as one of the United States’ finest universities. This is what makes it all the more concerning what is emanating from its Middle East and Palestinian Studies programs. Were Doumani to succeed in spreading his model for Palestinian Studies beyond just Providence, Rhode Island, the danger of these rigid, ideological, extremist and often antisemitic messages – much of which is completely at odds with what academia is supposed to be about – would only multiply,” writes CAMERA.
“The danger of indoctrinating young minds with bigoted messages, and glorifying political violence, is obvious, and we are already seeing some of the consequences after the 10/7 Massacre in Israel. Between the ideological uniformity of the faculty and curriculum, and the absence of any meaningful counter-perspectives from Israelis and Zionists, Middle East Studies students at Brown are being at best left uninformed and at worst being actively disinformed about the perspectives of the Jews and Israelis they hear so much about,” according to CAMERA.
“The rigorous study of both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples is crucial not just from a policy perspective, but from the perspective of desiring a peaceful solution to the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There is nothing inherently wrong with the presentation of Palestinian perspectives, or Israeli perspectives for that matter,” the report concludes. “They should both be studied and considered in an intellectually honest and academically rigorous way.”
Brown did not respond to request for comment on the report at time of publication.
