American Professors for Peace in the Middle East - excerpt from Lee O'Brien, American Jewish Organizations and Israel, 1986

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This page is an extract, reproduced with permission, from Lee O'Brien, American Jewish Organizations and Israel, Washington DC: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1986. [1]

  • Year established: 1967
  • National President: Marver Bernstein
  • Executive Director: George Cohen
  • Address: 330 Seventh Avenue, Suite 606, New York, NY 10001
  • Publications: Middle East Review (quarterly), APPME Bulletin, Special Reports

General Background

APPME grew out of an ad hoc committee set up during the 1967 war ‘to gather signatures for a statement indicating support within the academic community for a resolution of the crisis which would achieve and maintain a just and lasting peace in the Middle East including the preservation of the State of Israel.’ The statement appeared as a two-page advertisement in the New York Times on 8 June 1967, published under the name of ‘Americans for Democracy in the Middle East-Ad Hoc Committee of American Professors.’ It characterized the Arab blockade of the Straits of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba as ‘an attack on the very life of the state of Israel and its people.’ Citing ‘massive [Arab] mobilization to destroy Israel,’ it called on the U.S. Congress to maintain its commitment to Israel and ‘restore freedom of passage through the Gulf of Aqaba.’ Hundreds of American professors, the majority of whom were Jewish, signed the ad.

After the war was over, the ‘Ad Hoc Committee of American Professors’ placed another advertisement in the New York Times on 13 July 1967: the statement, an open letter to President Johnson, UN secretary general U Thant, and others, called for ‘recognition of Israel's right to exist as a sovereign state on equal terms with other sovereign states in the region.’ Moreover, it criticized the UN for inactivity, and the U.S.S.R. for its ‘biased attack on Israel,’ its equation of Israel with the Nazis, and its encouragement of ‘Arab extremism and intransigence.’ Finally the statement appealed for more signatures, volunteers, and help in financing the cost of such advertisements. By the time the group published its third advertisement on the war (New York Times, 24 October 1967), it was no longer an ‘Ad Hoc Committee,’ but APPME. The theme of this ad was ‘The road to peace: direct negotiations.’ The text criticized ‘Arab intransigence’, and advocated negotiations between ‘Israel and her neighbors.’ It called on the UN to honor its principle that "negotiation is essential," and on President Johnson to uphold ‘his statements that the parties to the conflict must be the parties to the peace....' Boasting the support of ten thousand professors on about 170 U.S. campuses, APPME stated that its aim was

‘to help achieve a just and lasting peace in the Middle East that will guarantee the security of the State of Israel.’

Structure

APPME is a membership organization open to all faculty members and administrators in academia; the American Academic Association for Peace in the Middle East (AAAPME) is its non-profit branch, which receives tax-deductible contributions and also sponsors publications, such as Middle East Review. In 1980, an APPME brochure declared that ‘about 15,000 individuals, in one way or another, are formally or informally connected with our organization and ... subscribe to its overall objectives.’ These individuals were distributed over six hundred U.S. campuses.

APPME shows the same New York City address as the American Zionist Federation's Zionist Academic Council (discussed above in Chapter 1). APPME is structured on a regional basis; as of March 1983, there were fifteen regions, each under a regional chairman. • The regions and their regional chairmen:

Each regional chairman has a regional council that consists of the campus representatives in the region. All regional chairmen, in turn, serve on the national executive committee, which meets regularly. APPME's deliberative body, the national council, meets in the spring of each year and includes campus representatives, APPME's officers, and executive committee members. APPME has also an active liaison office in Jerusalem.

Role and Israel Support Work

To the American academic community, APPME advertises itself as ‘the oldest and largest organization of academics devoted to bringing the scholarly resources of the academic community to bear on the basic conflict areas in the Middle East.’Although it declares that it is ‘dedicated to a just and lasting peace between Israel and her Arab neighbors,’ it insists that it ‘does not engage in direct political action, nor does it espouse specific policy positions.’ [2]

It acknowledges, however, that its position ‘implies advocacy of certain objectives that we regard as fundamental, of which the continued existence of Israel, not only in security but also in a context of normal relations with its Arab neighbors, is the most significant.’ [3]

APPME conducts regional and national meetings on campuses, academic conferences, special panels at meetings of professional associations, briefing sessions, and study missions to the Middle East and distributes books, reports and its journal, Middle East Review. APPME organises missions to the Middle East, campus meetings, regional conferences, and annual national conferences. The AAAPME conducts Middle East panels at professional meetings.

In 1979/1980, AAAPME's Committee on Campus Journalism monitored over three hundred college newspapers, with the help of a grant from the Newton Becker CPA Review Course Philanthropic Fund, to examine the presentation of the Middle East debate in the campus press. The conclusion, as reported in Middle East Review, showed that Arab students express ‘radical views,’ while American commentators keep referring to PLO moderation.

Recently APPME has been gathering information on critics of Israeli policy who speak on campuses; a memorandum sent to all regional chairmen and campus representatives in March 1983 reported:

We have received a list of speakers who are being toured through the university circuit by other groups to present the Arab point of view. The problem with many of these presentations is that they smack more of propaganda than of education. In order of frequency and virulence the speakers are: Hatem Hussaini, Edward Said, Noam Chomsky, Fawaz Turki, Stokely Carmichael, James Zogby, Hassan Rahman, Chris Giannou, M.D., Israel Shahak, and Gail Pressberg. It would be helpful if you would let us know whether any of these speakers appeared on your campus or on a neighboring university, what they said and what the question and answer period was like. We would be equally interested to know whether any speakers presenting the Israeli point of view visited in your area and what transpired. While there are doubtless many speakers who espouse the Israeli position, it seems to us that there is no organized, centrally controlled, information plan like the one we are seeing on the Arab side. [4]

Such a characterization is ironic, in light of APPME's 1982 expenditure of $425,000, as well as the fact that APPME is only one of many pro-Israel organizations that target the American campus. [5]

In 1982, AAAPME formed a new ‘Middle East Media and Information Service’ to respond quickly to media requests for experts on the Middle East and to encourage media to submit such requests. In 1983, AAAPME received a research grant from the Bruner Foundation ‘to measure informational and attitudinal changes among faculty and students resulting from having Middle East scholars in residences for 3-day periods on selected campuses in the far West.’ The call was for professors who are willing ‘to serve as our paid contacts for the project.’ The selected universities were in Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Utah. AAAPME has a campus radio program, called ‘Middle East Dialogue,’ which is distributed free to over 200 campuses. [6]


Publications

The major activity of the APPME/AAAPME is the publication and dissemination of background papers, special reports, conference proceedings, journals and books.

Among the background papers that APPME has produced and made available to the academic public are: ‘Saudi Oil Pricing and Production: Good Will or Self-Interest,’ by Alan Dowty; ‘AWACS and the Next Arab-Israeli War,’ by Martin Greenberg; ‘The Immoderation of Saudi Arabia,’ by Michael Curtis; ‘The Arab Lobby,’ by Fredelle Z. Spiegel; ‘The Israel Lobby and the National Interest,’ by Seymour Martin Lipset; and ‘Western Europe and the Middle East: Venice or Munich,’ by Michael Curtis.

The quarterly Middle East Review (MER) published by AAAPME was known as the Middle East Information Series until 1974. In 1981, it claimed a circulation of 10,000 copies. Its self-description states that ‘its contents focus on the varied and complex problems involved in the Arab-Israel conflict;’ that it is prepared by ‘international authorities;’ and that it is read by reaching academics and scholars and is used as class, text and source material.

In the wake of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, AAAPME initiated a series of monthly MER Special Reports, distributed free of charge upon request. Three of these reports, written by Michael Curtis, AAAPME's chairman of the board and a professor of political science at Rutgers University, deal with ‘Lebanon: Past, Present, Future’ (August 1982), ‘Options for Peace in the Middle East’ (February 1983), and ‘Academic Freedom and the West Bank’ (April 1983).

In the Lebanon report, produced at the height of the Israeli seige of Beirut, Curtis maintained that, ‘As a result of PLO activity, Lebanon as a viable political structure has disappeared,’ and that ‘Israel intervened in Lebanon in order to eliminate the PLO bases and thus end their use as springboards for attacks on Israeli soil’

In the report on ‘Options for Peace in the Middle East’, Curtis wrote

‘The essence of the Arab-Israeli conflict remains what it has always been: the refusal of Arab states or political forces, except Egypt, to accept the existence and legitimacy of the state of Israel.’

Curtis' report on ‘Academic Freedom and the West Bank’ is the clearest example of his, and APPME's, role as apologists for official Israeli policy. Curtis' thrust in this report is to refute the charge that Israel suppresses academic freedom in Palestinian educational institutions on the West Bank; Curtis minimizes those abuses that are too blatant to dismiss as instances of ‘overzealous censorship’ or ‘occasional brutalities’.

In 1983, controversy arose over a Middle East textbook that AAAPME commissioned. The book, The United States and the Middle East, was written by Philip L. Groisser, a former high school superintendent, and published by the State University of New York Press in 1981. The American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee charged that the book contained antiArab bias; in the wake of the allegations, SUNY Press discontinued publishing the book, though it claimed its decision was due to financial considerations only. [7]

Notes

  1. ↑ This page is reproduced by permission of the Institute of Palestine Studies, granted on 25 February 2014. The Institute retains copyright of all material.
  2. ↑ APPME, An Invitation to Join APPME (brochure)
  3. ↑ MESA Bulletin, December 1980
  4. ↑ APPME Newsletler; March 1983
  5. ↑ AAAPME 1982 Annual Report, Charitable Organization, for year ending 31 August 1982, filed with the New York State Department of State
  6. ↑ APPME Bulletin, 1982, 1983
  7. ↑ New York Times, 21 September 1983
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