Saban Center for Middle East Policy

The Saban Center for Middle East Policy is a research organization established at the Brookings Institution in 2002 through the donation of $13 million by the Israeli media-mogul, Haim Saban. Its current director is Kenneth M. Pollack. Pollack took over from veteran pro-Israel lobbyist, Martin Indyk, who founded the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, an AIPAC think-tank.

History

After founder Haim Saban closed a profitable multi-million dollar business deal he reportedly contacted Martin Indyk to discuss how he could set up his own think-tank:

When they met in New York about a week later, Indyk recalled, “Haim said, ‘I’ve made all this money; I’m giving ten million to the D.N.C., and I want to set up a think tank. I think we really have to resolve the Arab-Israel conflict. These terrorists give me a potch in the panim, but I still think it’s important for Israel’s future to achieve peace.’ ” Indyk advised him to make a donation to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, but Saban said, “ ‘You don’t understand. I want my own.’ ”

At this time Indyk was working at WINEP but joined Saban's think-tank after Saban made an initial contribution of 13 million dollars for its establishment.

Saban informed a New York Times reporter about his own views about how the conflict in Israel-Palestine would be resolved in 2004: "I'm going to make a very controversial statement and I hope to God that I am proven totally wrong: I think that any resolution will have to go both on the Palestinian side and Israeli side to some form of civil war. It's not going to be without spilling blood." These views did not stop Saban from creating his "own" think tank in 2002 (called the Saban Center for Middle East Policy) at the Brookings Institution with former AIPAC staffer Martin Indyk as its head. He explained: 'I want my own [think tank].’ Connie Bruck writes:

Not all of the Brookings board members supported the idea...Brookings is a non-ideological public-policy institute, dedicated to nurturing American democracy. Saban is unabashedly pro-Israel and, according to people who work with him, harbors a wariness of Arabs that may stem from growing up as a Jew in Egypt; he first returned to an Arab country in 2004, when he went to Qatar with Bill Clinton and the Secret Service. But Saban’s gift was then the largest in Brookings’s history: thirteen million dollars, distributed over seven years. And so, in 2002, the Saban Center for Middle East Policy was established.

Criticism

According to prominent scholars John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, the Saban Center harbors undeniable pro-Israel biases:

It is hard to imagine that a research institute funded by Saban and directed by Indyk is going to be anything but pro-Israel. To be sure, the Saban Centre occasionally hosts Arab scholars and exhibits some diversity of opinion. Saban Center fellows – like Indyk himself – often endorse the idea of a two-state settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. But Saban Center publications never question US support for Israel and rarely, if ever, offer significant criticism of key Israeli policies. Moreover, individuals who stray from the Center’s line do not remain for long, as former NSC official Flynt Leverett’s brief tenure there illustrates.

Moreover, the Brookings Institution's work on the Middle East has degraded since it was transferred to the Saban Center:

Take the Brookings Institution. For many years, its senior expert on the Middle East was William B. Quandt, a former National Security Council official with a well-deserved reputation for even-handedness. Today, Brookings’s coverage is conducted through the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, which is financed by Haim Saban, an Israeli-American businessman and ardent Zionist. The centre’s director is the ubiquitous Martin Indyk. What was once a non-partisan policy institute is now part of the pro-Israel chorus."

People

Principals

• Kenneth Pollack - Director (2009-present)
• Martin Indyk - Senior Fellow, former director (2002-09)
• Haim Saban - Founder

"Experts"

• Hady Amr - Director, Brookings Doha Center
• Anouar Boukhars - Visiting Fellow, Foreign Policy, Brookings Doha Center, Saban Center for Middle East Policy
• Daniel Byman - Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy
• Khaled Elgindy - Visiting Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy
• Stephen R. Grand - Director, U.S. Relations with the Islamic World
• Shadi Hamid - Director of Research, Brookings Doha Center
• Kristin M. Lord - Nonresident Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, U.S. Relations with the Islamic World
• Mirette F. Mabrouk - Nonresident Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy
• Suzanne Maloney - Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy
• Kenneth M. Pollack - Director, Saban Center for Middle East Policy
• Bruce Riedel - Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy
• Cynthia P. Schneider - Nonresident Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy
• Salman Shaikh - Nonresident Fellow, Foreign Policy, Brookings Doha Center, Saban Center for Middle East Policy
• Shibley Telhami - Nonresident Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy
• Vaughan Turekian - Nonresident Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, U.S. Relations with the Islamic World
• Mohammad Waseem - Ford Foundation Visiting Fellow