The struggle for acceptance of Israel Studies at universities

When courses on Israel Studies first began in universities several decades ago, they were depicted by some as teaching a fictitious, invented subject – nothing less than an offshoot of the hasbarah industry. For those in communal leadership, it was often seen as just that – an opportunity to promote Israel within academia.

The problem was that independently-minded academics – and especially Jewish ones – often refused to follow a conventional pathway and viewed the academic classroom as a sanctuary for debate and analysis. Academia in their eyes was not an adjunct of the communal endeavour.

There was, therefore, a world of difference between informatzia (information), hasbara (explanation) and ta’amula (propaganda).

For many academics, the goal was to strive for objectivity in this sensitive area of discourse but also to demonstrate that there were different interpretations of episodes and events. There were no definitive “alternative facts”, as the devout of Trumpland would say.

However, not all academics in some subject areas were unable to divorce their personal views from their professional responsibility. For some, facts became secondary to achieving ideological goals. Teaching a course for some became a political crusade. The advent of Israel Studies in academia during the 1980s was thus seen as a red rag to a bull for many involved in Middle East Studies.

They saw the Middle East as solely defined by the Arab world and often including Iran and Turkey. Since some perceived Israel to be an heretical interloper in the Middle East, it logically followed that Israel Studies should not gain entrance – and that Palestinian Studies was to be preferred in the world of academia. Ironically, it was this unofficial exclusion that led to the emergence of Israel Studies as a discipline in Europe and in other parts of the world.