Governed and directed by academics, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) is a grass-roots community of nearly 28,000 university and college professors, researchers, administrators, teachers, librarians, and students on more than 3500 campuses worldwide. All receive our SPME Faculty Forum. Nearly 40 campuses in the US and abroad now have their own chapters (see SPME Chapters ). SPME is an independent, not-for-profit organization chartered in the State of Pennsylvania under provision 501(C)3 of the US tax code.

As our name implies, we envision and strive for peace in the Middle East: a world in which Israel exists as a sovereign Jewish state within secure borders and her neighbors achieve their legitimate peaceful aspirations. As scholars, we commit ourselves to the promotion of research, education, and service to achieve this just peace. We also envision and strive for a region in which human rights, stability and economic development grow and benefit all the peoples of the area.

However, we observe that academic discourse is increasingly influenced by ideological distortions, politically biased scholarship, and agenda-driven speakers who demonize Israel and Zionism as bearing full responsibility for the Middle-East conflict. Such indoctrination violates academic traditions of scholarly integrity and degrades the academic enterprise. It poisons debate about the Middle East, inflames hatred of Israel, spreads anti-Semitism, incites anti-Israeli militancy, and serves to excuse or tolerate terrorist attacks and genocidal threats against Israel. Anti-Israel slanders exacerbate conflict and undermine prospects for peace.

Our mission is to inform, motivate, and encourage faculty to use their academic skills and disciplines on campus, in classrooms, and in academic publications to develop effective responses to ideological distortions, including anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist, and anti-Muslim slanders, that poison debate and work against peace. SPME opposes all manifestations of anti-Semitism in academia, including calls for an academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions. In a time when faculty members sympathetic to or merely suspected of being sympathetic to Israel may be subject to hostility and intimidation, we also serve as a network for mutual support.

SPME welcomes scholars from all disciplines, faith groups, and nationalities who share our desire for peace and our commitments to academic freedom, academic integrity, and honest debate.

Revision Adopted and Approved by The SPME Board of Directors
June 5, 2008

Gil Troy: Let's Mobilize Against Anti-Israel Week
 

Barry Rubin: Defining "Victory" and "Peace": How the U.S. and Israel Reject General Sherman's Solution and Get Blamed Any Way
 

French Faculty Revitalizing SPME- France Chapter
 

Matthias KÜNTZEL: Iranian Antisemitism: Stepchild of German National Socialism
 

Gerald Steinberg and Anne Herzberg: Israel and the Illusion of International Justice
 

2010-02-08 - York University Investigating Assault on Jewish students
 

2010-02-07 - Anti-Israel Bias Infects Medical Journals
 

2010-02-04 - Anti-Israel Prof Part of Middle East Primer
 

2010-02-04 - Hillel at Odds over J Street's ‘pro-Israel pro-Peace' Prog.
 

2010-02-03 - Klocek Takes Fight Against DePaul to the Appellate Court
 

Bashing Israel for Saving Haitians
 

Harry Reicher: Strange Effects - Israel's Right to Self-Defense
 

Ruth Dudley Edwards: British Universities: Seats of Learning – and Loathing
 

Yossi Shain and Neil Rogachevsky: Why Lobbies Don't Matter
 

Ray Takeyh: In the Face of Protests, Iran's Leaders Are at an Impasse
 

How Not To Make Peace in The Middle East
 

Jeffrey Schaler: December, 2007 Special Issue: Anti-Semitism the World Over in the Twenty-First Century Available
 

Ernest Sternberg: A Revivified Corpse: Left-Fascism in the Twenty-First Century
 

Itamar Rabinovich Offers Person-Statement on New Book "The View From Damascus"
 

Looking Back to Look Forward: Romirowsky on Oren's "Power, Faith and Fantasy: American in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present"
 

2010-02-02 - 'EU Aid Funds PA Incitement'
 

2010-02-02 - Jordan Criticized for Stripping Palestinian Rights
 

2010-02-02 - War Crimes Trials Unlikely for Israel or Hamas
 

2010-01-25 - Alert: Female Suicide Bombers May Be Heading Here From Yemen
 

2010-01-25 - Israelis Says Anti-Semitism Peaked in 2009
 

2010-01-25 - Hamas is to Blame for Israel's Failure to Aid Gazans
 

2010-01-24 - Bin Laden Claims U.S. Plane Bombing Attempt
 

2010-01-23 - U.K. Raises Terror Alert, Says Attack 'Highly Likely'
 

To: British Academic Participating in Silent Boycott of Israeli Academics and Institutions
A Petition To Condemn The 2009 British UCU's Silent Boycott of Israel Academics and Institutions

Read and Sign | More SPME's Petitions

To: Colleagues in the Academic Community
SPME Statement on Discrimination Against Israeli Academics and Institutions

Read and Sign | More SPME's Petitions

Goldman Visiting Israeli Professorship Application Now Available for 2010-11 at Georgetown University, Department of Gov't
 

The Yale Initiative for the Study of Anti-Semitism - Seminar Series 2009-2010
 

ASMEA Second Annual Conference October 22-24, 2009 Washington, D.C.
 

ASMEA'S Annual Conference October 22-24, 2009 - Online Registration Now Open