The crisis in higher education, faculty, students, and administrations adopting ideological positions radically at odds from those of most Americans and in the process reshaping institutions, is becoming better understood.

But none of this is new. Another Israel boycott resolution being considered by the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) reminds us that the rot in higher education set in long ago and was focused, not surprisingly, on Jews and the Jewish State.

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For years, Arab-Palestinian advocates have worked to diminish importance of the November 1917 Balfour Declaration, where the British Government declared its support for "a national home for the Jewish people," going as far as taking legal action against United Kingdom for issuing the declaration. Back in 2016, in Mauritania, then-Palestinian Authority's Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki told Arab League leaders that London is to blame for all "Israeli crimes" committed since the end of the British Mandate in 1948.

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The U.S.-Israeli bond is a flexible and wide bridge. Many lanes permit a variety of exchanges in both directions. At the most general are shared cultural and moral concerns; more narrowly there are security and economic issues. But while Israelis have embraced American pop culture and like to build economic and cultural connections, American history and politics are lost on most, especially American political trends. This can be damaging.

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Quakers and Reform Jews

Quakerism has long had a certain appeal to Jews; its pacifist nature and liberal values harmonise well with the universalism of most Jews on the religious and political left. But its influence on American Judaism in the 20^th and 21^st centuries has been poorly charted. At the extreme, that influence is seen in 'Quaker Jews,' who purport to unite the doctrines of a 17^th century Christian dissenter sect with those of Judaism, in the manner of 'Buddhist Jews' and other syncretisms based on agnosticism. The irony of liberal Jews 'quaking' before God – like Haridim who 'tremble' – is rich, but is pointed out mostly in vain.

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Of all the catchwords hijacked by the study of the Middle East Conflict, none has turned taboos inside out more than settler colonialism. It is the linguistic warrant for bringing an indictment against Israel for denying Palestinians the freedom and justice presumably due to them. But its list of charges can be validated only by a highly distilled, if not distorted, set of facts intended to redefine the country and reconfigure its history. Notwithstanding its historical inaccuracies and conceptual flaws, settler colonialism has taken on an almost canonical status in the academy. Consider the almost scripted statements issued by faculty and students at Brown, Princeton and Harvard universities during the recent outbreak of Gaza-Israeli violence.

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