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‘Such an approach has nothing to do with the central purpose of the university: to pursue truth,’ one expert said

Millions of taxpayer dollars fund Middle East studies grants involving “radical” anti-Israel professors, a watchdog group says.

Dozens of Middle Eastern studies programs have received millions of dollars from the federal government, even as many of their professors push anti-Israel views, Open the Books reported.

“By funding schools that teach radical ideologies and practice a far-Left DEI philosophy, controversial professors and administrators are also gaining access to a vast ecosystem of tax dollars, and influence over impressionable young people,” the government watchdog group reported.

Open the Books Deputy Policy Editor Amber Todoroff told The College Fix via email that at “nearly 60 years old, [these grants are] a relic of a bygone era when access to less common languages and regions was far scarcer.”

“Throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at wealthy, radical universities to provide this niche is not necessary,” Todoroff said.

She said tax dollars are not just being wasted but also “actively harming Americans and the national interest.”

She suggested that Congress “take this as a sign that it’s time to look back at other decades-old programs and see which no longer make sense for government today.”

“Demand for foreign policy experts will persist with or without federal intervention, so why risk funding counterproductive programming like this?” Todoroff told The Fix.

Similarly, managing editor of the Middle Eastern Forum Winfield Myers told The Fix via email the grants are not an appropriate use of taxes.

“Taxpayer dollars should never be used to oppress, demonize, endanger, or harm Jews or any other religious, ethnic, national, racial, or other group,” he said.

He also said that in the last decade, these programs in the Middle East “have become increasingly radicalized, hostile to American interests, anti-Western, and antisemitic.”

“Such an approach has nothing to do with the central purpose of the university: to pursue truth,” Myers said.

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Further, “Foreign Language and Area Studies” grants “are part of Title VI of the Higher Education Act of 1965” and were “designed to increase the number of area and language experts,” he said. 

They were created during a time when “the U.S. was worried that the Soviet Union was making advances…in areas of the world that American universities had largely ignored,” he said.

The top recipients of these funds include Indiana University, Columbia University, and Georgetown University, which have each recieved over $2.5 million through FLAS grants.

These three schools “have submitted grant applications that highlight professors with radical anti-Israel ideas, and in one case, a disinterest in their school’s code of conduct,” according to Open the Books.

The Fix reached out to Columbia Vice President for Communications Ben Chang, Columbia Director of Communications Sam Slater, and IU Executive Director of Media Relations Mark Bode for comment via email twice each in the last two weeks. None responded.

The Fix also reached out to the Middle Eastern Studies Association Executive Director Jeffrey Reger and Programs Assistant Donia Khraishi twice each for comment. Neither responded.

Some of the “radical” professors in these programs include Abdulkader Sinno (pictured) of IU, Joseph Masaad of Columbia, and Fida Adely of Georgetown.

The College Fix reached out twice by email to Sinno and Massad, as well as the Georgetown’s Office of Strategic Communications for comment. None responded.

Sinno, who is named on one of IU’s grant applications, gave a speech at an “alternative graduation” for pro-Hamas protestors, praising the students for their activism.

He also “served as faculty advisor for the Palestinian Solidarity Committee,” a group that protested for a ceasefire in Gaza with signs that read “Colonialism, Apartheid, Genocide [sic],” according to Open the Books.

Massad, who was on Columbia’s grant application, praised the Oct. 7 attack against Israel as “a stunning victory of the Palestinian resistance.” He also taught a course called “Gender and Sexuality in the Arab World,” and has been accused of bias against the West and Israel by his own students.

Adely, who is on grant applications for Georgetown, is a member of Anthro Boycott, which works “to get the American Association of Anthropologists to boycott Israeli academic institutions.”

She is also on the National Advisory Board for Faculty for Justice in Palestine, an organization that supports “the cause of Palestinian liberation through education, advocacy and action,” Open the Books reported.

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IMAGE: Hamilton Lugar School at Indiana University/Youtube

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