An online webinar offered by the National Humanities Center (NHC), whose sponsors include UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke University, is teaching K-12 educators that “Israel is not Jewish.”
During a 2020 NHC webinar titled “Understanding the Modern Middle East,” North Carolina State University professor Akram Khater told the class, “This old 19th century idea of the nation-state belonging to one group of people is outdated. It doesn’t work. ... Israel is not Jewish.”
Khater added, “We are way beyond the two state solution. It’s not going to happen. The only solution is going to be a one state solution.”
Even the progressive, liberal publication Vox published an entire column opposing a one state solution, explaining, “In a one-state arrangement, Arabs would outnumber Jews by a significant margin. The result would be the end of Zionism, the vision of a specifically Jewish state that exists to protect Jews in a hostile world.”
Professor Khater takes a Trojan horse approach towards promoting the destruction of Israel.
First, he declares that Israel has the right to exist. But moments later, he insists on a one state solution — which, if carried out — would result in Israel’s destruction as a Jewish state.
In the webinar, which the NHC made available on YouTube, Khater referred to Israel’s actions as “inhumane” and “unethical,” and accused Israel of “apartheid.”
Khater said, “Antisemitism ... is primarily exercised by people who are white nationalists.”
We need look no further than Khater’s own NHC class, to understand that progressive, academic-driven antisemitism is a serious problem.
Khater’s online course, in which he is “lead scholar,” recently featured Kylie Broderick as course instructor.
Broderick, a PhD student at UNC-Chapel Hill, promotes the view that Israel should not exist, believes Palestinians are the only legitimate side in the conflict, tweets “Palestinians are being murdered for just being alive,” and refers to the United States as an “imperialist death cult.”
According to her LinkedIn profile, Broderick is presently “lead instructor” for the NHC’s course “Understanding the Modern Middle East,” which is scheduled to begin on November 8, and “has been designed with the generous support of the Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies, Duke–UNC Consortium for Middle East Studies.”
This is the same Duke-UNC Consortium that made international news in 2019 for featuring an antisemitic rap performance.
Broderick, who has recently been accused of antisemitism, is currently teaching a course on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at UNC-Chapel Hill, despite widespread community outrage.
The UNC Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies prominently featured Broderick in a 2021 full-page newsletter interview, saying: “Working with the NHC has been a blast! Prior to acting as the instructor for the class, I worked with Dr. Akram Khater to construct the syllabus, gather the resources, and write primers for each of the six units in the course.”
Asked about her future plans, Broderick said, “In addition to continuing to work with nonprofits to reach out to K-12 teachers ... [i]f I end up staying in North Carolina, I would also love to be engaged in state curricula building.”
A NHC Tax filing details that in 2019, 18 universities made cash grants to the NHC — with the largest amount of $127,000 coming from UNC-Chapel Hill and another $36,000 from UNC-Greensboro. NC State University gave $83,000, Duke University gave $57,000, and North Carolina Central University gave $55,000.
NHC trustees include Peter Hans, President of the University of North Carolina Systems, and Vincent Price, President of Duke University.
The NHC is indoctrinating educators against Israel. UNC, Duke University, and others provide them with financial support. School teachers, the children they educate, and our community deserve better.
Peter Reitzes is a board member of Voice4Israel of North Carolina and writes about issues related to antisemitism and Israel.
