Calif. College Professor Hands Out Middle East Map — but Something Big Is Missing
Some San Diego State University
students studying the Arabic language were dismayed when they were
handed a map by their professor at the beginning of the semester which
labeled the State of Israel as “Palestine.”
The pro-Israel advocacy group StandWithUs
tells TheBlaze that the professor, Ghassan Zakaria, distributed the map
on the second day his Arabic 101 class met. Students worried that if
they complained about the map they could be labeled as “troublemakers”
and that their grades could be impacted, StandWithUs said, adding
students turned to the organization fo help. The group urged its members
to contact the university to complain.
The original map handed to students in a San Diego State University Arabic 101 class (Photo courtesy: StandWithUs)
“It is a language class, it’s not a class about conflict,” a student who asked not to be named told San Diego’s KGTV.
Another student said, “Bringing his own bias to the classroom was just not o.k.”
“This is not only anti-Israel, it’s the
elimination of Israel,” said Nicole Bernstein who is executive director
of StandWithUs-San Diego.
Bernstein says she spoke with the
Arabic department chair who explained that the professor handed out the
map labeling the territory as “Palestine” in order to reflect the views
of Arabic speakers in the Middle East.
Bernstein says the university further
told the pro-Israel organization that the professor planned to assign
students to research the politics of the region in order to prompt a
discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Israeli history.
San Diego State University issued the
following statement to KGTV last Tuesday: “While SDSU encourages
scholarly debate and discussion of varying opinions, presenting
inaccurate information to students in not acceptable. SDSU’s Provost has
conferred with the department chair, who spoke with the faculty member.
This inaccurate portrayal will not reoccur.”
But the university went even further. Last Wednesday, the professor handed out a new map, this time with Israel’s name hand-written on it.
The professor later handed out this new map (Photo courtesy: StandWithUs)
StandWithUs tells TheBlaze that the professor also apologized to the class for the first map.
The group further says that the
university has now set up two scholarships in tandem with StandWithUs
for the study of Judaism and for study abroad travel to Israel in
response to the map controversy.
This is the first time that any university has started a fund in StandWithUs’ name included, the group’s CEO Roz Rothstein says.
Rothstein called it a “wonderful update” in a letter to the organization’s supporters.
“We are especially appreciative and
impressed by the university’s rapid response to concerns we expressed on
behalf of students. We only wish other universities were as responsive
to student concerns,” she wrote.
Bernstein told TheBlaze via e-mail,
“As a global organization, StandWithUs sees these kinds of issues on
campuses all over the world – but we have never seen a university jump
into action so quickly and so efficiently the way SDSU has – they took
this issue very seriously and have done a tremendous job working
internally to fix the problem.”
“From our perspective – they are a
model for all other universities where students encounter anti-Israel
and anti-Semitic activities on campus,” Bernstein added.
The U.S. does not recognize a sovereign state of Palestine, as depicted in the original map.
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