On the same late September day that Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, a self-declared anti-Semite, spoke before a packed and supportive audience at Columbia University and questioned the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust, a subtler but equally pernicious anti-Semitic event was taking place on the other side of town. Titled “<a href="http://apa.nyu.edu/event/on-comparative-settler-colonialisms-j-kehaulani-kauanui-and-rana-barakat/">On Comparative Settler Colonialism</a>,” the panel discussion at New York University (NYU) featured Wesleyan University Professor J. Kēhaulani Kauanui and Birzeit University Professor Rana Barakat. It was presented by the American Studies Program in the Department of Social Cultural Analysis and co-sponsored by the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU and the NYU Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality.
Moderated by Rutgers University Professor Jasbir Puar, infamous for resurrecting classic anti-Semitic tropes such as the <a href="http://www.thetower.org/3117-rutgers-prof-insists-her-updated-version-of-the-blood-libel-is-not-anti-semitic/">medieval blood libel</a>, participants reveled in bigotry and pseudo-intellectualism. In the spirit of classic anti-Semitism, the panelists advocated stripping the Jewish people of their indigenous history and bond to the land of Israel — leaving them, yet again, without a home. By cleverly manipulating concepts of indigeneity, sovereignty, occupation, and colonialism to fit a politicized, one-dimensional narrative based on a self-declared “anarchist” worldview, panelists distorted the region’s distant past and contemporary events alike.
The panel’s aim, according to Kauanui, was to “think comparatively across several colonial landscapes.” Using the framework of her theory “mobilizing indigeneity,” she posited similarities between Hawaii and “Palestine” “at the structural level,” arguing that both peoples “share the fundamental condition of indigenous territorial dispossession.” Kauanui rejected the two-state solution as “unjust at its core because it is premised on the continued acceptance of the Zionist claim to Palestine” that risks “normalizing Israel as a healthy biological political body.” The core problem, Kauanui said, is not the “occupation” per se, but the “broader settler colonial project” — in other words, Israel itself.
Barakat delivered an emotionally fraught lecture on her project of “decolonizing return.” “I hail from a legacy of generations attempting to return,” she declared. “Our collective Palestinian battle is an ontological imperative.” She told a “story” about Lifta, a village she falsely claimed was decimated by Israelis who allegedly forced out her grandmother and many others. In fact, the Arab Higher Executive <a href="https://www.camera.org/article/updated-la-times-gets-its-facts-wrong-on-lifta/">issued</a> the ultimatum to <a href="https://www.israellycool.com/2019/09/12/know-your-history-theres-something-about-lifta/">evacuate</a> the town, as eight Arab armies had just declared war on the fledging Jewish state.
In elaborating on “indigeneity” and “sovereignty” during the question and answer session, Barakat and Kauanui inadvertently revealed these concepts as political tools for delegitimizing Israel. Asking herself “whether the Jewish state had a right to exist,” Barakat denied that it did and claimed that even posing the question legitimized settler-colonialist “manipulation.” They dwelt on Palestinian dispossession, but ignored the historical dispossession of the Jewish people from the region for three millennia despite their continual presence on the land. Both spoke about the Palestinian right of return, but omitted that returning to Jerusalem has been a fundamental element of Jewish identity through the ages, from the Hebrew scriptures to daily prayers.
That Kauanui and Barakat called for the elimination of a sovereign state with no objections from their elite university audience demonstrates the moral and intellectual depravity of contemporary academe. Their arguments seek to legitimize genocide — yet to students mis-educated by Middle East Studies (MES) professors to view Zionism as a racist, colonialist scheme to steal land, they seem just.
Yet the “Zionist project” is perhaps history’s greatest triumph over colonialism. Through it, an ancient people who had their own nation with Jerusalem as its capital, and who were subsequently sentenced to centuries of exile, were able to re-assert their sovereignty and exist collectively as a people in the 20th century. What the panelists called “settler colonialists” are in fact a composite of Middle Eastern Jewish refugees forcibly expelled from Arab countries in the 1940s and their European Jewish counterparts escaping Holocaust persecution who joined native Jews whose ancestors had lived continuously in the region since Israel’s destruction two-thousand years before. In promoting Palestinian indigeneity and sovereignty but denying this same right to the Jewish people, they hypocritically display their own shade of “settler colonialism.”
UCLA Professor <a href="http://bayes.cs.ucla.edu/WHY/pearl-bio">Judea Pearl</a> once <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0323-pearl-anti-zionism-20160323-story.html">characterized</a> anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism aimed at Jews collectively, rather than individually: “If we examine anti-Zionist ideology closely, we see that its aims are to uproot one people, the Jewish people, from its homeland, to take away its ability to defend itself in sovereignty, and to delegitimize its historical identity. It is racist and fundamentally eliminationist.” Kauanui, Barakat, and Puar’s comments at NYU validate Pearl’s observation.
Their prominence in contemporary MES here and abroad, moreover, illustrates the field’s descent into a morass of politicized, even bigoted indoctrination masquerading as scholarship. Anyone trusting their work — whether students, journalists, government specialists, military leaders, or others — will be dangerously misled on the fundamental history of the region and its people. MES’s systemic problems are well-<a href="https://www.meforum.org/campus-watch/">documented</a> and widely known. Unless this corrupt, failing discipline is reformed intellectually and morally, no one should look to it for accurate, truthful analyses.
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Karys Rhea is the New York associate of the Counter-Islamist Grid. She wrote this article for <a href="https://www.meforum.org/campus-watch/">Campus Watch</a>, a project of the <a href="https://www.meforum.org/">Middle East Forum</a>.

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<a href="https://www.worldvision.org/">World Vision</a>, a multi-billion dollar international charity founded on evangelical Christian principles, has made quite a few deals with the devil. A new terror-funding scandal seems to implicate the organization every few years.
Last month, documents obtained from the U.S. Treasury via the Freedom of Information Act <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49423/smith-westrop-new-evidence-shows-un-engulfed-bin-cliff-smith">revealed</a> how World Vision used funds from the United Nations to bankroll the Islamic Relief Agency (ISRA), a designated terror finance charity based in Sudan that has raised millions for al-Qaeda in the past. This news comes after <a href="https://www.meforum.org/7613/lost-in-sudan">revelations</a> that World Vision provided U.S. taxpayer dollars to the al-Qaeda-linked group. Moreover, World Vision allegedly sought to strong-arm Treasury into allowing the ISRA project to continue, soliciting congressmen to intervene and threatening litigation.
World Vision has a history of ignoring finance risks. In 2016, <a href="https://kehilanews.com/2017/12/23/world-vision-gaza-the-questions-continue/">Mohammed El Halabi</a>, head of World Vision’s Gaza operations, confessed to redirecting $50 million to the terrorist group Hamas. In <a href="https://www.jpost.com/National-News/Australian-groups-accused-of-aiding-PFLP-linked-group">2012</a>, World Vision diverted $1.68 million of Australian government aid to a fake Palestinian charity established by the PFLP terror group.
World Vision maintains a strong New York presence, where supporters have largely turned a blind eye to the group’s sinister activities. World Vision’s partners include three of New York’s biggest evangelical churches: <a href="https://www.redeemer.com/">Redeemer</a>, <a href="https://hillsong.com/">Hillsong</a>, and <a href="https://tsc.nyc/">Times Square Church</a>, along with local civil society and non-governmental groups, including <a href="http://operationexodus.org/">Operation Exodus</a>, <a href="http://crossroadstabernacle.com/">Crossroads Tabernacle Church</a>, <a href="https://www.reallifechurchnyc.com/">Real Life Church</a>, <a href="https://www.southbronxunited.org/">South Bronx United</a>, <a href="https://www.manhattanbible.com/">Manhattan Bible Church</a>, and <a href="https://www.hfny.org/">Hope for New York</a>.
Institutions reached for comment about World Vision’s record appeared indifferent or defensive.
“I’m not very aware of their international work but that sounds out of character with the people and the ethos that I see coming out of the organization,” said Matt Mahony, CPO of Operation Exodus.
Local World Vision partners presented with information about these cases responded with silence or defensiveness.
“I’ve never heard anything like that about World Vision,” said Pastor Willie Lopez of Manhattan Bible Church. “All I know is that they are a tremendous help to the community.”
One affiliate isolated the El Halabi scandal, claiming his church would stand by World Vision because charges weren’t proven in court. Another church administrator said accusations were driven by an anti-evangelical agenda.
Pro-Israel evangelicals should also be troubled by World Vision staffers’ anti-Israel stances and borderline anti-Semitic comments — like those of former World Vision International Operations Director Tom Getman, who <a href="http://www.thetower.org/article/world-visions-decades-long-hate-campaign-against-israel/">called</a> Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah a “friend.”
A variety of <a href="http://www.thetower.org/article/the-latest-threat-to-evangelical-support-for-israel/">different sources</a> from <a href="https://www.ngo-monitor.org/ngos/world_vision_international/">different backgrounds</a> have raised issue with World Vision’s anti-Israel bent. In a 2016 <a href="http://www.thetower.org/article/world-visions-decades-long-hate-campaign-against-israel/">article</a>, Luke Moon, an ordained Southern Baptist minister, wrote that World Vision had “done more to undermine Christian support for Israel than any other organization.”
World Vision’s defense raises more questions, with many of its claims proving difficult to verify. Financial reports are opaque. There’s little indication where donations are spent, and annual reports seem irreconcilable with details made in statements. NGO Monitor <a href="https://www.ngo-monitor.org/press-releases/terrorist-aid-hijacking-and-ngo-oversight-failure-learning-from-the-world-vision-case/">called it</a> a “multibillion-dollar NGO industry that remains largely unregulated and unexamined.”
New York evangelicals’ resistance to the truth about World Vision is perplexing. The Jewish and Zionist communities, on the other hand, know where World Vision stands.
Asked about the ISRA allegations, Ephraim Inbar, director of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, commented: “We have the moral duty to demask organizations, such as World Vision, which are undermining Christian values, by spreading hatred and violence.”
Avi Posnick of StandWithUs Northeast was appalled, noting, “World Vision donors and partners, including those in New York, should demand full transparency and accountability before continuing to support and work with this organization.”
This does not mean World Vision’s partners aren’t also doing some good work. Punishing kids in the Bronx isn’t the answer. World Vision Greater New York is a branch of World Vision USA, which maintains a degree of separation from World Vision International. But it is difficult to tell where one group ends and the other begins.
Established as separate entities, World Vision USA provides the lion’s share funds to World Vision International. Yet only World Vision International appears as a registered charity in New York. The global and the local have merged, making it difficult to guarantee where donated funds are headed.
World Vision does tremendous work on a local level and is a boon to the New York community. But there are other evangelical groups with clean reputations willing to partner with these communities.
Empowering rogue regimes — like Sudan or Hamas in Gaza — creates the problems World Vision seeks to solve, and World Vision’s local partners should demand clarity. The shroud of moral darkness surrounding World Vision’s actions is a departure from the spirit of service that is the basis for its very existence.
Karys Rhea is a writer and musician living in Brooklyn. She is the New York associate of the <a href="https://counterislamist.org">Counter-Islamist Grid</a>.
UPDATE: Subsequent to publication, World Vision and Times Square Church each issued statements to the author claiming they do not work with one another in any capacity.

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RHEA: NYU Panel Seeks To Delegitimize Jewish History

RHEA: Evangelical Charity World Vision’s Terror-Funding Scandal Continues