Asaf Romirowsky

{{Short description|American historian and political commentator}}

Asaf Romirowsky ({{Langx|he|אסף רומירובסקי}}) is an American historian of the Middle East and political commentator. He is the executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) and the executive director of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA).

Biography

Asaf Romirowsky holds a BA from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a masters degree from Villanova University and a doctorate from King's College London.{{Cite web|url=https://jcpa.org/researcher/asaf-romirowsky/|title=Asaf Romirowsky|website=Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs}}{{cite web |url= https://embassies.gov.il/washington/Speakers-Guide/Society-and-Politics/Pages/Asaf-Romirowsky.aspx |title=Asaf Romirowsky |access-date=2025-03-05}}

Professor Bernard Lewis and Professor Fouad Ajami co-founded the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa as an ideological counterweight to the Middle East Studies Association and has been its director since the learned society's inception.{{cite news |last1=Shapiro |first1=Dmitriy |title=Facing anti-Israel and left-wing ideology, Mideast academics chew over challenges in field |url=https://www.jns.org/facing-anti-israel-and-left-wing-ideology-middle-east-academics-chew-over-challenges-in-their-field/ |access-date=25 September 2023 |work=Jewish News Syndicate |date=2021-11-19}} According to Romirowsky, anti-Israeli, pro-BDS views were cascading through academic departments and there was a problem of a biased narrative presented on college campuses.{{cite news|last1=Redden|first1=Elizabeth|title=Boycott Battles Ahead|url=https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/08/19/boycott-battles-continue-us-academe|access-date=29 October 2017|website=Inside Higher Ed|date=19 August 2014}} He is also the executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME).{{Cite web |url=http://www.meforum.org/staff.php |title=Staff |website=Middle East Forum |access-date=2009-10-21 }}{{cite news |last1=Parente |first1=Audrey |title=Middle East analyst to talk at temple |newspaper=The Daytona Beach News-Journal |date=18 August 2011|id={{ProQuest|884230752}} }}

Romirowsky's publicly-engaged scholarship has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The National Interest, The American Interest, The New Republic, The Times of Israel, Jerusalem Post, Ynet and Tablet among other online and print media outlets.{{Cite web|url=http://spme.org/author/aromirowsky/|title=Articles authored by Asaf Romirowsky - SPME Scholars for Peace in the Middle East|website=SPME|language=en-US|access-date=2018-07-12}}

In late 2007, his invitation to take part in an academic panel at the University of Delaware was rescinded by student organizers after another member of the panel, political science professor Muqtedar Khan, objected to sharing a podium with a former Israeli soldier.{{Cite web |title= Professor Kicked Off Panel For Military Record |author= Vasoli, Bradley |date= 2007-10-30 |newspaper= The Bulletin - Philadelphia's Family Newspaper |url= https://www.meforum.org/campus-watch/12092/professor-kicked-off-panel-for-military-record-on |access-date= 2021-03-30}}{{Cite web |url=http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/10/31/qt |title=Israeli Booted |author=Jaschik, Scott |date=2007-10-31 |work=Inside Higher Ed |access-date=2009-10-21 }}{{Cite web|url=http://jta.org/news/article/2007/10/30/105006/delawarepanel |title=Israeli veteran disinvited from panel |date=2007-10-30 |work=Jewish Telegraphic Agency |access-date=2009-10-21 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120523220542/http://www.jta.org/news/article/2007/10/30/105006/delawarepanel |archive-date=2012-05-23 }}{{Cite web|url=http://www.udreview.com/2.1981/controversy-surrounds-speakers-at-middle-east-panel-1.138269 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110717141703/http://www.udreview.com/2.1981/controversy-surrounds-speakers-at-middle-east-panel-1.138269 |url-status=dead |archive-date=2011-07-17 |title=Controversy surrounds speakers at Middle East panel |author=Militano, Alison |date=2007-11-09 |work=The Review (University of Delaware's Independent Student Newspaper Since 1882) |access-date=2009-10-21 }}

=Works=

In 2013, Romirowsky co-authored with Alexander H. Joffe the book Religion, Politics, and the Origins of Palestine Refugee Relief (Palgrave Macmillan).{{cite news|title=Failed Religious Diplomacy at the Birth of Israel|url=http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/failed-religious-diplomacy-the-birth-israel-10158|access-date=22 May 2015|website=The National Interest|date=31 March 2014}} The book examined the origins of UNRWA in the endorsement by the British authorities in Mandatory Palestine of efforts by the American Friends Service Committee to assist Arab refugees during and after the 1947–1949 Palestine war. Romirowsky and Joffe argue that the UNRWA's attitude towards Israel is rooted in the "foundational belief" of the American Friends Service Committee "in a supersessionist Christianity that could not reconcile the possibility of a rebirth of Jewish nationhood in the Land of Israel."{{cite news |last1=Shwayder |first1=Maya |title=Prosor publicly blasts UNRWA. Envoy to UN: NGO fuels 'fiction' of Palestinian 'right of return' |work=The Jerusalem Post |date=20 May 2014|id={{ProQuest|1535197662}} }}{{cite news |last1=Brackman |first1=Nicole |title=When other interests get in the way (book review) |work=The Jerusalem Post |date=23 May 2014|id={{ProQuest|1541634067}} }}

Romirowsky is a contributor to The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel.{{cite news |last1=Wise |first1=Christopher |title=Deconstruction, Zionism and the BDS Movement |work=Arena Journal |date=2017|id={{ProQuest|1953316313}} }}

Views

In 2019, Romirowsky and Miriam Elman attributed "a significant growth in the normalization of antisemitism" to the impact of the BDS movement.{{cite journal |author=Elman |author2=Romirowsky |date=2019 |title=Postscript: BDS |url=http://10.2979/israelstudies.24.2.18. |journal=Israel Studies |volume=24 |issue=2 |page=228 |doi=10.2979/israelstudies.24.2.18 |access-date=2025-02-09}}

Romirowsky is a critic of Palestinian political violence.{{cite news |last1=Tabachnick |first1=Toby |title=Third intifada? It's happening, says scholar, and Hamas' strategy (kidnappings) is set |newspaper=Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle |date=10 July 2014|id={{ProQuest|1551728649}} }}

Romirowsky believes that UNRWA is an "anomaly within the world of refugee relief" and that it encourages the refugees it cares for towards terrorism and intransigence.{{sfn|Wisse|2011|ps=: Scholars Asaf Romirowsky and Nicole Brackman have rightly called UNRWA an “anomaly within the world of refugee relief” for the way it prolonged suffering and anger to become “a weapon to encourage [generations] toward terrorism and intransigence.”}}

Romirowsky favors limiting the definition of who is a Palestinian refugee so that descendants of those who fled or were expelled by Israel during the 1948 war would not be counted as refugees.{{sfn|Guttman|2012}} Marouf Hasian Jr. criticizes Romirowsky by arguing that he is minimizing the existential dangers facing the Palestinians by complaining about how UNRWA categorizes refugees. According to him, Romirowsky's message is that "happy and carefree generations of Palestinians don't mind being refugees, and the UNRWA revels in its role as dispenser of aid" which he thinks is false.{{sfn|Hasian|2016|p=194}}