Overview
The Academic Engagement Network (AEN) is a pro-Israel lobbying organization devoted to challenging the academic boycott of Israel in U.S. higher education. AEN was founded in 2015 to recruit faculty and persuade university administrators to challenge the academic boycott of Israel and implement policies favorable to zionists on campuses across the United States. AEN is wholly a project of the Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC), which has long viewed itself as waging war on U.S. campuses on Israel’s behalf.
AEN’s advisory programs are overseen by a well-connected board of right-wing academics, former university presidents, and leaders of other Zionist institutions. While AEN works with higher profile groups such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), AEN’s work is often done behind the scenes. AEN trains campus administrators on Zionist advocacy and repressive practices for academic speech, funds trips to Israel, and provides grants and resources to Zionist faculty and students. The Faculty Against Antisemitism Movement (FAAM) is one example of an AEN astroturfed project, invented in spring 2024 as a counterforce to the grassroots establishment of hundreds of chapters of Faculty & Staff for Justice in Palestine.
Concerningly, AEN partners with university administrations as a consultant and policymaker — often without the knowledge of campus communities. Since 2023, as campuses have been centers of opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, AEN has gained prominence through its work alongside other Zionist organizations to claim that anti-genocide/anti-Zionist protest is “antisemitism,” while disingenuously portraying itself as a champion of academic freedom, speech, and improving “campus climate.” AEN therefore pushes right-wing, anti-intellectual programming that drives anti-Palestinian racism in higher education by systematically denying Palestinian history, oppression, experiences, identitities, and perspectives.
Why should colleges, universities, and academic associations reject the AEN?
AEN is a central, campus-focused player in the larger Zionist project to suppress, censor, and punish both support for Palestine and open discussion and critical thinking about Israel and Zionism within the academy. As groups such as the ADL and the Brandeis Center launch public attacks on universities and engage in lawfare, the AEN has often worked behind the scenes, offering trainings, speakers, grants, and other resources to “protect” universities from charges of antisemitism brought by other Zionist organizations. AEN uses the liberal rhetoric of respecting academic norms and academic freedom in a way that sets them apart from the more aggressive Zionist attacks on the university. Nonetheless, the AEN works with administrators and Zionist faculty to craft policies aimed at institutionalizing compulsory Zionism and punishing or criminalizing those who refuse or resist it.