If you're going to be afraid of centers that "quickly develop minds of their own," then what's the alternative?

Sure, the overall climate in academia is pro-Arab, but that may be partly due to the fact that Middle Eastern studies is synonymous with Arab studies (with Turkey and Iran as sidelines). The Middle East has largely been studied (and explained to the publc) by Arabists, people whose careers are based on their love for and fascinated with Arab culture, history and society. There's nothing wrong with having a love for Arab culture, but that will naturally lead to a sympathy for and indulgence in the Arab worldview. I've heard of Middle East scholars who "tried their best" to understand the Israeli point of view, the implication being that it still didn't make much sense to them.

I once met a French student who was pro-Arab and wanted to study Hebrew to "know the language of the enemy." OK, you'll get people like that. But will such people spend years immersing themselves in Jewish and Israeli religion, history, languages, and culture? I doubt it. Only a deep love for Jewish/Israeli civilization will see people through years of study and decades of research. And a deep love of Jewish/Israeli civilization will likely correlate with a sympathy for, or at least a deep understanding of, Israel and Zionism.

You may get some scholars like Pappe, but I don't think that's likely. Anyone studying Israel from an adversarial standpoint will go through a straight Middle Eastern studies program.

It has disturbed me for a long time that there are legions of Arabists out there, but no...what would the word even be? Judaicists, Israelicists? The word doesn't even exist. Anyway, there are no legions of scholars or other experts immersed in the Jewish/Israeli worldview.

Of course, that's only natural. The Jews have a rich culture, but not a major civilization traditionally embracing vast land areas and tens of millions or hundreds of millions of people. But the lack of experts on Israel has had serious consequences. So I say it's high time that the situation changes. I'm glad that Brandeis is doing this.

With this being a Brandeis centered program, it's much less likely that it will slip in the direction which many academic programs do.

I actually took a course taught by Professor Troen and it was an excellent experience. [I think the course was titled "Social Topics in Israeli History" or something along those lines] Not only his ability as a teacher, his vast knowledge of the subject mater itself, and of the literature was astounding.

One of the topics we covered in the course was the origins and development of the Zionist Narrative (quite an interesting subject in and of itself). One of the things the Professor had us do, to get a full understanding and exposure to the topic was to have us read both the works of established (imho-reputable) historians, and some works of the "new historians" (Pappe, Morris, Segev, Khalidi etc.).

Despite the flaws in the works of the new historians, the exposure to their work, more than anything else expanded the understanding many of us had of the subject as a whole. For this (and many other things), I compliment the Professor. An aside, his books are also quite good.

Exposure to the work of New Historians (by the way, I don't think Khalidi is among them, he's just an Arab historian) can be enriching, but only with the caveat that they sometimes play fast and loose with the facts. You have to be careful of bias on both sides, I would think.