A forthcoming report on American student internships in Israel and the Palestinian territories says that some programs are promoting extremist politics instead of academic values.

The report, "Human Rights Internships That Promote Conflict, Not Education," is to be published in May by NGO Monitor, an Israeli watchdog based here.

A draft copy of the report obtained by The Chronicle singles out programs at the University of Denver's Graduate School of International Studies and George Mason University's Center for Global Education, both of which send students as interns to human-rights nongovernmental organizations, or NGO's, in the Middle East...

..."The NGO's involved in these internship programs are systematically biased in promoting a pro-Palestinian political agenda, and present human-rights and international law in a simplistic, partisan, and misleading manner, in which the environment of terrorism and asymmetric warfare is erased," the draft charges.

Some targets of the criticism assailed the draft report as a right-wing smear, and they said the interns furthered their studies in rigorous academic programs.

Among the NGO's criticized is the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, an Israeli group that promotes an anti-Israeli boycott and denounces Israeli "apartheid" and "atrocities." That committee and Mossawa, an Israeli-Arab rights group, have compared Israel to Nazi Germany. Another group criticized in the draft report, I'lam, was involved in an "Israel Apartheid" week at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies...