In 2002, the MEF advocated for strong U.S. ties with Turkey, Israel, and other pro-American governments in the region, a stable price for oil, human rights, and peaceful conflict resolutions.

[15] In 2002 Juan Cole, a professor at the University of Michigan and a Campus Watch target, accused the journal of making "scurrilous attacks on people".

Bail of Duke University described it as a "pseudo-academic" journal with editorial board members who share an ideological outlook, adding that while it appears to present legitimate academic research, it is regularly criticized "as a channel for anti-Muslim polemics".

[17] The journal is abstracted and indexed in: In 2002, the Middle East Forum launched an initiative called Campus Watch that it claimed would identify "analytical failures, the mixing of politics with scholarship, intolerance of alternative views, apologetics, and the abuse of power over students" within academia.

[21] Initially, Campus Watch published the profile of eight university professors and teachers, who, it said, were "hostile" to America and "preaching dangerous rhetoric to students".