Howler of the Month (archive)

"[About] those firecrackers from Hamas [fired] at a town in occupied Palestine: You will notice there were like ten injured and sometimes they had shocks . . . they actually list the injured; they [listed] those whose feelings were hurt; those who were startled. This war crimes thing is for victimhood reputation."

As'ad AbuKahlil, a professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus, and a research fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, discussing rockets fired from Hamas-ruled Gaza into southern Israel at a "teach-in" at the University of California, Berkeley, on November 12, 2011. (link to source)

We Couldn't Have Said it Better (archive)

"It is sobering to observe how few professors of Middle East studies at American or European universities seem able or willing to grasp the true nature of the Muslim Brotherhood, let alone display any interest in its visceral anti-Westernism or ferocious anti-Semitism. Today, very few academics seek to elucidate its core ideology or long-term goals, let alone acknowledge their incompatibility with liberal democracy, human rights, or a stable world order."

Robert S. Wistrich, professor of modern history and director of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in his article, "Post-Mubarak Egypt: The Dark Side of Islamic Utopia"; Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, January, 2012. (link to source)

CAMPUS WATCH, a project of the Middle East Forum, reviews and critiques Middle East studies in North America with an aim to improving them. The project mainly addresses five problems: analytical failures, the mixing of politics with scholarship, intolerance of alternative views, apologetics, and the abuse of power over students. Campus Watch fully respects the freedom of speech of those it debates while insisting on its own freedom to comment on their words and deeds.

The Latest on Campus

Religion Brought Into the Light [incl. Clif Trolin]
January 27, 2012 - The Torch (student newspaper of Lane Community College)

Arab Spring Draws Academic Attention [incl. Marc Lynch, Nathan Brown]
January 26, 2012 - The GW Hatchet (student newspaper of George Washington University)

California State University Reinstates Israel Study Abroad Program Despite Protests
January 26, 2012 - The Investigative Project on Terrorism

After Studying Abroad, Student Reflects on His Experience, Egypt as a Nation
January 25, 2012 - The Brown and White (student newspaper of Lehigh University)

UCLA Historian's Book Looks at Arab Uprisings, Their Common Origins and Different Paths [on James Gelvin]
January 25, 2012 - UCLA Newsroom

Egypt: A Revolution in Women's Rights Is Not Over [Interview with Laura Bier]
January 24, 2012 - Connection Point (Blog of Peace X Peace)

U.S. Universities Have Permanent Relationship With Qatar Faculty For Islamic Studies [incl. John Esposito]
January 24, 2012 - The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report

Leading Islamic Scholar Receives Lifetime Achievement Award [on Sulayman Nyang]
January 2012 - The Howard University Capstone

Following Politicized Dismissal, Norm Finkelstein Gives Details of Tenure Battle
January 23, 2012 - In These Times (Chicago)

Finklestein, Eisenstein Cases Show Dichotomy of Academic Freedom Laws
January 23, 2012 - Roosevelt Torch

Blog

Campus Watch on Facebook

By Campus Watch | Thu, 26 Jan 2012, 12:32 PM | Permalink

Campus Watch (CW) now has a Facebook page, so please stop by, give us a look, and if so inclined, a "like." We plan on linking to all of our new articles and blog posts, as well as posting updates on developments in the field of Middle East studies. CW West Coast Representative Cinnamon Stillwell will be the administrator.

Please click here to access the Campus Watch Facebook page.

Farewell to UCLA's Sondra Hale

By Cinnamon Stillwell | Tue, 10 Jan 2012, 3:31 PM | Permalink

Sondra Hale

The rabidly anti-Israel University of California, Los Angeles anthropology and women's studies professor Sondra Hale has retired. Her list of dubious achievements is long and, over the years, Campus Watch has chronicled a good number:

Hale was one of the founding members of the organizing committee for the Campaign for the Cultural and Academic Boycott of Israel. At the time of its inception, she touted her prominent involvement, telling the Daily Bruin in February, 2009 that, were it to go into effect, "foreign exchange and cooperative programs with Israel would cease."
At an October, 2009 conference at the Center for Near Eastern Studies (CNES)--for which she served as chair of the Faculty Advisory Committee--Hale equated the pro-Israel groups StandWithUs and the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) with "Nazis" and "McCarthyists."
In response to widespread criticism regarding the blatantly anti-Israel and, at times, anti-Semitic nature of a January, 2009 "Human Rights and Gaza" CNES symposium, Hale penned an op-ed in the Daily Bruin, slamming UCLA student and member of Bruins for Israel, Ben Meiselman, for having the temerity to publish a piece criticizing the symposium.
Hale was one of the signatories to a ridiculously conspiratorial 2002 open letter warning that Israel would use the Iraq war to perpetrate "ethnic cleansing" against the Palestinians.
Shifting focus to her other specialty, Africa, Hale suggested in November, 2007 that Islamist-perpetrated genocide in Darfur could be prevented by sending in "mediation, negotiation, healing and psychotherapy . . . professionals to work with people when tensions are building up."

UCLA now has an opportunity to make amends for Hale's years of agitprop and politicization of her discipline by filling her position with someone who will pursue disinterested, rigorous scholarship.

Willful Blindness Toward Terrorists at UCLA a Decade After 9-11

By Winfield Myers | Fri, 23 Dec 2011, 10:17 AM | Permalink

Lisa Hajjar

In a Campus Watch essay published today at FrontPage Magazine, Judith Greblya reports on a recent roundtable discussion at the University of California, Los Angeles, at which Lisa Hajjar of UC-Santa Barbara and others attacked America, Israel, and the West and issued apologias for terrorists. Sadly, it's what close observers of contemporary Middle East studies have come to expect from our leading universities.

The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Center for Near Eastern Studies hosted a roundtable discussion last month titled, "After a Decade of the 'War on Terror': The Middle East, Human Rights and American Muslims." Sponsored by the UCLA School of Law Critical Race Studies Program, the event featured UCLA law professor Asli Bali, University of California, Santa Barbara sociology professor Lisa Hajjar, and American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Southern California attorney Ahilan Arulanantham. The audience of approximately twenty people was comprised mostly of law and graduate students, along with a few members of the community.

According to the introduction, the speakers were to "examine this decade on the war on terror in the broader context of the international community," but the two-hour event quickly descended into a forum for America-bashing. All three speakers called the existence of Islamic terrorism into question and, what's worse, behaved as if the attacks of September 11, 2001 never occurred.

To read the rest of this essay, please click here.

Rashid Ghannoushi: John Esposito's Islamist in Tunis

By Winfield Myers | Sun, 11 Dec 2011, 9:33 AM | Permalink

John Esposito

In an article written for Campus Watch that appears today at American Thinker, journalist Stephen Schwartz examines the beliefs of Tunisian political leader Rashid Ghannouchi. Although Georgetown's John Esposito has spent years whitewashing Ghannouchi's reputation, Schwartz exposes the Tunisian as a radical Islamist:

Rashid Ghannoushi (or Rachid Ghannouchi in French) is the ideological elder of Tunisia's Ennahda, or the Renaissance Party, the local branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. He arrived in Washington on Monday, November 28, 2011, in the halo of a skewed electoral victory by his party in the small North African country's recent elections.

In addition to being the man controlling Tunisia's main Islamist movement from behind the scenes, without an elected post and the responsibility that it would bring with it, Ghannoushi comes to America as someone who was, to a significant extent, lifted to power by the support of American Middle Eastern studies establishment. Indeed, the successful rise of Ghannoushi is symbolic of the American academic penchant for enabling and justifying radical Islam. A key advocate in this enterprise was the notorious professor John L. Esposito, director of Georgetown University's Saudi-financed Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU).

To read the rest of this article, please click here.

Campus Watch Blog Archive