Howler of the Month (archive)

"The gas attack in Syria on April 4 consumed the world's attention and galvanized the Trump White House. . . . Yet the president and most of his party are committed to increasing the daily release of hundreds of thousands of tons of a far more deadly gas—carbon dioxide."

Juan Cole, Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan, in "The Other Poison Gas Killing Syrians: Carbon Dioxide Emissions"; The Nation, April 18, 2017. (link to source)

We Couldn't Have Said it Better (archive)

"The movement to remove 'non-political' is designed to make it easier for the organization not only to condemn Israeli policies but also, perhaps, to work collectively for the elimination of the Jewish state."

Cary Nelson, former AAUP president and prof. of English at the Univ. of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, arguing (contra U. of London visiting prof. Neve Gordon) that the Middle East Studies Association should continue describing itself as "non-political" in its bylaws; Chronicle of Higher Education, March 6, 2017. (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

The Top 10 College Administrations Most Friendly to Terrorists and Hostile to the First Amendment [incl. Hatem Bazian, Rabab Abdulhadi]
May 15, 2017 - FrontPage Magazine

Muslim Brotherhood-linked International Institute of Islamic Thought gave $750,000 to Georgetown University in 2015
May 15, 2017 - Jihad Watch

Parents Sue Pro-Palestinian U.S. Group Over Son's Death [incl. Hatem Bazian]
May 14, 2017 - Israel Hayom

Parents of American-Born Terror Victim in Israel Sue to Recover Damages [incl. Hatem Bazian]
May 14, 2017 - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Terror Supporters JVP and AMP Stung By Flyers Accusing Them Of Being Terror Supporters [incl. Hatem Bazian]
May 12, 2017 - IsraellyCool Blog

Lawsuit Targets American Muslims for Palestine [incl. Hatem Bazian]
May 12, 2017 - The Investigative Project on Terrorism

21 Years After Son's Death, Parents Aim to Crush Groups That Fund Terror [incl. Hatem Bazian]
May 12, 2017 - USA Today

Bearden High Selected As Only State School to Offer Arabic to Students
May 11, 2017 - WLVT News (Knoxville, TN)

NY Public Schools Promote Course Justifying Suicide Bombings
May 10, 2017 - Clarion Project

PBS Teaching Students to Sympathize With Suicide Bombers
May 9, 2017 - Citizen-Action

Blog

Academic Malfeasance: U. of Arkansas Disinvites Phyllis Chesler

By Winfield Myers | Thu, 27 Apr 2017, 1:26 PM | Permalink

Phyllis Chesler

The spring disinvitation season is in full swing. In addition to celebrity provacateurs, serious scholars have had the welcome mat yanked by the very people who invited them. Phyllis Chesler is the latest scholar subjected to this treatment after the Saudi-funded King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, rescinded its invitation for her to speak about honor killings and forced marriages. Winfield Myers, Middle East Forum director of academic affairs and Campus Watch, provides an account today at the Daily Caller:

The latest speaker to be "disinvited" from an American college is prominent feminist scholar Phyllis Chesler, whose participation in a University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, symposium on honor killing earlier this month was withdrawn days before the event. Behind the cancellation lies a sordid tale involving faculty machinations, threats from a dean, and at least one shattered window. Together, they offer a case study on the intellectual and moral corruption of academe.

Chesler is an emerita professor of psychology and women's studies at the City University of New York whose pioneering scholarship exposed the horrors of honor killing, forced marriages, and other brutalities women suffer in Muslim lands and beyond. She was invited to deliver a lunchtime lecture on "Worldwide Trends in Honor Killings" at a conference on "Violence in the Name of Honor: Confronting and Responding to Honor Killings and Forced Marriage in the West" on April 13-14, cosponsored by the law school and the Saudi-funded King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies.

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

UCLA's Gelvin Buries Obama's Middle East Policy Failures

By Cinnamon Stillwell | Fri, 14 Apr 2017, 5:56 PM | Permalink

James Gelvin

The Trump administration's airstrikes against a Syrian military airfield following a chemical attack has focused attention on the previous president's Middle East foreign policy failures. Yet, in a lecture at UC Berkeley, UCLA professor James Gelvin persisted in downplaying Barack Obama's record regardless of the chaos it sparked. In a report for Campus Watch that appears today at the Daily Caller, Michael Lumish provides the details:

"How will history judge Barack Obama in terms of his policies and actions toward the Middle East?" asked UCLA Professor of Middle Eastern History James Gelvin at UC Berkeley. . . . Gelvin's answer to his opening question—that Obama's policies were in line with his predecessors' during the Cold War—strained credulity and mirrored the Middle East studies establishment's strategy to defend Obama's record regardless of the chaos it sparked.

To read the entire article, please click here.

Georgetown's Jonathan Brown Kicks Out Critic, Again

By Cinnamon Stillwell | Fri, 14 Apr 2017, 2:41 PM | Permalink

Jonathan Brown

Thin-skinned Georgetown University prof. Jonathan Brown has ejected Andrew Harrod, a correspondent for Campus Watch and Jihad Watch (JW), from an event for the second time. Harrod's crime? Being a "noted Islamophobe" who has "slandered" Brown or, in other words, a critic of the professor's apologias for Islamism. Harrod still managed to attend the next day's screening of "The Sultan and the Saint," a film that whitewashes Islamic history, and his report on both appears today at Jihad Watch.

Jonathan Brown, director of Georgetown University's Saudi-funded Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU), brooks no disagreement. Having expelled this writer from a February 7 apologist lecture on Islamic slavery that provoked nationwide outrage, Brown ejected me from another Georgetown event on March 16.

To read the entire article, please click here.

San Francisco State U. Partner An-Najah Still Promoting Terrorism

By Winfield Myers | Thu, 6 Apr 2017, 3:55 PM | Permalink

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat's decision to cancel a return lecture at San Francisco State University after last year's disruption highlights what he rightly calls SFSU's "continuing marginalization and demonization of the Jewish state." So, too, does the Middle East Forum/Campus Watch campaign (sign petition here) to end SFSU's Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with radical Palestinian An-Najah National University. As CW's Cinnamon Stillwell points out at the Algemeiner, Najah students are still promoting terrorism against Israel:

Last month, Palestinian Media Watch reported that Shabiba — the Palestinian Authority (PA) student movement at Najah — displayed a logo on Fatah's official Facebook page featuring a coat of arms on a "resistance" fist. The coat of arms was in the shape of the PA map, claiming all of Israel as "Palestine." It was accompanied by the violent slogan, "From the sea of blood of the martyrs, we will create a state."

Then, on March 29, Fatah's Facebook page featured Shabiba's call for a day of terror against Israel on April 17. Shabiba promised to "to burn the land under the feet of the tyrants," and threatened to replicate a previous terror attack in which 16 people were murdered.

To read the entire article, please click here.

Campus Watch Blog Archive