Howler of the Month (archive) "How we as a nation move forward is critical. . . . Do we turn into an angry mob accusing all Muslims of a crime that two men committed? Do we turn this into an anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant hysteria? . . . Do we want to be heroes, like the ones that put their own lives on the line. . . . Or do we give in to unjustified bloodlust?" Omid Safi, professor of Islamic studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in "10 Essential Points About the Boston Marathon Bombers, Islam, and America," Religion News Service, April 20, 2013. (link to source) We Couldn't Have Said it Better (archive) "[I]t is important to study the Middle East, but not in the way that it is currently being done. It needs to be done in a way that you actually learn; that you actually gain some insight, a marketplace of ideas. It shouldn't be only one opinion. And oh, you can't challenge it if you don't have a Ph.D. That's not how it works. Students also have academic freedom and my academic freedom should be respected just as much as anybody else." Rachel Avraham, graduate student in Middle Eastern studies at Ben-Gurion University and content manager for United with Israel, speaking at an Israel Academia Monitor conference in Tel Aviv on May 3, 2013. (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

Light Without Fire: An interview with Scott Korb [on Zaytuna College]
June 16, 2013 - Muscat Daily (Oman)

Judged by Unfair Standards? [on Samer Shehata]
June 14, 2013 - Inside Higher Ed

Mason Launches MA in Middle East and Islamic Studies
June 12, 2013 - News of George Mason University

Scholar of Israel to Co-​​Direct Middle East Center at Northeastern Uni­ver­sity [on Dov Waxman]
June 12, 2013 - News@Northeastern

Fulbright Award to Provide Study in Israel
June 12, 2013 - The Daily News Journal (Murfreesboro, TN)

Richard Falk Vows To Stay On in United Nations Post Despite Criticism
June 11, 2013 - Reuters

Solidarity with Palestine in Germany [incl. Joseph Massad, As'ad AbuKhalil]
June 11, 2013 - The Jerusalem Post

EU Slams Falk's Israel Report as Biased at UNHRC
June 10, 2013 - The Jerusalem Post

US Denounces Falk's 'Outrageous Abuse' of UN Position
June 9, 2013 - Arutz Sheva (IsraelNationalNews.com)

U.S. Calls for Resignation of UN's Richard Falk
June 9, 2013 - The Times of Israel

Blog

Why Saudis Send Their Kids to the Islamic Saudi Academy

By Cinnamon Stillwell | Wed, 12 Jun 2013, 1:24 PM | Permalink

For some time Campus Watch has followed the dubious goings-on of the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA), a Saudi government-funded private pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade school in Fairfax County, Virginia geared towards the children of Saudi citizens. A June 3, 2013, Arab News op-ed is the latest addition to our archive.

Predictably, the author, retired Saudi Navy Commodore Abdulateef Al-Mulhim--who, to be fair, once wrote an excellent article on anti-Israelism in the Arab world--has nothing but praise for ISA, even though it is the subject of an ongoing U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) investigation into its Islamist curriculum. His glowing description provides an inadvertent glimpse into ISA's true purpose [emphasis added]:

In my opinion, this academy is . . . much needed by the Saudi citizens living abroad who want . . . their kids to receive a well-rounded education that includes parts of the curriculum they are used to back in Saudi Arabia.

What does such a curriculum include? According to a 2006 study cited by Nina Shea, director of the Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom and a USCIRF Commissioner, Saudi government textbooks used at ISA:

[A]ssert that it is permissible for a Muslim to kill an 'apostate,' an 'adulterer,' those practicing 'major polytheism,' and homosexuals. They promote global jihad as an 'effort to wage war against the unbelievers,' including for the purpose of 'calling [infidels] to the faith.' They continue to teach that 'the hour [of judgment] will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them,' that Shiite practices amount to 'polytheism' (see above), that the Christian Crusades never ended, and that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are historical fact.

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Berkeley Profs: 'Islamophobia' Greater Threat Than Islamic Terrorism

By Cinnamon Stillwell | Mon, 27 May 2013, 2:01 PM | Permalink

Four years ago, the Islamophobia Research & Documentation Project (IRDP), a program of UC Berkeley's Center for Race & Gender, opened its doors and the politicization hasn't stopped since. The IRDP's annual conferences provide a window into the parallel universe of "Islamophobia scholarship" and as in years past, Campus Watch was present in 2013 to chronicle the insanity. Our report appears today at Frontpage Magazine:

The false narrative that "Islamophobia" is a growing threat received a boost at the "Fourth Annual International Conference on the Study of Islamophobia: From Theorizing to Systematic Documentation," which took place at the University of California, Berkeley on April 19 and 20, 2013 under the chairmanship of its foremost conceptual proponent, Hatem Bazian. A senior lecturer in UC Berkeley's department of Near Eastern studies, Bazian directs the Islamophobia Research & Documentation Project (IRDP), a program of the school's Center for Race & Gender, and sits on the editorial board for the Islamophobia Studies Journal. The IRDP is heavily invested in promoting the belief that "Islamophobia" is on the rise globally and its annual conferences (click here and here to read about previous years) never fail to ratchet up the hysteria.

The conference opened just as a massive manhunt was launched in Boston for the two Islamic terrorists, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who bombed the Boston Marathon earlier in the week. Predictable anticipations of a coming "backlash" against Muslims—which never developed—were repeated throughout the event.

To read the entire article, please click here.

Profs on Boston Bombing: Blame Right-Wingers, 'Islamophobia,' and Blowback

By Cinnamon Stillwell | Tue, 7 May 2013, 12:02 PM | Permalink

Boston Memorial

How did scholars of the Middle East and those engaged in moonlighting (non-specialists who write about the region) react to the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15, 2013? Before the smoke cleared, some were predicting that the perpetrators would be "right-wingers" who sought to "disrupt tax day," "neo-Nazis," or "lone wolves." Given that Muslims constitute 30 of 32 of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's list of most wanted terrorists, this represents either wishful thinking or willful blindness.

Accordingly, after brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were identified as the perpetrators, scholars resorted to apologetics and obfuscation to explain away Islam's role: the Tsarnaevs aren't "real" Muslims; Islam and terrorism are incompatible; Islamic terrorism is no more significant than any other societal ill; "Islamophobia" and a wave of anti-Muslim hate crimes (that has yet to arrive) will ensue; and the attack was an example not of ideologically-rooted violence, but of logical "blowback" against American foreign policy.

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

Anti-Semite Ali Mazrui Honored by Alwaleed Bin Talal Center at Georgetown University

By Winfield Myers | Fri, 3 May 2013, 7:09 PM | Permalink

Ali Mazrui

On May 6, 2010, Ali Mazrui, director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies at SUNY-Binghamton, made the following statement to an audience at Columbia University:

The population of Jews in the US is three percent ... but [their 'genius'] leads to their controlling so much power that even presidents are scared [of them]. Whether [President Barack] Obama will be able to escape the notion that three percent of the country is so powerful that the top gentile in the land cannot criticize Israel is not clear.

In spite of--or perhaps because of--this and other blatantly anti-Semitic statements recorded below, Mazrui has been awarded the "2012-13 Building Bridges Award" by the Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University. The Center's founding director, John Esposito, has long been among America's most vocal apologists for the radical Wahhabi branch of Islam. By honoring Ali Mazrui, the Center Esposito directs--founded with a $20 million gift from Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal--remains true to its origins.

ACMCU's website says the award, "recognizes individuals who have dedicated their life's work to fostering greater understanding between faith groups." Mazrui and the two other recipients are recognized, it states, because their "efforts to promote interfaith relations, peace-building and social justice have been extraordinary."

As illustrated by the quote above and those below (all taken from the same Columbia lecture), Mazrui is no bridge builder. He also claimed that:

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