Harvard's Center for Middle East Studies Continues Apologizing for Radical Islam [incl. Jocelyn Cesari and Louise Cainkar]

Harvard's Center for Middle East Studies Department is kicking off the year where they left off - as apologists for radical Islam and Israel bashers.

On Monday, Professor Jocelyn Cesari presented Louise Cainkar, Chicago based "researcher" and author of Homeland Insecurity: The Arab American and Muslim American Experience After 9/11 which claims to be an objective study of discrimination against Muslim-Americans following the 9/11 attacks of 2001. She conducted her "research" among 106 American Muslims living in or near Chicago from 2004 to 2008. She concludes that rampant discrimination, identifying Muslims with terrorism, has occurred since 2001 in almost daily attacks, humiliations and depictions throughout the media and entertainment industry.

Since 9/11 there have been instances of inexcusable, discriminatory acts against Muslims by non-Muslims. Yet, the rapidity with which George W. Bush reached out to the Muslim community after 3,000 murders by devout Muslims on September 11th was unprecedented in American history. Ms. Cainkar chose not to mention Bush's appearances at The White House with numerous Muslim religious leaders including Imam Hassan Qazwini, an individual later connected anti-Semitic groups. She also failed to mention the Bush Administration's appointment of Grover Norquist, founder of The Islamic Institute and close advisor to the President who became Islam's foremost promoter in the White House. Nor did she mention the scores of public appearances by Bush at which he referred to Islam as "The Religion of Peace" and "A Noble Faith."

From 2001 until the end of the Bush years, the country saw the implementation of required Islamic "education" at many universities and even public schools, curriculum vilifying Israel taught in the same institutions and very few documented instances of hate crimes against Muslims. For example, for the year 2006, the FBI reported Hate Crimes against religious groups:

Of the 1,750 victims of an anti-religion hate crime:

65.4 percent were victims of an offender's anti-Jewish bias.
11.9 percent were victims of an anti-Islamic bias.
4.9 percent were victims of an anti-Catholic bias.
3.7 percent were victims of an anti-Protestant bias.
0.5 percent were victims of an anti-Atheist/Agnostic bias.
8.4 percent were victims of a bias against other religions (anti-other religion).
5.3 percent were victims of a bias against groups of individuals of varying religions (anti-multiple religions, group).

While anti-Muslim crimes are deplorable, for the last 8 years, they are at least 5 times less likely to occur than anti-Semitic ones.

As a matter of fact, the hard evidence reveals that there have been no homicides classified as Hate Crimes against Muslims in the past ten years while a number of Jews have been murdered by Muslims simply for being Jews (the Seattle Jewish Federation shooting in which Naveed Afzal Haq shot six women, one fatally, the Los Angeles shooting by 41-year-old Hesham Mohamed Hadayet at the El Al ticket counter which left three Jews dead, and the Brooklyn Bridge murder of Yeshiva students in 1994 by Rishad Baz, a Lebanese immigrant.

Needless to say, the alarming and growing Muslim phenomenon of honor killing in the United States went unmentioned by Ms. Cainkar. In the recent conviction of officials of the Holy Land Foundation, one of the nation's largest Muslim associations and a HLF funder, The Muslim American Association was forced to produce documents that espoused the demise of the U.S. Constitution to be replaced by the Koran.

In light of the widespread arrests and statements by radical Muslims advocating Jihad and antipathy for other religious groups and contempt for America's democratic values, the paucity of discrimination against Muslims in general is astounding and commendable.

Ms. Cainkar, however, presented her own selective, anecdotal data, concluding that hate for Muslims is lurking deep in the heart of America. Please.

Note: Articles listed under "Middle East studies in the News" provide information on current developments concerning Middle East studies on North American campuses. These reports do not necessarily reflect the views of Campus Watch and do not necessarily correspond to Campus Watch's critique.

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Middle East studies in the News

Harvard's Center for Middle East Studies Continues Apologizing for Radical Islam [incl. Jocelyn Cesari and Louise Cainkar]

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