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Why Saudis Send Their Kids to the Islamic Saudi Academy

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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By Cinnamon Stillwell | June 12, 2013 at 1:24 pm | Permalink

Berkeley Profs: 'Islamophobia' Greater Threat Than Islamic Terrorism

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.

By Cinnamon Stillwell | May 27, 2013 at 2:01 pm | Permalink

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

Boston Memorial

The latest Campus Watch Research, posted today at Frontpage Magazine, examines the reaction of Middle East studies academics and their allies to the Boston Marathon bombing. Anyone and everyone is to blame--except Islamist terrorists.

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.

By Cinnamon Stillwell | May 7, 2013 at 12:02 pm | Permalink

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

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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By Winfield Myers | May 3, 2013 at 7:09 pm | Permalink

UC Berkeley's Hatem Bazian Promoted ASUC Divestment Vote

Hatem Bazian

Predictably, American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) has congratulated the Associated Students of the University of California, Berkeley (ASUC), for its recent passage of Resolution SB-160, which, as they describe it, calls for "divestment of student and university funds from companies that profit from Israel's occupation of Palestine." In the process, they published a letter written before the resolution's passage from Hatem Bazian, AMP founder and chairman and senior lecturer in Near East studies at UC Berkeley--not to mention a fanatical anti-Israel activist--urging ASUC to approve the bill.

In spite of its specious analogies to South African apartheid and ludicrous claims, including that UC Berkeley is "hostile and unwelcoming for Palestinians since the campus is affirmatively investing in the occupation and supporting it in deeds and words," Bazian's letter had its intended effect. Given his repeated emphasis on being "a member of the UC Berkeley faculty," it's hard to imagine ASUC did not take that into account when making its decision.

Once again, we see the nefarious influence that politicized Middle East studies academics such as Bazian can have on student opinion.

By Cinnamon Stillwell | April 25, 2013 at 3:53 pm | Permalink

'The Great Book Robbery' Hijacks History

Benny Brunner

Writing for Campus Watch, Middle East Forum adjunct scholar Asaf Romirowsky critiques "The Great Book Robbery," an anti-Israel film posing as a historical documentary. It is being screened on campuses across the U.S., often with the sponsorship of departments of Middle East studies. Here's a taste of the essay, which appeared yesterday at Ynet News:

'The Great Book Robbery' (watch here), a documentary that recently screened on a number of US college campuses, is the latest attempt by anti-Israel groups to rewrite and recast the historical events of 1948.

In the film, Israeli-Dutch director Benny Brunner purports to reconstruct how 70,000 Palestinian books were systematically taken by the new-born state of Israel during the 1948 war as part of a calculated attempt to erase any shred of Arab-Palestinian culture. Seeking to explain the process by which the books came under Israeli control, Brunner interviewed former and current employees of the National Library (NL) at the Hebrew University, where the books are housed.

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

By Winfield Myers | April 8, 2013 at 1:49 pm | Permalink

'Israel Lobby' Threatening Free Speech at Berkeley?

Hatem Bazian

The academic far left has an old, bad habit of crying "censorship!" whenever they're faced with criticism (living inside a bubble distorts reality). Journalist Lee Kaplan reports for Campus Watch on a recent panel discussion at UC-Berkeley at which privileged professors spoke publicly at a major university to claim, without irony, that they're being silenced. His article appears today at FrontPage Magazine:

The title of a recent panel discussion at the University of California, Berkeley was ominous: "SHHHH! Don't Talk About Palestine: Chuck Hagel, Judith Butler, and the Israel Lobby's Threat to Free Speech on Our Campus." Taking place in Boalt Hall at UC Berkeley's School of Law and sponsored by Students for Justice in Palestine, the event drew what appeared to be sixty hardcore anti-Israel activists—most in their early twenties—eager to embrace the notion that UC Berkeley is under siege by "pro-Israel advocates seek[ing] to silence debate about Palestinian human rights and divestment from Israel's occupation."

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

By Winfield Myers | March 29, 2013 at 6:23 am | Permalink

Pro-Gay and Anti-Israel? 'Pinkwashing' to the Rescue

Nada Elia

In the latest Campus Watch research, journalist Reut R. Cohen and I report on a lecture at the University of California, Los Angeles from Nada Elia, a professor at Antioch University in Seattle, in which Israel stands accused of the alleged crime of "pinkwashing." The article is posted today at Frontpage Magazine:

What's a pro-gay, anti-Israel activist to do when faced with the fact that the Jewish state is the only nation in the Middle East in which not only is it illegal to discriminate against homosexuality, but where homosexuality is celebrated with an annual gay pride parade? To such activists, the answer is obvious: invent a bogus theory called "pinkwashing" that accuses Israel of touting gay rights in order to downplay its alleged oppression of the Palestinians.

The University of California, Los Angeles's Center for Near Eastern Studies recently jumped into the fray with a lecture comically titled, "Pinkwashing: Gay Rights and Queer [sic] Indigeneities" (the term "indigeneities," an invented piece of academic jargon, is derived from "indigenous"). In a sparsely attended presentation rife with post-colonialist rhetoric, Nada Elia, a professor of gender and global studies at Antioch University in Seattle and a member of the organizing committee of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI), attempted to align her support for "Palestinian queer activism" with her devotion to all things anti-Israel.

To read the entire article, please click here.

By Cinnamon Stillwell | March 25, 2013 at 1:15 pm | Permalink

The Iran Lobby Buys a Friendly Face for Despotism

Mahdavi Damghani

Today at American Thinker, journalist Stephen Schwartz exposes the Iran lobby's efforts to influence the discipline of Middle East studies at American and Canadian universities, including Harvard.

The funding of a significant pro-Iran lobby that funnels money to American universities was disclosed to the wider public for the first time during the U.S. Senate's recent confirmation battle over Chuck Hagel's successful nomination as secretary of defense. By far the largest grantor is the Alavi Foundation, now under federal investigation, which has given Harvard University $345,000 over nine years ending in 2011. Other institutions in the U.S. and Canada have also benefited from Iranian largesse.

Hagel, who represented Nebraska as a Republican U.S. Senator from 1997 to 2009, has long advocated a soft line toward the brutal theocratic regime, as exemplified by his call in 2007 for "direct, unconditional and comprehensive talks with the Government of Iran."

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

By Winfield Myers | March 10, 2013 at 7:38 pm | Permalink

Indoctrinating Children: 'Palestine Solidarity' in the Classroom

Marcy Jane Knopf-Newman

In an article for Campus Watch posted today at American Thinker, Rima Greene and I review Marcy Jane Knopf-Newman's book, The Politics of Teaching Palestine to Americans: Addressing Pedagogical Strategies. Knopf-Newman's approach demonstrates just how much our educational system, in this case, K-12, has been co-opted by those with political agendas:

Marcy Jane Knopf-Newman is an anti-Israel activist and English professor who has taught at Boise State University, al-Quds University, the American University of Beirut, and other universities in the Middle East. In The Politics of Teaching Palestine to Americans: Addressing Pedagogical Strategies (New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), she has assembled a guidebook for American high school teachers on how to teach the Arab-Israeli conflict. (While writing it she transitioned from university to high school teaching herself.) The book's documentation, though substantial, is extremely biased, as all of her quotes and references are part of a closed loop in which Palestinians are presented as innocent victims and Israelis as evil-doers. Her entire bibliography and a "What You Can Do" section are geared toward fomenting anti-Israel activism.

To read the entire article, please click here.

By Cinnamon Stillwell and Rima Greene | February 16, 2013 at 1:30 pm | Permalink