My latest Campus Watch column - posted today at Frontpage Magazine - makes some predictions about a conference taking place this weekend featuring several Middle East studies academics. Among them are UC Berkeley lecturer Hatem Bazian, Wayne State University anthropologist Thomas Abowd, and associate director of the Middle East studies program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Jennifer Loewenstein. As usual, a skewed and inaccurate take on the Arab-Israeli conflict looks likely to come with the territory:
This weekend, the "Popular Palestinian Conference 2008" will be held in Chicago, and if past is prologue, a slew of anti-Israel propaganda will be part of the repertoire. The organizers make no effort to conceal their nefarious intentions, titling one of the workshops [emphasis added], "Inserting Palestine into High School Curricula in the US & Empowering Students to Challenge Dominant Narratives" and subtitling the conference, "Palestinians in the US: Reclaiming Our Voice, Asserting Our Narrative." Unfortunately, this "narrative" is a false one in which Israel is the oppressor, the Palestinians its perpetual victims, and the United States an accomplice in crime.Continue reading "'Popular Palestinian Conference' Peddles Propaganda"Various Middle East studies academics will be on hand to help propagate this fictitious narrative....