Setting The Record Straight

Campus Watch corrects false allegations made against it.

Response to: Lobbying Groups Need to Go by Ali Rasoulinejad Pipe Dream (SUNY-Binghamton) December 5, 2008 Categories: False allegations of attacking professors who criticize Israel False allegations of being a Zionist organization False accusations of being part of a lobby or conspiracy

Campus Watch Responds:

In an op-ed that offers no specific examples of malfeasance on the part of Campus Watch, columnist Ali Rasoulinejad charges that CW is part of a pro-Israel lobby in the U.S. and that we distort the truth so that material on our site toes the line of the Israel lobby.

Here are Rasoulinejad's charges against CW in full:

Other organizations such as Campus Watch, founded by conservative thinker Daniel Pipes in 2002, does nothing but tout those views in line with pro-Israeli lobbies at college campuses across the United States. Often opposing viewpoints are cited as faulty due to "analytical errors," "extremism" or "intolerance," in the name of what Campus Watch claims is the tendency of professors to engage in abuses of power during class time; don't for a second believe that this doesn't affect you — Binghamton University itself lays claims to some of the names listed on the Web site and the ideas produced by those people which Campus Watch tends to distort.

Let's take this one charge at a time to show that, as with all conspiracy theories, this latest crumbles when examined dispassionately:

1. CW "does nothing but tout those views in line with pro-Israel lobbies at college campuses across the United States."

Where is your proof of this, Mr. Rasoulinejad? From whom do I take orders? How do I receive them? What lobbies at college campuses issue them? If you can't produce the alleged sources of our actions--our masters, as it were--then how do you know that we "do nothing" else?

2. "Often opposing viewpoints are cited as faulty due to 'analytical error,' ...."

This charge is so general as to be almost meaningless. "Opposing viewpoints": which ones? Opposed to what? In what ways did we critique them? Can you show that we did so simply because they were "opposing"? That is, how do our critiques reveal a mere reaction to an opposing view rather than to scholarship that in fact has analytical errors, is extreme, intolerant, or has other intellectual faults?

3. "Binghamton University itself lays claims to some of the names listed on the web site and the ideas produced by those people which Campus Watch tends to distort."

CW archives contain some articles catalogued as pertaining to Binghamton. Where are the distortions? How are those distortions manifested? Rasoulinejad offers no examples, no rebuttals, no evidence for any distortion in any of these articles.

Considering that Rasoulinejad's article opens with an appeal to reasoned, informed debate, one might expect as much from him. Instead, we're left with vacuous, unsupported allegations that are long on emotional appeal, but short on evidence.

(Posted by Winfield Myers)