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

Quote of the Month (past quotes)

"Sami is dedicated family man....Sami Al-Arian is a proud, dedicated and committed American as well as a proud and committed Palestinian. He is an extraordinarily bright, articulate scholar and intellectual-activist, a man of conscience with a strong commitment to peace and social justice."

John Esposito, Founding Director of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, in a July 2, 2008 letter to U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in support of granting bond for Sami Al-Arian, who pled guilty in 2006 to conspiring to provide goods and services to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and who awaits an August 13 trial for criminal contempt. (link to source)

State Dept. Stands Aside [on the Islamic Saudi Academy in VA]
July 23, 2008 - Fairfax County Times

LeBaron to Help Connect Portland State Univ. and Qatar [on Joseph LeBaron, John Damis]
July 23, 2008 - The Vanguard (Portland State University)

Sworn in to Serve [on Joseph LeBaron, John Damis]
July 23, 2008 - The Vanguard (Portland State University)

Students Absorbing Arabic Culture [on Cal State San Bernardino]
July 22, 2008 - Inland Valley Daily Bulletin (Ontario, CA)

The Way Forward: Ken Pollack's 'A Path Out of the Desert' [incl. Middle East studies, Fawaz Gerges]
July 22, 2008 - The New York Sun

Multiple Choice Exams, the Saudi Way [incl. the Islamic Saudi Academy in VA]
July 22, 2008 - The Platform (St. Louis Post-Dispatch Blog)

"It's That Old-Time Lennon/Bono Rock Idealism Reimagined for a Post-Cannibal Corpse world" [on UCLA prof. Mark LeVine]
July 21, 2008 - Reason Magazine

Maligning Israel on Campus [incl. Fouad Ajami, Halim Barakat, et al.]
Spring 2008 - Jewish Political Studies Review

Rock the Casbah [on Mark LeVine]
July 20, 2008 - New York Times

Rep. Wolf to Secretary Rice: Figure Out What Saudi School is Teaching [on the Islamic Saudi Academy in VA]
July 17, 2008 - Alexandria Times

Blog

PARC's Anti-Israel Polemics, or Your Tax Dollars at Work

By Winfield Myers | Fri, 11 Jul 2008, 10:46 AM | Permalink

Campus Watch adjunct scholar Jonathan Schanzer, writing at National Review Online, exposes the use of taxpayer dollars to support polemical "Palestinian studies" in "PARC's Anti-Israel Polemics." PARC is the Palestinian American Research Center.

For more than a decade, the allocation of hundreds of thousands of dollars in U.S. funded doctoral and post-doctoral grants on Palestinian issues has been decided by a group of Middle Eastern-studies professors that includes some of the most polarizing and radical figures in the field.

The Bethesda, Maryland–based Palestinian American Research Center (PARC), a registered nonprofit, receives controversial Title VI funding from the U.S. State Department and Department of Education for "Palestinian studies." Yet, the organization perpetuates the failures of Middle Eastern studies in America — namely, the admixture of polemics and academia.

The list of PARC members includes Stanford's Joel Beinin, who denounces American "imperialism" on al-Jazeera television; Columbia's Rashid Khalidi, reportedly a former Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) spokesman; NYU's Zachary Lockman, supporter of a proposed academic boycott of Israel; Penn's Ian Lustick, who blames the U.S. for the war on terror, rather than those who carry out violence in the name of Islam; and Boston University's Augustus Norton, an apologist for the Lebanese terrorist organization, Hezbollah.

To read the rest, please click here.

Juan Cole's Jihad Against Israel

By Cinnamon Stillwell | Wed, 9 Jul 2008, 1:01 PM | Permalink

The reaction to last week's horrendous bulldozer terrorist attack in Jerusalem has been telling. When emanating from those who refuse to see Israelis as victims, hollow condemnations have been the order of the day. Furthermore, many of these condemnations have been accompanied by barely stifled sympathy for the Palestinian perpetrator. And as usual, Israel has been made out to be the culprit.

Much of the mainstream media coverage has gone in that direction and so too has at least one Middle East studies professor, the University of Michigan's Juan Cole. In my latest Campus Watch article, which is posted today at Frontpage Magazine, I examine Cole's tortured, and often fact-challenged, logic:

One can always count on University of Michigan history professor Juan Cole to excuse violence and hatred directed at Israel. At his blog, Informed Comment (which, judging by the references to the mythical Jenin "massacre" and the USS Liberty canard in the comments section, is read avidly by anti-Israel conspiracy theorists), Cole takes pains to explain away last week's horrific bulldozer attack in Jerusalem.

Cole apparently sees no contradiction between his perfunctory admission that "Violence against innocent civilians is always condemnable and deplored by IC," and his claim to add "context" to the attack by trying to justify the alleged motivations of the perpetrator, Palestinian construction worker Husam Taysir Dwayat.

Continue reading "Juan Cole's Jihad Against Israel"

Campus Watch Interviews ASMEA

By Cinnamon Stillwell | Wed, 2 Jul 2008, 12:14 PM | Permalink

In light of Campus Watch's efforts to bring objective scholarship and intellectual diversity back to the field of Middle East studies, the emergence of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA) is cause for optimism.

I interviewed ASMEA public affairs director Patrick Creamer to find out more about the organization's founding, its inaugural conference in April, 2008, and its future. The interview is posted today at Frontpage Magazine and it begins like so:

While the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) has long dominated the field, its highly politicized leadership's inability to withstand criticism, inattention to radical Islam, and apologetic approach towards the West's foes has left many Middle East studies scholars feeling unwelcome by their umbrella professional organization.

Enter the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA). Founded last year by Professors Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami, ASMEA offers an alternative to MESA's post-colonialist biases and a venue for studying those elements of Islam and the Middle East that MESA's leaders ignore or downplay.

To read the entire interview, click here.

Photos from the "How Free is the University?" Conference

By Cinnamon Stillwell | Sat, 21 Jun 2008, 10:09 PM | Permalink

Democracy Broadcasting News offers up a brief report and a number of photos from the "How Free is the University?" conference that took place in Los Angeles last weekend.

Photos of the Middle East studies panel that included Middle East Forum director Daniel Pipes and myself (speaking on behalf of Campus Watch) can be seen by clicking here, here, and here.

For an earlier post on the subject, click here.

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