Posted on 09/27/2002 8:43:42 PM PDT by Dan from Michigan
Furor erupts over Web site monitoring of Middle Eastern scholars
By RON TODT
The Associated Press
9/27/02 10:22 PM
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A pro-Israel organization has set up a Web site to monitor professors and universities for pro-Arab, anti-Israel bias -- a move some academics are decrying as campus McCarthyism and attempted intimidation.
The Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum said it organized the Campus Watch site to counter pervasive bias in universities' Middle Eastern studies.
The site names schools and specific professors. Forum director Daniel Pipes said the think tank hopes eventually to monitor 250 North American academic institutions.
"Our goal is to monitor, critique and improve Middle East studies," Pipes said. "We're not at universities because our views are not welcome. We're trying to create an alternative voice within the field."
Scholars whose articles are compiled into dossiers on the Web site include Hamid Dabashi and Joseph Massad of Columbia, John Esposito of Georgetown, Juan Cole of the University of Michigan and Snehal Shingavi of University of California at Berkeley. Dossiers are also listed on those institutions as well as a dozen others, including Stanford, Northeastern, the University of Chicago and the University of North Carolina.
Opponents immediately called the effort "McCarthy-like" and an attempt to stifle opposition to U.S. policy in the Middle East. Professors listed on the site said they were bombarded with e-mail over the weekend.
In a show of support for those named on the site, about 100 other academics have asked to be added to the list.
Judith Butler, a gender theorist at Berkeley, wrote that she would like to be included in the list of U.S. academics "who oppose the Israeli occupation and its brutality, actively support Palestinian rights of self-determination" and support an informed view of Islam.
The Campus Watch site accuses American Middle Eastern scholars of generally being biased against the United States and being apologists for unfriendly regimes.
University of Chicago historian Rashid Khalidi, who is quoted on the Web site as sympathizing with the Palestinian cause, called the site "slimy" and intended to chill opposition.
"What they're trying to do is exclude from public debate opinions that go against the neo-conservative consensus that dominates discussion of policy on Iraq or policy on the Israeli conflict by smearing us and calling us aliens," he said.
Pipes said he will not remove a "Keep Us Informed" page on the site that opponents say is an attempt to get students to turn in their professors. He said it gives students a place to complain about mistreatment.
"What you have in university is exclusion of alternate points of view," Pipes said. "You've got to subscribe to the party line and then you can make your career; if you don't, you're out."
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On the Net:
http://www.campus-watch.org
Libertarians tend to shoot down their own credibility without anyone else doing anything to them.
For instance, instead of sticking to clear facts such as "government has gotten bigger", on which open-minded people would at least hear them out, Libertarians tend to rapidly dive into the tin-foil land of lies such as "everything that government does is unConstitutional", or "everything that Republicans do is socialist", and other such nonsense.
But in the big picture, such wild-eyed, grossly misguided myths are just small potatoes compared to the really damaging flaws seen in 90+% of all known Libertarians (e.g. their poor people skills and tendancy to be overly argumentative, as well as their literal disdain for taking "baby steps" to solve any current problem - they want their Revolution and they want it all now).
Out in the street licking himself.
Sadly just a little too late for my child, I'm afraid, who came onto this scene a couple of years ago, and I'm really upset about it. I don't know what to do. I guess only time can cure the problem now. At least I hope so. But it's a shame--however it just never occurred to me that this was going on at such a supposedly good university.
Needless to say, that particular school won't be getting any extra $$$ from me. It angers me greatly that such a one-sided case was showcased re: the middle east.
Thank heavens Daniel Pipes might alert some other parents to the situation in time.
We just don't send them any money ... NOT EVER ... and tell them bold facedly WHY , whenever they ask for some. It does rattle their cage.
Daniel Pipes is fantastic !
Let's contrast and compare this with Islams politically active organization that sprays people with exploding jet fuel, incinerating them where they stand, forcing their co-workers to fly out of 90 story windows, sending their bodies to a splattering death on NYC pavement, only to have pieces of fingernail and shards of bones picked out of the twisted steel months and months later, then send Osama-loving sycophants, Arafat apologists, and Abdul Nasserets to tell us they are on our side.
I would deem THIS to be an ineffective and unacceptable form of communication, built on the assumption that this is not an informed society.
I welcome the assertion that these spokesman want to distance themselves from their terrorist brothers (and I use the term brother out of a deep respect for their faith) and sisters whos actions speak louder than any of their words ever could.
Their causes are damned in this country and the world for rest of this generation.
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