<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
	xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
	>

<channel>
	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Cinnamon Stillwell</title>
	<atom:link href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/author/cinnamon-stillwell/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com</link>
	<description></description>
	<lastBuildDate>Wed, 31 Dec 2014 07:56:08 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<language>en-US</language>
		<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
		<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
	
	<item>
		<title>Mark LeVine Unhinged on Facebook</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/cinnamon-stillwell/mark-levine-unhinged-on-facebook/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=mark-levine-unhinged-on-facebook</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/cinnamon-stillwell/mark-levine-unhinged-on-facebook/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 12 Dec 2014 05:05:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Cinnamon Stillwell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[BDS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dismantle]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mark levine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rant]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[uc irvine]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=247170</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[UC Irvine professor to fellow professor and critics: "F--- all of you," Israel must be destroyed.  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/ahqdefault.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-247171" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/ahqdefault-450x337.jpg" alt="ahqdefault" width="345" height="258" /></a>UC Irvine history professor Mark LeVine, who recently suffered a <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/blog/2014/11/mark-levine-meltdown"><span style="color: #0463c1;">meltdown</span></a> after being called “anti-Israeli,” has since proven the point by posting this profanity-laden, unhinged <a href="http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2zrq1jd&amp;s=8#.VItkwTHF-Sq"><span style="color: #0463c1;">rant</span></a> on Facebook:</p>
<blockquote><p>[P]eople like Carey Nelson and other “machers” [Yiddish for a self-important person] in the American Jewish community get up in arms about BDS [boycott, divestment, sanctions]. Well, Cary Nelson and the rest of you: F— you. Call me uncivil, but still, f— you. F— all of you who want to make arguments about civility and how Israel wants peace when this is what Israel does, it’s “mowing the lawn” and “defending” freedom. This is, in no uncertain terms, genocide. If you want to argue about it, come to Gaza with me. Come look at Palestinians in the eye and talk about how uncivil Steven Salaita is and how you are in fact a “critic” of Israel. There is only one criticism of Israel that is relevant: It is a state grown, funded, and feeding off the destruction of another people. It is not legitimate. It must be dismantled, the same way that the other racist, psychopathic states across the region must be dismantled. And everyone who enables it is morally complicit in its crimes, including you.</p></blockquote>
<p>LeVine was commenting on a photograph from French freelance photographer <a href="https://www.facebook.com/anne.paq.7"><span style="color: #0463c1;">Anne Paq</span></a>, who, according to her <a href="http://www.annepaq.com/cv-references/"><span style="color: #0463c1;">bio</span></a>, has been “based in Palestine since 2003,” and who specializes in the sort of emotionally-charged—and, <a href="http://www.theaugeanstables.com/reflections-from-second-draft/pallywood-a-history/"><span style="color: #0463c1;">all too often</span></a>, staged or manipulated—<a href="http://www.annepaq.com/occupation/"><span style="color: #0463c1;">imagery</span></a> regularly employed by Hamas and others to demonize Israel in the international media. Paq’s photograph certainly elicited that reaction in LeVine, who, one can safely assume, would be quick to “dismantle” the allegedly illegitimate nation of Israel long before he gets to the other unnamed “racist, psychopathic states.”</p>
<p>LeVine’s primary target is Cary Nelson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) Jubilee Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences and past president of the American Association of University Professors. Nelson has been an outspoken opponent of BDS, including <a href="http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/157273"><span style="color: #0463c1;">co-editing</span></a> the recently published <span style="color: #0463c1;">book</span> of essays, <i>The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel</i>. His principled defense of academic freedom <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/08/15/cary-nelson-faces-backlash-over-his-views-controversial-scholar"><span style="color: #0463c1;">has not</span></a> gone over well with BDS <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/9711"><span style="color: #0463c1;">supporters</span></a> such as <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/blog/2012/09/profs-levine-and-zunes-plot-to-globalize-bds"><span style="color: #0463c1;">LeVine</span></a>, who signed an August, 2014 <a href="http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/18811/over-100-middle-east-scholars-and-librarians-call-"><span style="color: #0463c1;">letter</span></a> calling on Middle East studies scholars and librarians to boycott Israeli academic institutions. Accordingly, at the annual Middle East Studies Association (MESA) convention last month, members voted overwhelmingly in favor a <a href="http://mesana.org/annual-meeting/2014-resolution-information.html"><span style="color: #0463c1;">resolution</span></a> that sets the stage for MESA to adopt BDS in 2015.</p>
<p>In his diatribe, LeVine alludes to Nelson’s public <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2014/08/08/essay-defends-university-illinois-decision-not-hire-steven-salaita"><span style="color: #0463c1;">support</span></a> of UIUC’s decision to withdraw an offer of tenured professorship to former Virginia Tech University English professor Steven Salaita. UIUC made its <a href="http://illinois.edu/blog/view/1109/115906"><span style="color: #0463c1;">choice</span></a> based on Salaita’s <a href="https://www.facebook.com/martinkramer.page/posts/10152355398877293"><span style="color: #0463c1;">atrocious</span></a> academic <a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/183813/steven-salaita-academic-work"><span style="color: #0463c1;">record</span></a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/martinkramer.page/photos/a.103151622292.93283.21262362292/10152390955067293/?type=1"><span style="color: #0463c1;">inflammatory</span></a>, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic <a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/183274/salaita-tweets"><span style="color: #0463c1;">Twitter posts</span></a>, which went far beyond incivility, the charge leveled at the time by some of his critics.</p>
<p>As LeVine demonstrates with his ad nauseam repetition of “uncivil” and “civility,” the terms have become rallying cries both for Salaita’s defenders and for the now-famous ex-academic himself, who, speaking on the “Scholars Under Attack” <a href="http://www.jta.org/2014/11/11/news-opinion/united-states/one-year-after-boycott-vote-israel-issue-still-divides-asa"><span style="color: #0463c1;">panel</span></a> at the annual meeting of the American Studies Association in November, made this <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/quotes.php"><span style="color: #0463c1;">inane</span></a> proclamation:</p>
<blockquote><p>Civility is the language of genocide. It’s inherently a deeply violent word. It’s a word whose connotations can be seen as nothing if not as racist.</p></blockquote>
<p>Indeed, Salaita has become a cause célèbre in academia, even warranting his <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/blog/2014/10/stacked-mesa-panel-to-praise-steven-salaita"><span style="color: #0463c1;">own panel</span></a> at the recent MESA convention, at which he was <a href="http://dc-web1.commentarymagazine.com/2014/11/25/heros-welcome-for-hater-of-israel-at-mesa/"><span style="color: #0463c1;">hailed</span></a> as a hero and a martyr. LeVine sees him as a victim of nefarious forces, ludicrously <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/13987"><span style="color: #0463c1;">blaming</span></a> his “dehiring” on the “wrath of pro-Israel conservatives in the United States.” Lost amidst the pity party is the fact that Salaita’s “<a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/14280"><span style="color: #0463c1;">scholarship</span></a>” was never up to the task. As <a href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2014/12/02/mesa-resolution-shows-whats-wrong-with-academe/"><span style="color: #0463c1;">Michael Rubin</span></a>, writing for <i>Commentary</i>, put it:</p>
<blockquote><p>The scandal isn’t so much that the University of Illinois rescinded its preliminary tenure offer after learning about Salaita’s incitement on twitter; rather, it’s that he was seriously considered in the first place.</p></blockquote>
<p>It’s not difficult to ascertain why LeVine would defend Salaita: both of them embody the <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/blog/2014/11/ucla-sondra-hale-supports-asa-boycott"><span style="color: #0463c1;">activist academic</span></a> that has <a href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2014/12/03/boycott-fever-at-mesa/"><span style="color: #0463c1;">overtaken</span></a> the field of Middle East studies; both are incredibly thin-skinned; both are prone to posting juvenile, profanity-riddled rants on social media; and both, LeVine’s disingenuous protestations notwithstanding, are unambiguously anti-Israel.</p>
<p>Nor is it a mystery as to why LeVine would accuse Nelson of being “morally complicit” in Israel’s purported “crimes,” given that he sees those who “enable” the nation simply by supporting its existence to be responsible for (an imaginary) “genocide.”</p>
<p>With his immature, petulant, and hateful <a href="https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=750302261691105&amp;id=221916871196316"><span style="color: #0463c1;">outbursts</span></a>, LeVine has shown his true face. When hotheaded advocates take the place of objective scholars, this is the result. And it isn’t pretty.</p>
<p><i>Cinnamon Stillwell is the West Coast Representative for</i> <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/"><span style="color: #0463c1;"><i>Campus Watch</i></span></a><i>, a project of the</i> <a href="http://www.meforum.org/"><span style="color: #0463c1;"><i>Middle East Forum</i></span></a><i>. She can be reached at</i> <span style="color: #0463c1;"><i>stillwell@meforum.org</i></span><i>.</i></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
<p><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf" target="_blank"><b>Subscribe</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> to Frontpage&#8217;s TV show, <i>The Glazov Gang</i>, and </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>LIKE</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> it on </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>Facebook.</b></a></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/cinnamon-stillwell/mark-levine-unhinged-on-facebook/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>34</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Profs Blame ISIS on ‘Islamophobia’ and ‘Grievances’</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/cinnamon-stillwell/profs-blame-isis-on-islamophobia-and-grievances/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=profs-blame-isis-on-islamophobia-and-grievances</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/cinnamon-stillwell/profs-blame-isis-on-islamophobia-and-grievances/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 25 Nov 2014 05:05:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Cinnamon Stillwell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Denial]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jihad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[professors]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reza Aslan]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=245740</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[See no Islamic Supremacism, hear no Islamic Supremacism.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/reza.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-245743" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/reza-450x241.jpg" alt="reza" width="293" height="157" /></a>President Obama’s infamous <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/09/10/statement-president-isil-1">proclamation</a> that ISIS (the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) is “not Islamic” was received sympathetically within the ranks of Middle East studies. While many scholars of Islam and the Middle East have condemned ISIS’s heinous actions, a stubborn refusal to acknowledge their theological underpinnings lingers. Those who do concede ISIS’s Islamic supremacism are branded “Islamphobes.” Others attribute ISIS’s rampage of mass murder, beheadings, rape, slavery, and strict Sharia law in pursuit of a <a href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119259/isis-history-islamic-states-new-caliphate-syria-and-iraq">caliphate</a> to Western-inspired “grievances” or “root causes.”</p>
<p>John Esposito, director of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, is at the <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/13958">forefront</a> of such obfuscation. Disregarding ISIS’s <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/fathima-imra-nazeer/isis-islam-quran-literalism_b_5737388.html">adherence</a> to Quranic literalism, <a href="http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/174204/interview-with-prof-john-esposito-on-isis-the-middle-east-and-terrorism.html">Esposito</a> declared:</p>
<blockquote><p>I do not think that this is a very Islamic vision at all. . . . Theirs is a kind of religion that is extraordinarily full of violence and abuse that is not in accordance with the Quran, the traditions of the Prophet or even with Islamic Law.</p></blockquote>
<p>Hatem Bazian, director of the Islamophobia Research &amp; Documentation Project at the University of California, Berkeley, lived up to his title by invoking victimhood. <a href="http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/is_isis_a_faith-based_terroris.php">Bazian</a> claimed that:</p>
<blockquote><p>When Islamophobes point to the Koran and Islam as the problem, they are epistemically reinforcing ISIS’s claims and also pushing every Muslim into the same categorization. . . . For me, religion is a rationalization rather than the root cause.</p></blockquote>
<p>Responding to British Prime Minister David Cameron’s public <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1408/29/cnr.02.html">acknowledgement</a> that British Muslims are joining ISIS, University of Michigan history professor <a href="http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2014/10/juan-cole-condemns-david-cameron-for.html">Juan Cole</a> ranted, “It’s just a way of beating up on the Muslims in the UK. . . . Cameron is grandstanding about this and it’s Islamophobia, it’s just racism.” Perhaps Cole is unaware that Cameron, speaking at a <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/10/david-cameron-on-eid-al-adha-islamic-state-has-nothing-to-do-with-the-great-religion-of-islam-a-religion-of-peace">reception</a> for British Muslims, kowtowed to political-correctness by declaring that ISIS has “nothing to do with the great religion of Islam, a religion of peace.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile, <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/09/04/dont-blame-religion-for-rise-isis/">Sahar F. Aziz</a>, Texas A&amp;M University law professor, condemned those who are “blindly blaming religion . . . rather than root causes,” lamenting that, “Thousands of miles away from the Middle East, it is tempting for Americans to view the atrocities committed by the Islamic State (ISIS) as further evidence that something is wrong with Islam.” Instead, she asserted, “The politics of authoritarianism, rather than religion, explain the rise of ISIS.” Given that ISIS arose in a power vacuum, there is little basis for blaming authoritarianism.</p>
<p>Going to ridiculous lengths, <a href="http://www.onbeing.org/blog/is-all-morality-gone-condemning-isis-and-beyond-in-a-world-of-suffering/6910">Omid Safi</a>, director of Duke University’s Islamic Studies Center, faults humanity itself:</p>
<blockquote><p>I am mindful of the fact that much of the Islamophobic discourse of today holds Muslims in the West accountable for atrocities of ISIS. In that context, it makes a fundamental mistake. . . . All of us, Muslims and Jews and Christians and Hindus and Buddhists and people of no faith and people of occasional faith, we are all responsible.</p></blockquote>
<p>That is, since everyone is responsible for ISIS, no one is responsible.</p>
<p>After conceding that “Muslims have a responsibility to speak out against ISIS,” Safi then entreated,</p>
<blockquote><p>[A]ll of us to speak out with the same vehemence . . . about the victims of the American drones, about the victims of the allies of the United States? Can we mourn Palestinians? Can we mourn Mike Brown and Trayvon Martin? Can we mourn the 2.5 million Americans caught in a penal industrial complex?</p></blockquote>
<p>A better question for Safi would be whether there is any unrelated societal ill that <em>cannot</em> be associated with condemning ISIS?</p>
<p>University of California, Riverside creative writing professor <a href="http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2014/10/reza-aslan-on-what-the-new-atheists-get-wrong.html">Reza Aslan</a> denied that ISIS has any appeal whatsoever to devout Muslims, marveling over “how little religion plays a role in this group, how little the idea of reading the Koran or praying or those kinds of things play a significant role on the ground among these militants.” Granting that “religion is the sort of underlying, unifying aspect of it,” Aslan then contradicted himself: “But the idea that ISIS is drawing excessively religious people to it is factually incorrect.” <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/09/reza-aslan-on-the-islamic-state-theres-no-diplomacy-they-have-to-be-destroyed/">Elsewhere</a>, he alluded to the “grievances . . . that a lot of Muslims around the world have” and warned that ISIS’s appeal would remain, “unless those grievances can be addressed.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/talktojazeera/2014/10/tariq-ramadan-isil-not-islamic-2014101015462542487.html">Tariq Ramadan</a>, professor of contemporary Islamic studies at Oxford University, suggested that Muslim scholars respond to ISIS by proclaiming:</p>
<blockquote><p>What you are doing, killing innocent people, implementing so-called “Sharia” or the so-called “Islamic State”, this is against everything that is coming from Islam. . . . It is not a caliphate. It is just people playing with politics referring to religious sources.</p></blockquote>
<p>While it is indeed necessary for Muslim moderates—a group that does <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/4852">not include</a> Ramadan—to condemn ISIS, it is self-defeating to deny the Islamic basis for its behavior.</p>
<p>Other academics engage in moral relativism, equating ISIS’s unbridled aggression with the defense of Western democracies. Absurdly, <a href="http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/26743-how-much-moral-high-ground-does-the-us-have-over-isis">Musa al-Gharbi</a>, a University of Arizona instructor, described the U.S. as the bigger evil: “It would not be a stretch to say that the United States is actually a greater threat to peace and stability in the region than ISIS.” <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/10/there-are-groups-more-depraved--201410238520512942.html">Al-Gharbi</a> also dubbed Mexican drug cartels <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/blog/2014/11/shakir-al-gharbi-downplay-isis-atrocities-with">more destructive</a> than ISIS and maintained that, “What is fueling the disproportionate reaction to ISIL is Islamophobia.”</p>
<p><a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/9/barack-obama-islamicstatestrategyspeech.html">Mark LeVine</a>, a professor of Middle East history at the University of California, Irvine, simultaneously absolved Islam and demonized Zionism by likening ISIS fighters to religious “fanatics” of all types:</p>
<blockquote><p>[The Islamic State] is as real a form of expression of Islam as the violent and chauvinist Israeli settler movement is to Judaism or as extreme Hindu nationalism, Rahkine Buddhism and militant Christianity are to their religions in India, Myanmar and the United States.</p></blockquote>
<p>Georgetown University history professor <a href="http://freebeacon.com/national-security/k-i-l-l-i-n-g/">Abdullah Al-Arian</a> drew a cruder comparison on Twitter:</p>
<blockquote><p>Israel and ISIS sitting in a tree, K-I-L-L-I-N-G, First come the bombs, then come the savages, then come the U.N. to survey the damages.</p></blockquote>
<p>Likewise, <a href="http://www.truthrevolt.org/israel-revolt/virginia-tech-professor-likens-israel-isis">Steven Salaita</a>, a former Virginia Tech University English professor whose offer of a position at the University of Illinois was withdrawn, tweeted nonsensically, “#Israel and #ISIS are but two prongs of the same violent ethnonationalism.”</p>
<p>Stretching credulity even further, <a href="http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=4&amp;x_outlet=28&amp;x_article=2751">Rashid Khalidi</a> of Columbia University, alleged that ISIS “would be positively affected if the United States stopped its biased support of Israel.”</p>
<p>Seemingly bucking these trends is an <a href="http://www.lettertobaghdadi.com/">open letter</a> to ISIS “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi signed by over 120 Muslim leaders and scholars, including the aforementioned <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/search.php?cx=015692155655874064424%3A-cjrsa07xqe&amp;cof=FORID%3A9&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;q=hatem+bazian&amp;sa=Search">Hatem Bazian</a>, <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/8787">Hamza Yusuf</a> of Zaytuna College, and Brandeis University’s Joseph E.B. Lumbard. However, the letter calls its sincerity into question in its calculated <a href="http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2014/10/is-the-muslim-scholars-open-letter-to-isis-really-enough">ambiguity</a>, <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/09/international-group-of-muslim-scholars-refutes-islamic-states-islamic-case-while-endorsing-jihad-sharia-caliphate">endorsement</a> of Sharia law, and the <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/14067">Islamist</a> bent of many of its signatories.</p>
<p>Plainly, these Middle East studies academics are reluctant to admit the existence of Islamic supremacism. The rise of ISIS has challenged their ideology even more than the growth of al-Qaeda. Instead of addressing the monster to which Islam has given birth, as French Muslim philosopher <a href="http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/8206.htm">Abdennour Bidar</a> recently put it, they blame the non-Muslim world. Quite simply, the “experts” have buried their heads in the sand.</p>
<p><em>Cinnamon Stillwell is the West Coast Representative for </em><a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/"><em>Campus Watch</em></a><em>, a project of the </em><a href="http://www.meforum.org/"><em>Middle East Forum</em></a><em>. She can be reached at </em><a href="http://mailto:stillwell@meforum.org/"><em>stillwell@meforum.org</em></a><em>.</em></p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank"><strong>Click here</strong></a><strong>.   </strong></p>
<p><a href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf"><strong>Subscribe</strong></a><strong> to Frontpage&#8217;s TV show, <em>The Glazov Gang</em>, and </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang"><strong>LIKE</strong></a><strong> it on </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang"><strong>Facebook.</strong></a></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/cinnamon-stillwell/profs-blame-isis-on-islamophobia-and-grievances/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>19</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Spies in the Classroom: CAIR vs. Campus Watch</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/cinnamon-stillwell/spies-in-the-classroom-cair-vs-campus-watch/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=spies-in-the-classroom-cair-vs-campus-watch</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/cinnamon-stillwell/spies-in-the-classroom-cair-vs-campus-watch/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 28 Oct 2013 04:46:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Cinnamon Stillwell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CAIR]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Campus Watch]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Left]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Middle East Studies]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=208705</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Who are the real “spies” in Middle East studies? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Nihad+Awad+Council+American+Islamic+Relations+1euk6wC6RH5l.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-208781" alt="Nihad+Awad+Council+American+Islamic+Relations+1euk6wC6RH5l" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Nihad+Awad+Council+American+Islamic+Relations+1euk6wC6RH5l-450x330.jpg" width="315" height="231" /></a>When on October 1, 2013, <a href="http://www.saintpetersblog.com/meet-samantha-bowden-one-of-the-30-under-30-rising-stars-in-florida-politics">Samantha Bowden</a> crept unannounced into the classroom of University of Central Florida communications professor <a href="http://communication.cos.ucf.edu/person/jonathan-matusitz/">Jonathan Matusitz</a>, she wasn’t hoping to advance her education on the sly. Rather, <a href="http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/cair-stalks-ucf-professor#ixzz2hGP5NHFJ">Bowden</a>, the communication and outreach <a href="http://cairflorida.org/profile?id=519bbcd2aa8eeca545000013">director</a> for the Florida branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-FL), was doing <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/11/cair-now-stalking-professor-it-doesnt-like-trespassing-in-his-class/">something</a> of which <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/">Campus Watch</a> has been frequently accused, but has never done: spying on a professor in <a href="http://fl.cair.com/blog/my_word_professors_islam_talks_incite_hate.html">an effort</a> to embarrass him and, with luck, even harm <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2013/08/11/cair-tries-to-ban-professors-speech-on-the-islamic-threat-to-america/">his career</a>.</p>
<p>Since its inception in 2002, Campus Watch (CW)—a project of the Middle East Forum that reviews and critiques Middle East studies in North America with an aim to improving them—has been charged with an array of <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/correction.php">outrageous calumnies</a>. They include paying students to infiltrate classrooms as “spies” or “informers”; targeting “pro-Palestinian” professors; and tracking “anti-Israel” comments.” (Click <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/13459">here</a> for a full collection of examples.)</p>
<p>Writing at his blog in 2005, University of Pennsylvania teaching assistant <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2006/04/backhanded-endorsements-of-campus-watch#Faris">David Faris</a> claimed to have been dogged by a Campus Watch “spy” for months: “At Penn, one of my semesters as a teaching assistant was deeply marred by an undergraduate Campus Watch spy . . . .” Faris flatters himself, as Campus Watch has never heard of him, then or since.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2006/04/backhanded-endorsements-of-campus-watch#Bazian">Hatem Bazian</a>, a Near Eastern studies lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, declared in a 2006 interview that “he knew of students in his classroom who attended just so they could write down what he says, essentially spying on him.”</p>
<p>Ben-Gurion University political geography professor <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/correction/66">David Newman</a>, in 2010, fantasized that Campus Watch “turns students into spies in the name of a specific political ideology.”</p>
<p>In 2010, <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/correction/71">Dorit Naaman</a>, a film and media professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, wrote that Campus Watch “asked students to spy on their professors and track their ‘anti Israel’ record on a public website.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile, in a 2012 <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/correction/93">interview</a>, University of Pennsylvania political science professor Ian Lustick maintained that “he has had students in his classes act as ‘spies’ for Campus Watch.”</p>
<p>While such colorful tales of intrigue make for a gripping story, Campus Watch defies anyone to provide proof that it ever sent paid “spies” into university classrooms. Can one of the accusers make available a paycheck stub or other written evidence to indicate that Campus Watch staff sought to infiltrate a professor’s classroom? Have any Campus Watch employees actually been apprehended sneaking into classrooms in the manner of CAIR’s Bowden?</p>
<p>Indeed, CAIR has been caught red-handed doing exactly that with which academia and its allies have fallaciously charged Campus Watch and instead of outrage, the incident has been met with silence.</p>
<p>The fact that CAIR—an <a href="http://www.meforum.org/916/cair-islamists-fooling-the-establishment">Islamist outfit</a> posing as a defender of civil rights, an unindicted <a href="http://www.nysun.com/national/islamic-groups-named-in-hamas-funding-case/55778/">co-conspirator</a> in the Holy Land Foundation trial (among other <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/printgroupProfile.asp?grpid=6176">terrorist ties</a><span style="text-decoration: underline;">)</span>, and a <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2013/09/21/cair-collects-millions-from-foreign-donors-thanks-to-non-profit-shell-game/">recipient</a> of illegal foreign funding—has been embraced by the Middle East studies establishment (click <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/blog/2008/01/juan-cole-and-cair-two-peas-in-pod">here</a>, <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/blog/2008/01/juan-cole-and-cair-play-the">here</a>, <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/11560">here</a>, <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/12297">here</a>, and <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/06/john-esposito-is-the-director.html">here</a> for just a few examples) likely has something to do with it. It turns out the only “spies” Middle East studies specialists are truly concerned about are those that threaten the politically-correct view of the Middle East; when it’s one of their own, they turn a blind eye. This the height of hypocrisy, not to mention a textbook example of projection.</p>
<p>Campus Watch challenges these professors to denounce CAIR’s harassment with the same fervor they’ve demonstrated over the years leveling spurious accusations of spying against CW. To do otherwise would be to demonstrate the hollowness of their concerns.</p>
<p><i>Cinnamon Stillwell is the West Coast Representative for</i> <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/"><i>Campus Watch</i></a><i>, a project of the</i> <a href="http://www.meforum.org/"><i>Middle East Forum</i></a><i>. She can be reached at</i> <a href="mailto:stillwell@meforum.org"><i>stillwell@meforum.org</i></a><i>.</i></p>
<p>*</p>
<p><em>Don&#8217;t miss <strong>Jamie Glazov&#8217;s</strong> video interview with <b>Steven Emerson </b>on &#8220;The Sordid World of CAIR&#8221;: <strong><br />
</strong></em></p>
<p><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/SaNMPpgPCh4" height="315" width="420" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>.  </b></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/cinnamon-stillwell/spies-in-the-classroom-cair-vs-campus-watch/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>14</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Academia’s Love Letter to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/cinnamon-stillwell/academias-love-letter-to-egypts-muslim-brotherhood/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=academias-love-letter-to-egypts-muslim-brotherhood</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/cinnamon-stillwell/academias-love-letter-to-egypts-muslim-brotherhood/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Jul 2013 04:16:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Cinnamon Stillwell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Academia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[accuracy in academia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hatem bazian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[muslim brotherhood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[professors]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=197618</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Sorrow, nostalgia and conspiracy theories.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/hatem.gif"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-197643" alt="hatem" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/hatem.gif" width="263" height="202" /></a>Now that Egyptians have <a href="http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/07/10/the-nile-of-democracy-will-flood-egypts-jihadists/">overthrown</a> the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) government of former president Mohammed Morsi, how have scholars of the Middle East responded? With encomia, nostalgia, and conspiracy theories. (Click <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/13309">here</a> for a full collection of quotes).</p>
<p>Instead of acknowledging the ineptitude and dictatorial behavior that led to the Muslim Brotherhood’s ouster, some alluded to shadowy conspiracies involving the U.S. This despite the Obama administration’s open support for the Brotherhood and its push for MB participation in a new democratic political process, much to the <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=anti+obama+signs+in+egypt&amp;client=firefox-a&amp;rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&amp;tbm=isch&amp;tbo=u&amp;source=univ&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=umzgUeGDMYLWyQHHsoG4Dg&amp;ved=0CEUQsAQ&amp;biw=1600&amp;bih=702">consternation</a> of the Egyptian street, not to mention many Americans.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.tariqramadan.com/spip.php?article12927&amp;lang=en">Tariq Ramadan</a>, professor of contemporary Islamic studies at Oxford University and grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hasan al-Banna, claimed that “the decision to overthrow President Mohamed Morsi had been made well before June 30.” The Egyptian people, he alleged, “have been unwitting participants in a media-military operation of the highest order,” and, he concluded ominously, “The silence of Western governments tells us all we need to know.”</p>
<p>Similarly, <a href="http://www.contracostatimes.com/opinion/ci_23643420/blow-democracy-middle-east?source=email">Amer Araim</a> of Diablo Valley College claimed that, “The Egyptian military authorities . . . could not have staged the coup without a nod from Washington,” while <a href="http://whiterosereader.org/2013/07/12/the-coup-in-egypt-a-conversation-with-abdullah-al-arian/">Abdullah Al-Arian</a> of Wayne State University, the son of former professor and North American head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=671">Sami Al-Arian</a>, maintained that, “The U.S. likely gave some kind of endorsement, or at least did not object to removing the democratically elected president.”</p>
<p>Taking it a step further, <a href="http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2013/07/conspiracy-theory-about-egypt.html">As&#8217;ad AbuKhalil</a>, a political scientist at California State University, Stanislaus, posted the following at his “Angry Arab” blog: “[I]nteresting that while Obama was in deep trouble over the NSA spy scandal suddenly a revolution in Egypt bursts out . . . wiping out or at least putting lower on the front page news about the NSA spy scandal.”</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/HatemBazian/status/352945654563213312">Hatem Bazian</a>, who lectures in Near Eastern studies and directs the Islamophobia Research &amp; Documentation Project at the University of California, Berkeley, tweeted, “The ME, it’s [sic] oil, and wealth are far too valuable to be left to the Egyptians on the street to determine are the words said behind doors.”</p>
<p>Other scholars, reiterating their <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/blog/2012/07/professors-and-politicos-fooled-by-the-muslim">long-standing</a> affection for so-called “moderate Islamist” parties across the region, from the <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/11330">MB in Egypt</a> to the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey and Ennahda in Tunisa, continued to hold out hope for Islamist rule.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/07/201378985916781.html">Khaled Abou El Fadl</a>, who teaches Islamic law and chairs the Islamic Studies Interdepartmental Program at the University of California, Los Angeles, lamented that, “What has been dealt a deathblow after the Egyptian coup is moderate Islamism.” The Muslim Brotherhood, he claimed, “believed in the political process and tried to practice it. . . . They believed that democracy and Islamism are reconcilable.”</p>
<p>Exhibiting a similarly wistful tone, <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/07/201374115114452703.html">Abdullah Al-Arian</a>, who wrote <a href="http://acmcu.georgetown.edu/227737.html">his dissertation</a> on <a href="http://www.international.ucla.edu/cnes/events/showevent.asp?eventid=9860">the MB</a> at Georgetown University, imagined the Islamist party’s disappointment at not losing power via an election: “One of the many tragedies of these latest events is that we have lost . . . the opportunity to witness the Muslim Brotherhood humbled through its preferred method of political contestation.”</p>
<p>Comparing the MB to Tunisia’s ruling Islamist party Ennahda, <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-05/don-t-blame-islam-for-the-failure-of-egypt-s-democracy.html">Noah Feldman</a> of Harvard Law preposterously and incoherently opined:</p>
<blockquote><p>Both parties believe in combining Islamic values with democratic practice. Both accept a political role for women and equal citizenship for non-Muslims, even if in practice they are both socially conservative and seek the gradual, voluntary Islamization of society.</p></blockquote>
<p>Meanwhile, Michigan’s <a href="http://www.juancole.com/2013/07/egypts-revocouption-democracy.html">Juan Cole</a>, having previously downplayed the <a href="http://www.juancole.com/2012/06/fox-smears-mursi-with-jerusalem-capital-lie-murphy.html">MB’s extremism</a>, pointed to Turkey’s ruling Islamist party as a role model for the Brotherhood (this despite the recent massive <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/16/us-turkey-protests-idUSBRE96F0MH20130716">protests</a> in Turkey and the AKP’s heavy handed response):</p>
<blockquote><p>[I]t depends on whether the Muslim Brotherhood is wise and mature enough to roll with this punch and to reform itself . . . If they take this course, they have a chance of emulating Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) and one day coming back to power.</p></blockquote>
<p>Whether invoking conspiracy theories or advocating “moderate Islamism” as a solution to the region’s ills, these scholars do little to instill confidence in America’s Middle East studies establishment. Time and time again the field is proven wrong, making it an unreliable guide for students, government, business, the media, and the wider public. When next the “experts” purport to explain events in the Middle East, be afraid, be very afraid.</p>
<p><i>Cinnamon Stillwell is the West Coast Representative for</i> <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/"><i>Campus Watch</i></a><i>, a project of the</i> <a href="http://www.meforum.org/"><i>Middle East Forum</i></a><i>. She can be reached at</i> <a href="mailto:stillwell@meforum.org"><i>stillwell@meforum.org</i></a><i>.</i></p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/cinnamon-stillwell/academias-love-letter-to-egypts-muslim-brotherhood/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>7</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Profs on Boston Bombing: Blame Right-Wingers, ‘Islamophobia,’ and Blowback</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/cinnamon-stillwell/profs-on-boston-bombing-blame-right-wingers-islamophobia-and-blowback/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=profs-on-boston-bombing-blame-right-wingers-islamophobia-and-blowback</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/cinnamon-stillwell/profs-on-boston-bombing-blame-right-wingers-islamophobia-and-blowback/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 07 May 2013 04:35:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Cinnamon Stillwell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bombing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[boston marathon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[killing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=188547</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Islamist apologist choir looks to everything but the "religion of peace" to explain the carnage. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_188553" style="width: 280px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/juancole.jpg"><img class=" wp-image-188553" alt="juancole" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/juancole-450x291.jpg" width="270" height="175" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">University of Michigan Professor Juan Cole</p></div>
<p>How did scholars of the Middle East and those engaged in <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/docs/type/moonlighting" target="_blank">moonlighting</a> (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 <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2013/04/lessons-from-the-fbi-most-wanted-terrorist-list" target="_blank">constitute</a> 30 of 32 of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s <a href="http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/wanted_terrorists/@@wanted-group-listing" target="_blank">list</a> of most wanted terrorists, this represents either wishful thinking or willful blindness.</p>
<p>Accordingly, after brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were identified as the perpetrators, scholars resorted to <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/12637">apologetics</a> and <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/6708">obfuscation</a> 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.</p>
<p>What follows is a sampling of such inanity.</p>
<p><b>Early speculation on the identity of the perpetrators:</b></p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/IngridMattson/status/324008088862609408">Ingrid Mattson</a>, London &amp; Windsor Community Chair in Islamic Studies, Huron University College:</p>
<blockquote><p>Just paid my U.S. taxes which are due today. Almost forgot because of the attacks on Boston. Did the bombers intend to disrupt tax day?</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/IngridMattson/status/325101034454253569">And</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>If we wake up to the news that the bombers were white men, who should issue press releases condemning the actions?</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jeffrey-meyer/2013/04/17/msnbc-brings-harvard-professor-suspect-far-right-may-be-responsible-b">Jessica Stern</a>, Task Force on National Security and Law, Hoover Institution, Stanford University:</p>
<blockquote><p>[A] recipe for creating this kind of bomb was actually published in al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s online magazine known as ‘Inspire.’ And a couple of terrorist wannabes were inspired by that&#8211;al-Qaeda’s call for individuals to carry out their own jihad in America and try to detonate these bombs. . . . But it’s also important to recognize that the recipe was shared and lauded by Stormfront, which is a neo-Nazi website. And the whole idea of leaderless resistance, which comes out of the far right, neo-Nazi, patriot movement, also spread over to al-Qaeda-related groups. . . . So my guess is that this probably is a do-it-yourselfer kind of individual or individuals, or perhaps a small group. Either one that was inspired by al-Qaeda or perhaps neo-Nazis or anti-government patriot groups who have been known to act on Patriot’s Day. So the date of the attack suggests that we not overlook the possibility that this could be an American anti-government group.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.woodtv.com/dpp/news/national/terror-expert-examines-marathon-attack1366079075911">Mark Ensalaco</a>, associate professor of political science, University of Dayton:</p>
<blockquote><p>My immediate reaction is this is something similar to Oklahoma City and the Olympics in Atlanta. Because it’s tax day and a holiday in Boston honoring revolutionaries who fought for America freedom, and many people from foreign nations were in attendance, I worry a right-wing extremist used a highly visible event such as the Boston Marathon to make a highly visible statement. It would be tragic if some mad man took a peaceful movement such as the tea party and acted in this way.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.lajollalight.com/2013/04/21/ucsd-professor-says-boston-marathon-was-lone-wolf-terrorism/">Eli Berman</a>, Research Director, International Security Studies, University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, University of California, San Diego:</p>
<blockquote><p>This looks like an aberration. It’s called ‘lone wolf’ terrorism—it’s not attached to any organization.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2013/04/buffoons-of-muslim-american.html">As’ad AbuKhalil</a>, professor of political science, California State University, Stanislaus:</p>
<blockquote><p>The buffoons of Muslim-American organizations are holding a press conference in Washington, D.C. today. Why? Why are you so eager to speak on the matter when the manhunt is not even over? And what will you say? Condemn? Why not reinforce the view, by not speaking, that condemnation is to be assumed by all American about all Americans?  Do you see Jewish-American organizations rushing to hold press conferences every time a Jewish person commits an act of murder or terrorism? Why do you act suspicious when you are innocent? Why do you remind American bigots that they are not wrong in their suspicions of you? Why not issue a statement saying once and for all that you condemn all acts of terrorism like all other Americans and that for that, you will shut up if some Muslim kook or terrorist commits an act of murder or terrorism in the future?</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.juancole.com/2013/04/islamic-forbids-terrorism.html">Juan Cole</a>, Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History, University of Michigan:</p>
<blockquote><p>We don’t yet know who carried out the attack, but we know they either aren’t Muslims at all or they aren’t real Muslims, in the nature of the case.</p></blockquote>
<p><b>Why the Tsarnaev brothers aren’t “real” Muslims:</b></p>
<p><a href="http://omidsafi.religionnews.com/2013/04/20/10-essential-points/">Omid Safi</a>, professor of Islamic studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill:</p>
<blockquote><p>We don’t know much about the two brothers . . . The few pieces we have do not exactly add up to a life of pious observance of Islam. Their high school friends talk about the two brothers getting together, drinking, and smoking pot. . . . We have seen this before, in the case of the 9/11 hijackers who visited strip clubs and got loaded up on alcohol and porn before committing their atrocities—again, not the actions of Muslim role models.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-glyn-williams/thoughts-on-the-jihadific_b_3156888.html">Brian Glyn Williams</a>, professor of Islamic history, University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth:</p>
<blockquote><p>While he [Tamerlan Tsarnaev] was previously known to smoke marijuana and box, he ultimately found himself in a radical strain of Islam. But it was not the Islam most Muslims would recognize, it was almost a separate cult known as jihadism which seeks to construct what has been called the ‘Sixth Pillar of Islam’ i.e the <i>fard</i> (obligation) of jihad (there are actually only five pillars in Islam).</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.juancole.com/2013/04/partying-tsarnaev-brothers.html">Juan Cole</a>, Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History, University of Michigan:</p>
<blockquote><p>Being a fanatic is, contrary to the impression both of Fox Cable News and some Muslim radicals, not actually the same as being a good Muslim; in fact, the Qur’an urges the use of reason and moderation. . . . All this shows that they were on an adolescent homocidal [sic] power trip, dressed up like al-Qaeda, the way the Aurora shooter was wearing an arsenal and dressed up like Batman. In any case, here are the signs that Dzhokhar in particular wasn’t ever observant, and Tamerlan’s later fanaticism led him and his brother to disregard Islamic ethics and laws.</p></blockquote>
<p><b>Claims that Islam and terrorism are incompatible:</b></p>
<p><a href="http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/local/bay-area-muslims-edge-after-boston-bombings/nXRhk/">Hatem Bazian</a>, senior lecturer in Near Eastern, University of California, Berkeley:</p>
<blockquote><p>These acts of violence and terror have no place in Islam, which condemns such acts—in strongest possible terms—that takes lives of innocent people or causes pain and suffering.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://omidsafi.religionnews.com/2013/04/20/10-essential-points/">Omid Safi</a>, professor of Islamic studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill:</p>
<blockquote><p>No matter what the experts on TV say, and for that matter what the two brothers might have said, here is one simple fact. Islamic law does not permit the random, indiscriminate killing of civilians. It is categorically forbidden. The Prophet Muhammad himself forbade the killing of women, elderly, civilians, and religious leaders.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.juancole.com/2013/04/islamic-forbids-terrorism.html">Juan Cole</a>, Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History, University of Michigan:</p>
<blockquote><p>If the motive for terrorism is religious, it is impermissible in Islamic law. It is forbidden to attempt to impose Islam on other people. . . . Islamic law forbids aggressive warfare. . . . The killing of innocent non-combatants is forbidden. . . . Terrorism or <i>hirabah</i> is forbidden in Islamic law. . . . Sneak attacks are forbidden. Muslim commanders must give the enemy fair warning that war is imminent.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/muqtedar-khan/justice-is-not-enough_b_3129892.html">Muqtedar Khan</a>, associate professor of political science and director of the Islamic Studies Program, University of Delaware:</p>
<blockquote><p>To act in anger, even in the pursuit of justice is Un-Islamic. How do we teach our child that how one responds to injustice is the true measure of one’s values and a true reflection of who we are? How do we teach them that our Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) taught us—la darar wa la dirar—do no harm and do not reciprocate harm. Yes, Muhammad taught Muslims neither to initiate harm nor to reciprocate harm. This tradition is very widely known, at least to Muslims who know their religion.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-glyn-williams/thoughts-on-the-jihadific_b_3156888.html">Brian Glyn Williams</a>, professor of Islamic history, University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth:</p>
<blockquote><p>Dzhokar and Tamerlan are . . . two names with some heavy significance and import for jihadified Muslims of Chechen ancestry who may have found themselves drawn to the cult of Muslim holy war at the expense of other less radical aspects of the faith . . . most notably the passage in the Koran that states ‘killing one innocent person is like killing all humanity.’</p></blockquote>
<p><b>Downplaying the significance of Islamic terrorism:</b></p>
<p><a href="http://omidsafi.religionnews.com/2013/04/20/10-essential-points/">Omid Safi</a>, professor of Islamic studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill:</p>
<blockquote><p>As everyone is of course fully aware, there are some Muslims who engage in terrorist activities. There are also some Jews, some Christians, some atheists, some Hindus, etc. No religion has a monopoly on hatred and idiocy, and no religion has a monopoly on love, compassion, and beauty.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://m.npr.org/news/U.S./178805805">Dalia Mogahed</a>, executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, co-author, with Georgetown University’s John Esposito, of <i>Who Speaks for Islam?: What a Billion Muslims Really Think,</i> and nonresident senior public policy scholar at the American University of Beirut:</p>
<blockquote><p>I think that all terrorists are motivated by an ideology and some perceived grievances, but they all belong to some group and it’s important that we not conflate extremists with the entire group, because if we do that, we actually hand the extremists the legitimacy that they desire, to represent the entire community, which they do not.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/04/2013429162833962451.html">Mark LeVine</a>, professor of history, University of California, Irvine:</p>
<blockquote><p>Why do we assume that if a young man is obsessed with extremely violent videos, websites and extreme music that he is psychologically disturbed, but if he’s obsessed with religion—not any religion, Islam only it appears—and begins following extremists online and viewing violent videos or reading violent literature that he&#8217;s become merely a ‘radical’—that is, he’s made a conscious and ‘sane’ political decision to attack and murder people in the name of an ideology, and isn&#8217;t suffering from some kind of mental illness?</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2013/04/terrorism-or-explosion.html">As’ad AbuKhalil</a>, professor of political science, California State University, Stanislaus:</p>
<blockquote><p>If an Arab is behind it is terrorism and if an American is behind it is an explosion.</p></blockquote>
<p><b>Predicting hate crimes and “Islamophobia”:</b></p>
<p><a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130422-boston-marathon-bombings-terrorism-islam-muslims-chechnya-opinion/">Akbar Ahmed</a>, Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies, American University:</p>
<blockquote><p>Americans, particularly the media, also need to recognize the damage that Islamophobia can cause in alienating these young Muslims away from the mainstream religious and civic community. Already there are stories circulating of a backlash against Muslims in the wake of the events in Boston.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/muqtedar-khan/justice-is-not-enough_b_3129892.html">Muqtedar Khan</a>, associate professor of political science and director of the Islamic Studies Program, University of Delaware:</p>
<blockquote><p>The bombing of the Boston marathon and the subsequent man-hunt for the young Dzhokar Tsarnaev, has once again focused everyone’s attention on the so-called threat of Islamic radicalism and on Muslims living in the West. It has also given anti-Muslim extremists all the ammunition they need to put Islamophobia and anti-Muslim campaigns on steroids.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2013/04/bmbpanel/">Aziza Ahmed</a>, assistant professor of law, Northeastern University:</p>
<blockquote><p>TV shows like 24 portray Muslims as secret radicals, which gets reproduced as facts by news agencies. . . . After an act of violence, we often desire to assign blame and ask for vigilance for the sake of justice.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://omidsafi.religionnews.com/2013/04/20/10-essential-points/">Omid Safi</a>, professor of Islamic studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill:</p>
<blockquote><p>How we as a nation move forward is critical. . . . Do we turn into an angry mob accusing all Muslims of a crime that two men committed? Do we turn this into an anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant hysteria? Or, do we insist that we as a people are better than what we have been through? Do we want to be heroes, like the ones that put their own lives on the line on Monday, and again in apprehending the suspects? Or do we give in to unjustified bloodlust?</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2013/04/arab-americans-at-time-of-fear.html">As’ad AbuKhalil</a>, professor of political science, California State University, Stanislaus:</p>
<blockquote><p>I feel bad for Arab-Americans. At a time like this, when people speculate about the culpability of Arabs, I watch and read Arab-Americans striving to prove that they too are human beings, and that they too are Americans. Not that this works with bigots.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://m.npr.org/news/U.S./178805805">Dalia Mogahed</a>, executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, co-author, with Georgetown University’s John Esposito, of <i>Who Speaks for Islam?: What a Billion Muslims Really Think,</i> and nonresident senior public policy scholar at the American University of Beirut:</p>
<blockquote><p>I pray for the day . . . when these things happen that we look at each other as Americans and assume that we are all as disgusted by these horrific acts as anyone else. I don’t want to prove that I am against the killing of an eight-year-old. That to me is outrageous.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.npr.org/2013/04/20/178090673/muslims-fear-backlash-after-suspects-faith-revealed">Khaled Abou El Fadl</a>, Omar and Azmeralda Alfi Distinguished Professor in Islamic Law and chair of the Islamic Studies Interdepartmental Program, University of California, Los Angeles:</p>
<blockquote><p>I have not seen a significant decrease [in anti-Muslim hate crimes since 9/11]. In fact, although I have had high hopes of [sic] our 2005-2006 that things would get better, there was an increasingly widening sort of cultural gap of misunderstanding.<br />
<i>[Ed. note: Click </i><a href="http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/ucr-publications#Hate"><i>here</i></a><i> to access FBI hate crimes statistics for 1996-2011.]</i></p></blockquote>
<p><b>Blaming the attack on “blowback”:</b></p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/SZunes/status/324178104119599105">Stephen Zunes,</a> professor of politics and international studies and director of the Middle East studies program, University of San Francisco:</p>
<blockquote><p>As we offer our thoughts/prayers to Boston bombing victims, let’s also remember the many equally innocent victims of U.S.-made bombs overseas.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://politicaljones.com/the-politicaljones-show-talking-about-bostonmarathonbombings-with-szunes-chechnya-and-bcook1906-media/">And</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>When people have been oppressed or dispossessed, whether it be Palestine or Kashmir or Chechnya, some people will take to desperate acts. . . . We need to keep into account that history instead of falling into ugly stereotypes about Muslims or immigrants or anything like that.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://richardfalk.wordpress.com/2013/04/19/a-commentary-on-the-marathon-murders/">Richard Falk</a>, Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law and Practice and Professor Emeritus of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University:</p>
<blockquote><p>The American global domination project is bound to generate all kinds of resistance in the post-colonial world. In some respects the United States has been fortunate not to experience worse blowbacks, and these may yet happen, especially if there is no disposition to rethink U.S. relations to others in the world, starting with the Middle East. . . .<b> </b>America’s military prowess and the abiding confidence of its leaders in hard power diplomacy makes the United States a menace to the world and to itself. . . . We should be asking ourselves at this moment, ‘how many canaries will have to die before we awaken from our geopolitical fantasy of global domination?’</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/omid-safi/huffpost-jummah-the-light-and-the-wound-america-and-the-global-community_b_3162597.html">Omid Safi</a>, professor of Islamic studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill:</p>
<blockquote><p>There is a difference between justifying terrorist attacks, and understanding the role that our own government has played in causing grievances that lead to these attacks. There is a difference between explaining terrorist attacks away, and understanding that we as a country have committed actions that create resentment among millions of people in this world. We have become, and have been for a while, not a Republic but an Empire. . . . The United States’ actions abroad are a root cause of radicalization.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/04/2013429162833962451.html">Mark LeVine</a>, professor of history, University of California, Irvine:</p>
<blockquote><p>[T]he Tsarnaev brothers can be seen as just one element of a global blowback against a world system that for centuries has produced war and violence on a massive scale. This is a system in which all of us are implicated—the bystanders at the marathon as much as the average citizen in Russia. . . . Do Americans want to admit that as a society they produce an incredible amount of violence, and that sometimes the structure of the society helps produce people like the Columbine, Newtown or Boston murderers? Do they have the time and willingness to consider the incredibly twisted path leading back to the 1940s Soviet Union and ending, at least on this occasion, at the Boston Marathon finish line?</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/13/130422-boston-marathon-bombings-terrorism-islam-muslims-chechnya-opinion/">Akbar Ahmed</a>, Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies, American University:</p>
<blockquote><p>Upon their arrival in the United States, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar joined a Muslim community that bore the scarlet letter of terrorism. Expecting hospitality, they felt alienated and disillusioned, even with all of the opportunities and privileges available to them as citizens of this country. They opted for an act of violent nihilism, of devastation and death. It was a mutation of their religious and tribal codes. Under no circumstances is there any justification for their actions.</p></blockquote>
<p>Clearly, the specialists cited above are using their knowledge not to clarify, but to conceal; not to explain, but to apologize. When they serve as a source of propaganda rather than elucidation, the professoriate becomes a barrier to understanding. Moreover, the insistence that bigotry is endemic to the American character only promotes the very hysteria and division they decry. In turning to such “experts” in times of crisis, the media and the public at large are ill-served and often misled.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/cinnamon-stillwell/profs-on-boston-bombing-blame-right-wingers-islamophobia-and-blowback/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>50</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Manufacturing ‘Islamophobia’ at UC Berkeley</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/cinnamon-stillwell/manufacturing-islamophobia-at-uc-berkeley/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=manufacturing-islamophobia-at-uc-berkeley</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/cinnamon-stillwell/manufacturing-islamophobia-at-uc-berkeley/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jan 2013 04:20:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Cinnamon Stillwell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Berkeley]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CAIR]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islamophobia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Middle East Studies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[university of california]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=174706</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Unmasking the university's new witch-hunt studies program. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/cinnamon-stillwell/manufacturing-islamophobia-at-uc-berkeley/razieh20100831063916560/" rel="attachment wp-att-174731"><img class=" wp-image-174731 alignleft" title="razieh20100831063916560" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/razieh20100831063916560.jpg" alt="" width="254" height="177" /></a>Scholars of the Middle East would do well to follow the lead of the <em>Associated Press </em>(AP), which last year struck the political term “Islamophobia” from the new edition of its widely used Stylebook, <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/11/ap-nixes-homophobia-ethnic-cleansing-150315.html">explaining</a> that “‘-phobia,’ an irrational, uncontrollable fear, often a form of mental illness should not be used in political or social contexts, including ‘homophobia’ and ‘Islamophobia.’” Given that the word was <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/2217/moderate-muslim-speak-out-on-capitol-hill">invented</a> in the early 1990s by a Muslim Brotherhood <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/printgroupProfile.asp?grpid=6180">front organization</a>, the Northern Virginia-based International Institute for Islamic Thought (IIIT), in order <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=777">to silence</a> critics of Islamism by branding them as irrational racists and hate-mongers—according to former IIIT member Abdur-Rahman Muhammad who was present at the time—AP made a wise decision.</p>
<p>In contrast, the field of Middle East studies—in <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/search.php?cx=015692155655874064424%3A-cjrsa07xqe&amp;cof=FORID%3A9&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;q=cair&amp;sa=Search">partnership</a> with organizations such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an <a href="http://www.meforum.org/916/cair-islamists-fooling-the-establishment">Islamist outfit</a> linked by the United States government to <a href="http://www.nysun.com/national/islamic-groups-named-in-hamas-funding-case/55778/">Hamas</a> and the <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/case_docs/423.pdf#page=5">Muslim Brotherhood</a> posing as a defender of civil rights—has become one of the key proponents of the myth that “Islamophobia” is sweeping the nation. Professors of Middle East studies regularly use the phrase in both <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/11248">public lectures</a> and the <a href="http://classes.colgate.edu/osafi/islam_and_Modernity.htm">classroom</a>, while producing <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/12429">books</a>, <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/9984">op-eds</a>, <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/correction/89">reports</a>, and <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/11774">programs</a> devoted to the promulgation of this deliberately misleading term.</p>
<p>At the forefront of this effort is the <a href="http://crg.berkeley.edu/content/islamophobia">Islamophobia Research &amp; Documentation Project</a> (IRDP), a program of the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Race and Gender directed by Near Eastern studies senior lecturer and <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/11116">notorious</a> anti-Israel activist <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/search.php?cx=015692155655874064424%3A-cjrsa07xqe&amp;cof=FORID%3A9&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;q=hatem+bazian&amp;sa=Search">Hatem Bazian</a>. Bazian, co-founder of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), has links to <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2011/dgreenfield/islamic-hate-goes-to-school/2/">Hamas</a> through his work with <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/printgroupProfile.asp?grpid=6368">KindHearts</a> and through SJP&#8217;s sister organization, the <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7391">Muslim Students Association</a>. In addition to annual conferences devoted to the subject beginning in 2010 (information is available <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/11269">here</a> and <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/12392">here</a>), the IRDP produced the inaugural edition of its <a href="http://crg.berkeley.edu/content/islamophobia/islamophobia-studies-journal"><em>Islamophobia Studies Journal</em></a> in late 2012.</p>
<p>As with IRDP conferences, the journal was fashioned in collusion with CAIR and Berkeley’s “<a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/10165">Islamic University</a>,” Zaytuna College. <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/3730/cair-next-generation-radical">Zahra Billoo,</a> executive director of CAIR’s San Francisco Bay Area chapter, and <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/search.php?cx=015692155655874064424%3A-cjrsa07xqe&amp;cof=FORID%3A9&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;q=zaid+shakir&amp;sa=Search">Zaid Shakir</a>, Zaytuna College cofounder and senior faculty member, serve on its advisory board, along with controversial Oxford University Islamic studies professor <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/search.php?cx=015692155655874064424%3A-cjrsa07xqe&amp;cof=FORID%3A9&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;q=tariq+ramadan&amp;sa=Search">Tariq Ramadan</a> and University of California, Davis anthropology and women’s studies professor <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/9619">Suad Joseph</a>. Editorial board members include <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/9711">Rabab Abdulhadi</a>, San Francisco State University associate professor of ethnic studies and race and resistance studies, and a senior scholar in the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Initiative;  <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/12392">Munir Jiwa</a>, founding director and assistant professor of the Center for Islamic Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley; and <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/9732">Hatem Bazian</a>. All share the dubious achievement of furthering the politicization of Middle East studies.</p>
<p>In keeping with the postcolonial, postmodern, racialist language that characterizes UC Berkeley’s <a href="http://crg.berkeley.edu/">Center for Race &amp; Gender</a>, the <em>Islamophobia Studies Journal</em> is filled with the sort of ideological jargon that radical academics habitually substitute for reasoned debate. In the table of contents and the editorial statement alone, terms such “Otherness,” “social justice,” “speak truth to power,” “racial formations,” “the Muslim Other,” “the ‘inferior’ global other,” and “Western epistemic racisms” numb the mind and deaden the senses. Ahistorical and culturally relativistic <a href="http://crg.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/Meer-Modood.pdf">comparisons</a> to the Jewish experience serve to comfort those inclined to view all “Others” in the same light. Bazian’s <a href="http://crg.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/Bazian.pdf">contribution</a>, “Muslims &#8211; Enemies of the State: The New Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO),” paints Muslim-Americans as victims of a persecutory fervor he likens to anti-communism—a trope he has been hawking furiously since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.</p>
<p>While academic journals of this sort may have a limited audience, the IRDP has been involved with more populist ventures over the years. In 2011, CAIR and the Center for Race &amp; Gender held a joint news conference on Capitol Hill in order to <a href="http://crg.berkeley.edu/content/islamophobia-report-0910">unveil</a> a 68-page report titled, “<a href="http://crg.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/islamophobiareport2009-2010.pdf">Same Hate, New Target</a>: Islamophobia and Its Impact in the United States.” It falsely charged a number of public figures with contributing to the scourge of “Islamophobia,” including Middle East Forum founder and president Daniel Pipes. Both Pipes and <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/">Campus Watch</a> were blatantly <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/correction/87">mischaracterized</a>, while the report <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/11560">stretched credulity</a> to portray a country in which Muslims live in fear. The <em>Islamophobia Studies Journal</em> carries on this tradition.</p>
<p>The entire enterprise rests on a falsehood for, in fact, “Islamophobia” as a phenomenon that results in physical harm to Muslim-Americans is practically nonexistent. According to the latest FBI hate crime <a href="http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/hc2008/index.html">statistics</a>, the majority of religiously motivated hate crimes in the U.S. are committed against Jews. A <a href="http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/p18663.xml">study </a>conducted by the Center for Security Policy, “<em>Religious Bias Crimes against Muslim, Jewish and Christian Victims: American Trends from 2000-2009</em>,”<em> </em>shows that hate crimes against Muslim-Americans have remained relatively low and have trended downward since 2001. David Rusin, a research fellow at <a href="http://www.islamist-watch.org/">Islamist Watch</a>, covered the subject extensively in a <a href="http://www.islamist-watch.org/12057/hate-crime-stats-deflate-islamophobia-myth">recent article</a>, noting that:</p>
<blockquote><p>A detailed analysis of FBI statistics covering ten full calendar years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks reveals that, on a per capita basis, American Muslims, contrary to spin, have been subjected to hate crimes less often than other prominent minorities.</p></blockquote>
<p>Why then are the number of academic programs, reports, and journals devoted to combating “Islamophobia” <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/search.php?cx=015692155655874064424%3A-cjrsa07xqe&amp;cof=FORID%3A9&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;q=islamophobia&amp;sa=Search">on the rise</a>? Simply put, it’s in the interest of Islamists to paint a picture of Muslim victimization in order to silence legitimate voices of criticism. In the latest evidence of its years-long decline into politicized scholarship and teaching, the field of Middle East studies has become a principal vehicle for this endeavor.</p>
<p>UC Berkeley and the IRDP are willing accomplices. The latter’s 2011 annual conference was titled, “Islamophobia Production and Re-Defining Global ‘Security’ Agenda for the 21<sup>st</sup> Century,” an apt name as “Islamophobia production” is precisely what the IRDP has done since its inception. Brainwashing students, obscuring the true picture of life for Muslims in America and sowing the seeds of division are the inevitable result—just as the Islamists intended. Academe should demonstrate the same level of intellectual integrity as the AP and dispense with the manufactured, discredited term “Islamophobia.”</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/cinnamon-stillwell/manufacturing-islamophobia-at-uc-berkeley/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>37</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Profs. on Mideast Turmoil: Blame America, Israel, and Free Speech</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/cinnamon-stillwell/profs-on-mideast-turmoil-blame-america-israel-and-free-speech/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=profs-on-mideast-turmoil-blame-america-israel-and-free-speech</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/cinnamon-stillwell/profs-on-mideast-turmoil-blame-america-israel-and-free-speech/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 05 Oct 2012 04:38:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Cinnamon Stillwell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Academia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[blasphemy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Free Speech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Joe Wilson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Esposito]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[professors]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=146872</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Free speech? Not according to these professors.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/John-Esposito.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-146982" title="John Esposito" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/John-Esposito.jpg" alt="" width="420" height="280" /></a>In the wake of the al-Qaeda attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya on Sept. 11, 2012, the seizure of the American embassy in Cairo, Egypt, and the ensuing anti-American protests and riots throughout the Middle East—the latter ostensibly over an anti-Islam YouTube <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAiOEV0v2RM">film trailer</a> that originated in the U.S. months earlier—what do Middle East scholars have to say about the turmoil in the region?</p>
<p>As self-styled supporters of “academic freedom,” are they rushing to defend First Amendment rights instead of kowtowing to Muslim religious sensibilities? Are they denouncing the prospect of self-censorship rather than pushing YouTube to pull the “offending” video by claiming that it constitutes “hate speech?” Are they standing up for religious freedom instead of encouraging Americans to adhere to Sharia law-driven prohibitions on blasphemy? Are they putting aside their anti-Western biases and laying blame where it belongs instead of on America and Israel?</p>
<p>If the following quotes from Middle East studies academics are any indication, the answer to all those questions would be a resounding <em>No!</em></p>
<p>Let’s take a look at what these “experts” have to say.</p>
<p><strong>On First Amendment rights:</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/atheologies/6417/rage_or_courage%3A_youtube_terrorism_take_two">Bruce Lawrence</a>, professor emeritus of religion and member of the Islamic Studies Center’s advisory board, Duke University:</p>
<blockquote><p>But what about hate speech? Is hate speech not a category that impinges on, and limits, the practice of free speech?</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.religionnews.com/blogs/omid-safi/12-essential-points-about-the-offensive-film-on-the-prophet-muhammad-and-th">Omid Safi</a>, professor of Islamic studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill:</p>
<blockquote><p>In reality, pieces like the ‘Innocence of Muslims’ [sic] so-called film are best classified as ‘hate speech,’ as they seem to be of the same genre as anti-Semitic films of the 1930’s or <em>Birth of the</em> [sic] <em>Nation</em> KKK movies.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/an-appeal-to-contemporary-muslim-conscience-1.1077670">Tariq Ramadan</a>, professor of contemporary Islamic studies, Oxford University:</p>
<blockquote><p>[B]ehind the celebration of freedom of speech hides the arrogance of ideologists and well-fed racists who feed off the multiform humiliation of Muslims and to demonstrate the clear ‘superiority’ of their civilisation or the validity of their resistance to the ‘cancer’ of retrograde Islam.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://blog.georgetownvoice.com/2012/09/25/professors-discuss-effects-of-anti-islam-video-the-innocence-of-muslims/">John Brown</a>, adjunct professor of liberal studies, Georgetown University:</p>
<blockquote><p>Every culture or group of cultures has its own red lines. They might be legal red lines, but they are cultural red lines. There are taboos there are things people cannot say in public. In my experience, you just don’t speak badly of the Prophet Muhammad. It just does not happen.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/09/13/161082308/understanding-muslim-anger-over-insulting-film">John Esposito</a>, director of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University:</p>
<blockquote><p>Indeed, it’s important to remember that, for Muslims, Mohammed is the ideal Muslim, as it was. He’s the living Quran. You know, he’s the model, you know. And so to go after him, OK, is to be the ultimate form, you know, the ultimate form of disrespect. It would be the ultimate blasphemy. . . . I think there’s a recognition of the freedom of speech, but you know, you still get into freedom of speech and then what are the consequences of it? . . . And so what you really have is a situation where this belongs to the genre of Islam-aphobia, which is just like [sic] anti-Semitic.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2012/09/to-american-politicians-do-you-think.html">As&#8217;ad AbuKhalil</a>, professor of political science, California State University, Stanislaus:</p>
<blockquote><p>U.S. officials have been really insulting my intelligence all week with talk of the ‘freedom of speech’ that we have here in the U.S. that Muslims don’t understand. . . . They understand that the U.S. government has made it illegal for anyone to express support for Hamas and Hizbullah in the U.S.  Muslim[s] do understand that the U.S. has banned TV channels [Hezbollah’s Al-Manar and Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV] from the U.S. because they deemed them offensive to Israel. . . . We remember that the Bush administration asked all U.S. news media after Sept. 11 to refrain from airing any Bin Laden tapes.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/12/reaction-to-anti-islam-film-fuels-debate-on-free-speech-versus-hate-speech/">Omid Safi</a>, professor of Islamic studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill:</p>
<blockquote><p>Freedom of speech falls alongside other freedoms to live and be free from bombs falling on people’s heads and to be free from occupations . . . I will take free speech comments seriously when others take people’s freedom of life and dignity and to be free from occupation just as seriously.</p></blockquote>
<p><strong>On why YouTube should pull the video, “Innocence of Muslims”: </strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.kqed.org/news/story/2012/09/14/107715/youtubes_video_decision_sparks_controversy?category=bay+area">Hatem Bazian</a>, Near Eastern studies senior lecturer, University of California, Berkeley:</p>
<blockquote><p>Take the ethical high ground and say, ‘yes, I understand that I have the legal right to do it. But ethically, I need to actually say no to it, because it does not represent the best of our values.’ I would say even to put it in the recycling bin would be an insult to the recycling bin.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://blog.georgetownvoice.com/2012/09/25/professors-discuss-effects-of-anti-islam-video-the-innocence-of-muslims/#more-41208">John Brown</a>, adjunct professor of liberal studies, Georgetown University:</p>
<blockquote><p>This movie reached new depths . . . I find it difficult that the most insulting thing ever made about the Prophet Muhammad in the history of Western civilization, as far as I know, doesn’t violate usage [Youtube usage] policy.<br />
<strong></strong></p></blockquote>
<p><strong>On blaming America, and Israel, and the West:<br />
</strong><br />
<a href="http://www.eurasiareview.com/19092012-embassy-protests-and-middle-east-unrest-in-context-oped/">Stephen Zunes</a>, professor of politics and international studies and director of the Middle East studies program, University of San Francisco:</p>
<blockquote><p>It is extremely unlikely that such vitriolic anti-American protests would have taken place were it not for decades of U.S. support, during both Republican and Democratic administrations, of allied dictatorships and the Israeli occupation, not to mention the invasion and occupation of Iraq and the ongoing military strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/09/201291510539957566.html">John Esposito</a>, director of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University:</p>
<blockquote><p>The terrorist attack on the US consulate in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three embassy staff, and the Cairo riots seem similar but share in common the incitement and exploitation of popular outrage among many Muslims, as we have witnessed during the Salman Rushdie and Danish cartoons affairs. They exploit deep seated popular anti-American sentiment, based on decades of resentment over US and European foreign policies in the Middle East.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.juancole.com/2012/09/muslims-are-no-different-or-why-bill-mahers-blood-libel-is-bigotry.html">Juan Cole</a>, Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History, University of Michigan:</p>
<blockquote><p>The touchiness of Muslims about assaults on the Prophet Muhammad is in part rooted in centuries of Western colonialism and neo-colonialism during which their religion was routinely denounced as barbaric by the people ruling and lording it over them.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/09/201291391347458863.html">Mark LeVine</a>, professor of history, University of California, Irvine:</p>
<blockquote><p>Muslims in Egypt, Libya and around the world equally look at American actions, from sanctions against and then an invasion of Iraq that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and sent the country back to the Stone Age, to unflinching support for Israel and all the Arab authoritarian regimes (secular and royal alike) and drone strikes that always seem to kill unintended civilians ‘by mistake,’ and wonder with equal bewilderment how ‘we’ can be so barbaric and uncivilized.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/09/201292063638169981.html">Hamid Dabashi</a>, Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature, Columbia University:</p>
<blockquote><p>Sam Bacile [the pseudonym for the alleged filmmaker, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula] is integral to a pattern, an Islamophobic streak of racism that runs deep into American culture.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.juancole.com/2012/09/why-they-hate-us-romney-secretly-plots-to-screw-palestinians-over-again.html">Juan Cole</a>, Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History, University of Michigan:</p>
<blockquote><p>From the 9/11 attacks to the embassy burnings of this past week, the U.S. pays the price for supporting the subjection of the Palestinians in widespread hatred for it from the Muslim world.</p></blockquote>
<p><strong>On downplaying the violent reaction of the Muslim world: </strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/09/muslim-world.html">Dalia Mogahed</a>, Executive Director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, co-author, with Georgetown University’s John Esposito, of <em>Who Speaks for Islam?: What a Billion Muslims Really Think, </em>and nonresident senior public policy scholar at the American University of Beirut:</p>
<blockquote><p>So I think it would just be too much of a generalization to say Muslims react violently when they’re offended, whereas everyone else reacts peacefully. I think that riots and protests turn violent all over the world.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/09/21/161545499/a-look-at-islam-and-free-speech">Also</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>The other thing to keep in mind is that, sometimes, when there are offensive materials here in this country, people do protest against them and I think that that’s also part of freedom of speech that we have to look at and respect.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.juancole.com/2012/09/muslims-are-no-different-or-why-bill-mahers-blood-libel-is-bigotry.html">Juan Cole</a>, Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History, University of Michigan:</p>
<blockquote><p>[D]efending the Prophet and defending the post-colonial nation are for the most part indistinguishable, and being touchy over slights to national identity (and yes, Muslimness is a kind of national identity in today’s world) is hardly confined to Muslims.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/atheologies/6417/rage_or_courage%3A_youtube_terrorism_take_two">Bruce Lawrence</a>, emeritus professor of religion and member of the Islamic Studies Center’s advisory board, Duke University:</p>
<blockquote><p>Should Muslim sensitivities be viewed any differently from their Jewish or Christian counterparts? Muslims do monitor their prophet. His legacy has been challenged within Islam at many levels, but his basic character has not been besmirched with the degree of ill will, bordering on savagery, that has been seen in the past 12 years.</p></blockquote>
<p>Whether it be John Esposito <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/11697">toeing the line</a> of his Wahhabi funders; Omid Safi <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/11861">engaging in</a> irresponsible, inflammatory rhetoric; Stephen Zunes <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/12069">blaming</a> the U.S. and Israel for all that’s wrong with the world; Dalia Mogahed <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/8558">whitewashing</a> Islamism; As&#8217;ad AbuKhalil <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/11925">justifying</a> violence; Mark LeVine <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/8536">exhibiting</a> contempt for America; or Juan Cole displaying the same disregard for the First Amendment he showed when <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/2524">he called</a> for the U.S. government to shut down Fox News these are the ideologues to whom the Western media turns for insight into the Middle East. Anyone hoping to understand the turmoil in the region as the consequences of the “Arab Spring” continue to unfold should look elsewhere.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/cinnamon-stillwell/profs-on-mideast-turmoil-blame-america-israel-and-free-speech/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>36</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Ten Years of Campus Watch</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/cinnamon-stillwell/ten-years-of-campus-watch/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=ten-years-of-campus-watch</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/cinnamon-stillwell/ten-years-of-campus-watch/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 19 Sep 2012 04:20:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Cinnamon Stillwell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bias]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Campus Watch]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[palestinians]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[studies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[University]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=144573</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Commemorating a decade of holding the Middle East studies establishment accountable. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/CW.Logo_.Final_.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-144575" title="CW.Logo.Final" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/CW.Logo_.Final_.gif" alt="" width="375" height="263" /></a>It was <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/135">ten years ago</a> this week, on September 18, 2002, that <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/">Campus Watch</a>—a project of the Middle East Forum that reviews and critiques Middle East studies in North America with an aim to improving them—opened its doors. The response was instantaneous: the Middle East studies establishment, long unused to outside scrutiny, recoiled in horror at the prospect of accountability and proclaimed themselves martyrs. Declaring “solidarity” with eight academics Campus Watch (CW) had identified as apologists for Palestinian violence or militant Islam, over 100 faculty and graduate students, most from fields other than Middle East studies, requested to be listed on the CW website. Thus was born the “<a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/apologists.php">Solidarity with Apologists</a>” list and more importantly, the preposterous conceit that outside criticism of academia is a form of “McCarthyist” censorship.</p>
<p>Such delusions continue to this day in the form of mischaracterizations, name-calling, smears, caricatures, and false claims of victimhood; indeed, CW now has a “<a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/correction.php">Setting the Record Straight</a>” section to respond to the deluge. Meanwhile, opponents refuse to treat seriously the five problems the CW mission statement sets out to address: analytical failures, the mixing of politics with scholarship, intolerance of alternative views, apologetics, and the abuse of power over students.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, they now know that their discipline’s long record of radicalism and indoctrination is well known off-campus to parents, students, legislators, and donors. Its sustained critique has put the Middle East studies establishment on the defensive in a way that almost certainly wouldn’t have been accomplished by more general critics of higher education, whose attention is spread across all disciplines as well as administrative matters and finances. Campus Watch’s relentlessness has proved a great asset.</p>
<p>One of the most significant indicators of CW’s impact is the <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/591">backhanded endorsements</a> from Middle East studies academics. Being cited on CW’s website has become a bragging rite, with University of California, Los Angeles history professor Gabriel Piterberg even <a href="http://www.martinkramer.org/sandbox/2003/01/life-imitates-art-at-ucla/">claiming as much</a> before it was true, while the specter of CW “spies” (that is, contributors who attend public lectures and write about them for CW) haunts lecture halls, leading <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/10523">professors</a> and <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/11855">audience members</a> alike to <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/11116">publicly reference</a> CW in ominous terms. There’s also the possibility of being ridiculed in CW’s prominently displayed “<a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/quotes.php">Howler of the Month</a>.”</p>
<p>CW is certainly not alone in its efforts to challenge academia’s status quo, considering organizations such as the National Association of Scholars, the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and the Manhattan Institute, and books such as Middle East scholar <a href="http://www.martinkramer.org/">Martin Kramer</a>’s seminal <em>Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America</em> and president of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME)<a href="http://spme.net/articles/8495/2/6/Dr-Richard-L-Cravatts-Named-President-of-Scholars-for-Peace-in-the-Middle-East.html">Richard Cravatts’s</a> <em>Genocidal Liberalism: The University’s Jihad Against Israel &amp; Jews</em>. Moreover, CW, building on the work of  <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/6991">Stanley Kurtz</a> and Martin Kramer to pass legislation that requires federally-funded Middle East centers to offer a diversity of opinion in their outreach activities, plans to bring those centers to account.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/cinnamon-stillwell/ten-years-of-campus-watch/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>UC Berkeley and the ‘Islamophobia’ Lobby</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/cinnamon-stillwell/uc-berkeley-and-the-%e2%80%98islamophobia%e2%80%99-lobby/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=uc-berkeley-and-the-%25e2%2580%2598islamophobia%25e2%2580%2599-lobby</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/cinnamon-stillwell/uc-berkeley-and-the-%e2%80%98islamophobia%e2%80%99-lobby/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 May 2012 04:05:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Cinnamon Stillwell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Conference]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hatem bazian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islamophobia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tariq Ramadan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[uc berkeley]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=133046</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Conference bemoans an imaginary problem -- while ignoring the very real predations of Islamism. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/20100911-messages.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-133048" title="20100911-messages" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/20100911-messages.gif" alt="" width="375" height="250" /></a>The <a href="http://crg.berkeley.edu/content/islamophobia">Islamophobia Research &amp; Documentation Project</a> (IRDP)—a program of the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Race and Gender (CRG)—recently held its third annual <a href="http://crg.berkeley.edu/content/2012-islamophobia-conference">conference</a>, “Critical Discourses on Islamophobia: Symbols, Images, &amp; Representations.” As in <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/11269">previous years</a>, speaker after speaker decried an imaginary racist, imperialist, Orientalist Western juggernaut, while disregarding the very real predations of Islamism.</p>
<p>The first day of the conference brought in approximately eighty people at its peak, including a number of women in hijab (head scarf), typing furiously on laptops. Others sported keffiyehs and dreadlocks; a smattering of Arabic and French could be heard; and a scruffy, bearded fellow wandered around with what appeared to be a journal under his arm, <em>Historicizing Anti-Semitism</em>, that one suspects is not exactly kosher. It was just another day in Berkeley.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/search.php?cx=015692155655874064424%3A-cjrsa07xqe&amp;cof=FORID%3A9&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;q=hatem+bazian&amp;sa=Search">Hatem Bazian</a>, IRDP director, Near Eastern studies senior lecturer, and conference convener started out by apologizing for the forty-minute delay in kicking off the event. He chalked it up to “Muslim Time”—a reference to the popular phrase among African-Americans, “Colored People’s Time”—and joked that “Swiss watches run forward, but Muslim watches run backward.” He thanked the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)—an <a href="http://www.meforum.org/916/cair-islamists-fooling-the-establishment">Islamist organization</a> posing as a defender of civil rights— for its participation in the conference (Zahra Billoo, CAIR Northern California Executive Director, spoke the next day) and for partnering with CRG to produce the 2011 <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/11560">report</a>, “Same Hate, New Target: Islamophobia and Its Impact in the United States”—a report that <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/correction/87">falsely accuses</a> a number of public figures of perpetrating “Islamophobia.” Bazian also thanked “individuals who send us hate mail” for demonstrating “the need for this conference,” about which, he claimed, there had been “considerable chatter,” including “wild” and “threatening” statements. All this “despite the fact that we have the first Muslim president,” he added, chuckling. This sarcastic reference to the American public’s perception of Barack Obama’s <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2008/08/bibliography-my-writings-on-barack-obamas">Muslim background</a> would be repeated throughout the day as incontrovertible evidence of “Islamophobia.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/search.php?cx=015692155655874064424%3A-cjrsa07xqe&amp;cof=FORID%3A9&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;q=tariq+ramadan&amp;sa=Search">Tariq Ramadan</a>, the controversial Oxford University professor of contemporary Islamic studies and grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hasan al-Banna, demonstrated a capacity for what his critics have described as <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Brother-Tariq-The-Doublespeak-Ramadan/dp/1594032157">doublespeak</a> with his keynote speech. Titled, “A Global Perspective on Constructing Muslim Otherness,” Ramadan’s talk was rife with contradiction. At one point, he acknowledged that the “victim mentality” is counterproductive for Muslims and other minorities:</p>
<blockquote><p>People are relying on fear, mistrust, [and] nurturing the victim mentality. You can see this among Blacks, Latinos, [and] Muslims. Sometimes they play the victims. Victims are talking to each other. We are the victims of your colonization, legal colonization. It’s the way you accept the role given by the dominant: you become the victim. <em>  </em></p></blockquote>
<p>Yet pushing victimhood was the principal purpose of the conference. Moreover, Ramadan contributed to that narrative by implying that assimilation—the antidote to the balkanization caused by nurturing a victim mentality—was impossible in the U.S.:</p>
<blockquote><p>At the end of the day, you might be a Muslim-American, Black, Latino, but not really. Us versus them. . . . After four generations, you are Muslim with an American background.</p></blockquote>
<p>Ramadan admitted that something other than mere bigotry might be at the heart of what’s been disingenuously dubbed “Islamophobia”:</p>
<blockquote><p>[S]ome of them are very sincere when it comes to being scared of the Muslim presence. . . . Try to understand the logic that is behind the whole thing . . . there is a great deal of mistrust towards our intentions as Muslims. We should go beyond the discussion of ‘we are discriminated’ towards a more comprehensive approach. . . . People can be genuinely scared; we have to face this.</p></blockquote>
<p>He then added:</p>
<blockquote><p>We have to get rid of this idea that the world is divided between the West and Islam. Instead of speaking about peace and living together, we respond with a discourse that is exactly the same.</p></blockquote>
<p>But he went on to do just that, accusing both Republicans and Democrats of collusion—although he allowed that “some are less Islamophobic than others”—and claiming that “the people who are pushing it [are] the Tea Party and the Neocons.” Given that the Tea Party has focused exclusively on economic issues and that Neoconservatism is hardly a political force to be reckoned with of late, Ramadan’s rhetoric was hopelessly out of touch.</p>
<p>Ramadan eventually revealed why so many find him so dangerous by hinting at a belief in conspiracy theories surrounding the 9/11 attacks and the Mohamed Merah <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2118052/Toulouse-shooting-Mohammad-Merah-dead-jumping-flat-window-guns-blazing.html">shootings</a> in Toulouse, France, which resulted in the deaths of three soldiers, a rabbi, and three children at a Jewish school. Acknowledging that “there is a new anti-Semitism in France, which is coming from Arabs and Muslims,” he then accused “strong Zionist groups” of complicity for somehow “nurturing this kind of racism.” As he put it:</p>
<blockquote><p>I know about 9/11, but I still have some questions about behind the scenes, the way it was used . . . I still have questions about what happened in France [Toulouse]. We should try to understand the alliances we find behind old enemies.</p></blockquote>
<p>To imply that “Zionists”  are benefiting from atrocities against Jews and others goes beyond the realm of conspiracy theory into classical anti-Semitism.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/cinnamon-stillwell/uc-berkeley-and-the-%e2%80%98islamophobia%e2%80%99-lobby/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>27</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Target Israel</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/cinnamon-stillwell/target-israel-2/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=target-israel-2</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/cinnamon-stillwell/target-israel-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 15 Jun 2010 04:10:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Cinnamon Stillwell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=62975</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[California’s Middle East Studies professors hop  on the the punish-Israel bandwagon.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Dr.MarkLevine.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62980" title="Dr.MarkLevine" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Dr.MarkLevine.jpg" alt="" width="375" height="290" /></a></p>
<p>In recent months, two University of California campuses, <a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/israel-divestiture-movement-at-uc-berkeley-loses-battle-but-advances-their-war/?singlepage=true">Berkeley</a> and <a href="http://www.ucsdguardian.org/news/talks-fail-to-bring-about-compromise/">San Diego</a>, have been embroiled in <a href="http://octaskforce.wordpress.com/2010/05/10/uc-regents-statement-on-divestment/">fierce debates</a> following the introduction of anti-Israel divestiture resolutions by their respective student senates. Both were defeated, but not before a number of California’s Middle  East studies academics signed <a href="http://usacbi.wordpress.com/2010/04/26/statement-from-california-faculty-members-in-support-of-sb118/">a petition</a> supporting divestment.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://usacbi.wordpress.com/2010/04/26/statement-from-california-faculty-members-in-support-of-sb118/">petition</a> is posted at the website for the <a href="http://usacbi.wordpress.com/">U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel</a>, which is dedicated to the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement. The list of names reads like a Who’s Who of California’s anti-Israel academics:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/1472">Joel Beinin</a>: Stanford  University history professor and well-known anti-Zionist. As a <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/7478">regular guest</a> on the Peninsula Peace and Justice Center (PPJC) Palo Alto cable television program “Other Voices,” Beinin is notorious for railing against Israel. During <a href="http://peaceandjustice.org/article.php/20100412134108605">an appearance</a> on April 6, 2010, he described Israeli building policies in Jerusalem as “segregationist” and claimed that “visceral hatred” and “open bloodthirstiness” were “common” in Israeli society. He was one of only a handful of Middle East studies professors <a href="http://berkeley.apartheidweek.org/node/166">to take part in</a> the odious “Israeli Apartheid Week” in March, 2009 with a speech at UC Berkeley.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/search.php?cx=015692155655874064424%3A-cjrsa07xqe&amp;cof=FORID%3A9&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;q=hatem+bazian&amp;sa=Search#922">Hatem Bazian</a>: senior lecturer in the department of Near Eastern studies at UC Berkeley, <a href="http://www.zaytunacollege.org/academic_programs/visiting_scholars/summer_arabic_intensive/">visiting scholar</a> at the Zaytuna Institute/College in Berkeley (the self-proclaimed “<a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/8787">first Islamic college</a>” in the U.S.), and committed anti-Israel activist. In March of this year, he was <a href="http://www.msuuci.com/?p=2098">one of the speakers</a> at UC Irvine’s “Israeli Apartheid Week,” which was co-sponsored by the <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7382">radical</a> Muslim Student Union (MSU) and the <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/3037">problematic</a> Middle East Studies Student Initiative (MESSI). Bazian is perhaps best known for <a href="http://www.zombietime.com/sf_rally_april_10_2004/movies/">calling for</a> “an intifada in this country!” at a 2004 anti-war rally in San   Francisco.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/8536">Mark LeVine</a>: UC Irvine history professor and abject apologist for terrorist groups such as <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/6708">Hamas</a> and the Muslim Brotherhood (<a href="http://www.socsci.uci.edu/newsevents/event.php?eid=952">a spokesman</a> from the latter <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/9614">spoke to his class</a> in October, 2008). LeVine is a defender of the extremist behavior of UC Irvine’s Muslim Student Union, including their <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/1892/the-msu-plot-to-silence-israels-ambassador">shouting down</a> of Israeli ambassador Michael Oren in February, 2010—something <a href="http://hnn.us/articles/123667.html">he described</a> as a “teachable moment.”  In a recent <em>Al-Jazeera</em> <a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/06/20106162847943928.html">op-ed</a>, LeVine portrayed the <a href="http://defenddemocracy.org/index.php?option=com_content&amp;task=view&amp;id=11790481&amp;Itemid=361">Turkish terrorist supporters</a> who were killed on one of the Gaza Flotilla ships as “martyrs,” “heroes,” and—in a warped nod to Memorial Day—“warriors every bit as deserving of our tears and support as the soldiers of American wars past and present.”</li>
<li><a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/search.php?cx=015692155655874064424%3A-cjrsa07xqe&amp;cof=FORID%3A9&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;q=beshara+doumani&amp;sa=Search#917">Beshara Doumani</a>: UC Berkeley associate professor of history. He has <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/6708">described</a> Hamas as “a deeply rooted political organization with social and cultural and other dimensions” that—all evidence to the contrary—“has come forward many, many times to negotiate a truce with Israel.” Doumani was <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/404">one of the signatories</a> (along with Joel Beinin) to a ludicrous 2002 open letter suggesting that Israel would use the war in Iraq to engage in “ethnic cleansing” against Palestinians—a charge that never materialized and for which no apologies nor retractions were ever issued.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/search.php?cx=015692155655874064424%3A-cjrsa07xqe&amp;cof=FORID%3A9&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;q=hamid+algar&amp;sa=Search#919">Hamid Algar</a>: UC Berkeley Islamic studies professor, <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/3241">Khomeini acolyte</a>, <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/596">Armenian genocide denier</a>, and <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/718">defender</a> of Palestinian suicide bombers, of which he said in a June, 2003 <em>California Monthly</em> <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/718">interview</a>, “such actions are closer to the case of a soldier who, in battle against overwhelming odds and in the certain knowledge that he will not emerge alive from the encounter, rushes upon the enemy.”</li>
<li><a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/search.php?cx=015692155655874064424%3A-cjrsa07xqe&amp;cof=FORID%3A9&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;q=saree+makdisi&amp;sa=Search#920">Saree Makdisi</a>: UCLA English professor who carries on the political legacy of his uncle, the late Columbia University professor and <em>Orientalism </em>author Edward Said. Makdisi has leveled blood libels against Israel, including—at an <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/7386">infamous</a> January, 2009 UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies symposium—<a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/6835">claiming that</a> “the goal of Israel is to deliberately starve children.” Makdisi has a <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/8610">long history</a> of supporting the BDS movement and has <a href="http://usacbi.wordpress.com/endorsers/">endorsed</a> the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/3496">Minoo Moallem</a>: UC Berkeley professor of gender and women’s studies. She was a signatory to a January, 2009 <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&amp;aid=11878">open letter</a> to President Obama calling for an end to U.S. support for Israel based on its, “war crimes and in its acts of terror…its racist civil constitution and illegal occupations.” Along with a number of Middle  East studies academics, Moallem signed an <a href="http://usacbi.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/a-joint-letter-to-the-international-society-of-iranian-studies-on-ariel-university-of-samaria-israel/">open letter</a> to the International Society for Iranian Studies objecting to the inclusion of a faculty member from Israel’s Ariel University in the 2010 Iranian Studies Biennial Conference in Santa   Monica.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/9619">Suad Joseph</a>: UC Davis professor of anthropology and women’s studies and president-elect of the <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/survey.php/id/38">Middle East Studies Association</a> (MESA), the principal professional organization for scholars of the region and a frequent purveyor of anti-Israel “scholarship.” Joseph has signed a number of open letters either demonizing Israel or supporting boycotts, including the aforementioned letters regarding <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/404">Israel and the war in Iraq</a> and the <a href="http://usacbi.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/a-joint-letter-to-the-international-society-of-iranian-studies-on-ariel-university-of-samaria-israel/">exclusion of an Israeli academic</a> from the Iranian Studies Biennial Conference, as well as an <a href="http://www.israel-academia-monitor.com/index.php?type=large_advic&amp;advice_id=388&amp;page_data%5bid%5d=178&amp;cookie_lang=en&amp;the_session_id=b7d7b4f54f79f80c3efce02988173a46&amp;BLUEWEBSESSIONSID=781f2c120b6767363321c760775bf666">open letter</a> challenging Israeli academics opposed to international boycott efforts. As president-elect of MESA, Joseph’s politicized perspective does not bode well for the future of the field.</li>
<li>Other California Middle East studies academics who signed the petition supporting divestiture include Margaret Larkin, a professor of Arabic literature at UC Berkeley, and Omnia El Shakry, a history professor at UC Davis. El Shakry signed a March, 2008 “<a href="http://www.zimbio.com/The+Palestinian+Times/articles/300/Statement+Solidarity+Women+Resisting+Wars">Statement of Solidarity with Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim Women Facing War and Occupation</a>” opposing Israel’s incursion into Gaza following Hamas’s rocket barrage.</li>
</ul>
<p>By way of comparison—at least as far as one California university goes—not one UC Irvine Middle East studies academic signed the May, 2010 <a href="http://octaskforce.wordpress.com/2010/05/10/some-community-members-students-and-faculty-indeed-feel-intimidated-and-at-times-even-unsafe/">faculty letter</a> objecting to the atmosphere of “hatred against Jews and Israelis on campus” created by the MSU.</p>
<p>California academics have, however, played a leading role in the <a href="http://usacbi.wordpress.com/">U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel</a>. According to a February, 2009 <em>Daily Bruin</em> <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/6954">article</a> on the Campaign for the Cultural and Academic Boycott of Israel, “eleven of the 15 organizing committee members represent California universities, and four of them are from the University  of California.” Moreover, two of the <a href="http://usacbi.wordpress.com/about-us/">founding members</a> of the organizing committee teach Middle East studies at California institutions:</p>
<ul>
<li>Rabab Abdulhadi: San   Francisco State University (SFSU) associate professor of ethnic studies and race and resistance studies, and a senior scholar in the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Initiative. Abdulhadi teaches SFSU’s first course focusing solely on the Palestinian people, an emphasis she justifies <a href="http://xpress.sfsu.edu/archives/arts/011932.html">by claiming</a> that, “Palestine is at the heart of the Arab world.” Adhulhadi <a href="http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=3187">spoke</a> at an Al-Awda (Palestine Right to Return Coalition) conference at SFSU in August, 2006 and <a href="http://toronto.apartheidweek.org/">at York University</a> in March, 2010 for Toronto’s “Israeli Apartheid Week.” She was one of the panelists at <a href="http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/10/17/18625798.php">an event at SFSU</a> timed to coincide with the second anniversary of SFSU’s <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/blog/2007/11/worshipping-edward-said-at-san">Edward Said</a> <a href="http://cinnamonstillwell.blogspot.com/2007/11/further-musings-on-edward-said-san.html">mural</a> in November, 2009 and dedicated to the BDS movement. Omar Barghouti, founder of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel—the inspiration for the U.S. version—gave the keynote address.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/blog/2007/11/darfur-for-dummies-care-of-uclas">Sondra Hale</a>: UCLA anthropology and women’s studies professor, and chair of the Faculty Advisory Committee for the notoriously <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/4420">anti-Israel</a> Center for Near Eastern Studies (<a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/search.php?cx=015692155655874064424%3A-cjrsa07xqe&amp;cof=FORID%3A9&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;q=cnes&amp;sa=Search#916">CNES</a>). At <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/8648">a CNES conference</a> in October, 2009, Hale equated the pro-Israel groups <a href="http://www.standwithus.com/">StandWithUs</a> and the Zionist Organization of America (<a href="http://www.zoa.org/">ZOA</a>) with “Nazis” and “McCarthyists.” In response to <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/6892">widespread criticism</a> regarding the blatantly <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/6934">anti-Israel</a> and, at times, <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/6835">anti-Semitic nature</a> of a January, 2009 “Human Rights and Gaza” <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/6991">CNES symposium</a>, Hale penned <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/6936">an op-ed</a> in UCLA’s student newspaper, the <em>Daily Bruin</em>, slamming UCLA student and Bruins for Israel member Ben Meiselman for having the temerity to publish <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/6871">a piece</a> criticizing the symposium. Hale proudly touted her prominent involvement in the Campaign for the Cultural and Academic Boycott of Israel at the time of its inception, <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/6954">telling the <em>Daily Bruin</em></a> in February, 2009 that, were it to go into effect, “foreign exchange and cooperative programs with Israel would cease.”</li>
</ul>
<p>What is it about California that has inspired so many of its academics to join the BDS movement?  Rank anti-Semitism on the left—masquerading as anti-Zionism—is hardly limited to California, but certain circumstances (beyond the sheer size of the system) have made the state’s schools ripe for this malady:</p>
<ul>
<li>With a frontier reputation as the “Left  Coast,” California ability to lure “cutting-edge” academics has attracted politically likeminded academics from around the world.</li>
<li>California’s long-running—and now former—prosperity brought huge numbers of immigrants from all over the world, so that when anti-Israel feelings and agitation became chic among left-wing student radicals over the past decade, there were sufficient numbers of both Muslim students and fellow travelers around to carry out large-scale demonstrations and create an extremely hostile atmosphere.</li>
<li>A succession of leftist Democratic politicians has appointed like-minded administrators and trustees to the state universities who are loathe to cross swords with the faculty or student groups.  We’re now seeing second generation university administrators who are either sympathetic to radical student demands or, as products of the radicalized university themselves, lack the will to stand up to fashionable academic politics.</li>
</ul>
<p>So it is that California has become the epicenter for the BDS movement, a legacy of which there is nothing to be proud.</p>
<p><em>Cinnamon Stillwell is the West Coast Representative for <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/">Campus Watch</a>, a project of the <a href="http://www.meforum.org/">Middle East Forum</a>. She can be reached at <a href="mailto:stillwell@meforum.org">stillwell@meforum.org</a>.</em></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/cinnamon-stillwell/target-israel-2/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>29</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>The Professor’s Islamist Call to Battle</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/cinnamon-stillwell/the-professor%e2%80%99s-islamist-call-to-battle/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-professor%25e2%2580%2599s-islamist-call-to-battle</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/cinnamon-stillwell/the-professor%e2%80%99s-islamist-call-to-battle/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Mar 2010 04:06:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Cinnamon Stillwell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[acceptance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ali Mazrui]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aminah Beverly McCloud]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Antonio Gramsci]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[beginning of islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Binghamton]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[canada]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Chicago]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Culture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[God]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[innocent peoples]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamic studies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jackson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jonathan Usher]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[law]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[louis farrakhan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Michigan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Muslim]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[muslim culture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[New York]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[northern Nigeria]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[outspoken proponent]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[policy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[professor]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[reviving the islamic spirit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[september 11 2001]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sherman Jackson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[South Africa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Toronto]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U.S. Constitution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[united-states]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[University]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[western civilization]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[western culture]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=55348</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why University of Michigan’s Abdal Hakim Jackson wants the end of liberty in the United States.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/D_Jackson.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-55350" title="D_Jackson" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/D_Jackson.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="413" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.manrilla.net/shermanjackson/">Sherman Jackson</a>, also known as Abdal Hakim Jackson, is <a href="http://www.umich.edu/%7Eneareast/faculty/jackson.htm">a professor</a> of Arabic and Islamic studies in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan.</p>
<p>Jackson specializes in Islamic law and has written and spoken extensively on the subject. Soon after the</p>
<p>September 11, 2001, Islamic terrorist attacks, Jackson took the line popular among apologists, stating at a September 2001 University of Michigan <a href="http://www.michigandaily.com/content/teach-takes-muslim-profiling">Teach-in</a> titled, “Terrorism: A Perversion of Islam,” that “the killing of innocent peoples is forbidden by the law of Islam and it has been from the beginning of Islam.”</p>
<p>But it turns out that not only is Jackson an apologist, he an outspoken proponent of the Islamist subversion of Western civilization.</p>
<p>Jackson made this abundantly clear at the <a href="http://www.convention.revivingtheislamicspirit.com/">Reviving the Islamic Spirit – 8th Convention</a> in Toronto, Canada in December 2009, as a participant in the panel, “The New We: Muslims in Future of Western Society.” Jonathan Usher, who attended and <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/9101">wrote about the conference for Campus Watch</a>, described Jackson’s speech as nothing less than “a call to battle.” As he put it, “It had little to do with peaceful co-existence with the West, but was an exhortation for Islam to dominate the West.” According to Usher, Jackson</p>
<blockquote><p>…believes that the Muslim and Western worlds are in conflict and competition, and that only one can end up dominant. Put simply, he wants to replace Western culture with Muslim culture.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>&#8230;Jackson expressed a desire to be included in American society—but not if any sort of cultural sacrifice were required. He said that adapting to Western culture would lead to being a Muslim in name only and advocated defining America by Muslim standards and imposing cultural and intellectual supremacy. He urged Muslims not to follow Western cultural authority, but rather to achieve their own cultural authority from the inside, as part of the system.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>…Lastly, to cheers, he said that his primary commitment was to Allah, not to America.</p></blockquote>
<p>Moreover, Jackson has a history of making such radical statements.</p>
<p>He co-authored a 2000 online book titled, <em><a href="http://www.ispi-usa.org/policy/policy.html">American Public Policy and American-Muslim Politics</a></em> and published by the Chicago-based <a href="http://www.ispi-usa.org/index.html">International Strategy and Policy Institute</a>, whose mission is to “promote the correct understanding of Islam and Muslims in the United   States.” Jackson’s coauthors were DePaul University Director of Islamic World Studies <a href="http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=8627">Aminah Beverly McCloud</a> and State University of New York at Binghamton professor and director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies Ali Mazrui. McCloud  is <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/17/arts/an-islamic-scholar-with-the-dual-role-of-activist.html">a former board member</a> of the Chicago branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/17/arts/an-islamic-scholar-with-the-dual-role-of-activist.html?pagewanted=2">a follower</a> of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, while Mazrui’s <a href="http://www.answers.com/topic/ali-mazrui">bio</a> notes that he is “one of the first to try and link the treatment of Palestinians with South Africa’s apartheid” and has also “argued that sharia law is not incompatible with democracy and supported its introduction in some parts of northern Nigeria.”</p>
<p>In the chapter, “<a href="http://www.ispi-usa.org/policy/policy4.html">Muslims, Islamic Law and Public Policy in the United States</a>,” Jackson cites the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci’s influential theories about altering societies not through politics, but through cultural and educational institutions. Jackson proposes that American Muslims approach the “difficult task of penetrating, appropriating and redirecting American culture” in order to “influence the legal order in America.” As he puts it:</p>
<blockquote><p>…it should be understood that once this is done, there are no Constitutional impediments to having these laws applied in the public domain. Muslims must be vocal and confident in articulating the public utility underlying the rules on things like <em>riba </em>[usury], adultery, theft, drinking, contracts, pre-marital sex, child-custody and even polygyny. This should all be done, however, in the context of an open acceptance of American custom (<em>urf</em>) as a legally valid source in areas where the shari’ah admits the reliance upon custom.</p></blockquote>
<p>As for the gradual acceptance of the more horrifying aspects of Sharia law, Jackson notes that “it would be foolish to deny that the prospects for American acceptance of such institutions as stoning, or flogging or amputation are virtually nil, at least for the foreseeable future.” But he concludes on a note only an Islamist could find comforting:</p>
<blockquote><p>…notions of what is cruel and unusual, of what is barbaric, of what is draconian (which is the real basis upon which America rejects these punishments) are a function of culture, not law. It is only through changes in American culture that American attitudes towards such things are likely to change. Thus, in the end, as in the beginning, we are brought face to face with the inextricable connection between American culture and Muslim self-determination. May God grant us the courage and the vision to rise to the task before us.</p></blockquote>
<p>This call to gradually replace the liberties enshrined in the U.S. Constitution with seventh century notions of justice is both frightening and morally repugnant.</p>
<p>Despite a record of expressing such extreme views, Jackson has made a name for himself as a moderate and a reformer. His success in this charade stems in part from his willingness to break from his peers and  publicly discuss Islamic terrorism, its theological underpinnings, and the need for related reform. An <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/4426">article</a> in the <em>Wesleyan Argus</em> quoted a November 2007 Jackson speech on “Jihad, Terrorism, and Modern Violence” at Wesleyan University:</p>
<blockquote><p>‘Muslims in the West must be active and vocal in their condemnation of current violations of <em>hirabah</em>,’ he insisted, referring to the Sharia law that outlaws any act of publicly directed violence that spreads fear and helplessness. According to Jackson, <em>hirabah</em> more than covers today’s conception of terrorism. He discussed the moderate Muslim unwillingness to publicly decry acts of terrorism and attributed it to the desire to not be seen as ‘Uncle Toms.’</p></blockquote>
<p>But Patrick Poole, <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/09/whats_in_a_name_jihad_vs_hirab.html">writing for the <em>American Thinker</em></a> in September 2007, calls Jackson’s reasoning and motives into question. He describes Jackson as one of the <a href="http://users.tpg.com.au/dezhen/jackson_terrorism.html">earliest proponents</a> of the “Islamic lexicon” and, in particular, an advocate for replacing the term <em>jihad</em> with <em>hirabah</em> in discussing Islamic terrorism. Poole and other skeptics allege that, in practice, this is nothing more than a semantic sleight of hand that serves to obscure the legitimization of terrorism within Islam and to further the Muslim Brotherhood’s <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/columnists/rdreher/stories/DN-dreher_09edi.ART.State.Edition1.4235f88.html">civilization-jihadist process</a>.</p>
<p>Poole notes that Jim Guirard of the Truespeak Institute is the “foremost advocate for this approach,” and that Sherman Jackson is among the scholars he relies upon for his findings. Poole points to an unclassified memo from Pentagon Joint Staff analyst Stephen Coughlin in which Jackson is cited as one of Guirard’s contributors, along with fellow Middle  East studies professors <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/blog/2007/07/georgetowns-john-esposito-a.html">John Esposito</a> of Georgetown University and <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/4788">Muqtedar Khan</a> of the University of Delaware. Summarizing Coughlin’s findings, Poole concludes that,</p>
<blockquote><p>…as Walid Phares and Stephen Coughlin have already revealed, many of the Western Muslim advocates of this new approach are directly tied to known Muslim Brotherhood front groups operating in the US. As Coughlin itemizes, Sherman Jackson is a “trustee” to the North American Islamic Trust, and affiliated with the Islamic Society of North America and the Muslim Student Association, the first two of which were named as unindicted co-conspirators in the current Holy Land Foundation terror financing federal trial underway in Dallas, and the last was the original organizational wing of the Muslim Brotherhood in America. The hiraba-jihad terminology has also been endorsed by the Wahhabist Council for Islamic Education and the extremist mouthpiece Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), also named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial. That is telling in and of itself.</p></blockquote>
<p>Jackson is also considered an expert on the intersection of Islam and African-Americans (he is himself an African-American convert to Islam). His 2005 book on the subject, <em>Islam and the Blackamerican: Looking Towards the Third Resurrection</em>, was <a href="http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/ReligionTheology/Islam/%7E%7E/dmlldz11c2EmY2k9OTc4MDE5NTE4MDgxNw==">reviewed favorably</a> by <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/blog/2007/10/john-esposito-shills-for-another">radical Islam apologist</a> John Esposito, James H. Cone (the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Black-Theology-Liberation-Ethics-Society/dp/0883446855/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1239212793&amp;sr=1-2">originator</a> of black liberation theology and stated <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/03/knowing_obama_by_the_company_h_1.html">inspiration</a> for controversial pastor Jeremiah Wright, President Obama’s former “spiritual mentor” in Chicago), and DePaul professor <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/blog/2007/10/depaul-prof-aminah-beverly-mccloud">Aminah Beverly McCloud</a>. Beyond McCloud’s aforementioned affiliation with CAIR and the Nation of Islam, she played a <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/blog/2007/04/depaul-university-director-of.html">pivotal role</a> in influencing Washington, D.C. PBS station WETA’s decision to cancel its airing of the laudable documentary on moderate Muslims, <em>Islam vs. Islamists,</em> in early 2007.</p>
<p>Jackson’s career may be peppered with associations and endorsements from some of the worst apologists and radicals from the field of Middle East studies—and his involvement in the obfuscating “truespeak” movement points to even more troublesome ties with Muslim Brotherhood front groups—but, ultimately, it is his own words that prove the most damning. His stated agenda clearly has nothing to do with moderation or reform; it is quite simply that of an Islamist.</p>
<p><em>Cinnamon Stillwell is the West Coast Representative for <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/">Campus Watch</a>, a project of the <a href="http://www.meforum.org/">Middle East Forum</a>. She can be reached at <a href="mailto:stillwell@meforum.org">stillwell@meforum.org</a>.</em></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/cinnamon-stillwell/the-professor%e2%80%99s-islamist-call-to-battle/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>36</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Mogahed’s Excuses Don’t Add Up &#8211; by Cinnamon Stillwell</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/cinnamon-stillwell/mogahed%e2%80%99s-excuses-don%e2%80%99t-add-up-by-cinnamon-stillwell/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=mogahed%25e2%2580%2599s-excuses-don%25e2%2580%2599t-add-up-by-cinnamon-stillwell</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/cinnamon-stillwell/mogahed%e2%80%99s-excuses-don%e2%80%99t-add-up-by-cinnamon-stillwell/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:11:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Cinnamon Stillwell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=33548</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Obama-appointee blows smoke when confronted on appearing on pro-Sharia TV show.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-33557" title="Dalia" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Dalia1.jpg" alt="Dalia" width="504" height="378" /></p>
<p>As reported last week <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/8558">by Campus Watch</a>, Dalia Mogahed, <a href="http://blog.taragana.com/n/us-muslim-woman-appointed-adviser-to-obama-40330/">appointee</a> to President Obama’s <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/President-Obama-Announces-Additional-Members-of-Advisory-Council-on-Faith-Based-and-Neighborhood-Partnerships/">Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships</a>, <a href="http://www.gallup.com/consulting/worldpoll/26554/dalia-mogahed.aspx">executive director and senior analyst</a> of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, and co-author, along with Georgetown University’s <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/1443/john-esposito-reputation-vs-reality">John Esposito</a>, of <a href="http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mesh/2008/04/who_does_speak_for_islam/"><em>Who Speaks for Islam?: What a Billion Muslims Really Think</em></a>, appeared (by phone) earlier this month on the UK-based Islam Channel television program “<a href="http://www.islamchannel.tv/MD/index.aspx">Muslimah Dilemma</a>” (view <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlN6zCXX9Sk&amp;feature=player_embedded">here</a> and read the complete transcript <a href="http://www.counterterrorismnews.com/home/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=1467%3Atranscript-of-dalia-mogahed-on-islam-channels-muslimah-dilemma-programme&amp;Itemid=37">here</a>.) Ibtihal Bsis, the show’s host, is a member of the Islamist group <a href="http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/hizb-ut-tahrir.htm">Hizb ut Tahrir</a>; Mogahed’s fellow guest, Nazreen Nawaz, is the group’s national women’s media representative. Given these affiliations, it’s no surprise that the discussion included such extremist fare as the promotion of sharia law for—of all things—protecting women’s rights, condemnation for secular pluralistic democracy, and the revival of a mythical caliphate as the answer to the Muslim world’s woes.</p>
<p>Mogahed has been roundly criticized for appearing on the show and, in a transparent attempt at damage control, she <a href="http://www.usnews.com/blogs/god-and-country/2009/10/22/exclusive-white-house-faith-adviser-defends-sharia-remarks.html">told</a> <em>U.S. News &amp; World Report</em> last week she has experienced second thoughts about her decision. Stretching credulity, she claimed she “had no idea that the show’s host or the other guest was affiliated with Hizb ut Tahrir,” that she only “found out the affiliation on air, when the other guest was being introduced in the beginning,” and that her staff “checked the show with a PR firm in Britain who told us there were no problems with it.” Even if it’s true that Mogahed herself was ignorant of the nature of the show, it’s hard to imagine that her sophisticated vetting system missed what a simple Google search would have turned up in seconds. Moreover, if she was truly surprised to find herself among radicals, wouldn’t she be more likely to speak up against them?</p>
<p>One has to wonder if this was a case of incompetence or fabrication.</p>
<p>When asked why she didn’t just hang up the phone, Mogahed, demonstrating further ignorance about the availability of data in the age of the Internet (apparently, she’s never heard of YouTube,) said:</p>
<p>&#8220;I assumed that very few people would watch this show but that doing something more dramatic would bring more attention.&#8221;</p>
<p>But it was Mogahed’s tepid response to and, at times, backhanded support for the objectionable opinions expressed on the show that brought attention.</p>
<p>To explain her reticence to speak out against such radicalism, Mogahed had another handy justification:</p>
<p>&#8220;As an analyst, I don’t engage in ideological debates. I am always on programs to explain the views and opinions of others—in this case, Muslims around the world—not to discuss my own views. Being on a program with people who are representing ideological movements puts an analyst in a very awkward position, where they are unable to respond to objectionable comments because of the limits of our role as analysts.&#8221;</p>
<p>This is unconvincing. What are analysts for other than to analyze what is said in discussions of which they are part? Was she invited on the show in order to “not discuss [her] own views”? In fact, she had plenty of opportunities to rebut the extremist statements of those with whom she appeared, or at least to state for the record that she—particularly as Obama’s Muslim affairs advisor—disagreed. Yet she chose to remain silent. In doing so, she missed a monumental opportunity to publicly condemn Islamist ideology. Perhaps that was the point.</p>
<p>As for Mogahed’s own endorsements of sharia law—delivered, she claimed, as the will of billions of surveyed Muslim women, not her own—she had only this to say:</p>
<p>&#8220;I don’t feel that I have regrets about what I said. I did a fair job of reporting the data. My one regret is appearing on the show to begin with.&#8221;</p>
<p>It’s a little late for that.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/cinnamon-stillwell/mogahed%e2%80%99s-excuses-don%e2%80%99t-add-up-by-cinnamon-stillwell/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>3</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Does Sharia Law Promote Women’s Rights? &#8211; by Cinnamon Stillwell</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/cinnamon-stillwell/does-sharia-law-promote-women%e2%80%99s-rights-by-cinnamon-stillwell/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=does-sharia-law-promote-women%25e2%2580%2599s-rights-by-cinnamon-stillwell</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/cinnamon-stillwell/does-sharia-law-promote-women%e2%80%99s-rights-by-cinnamon-stillwell/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 20 Oct 2009 04:13:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Cinnamon Stillwell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=30728</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Obama appointee Dalia Mogahed thinks so.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-30753" title="Dalia" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Dalia.jpg" alt="Dalia" width="400" height="300" /></p>
<p>In thinking about women’s rights, sharia law, or Islamic law, doesn’t typically come to mind.</p>
<p>Yet, according to a survey conducted by Dalia Mogahed, <a href="http://www.gallup.com/consulting/worldpoll/26554/dalia-mogahed.aspx">executive director and senior analyst</a> of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies and <a href="http://blog.taragana.com/n/us-muslim-woman-appointed-adviser-to-obama-40330/">appointee</a> to President Obama’s <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/President-Obama-Announces-Additional-Members-of-Advisory-Council-on-Faith-Based-and-Neighborhood-Partnerships/">Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships</a>, the two are closely intertwined. Her <a href="http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/heritage-culture/who-speaks-for-islam-part-ii-1.129861">survey alleges</a> that a majority of Muslim women believe sharia law should either be the primary source or one source of legislation in their countries, while viewing Western personal freedoms as harmful to women.</p>
<p>The survey’s findings appear in the book, <em>Who Speaks for Islam?: What a Billion Muslims Really Think</em>, co-authored by Mogahed and John Esposito, Georgetown University professor and founding director of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, named for its <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/3852">Saudi royal benefactor</a>. While Esposito is <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/1443/john-esposito-reputation-vs-reality">well-known</a> as one of the foremost academic <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/blog/2007/10/john-esposito-shills-for-another">apologists for radical Islam</a>, Mogahed is making her name as a shill for sharia law. Mogahed employs the Gallup poll, which has been criticized by knowledgeable authorities as <a href="http://sandbox.blog-city.com/dr_esposito_and_the_seven_percent_solution.htm">misleading</a> and <a href="http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mesh/2008/04/who_does_speak_for_islam/">unscientific</a>, to portray sharia law as what Muslims women want.</p>
<p>She spoke earlier this month by phone to the UK-based <a href="http://www.islamchannel.tv/">Islam Channel</a> women’s television program “<a href="http://www.islamchannel.tv/MD/index.aspx">Muslimah Dilemma</a>.” Hosted by Ibtihal Bsis, a member of the Islamist organization <a href="http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/hizb-ut-tahrir.htm">Hizb ut Tahrir</a> (Party of Liberation), and featuring national women’s media representative for Hizb ut Tahrir, Nazreen Nawaz, the interview (view <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlN6zCXX9Sk&amp;feature=player_embedded">here</a>; complete transcript <a href="http://www.counterterrorismnews.com/home/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=1467%3Atranscript-of-dalia-mogahed-on-islam-channels-muslimah-dilemma-programme&amp;Itemid=37">here</a>) presented a biased, pro-Islamist platform for discussing Muslim women’s rights. Hizb ut Tahrir’s <a href="http://english.hizbuttahrir.org/1-19-about-us.aspx">self-described</a> objective is “to resume the Islamic way of life by establishing an Islamic State that executes the systems of Islam and carries its call to the world.”</p>
<p>So it was with ostensible credibility that Mogahed could utter such preposterous statements as:</p>
<blockquote><p>…we found that the majority of women around the world associate gender justice, or justice for women, with sharia compliance whereas only a small fraction associated oppression of women with compliance with the sharia.</p></blockquote>
<p>And:</p>
<blockquote><p>The perception of sharia and the portrayal of sharia has been oversimplified in many cases, even among Muslims. It is usually associated with maximum criminal punishment and laws that are hard for people to understand holistically, around family law, that to many people seem unequal for women. So I think that part of the reason is that there is this perception of sharia is that sharia in not well understood and in fact, Islam as a faith is not well understood.</p></blockquote>
<p>And, ominously:</p>
<blockquote><p>Well, I think what my role is, is very clear to me: to convey to the advisory council and through the advisory council to the president and to other public officials what it is Muslims want.</p></blockquote>
<p>In delivering these outlandish pronouncements, Mogahed was soft-spoken and careful to confine her commentary to the results of her study. Not so with fellow guest Nazreen Nawaz, who took up the bulk of the interview expounding didactically on the benefits to be bestowed upon humankind by the revival of a <em>Khilafah</em> state, or caliphate. The caliphate envisioned by Nawaz is a mythical one, hearkening back to the so-called “golden age of Islam,” where, according to the party line, all was <a href="http://europenews.dk/en/node/1385">progress and advancement</a> and everyone <a href="http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=20847">lived in harmony</a>. If we could only return to the halcyon days, she urged, all the <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2006/11/muslims-lagging-behind">considerable problems</a> of the Muslim world would be solved. As she put it: “Islam came to solve human problems.” These utopian beliefs reflect those Marxists who insist that “real communism” has not yet been implemented, Stalinism or totalitarianism is an aberration, and that the solution lies in implementing a “true” Socialist state.</p>
<p>Claiming that the brutality of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the mullahs in Iran are distortions of sharia law rather than examples of its true implementation, Nawaz promised that under the proposed caliphate, rulers would be democratically elected and accountable to the people, while women’s rights would be protected.</p>
<p>Demonstrating the utter delusion of a fanatic, Nawaz alleged that:</p>
<blockquote><p>We know that sharia pioneered rights for women. This idea that women have the same rights of citizenship to a man, this was unheard of in empires or civilizations of the past. And we know that Islam brought this.</p></blockquote>
<p>Nonetheless, Nawaz conceded that “there is evidence from Islam that says the Muslim woman cannot be the ruler of a state. This is from the Islamic text,” but managed to justify this exclusion by pointing to recent Muslim women leaders such as the late Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan who, she claimed, have “brought very little in terms of the lives and the standard of living of women in these countries.”</p>
<p>She also defended Islam’s “strict regulations in terms of social laws” and expressed admiration for precisely those features of Islamic law that most oppress women:</p>
<blockquote><p>…men and women cannot socialize, they cannot be alone together…in terms of lowering the gaze, all of these things, the dress code, they’re all there to insure that there’s a healthy cooperation so that men and women can focus at the job at hand.</p></blockquote>
<p>In contrast, Nawaz condemned the West for allowing women too much personal freedom, citing the breakdown of the family and promiscuity as the results:</p>
<blockquote><p>I think living in the West we see some of the fruits of this idea of liberty and this idea of freedom, where people are free to have any relationship they want to. I believe that it’s caused a lot of problems in the social structure, you have adultery, you have problems of teenage pregnancies….</p></blockquote>
<p>These are indeed dire consequences, just not, as Nawaz believes, of personal liberty. Rather, they result from the dissolution of the moral framework that supports liberty itself. The struggle to maintain the family structure and women’s dignity amidst growing libertinism is alive and well  in the West. But when given the choice, who would trade liberty for the opposite outcome: totalitarianism?</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img class="size-full wp-image-31137 aligncenter" title="saudi-women-outraged" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/saudi-women-outraged.jpg" alt="saudi-women-outraged" width="341" height="239" /><em>Sharia-compliant feminism: Dalia Mogahed claims that Islamic law protects women’s rights.</em></p>
<p>Furthermore, Nawaz demonstrated a lack of understanding about how women’s rights, and indeed human rights, have been achieved historically in the West:</p>
<blockquote><p>Women have made a lot of progress in the West in terms of economic, political rights, education, and so on. But I would reject the claim that these values of secularism, and liberal values, and even in terms of democracy have, that they can claim victory for this progress. Because if we remember history, women actually had to fight against these values in order to secure their rights….And women even today have to fight in secular democracies against discrimination of these levels.</p></blockquote>
<p>In the face of this vigorous defense of sharia law and strident condemnation of secular democracy, Washington insider Mogahed said not a word. Only when prompted to comment directly on one of Nawaz’s diatribes on the fictional caliphate did Mogahed finally speak, and then she restated the results of the Gallup poll in such a way as to provide backhanded support for Nawaz’s Islamist views. As she put it:</p>
<blockquote><p>What Muslims around the world tell us they believe is that the key to progress is attachment to their spiritual and moral values. They really do see, many of them, that Islam offers a solution for their problems and they see Islam as their society’s greatest asset. When we asked people what they admired most about the Muslim world, what they tell us is their attachment to Islam, Islamic values, value of hospitality, the value of family. So I think that whereas people around the world do feel that the problems are diverse, many of them do mention Islam as a part of that solution, and when we ask people what can Muslims do to help themselves, one of the most frequent responses is for them to unify and another is for them to follow Islam and make it a greater and more authentic part of their lives.</p></blockquote>
<p>If making Islam a “greater and more authentic part” of Muslim’s lives results in the implementation of sharia law, based not in mythology but in contemporary practice, the predictable outcome is the furtherance of backwardness, repression, intolerance, and inequality afflicting the Muslim world today. Is this really, as Mogahed would have it, what Muslims want?</p>
<p>More to the point, is it really what Americans, looking to President Obama’s choice of Mogahed as his advisor on Muslim affairs, want?</p>
<p>Now that’s a subject for a poll.</p>
<p><em>Cinnamon Stillwell is the West Coast Representative for <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/">Campus Watch</a>, a project of the <a href="http://www.meforum.org/">Middle East Forum</a>. She can be reached at <a href="mailto:stillwell@meforum.org">stillwell@meforum.org</a>.</em></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/cinnamon-stillwell/does-sharia-law-promote-women%e2%80%99s-rights-by-cinnamon-stillwell/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>20</slash:comments>
		</item>
	</channel>
</rss>

<!-- Performance optimized by W3 Total Cache. Learn more: http://www.w3-edge.com/wordpress-plugins/

Object Caching 1082/1162 objects using disk
Content Delivery Network via cdn.frontpagemag.com

 Served from: www.frontpagemag.com @ 2014-12-31 06:23:34 by W3 Total Cache -->