Middle East Studies Under Scrutiny in U.S.

The Washington Post ^ | 1/13/2004 | Michael Dobbs

[Utah Girl]

When Rashid Khalidi took over the newly established Edward Said Chair of Middle East Studies at Columbia University last fall, the appointment was generally viewed as an academic coup for the school, which had succeeded in wooing away a prominent Middle East expert from the University of Chicago, a longtime rival.

But Khalidi soon became the target of an Internet campaign that questioned his patriotism. Conservative critics zeroed in on his outspoken opposition to the war in Iraq and his public expressions of sympathy for the Palestinian cause.

"Columbia vs. America," declared a story on Campus Watch, a Web site dedicated to revealing the alleged bias of mainstream Middle East studies programs at U.S. colleges and universities. The New York Sun dubbed Khalidi "the professor of hate."

These are the best of times and the worst of times for the once-neglected field of Middle East studies. Enrollments in Arabic-language courses and area studies programs have boomed in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Government funding is up. Universities and colleges are recruiting Middle East experts as fast as they can.

At the same time, academics who specialize in the region complain that they are under siege from conservative think tanks and self-appointed campus watchdog organizations. They say these efforts have resulted in a flood of abusive e-mail and calls for tightening congressional control over the funding of Middle East studies programs, which, they contend, could undermine academic freedoms.

[Utah Girl]

The article is worth a click to the WP, if only to hear the whining of the liberal professors.

[Utah Girl]

I found the last paragraph to be quite illuminating.

"We are very sensitive to having strings attached to what we do," said Hudson, the director of Georgetown's Arab studies program. "If an Arab government came to us and said, 'We will give you money, but we will have an advisory body check up on what you do with it,' I don't think we would take the money."

I don't think we'd take the money??? What, if it were enough, the dept would take the money? Yikes.

[Happy2BMe]

"But Khalidi soon became the target of an Internet campaign that questioned his patriotism. Conservative critics zeroed in on his outspoken opposition to the war in Iraq and his public expressions of sympathy for the Palestinian cause."

Onward Muslim Soldiers in America's College Campuses PING!

[Shermy]

"I don't think we would take the money."

That's not a 'no'. He is dissembling.

[Utah Girl]

Exactly.

[swilhelm73]

Hmm, a reasonably good good article for the ComPost. Still, the author should have actually printed some of the statements by the like of Edward Said that show how extreme many so-called Arabic experts on the federal dole are.

Also, talking with an angry student or two to counterbalance the quoted professors would be nice.

Of course, the particular problem of Islamist sympathizing professors enforcing group think in American Arabic studies programs is only a small part of the problem of hardcore leftist professor enforcing group think in most American college programs.

[wildbill]

My old school, Columbia, took the money I'm sorry to say. They got a sponsor for the Said chair in NE studies--but they refuse to say who the anonymous sponsor is.

[freedom44]

Will this 'middle east' study finally teach Students that Iranians and Arabs share no common ancestory, heritage, culture, or ethnicity?

Will it talk about what truly happened in 79 or what is really happening in Iran? Will it teach kids that one can be 'Persian' and Iranian at the same time because Persian is an ethnicity, not a nationality?

I doubt it, it'll spoon feed them about some unified 'Islamist world', where only Arabs matters and we should embrace their fundamentalists BS.

[Piranha]

Then why won't Columbia release the names of the donors to its Middle East Studies program?

[Paleo Conservative]

I bet there's going to be lots of negative stories about Daniel Pipes in the near future.

[rmlew]

Columbia would be just as bad without the Saudi oil/blood money.

[rmlew]

Pipes can take it. I just doubt that he Republicans in the Senate can.

[Utah Girl]

Actually the WP is kind of slow to the game. Pipes was nominated for something for the Bush administration, I think a spot on the US INstitute for Peace. My memory is not good this late at night, but I think President Bush did a recess appointment of Pipes.

[Paleo Conservative]

My old school, Columbia, took the money I'm sorry to say.

What proportion of students at Columbia aren't radical leftists? It seems that most the people my brother knew there were pretty far left.

[Valin]

From Maritn Kramers blog

Wednesday, January 29, 2003. Rashid Redux. Congratulations to Columbia University, for bagging Rashid Khalidi, University of Chicago historian, to fill the new Edward Said Chair of Middle Eastern Studies. The still-anonymous donors must be very pleased. Now that the deal is done, Khalidi has resurfaced, to take a stand on a possible war against Saddam.

As it happened, I spent the last Gulf war, in 1991, at the University of Chicago as a visiting professor, on the same hallway as Khalidi. Chicago's Center for Middle Eastern Studies became a cauldron of agitation against the war, stirred vigorously by the faculty. Khalidi thought even that war was unjust, and he predicted a dire outcome. My favorite Khalidi quote from 1991 assessed the Iraqi army: "They're in concrete bunkers. And it won't be easy to force them out without resorting to bloody hand-to-hand combat. It's my guess they'll fight and fight hard, even if you bomb them with B-52s." (This and more in my book Ivory Towers on Sand, p. 66.)

What does Khalidi have to say about another possible war? He's not so foolish as to predict how the battlefield will look this time. In fact, he anticipates an "overwhelming victory." But the day after will be a mess. "We will have a long American military occupation that will eventually provoke resistance," Khalidi predicts. "However much Iraqis loathe their regime, they will soon loathe the American occupation that will follow its demise." He gives the occupation about two years, the length of time Britain ruled Iraq before it faced a rebellion in 1920. Then it will become "bloody." And the regional implications? "We will be creating legions of new enemies throughout the Middle East." His suggestion: "I propose that we withhold our consent and stop this unjustified and unjustifiable war before it begins."

I've always been amazed by Khalidi's readiness to make unequivocal predictions. I suppose he realizes that it's very unusual for anyone to remember them years later. In academe, predictions are the equivalent of politicans' promises. They serve some immediate polemical purpose, and are given on the assumption that people have very short memories. Well, Sandstorm promises to remember them for you—and for Professor Khalidi.

Of course, Israel is never far from Rashid Khalidi's mind. Now that he's definitely New York-bound, he can say it out loud: this war is the project of "crackpot" neoconservatives who "dominate the commanding heights of the American bureaucracy." And (wink) we know who they work for:
This war will be fought because these neoconservatives desire to make the Middle East safe not for democracy, but for Israeli hegemony. They are convinced that the Middle East is irremediably hostile to both the United States and Israel; and they firmly hold the racist view that Middle Easterners understand only force. For these American Likudniks and their Israeli counterparts, sad to say, the tragedy of September 11 was a godsend: It enabled them to draft the United States to help fight Israel's enemies.
This is about as close as you can get in America today to the charge of dual loyalty, and the claim that Washington is run by a Zionist conspiracy, without coming across as a "crackpot" yourself.

"Khalidi has received praise from both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," relates the Columbia Spectator in reporting his decision to take the new chair. "His supporters believe this speaks toward his strengths as a teacher and scholar." Sorry, but the notion of Khalidi as someone above the fray doesn't quite ring true to me. He won't be the worst of the lot at Columbia, but that doesn't say much. Still, all things considered, Khalidi's move is for the best. Why?

Khalidi will become the Edward Said Professor of Middle Eastern Studies. That's a warning label the size of a Times Square billboard.

http://www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/2003_01_29.htm

[Utah Girl]

Khalidi will become the Edward Said Professor of Middle Eastern Studies.

Very scary.

[rmlew]

What proportion of students at Columbia aren't radical leftists? It seems that most the people my brother knew there were pretty far left.
Please read my article on the subject
Graduation Present: It's Not 1968 at Columbia Anymore
or the FR thread.

[Jeff Chandler]

revealing the alleged bias of mainstream Middle East studies programs at U.S. colleges and universities.

[Valin]

OH come on! There's no bias on college campus's, it's just a coincidence that 98% of the "teachers" are antiwar.


reinsert head

[wildbill]

I feel like Lot bargaining with God. Surely the school is worth saving if there is one righteous man. :-)