Posted on 09/27/2002 8:43:42 PM PDT by Dan from Michigan
Furor erupts over Web site monitoring of Middle Eastern scholars
By RON TODT
The Associated Press
9/27/02 10:22 PM
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A pro-Israel organization has set up a Web site to monitor professors and universities for pro-Arab, anti-Israel bias -- a move some academics are decrying as campus McCarthyism and attempted intimidation.
The Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum said it organized the Campus Watch site to counter pervasive bias in universities' Middle Eastern studies.
The site names schools and specific professors. Forum director Daniel Pipes said the think tank hopes eventually to monitor 250 North American academic institutions.
"Our goal is to monitor, critique and improve Middle East studies," Pipes said. "We're not at universities because our views are not welcome. We're trying to create an alternative voice within the field."
Scholars whose articles are compiled into dossiers on the Web site include Hamid Dabashi and Joseph Massad of Columbia, John Esposito of Georgetown, Juan Cole of the University of Michigan and Snehal Shingavi of University of California at Berkeley. Dossiers are also listed on those institutions as well as a dozen others, including Stanford, Northeastern, the University of Chicago and the University of North Carolina.
Opponents immediately called the effort "McCarthy-like" and an attempt to stifle opposition to U.S. policy in the Middle East. Professors listed on the site said they were bombarded with e-mail over the weekend.
In a show of support for those named on the site, about 100 other academics have asked to be added to the list.
Judith Butler, a gender theorist at Berkeley, wrote that she would like to be included in the list of U.S. academics "who oppose the Israeli occupation and its brutality, actively support Palestinian rights of self-determination" and support an informed view of Islam.
The Campus Watch site accuses American Middle Eastern scholars of generally being biased against the United States and being apologists for unfriendly regimes.
University of Chicago historian Rashid Khalidi, who is quoted on the Web site as sympathizing with the Palestinian cause, called the site "slimy" and intended to chill opposition.
"What they're trying to do is exclude from public debate opinions that go against the neo-conservative consensus that dominates discussion of policy on Iraq or policy on the Israeli conflict by smearing us and calling us aliens," he said.
Pipes said he will not remove a "Keep Us Informed" page on the site that opponents say is an attempt to get students to turn in their professors. He said it gives students a place to complain about mistreatment.
"What you have in university is exclusion of alternate points of view," Pipes said. "You've got to subscribe to the party line and then you can make your career; if you don't, you're out."
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On the Net:
http://www.campus-watch.org
And what's wrong with McCarthy? I think he's a national hero.=o)
You think that this display of willful ignorance makes me look bad? LOL.
We're fighting Islamists. You can join the Birchers and keep looking under all the beds.
Why do I get the feeling that these same "academics" nodded with approval when the two Israelis were fired from the British academic publication simply for being Israeli?
I'll second that. He's already been kicked off this forum once for that crap, and he's on the edge again.
Just like you shriveled when given the opportunity to confront "tax-protester" John Kotmair on Radio FR.
All hat, no cattle.
A "gender theorist"? I'm surprised anyone could adopt such a job description with a straight faace.
It is hardly ad hominem when based upon your own history on this forum. You are a poster that actually believes that every brain fart should be put into words.
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