THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XII, Issue # 102, June 15, 2010
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
TARGET ISRAEL
By Cinnamon Stillwell
CALIFORNIA'S ANTI-ISRAEL ACADEMICS: ANTI-ZIONIST & ANTI-SEMITIC CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS
TARGETING THE STATE OF ISRAEL FOR AN ACADEMIC & CULTURAL BOYCOTT -- CALIFORNIA ACADEMICS & THE BDS
(BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT, & SANCTIONS) MOVEMENT -- RANK ANTI-SEMITISM ON THE POLITICAL & CULTURAL LEFT -- THE
CIRCUMSTANCES THAT MADE CALIFORNIA'S STATE INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER "EDUCATION" RIPE FOR THE MALADIES OF
RADICAL POLITICS & LEFTWING ANTI-SEMITISM
FULL STORY:
In recent months, two University of California campuses, Berkeley and San Diego, have been embroiled in fierce debates
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 petition supporting divestment.
The petition is posted at the website for the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, 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:
Joel Beinin: Stanford University History Professor and well-known anti-Zionist. As a regular guest on the Peninsula
Peace and Justice Center (PPJC) Palo Alto cable television program Other Voices, Beinin is notorious for railing
against Israel. During an appearance 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 to take part in the odious "Israeli Apartheid Week" in
March, 2009, with a speech at UC-Berkeley.
Hatem Bazian: Senior Lecturer in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at UC-Berkeley, Visiting Scholar at the
Zaytuna Institute/College in Berkeley (the self-proclaimed "first Islamic college" in the U.S.A.), and committed
anti-Israel activist. In March of this year, he was one of the speakers at UC-Irvine's "Israeli Apartheid Week," which
was co-sponsored by the radical Muslim Student Union (MSU) and the problematic Middle East Studies Student
Initiative (MESSI). Bazian is perhaps best known for calling for "an intifada in this country!" at a 2004 anti-war rally in
San Francisco.
Mark LeVine: UC-Irvine History Professor and abject apologist for terrorist groups such as Hamas and the Muslim
Brotherhood (a spokesman from the latter spoke to his class in October, 2008). LeVine is a defender of the extremist
behavior of UC-Irvine's Muslim Student Union, including their shouting down of Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren in
February, 2010 — something he described as a "teachable moment." In a recent Al-Jazeera op-ed, LeVine
portrayed the Turkish terrorist supporters 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."
Beshara Doumani: UC-Berkeley Associate Professor of History. He has described 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 one of the signatories (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.
Hamid Algar: UC-Berkeley Islamic Studies Professor, Khomeini acolyte, Armenian genocide denier, and defender of
Palestinian suicide bombers, of which he said in a June, 2003, California Monthly interview, "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."
Saree Makdisi: UCLA English Professor who carries on the political legacy of his uncle, the late Columbia University
Professor and Orientalism (1979) author Edward Said. Makdisi has leveled blood libels against Israel, including
— at an infamous January, 2009, UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies symposium — claiming that "the goal of Israel
is to deliberately starve children." Makdisi has a long history of supporting the BDS movement and has endorsed the
U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.
Minoo Moallem: UC-Berkeley Professor of Gender and Women's Studies. She was a signatory to a January, 2009, open
letter 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 open letter 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.
Suad Joseph: UC-Davis Professor of Anthropology and Women's Studies and President-elect of the Middle East
Studies Association (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 Israel and the war in Iraq and the exclusion of an
Israeli academic from the Iranian Studies Biennial Conference, as well as an open letter 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.
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, "Statement of Solidarity with Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim Women Facing War and
Occupation" opposing Israel's incursion into Gaza following Hamas's rocket barrage.
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, faculty letter objecting to the atmosphere of "hatred against Jews and Israelis on
campus" created by the MSU.
California academics have, however, played a leading role in the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural
Boycott of Israel. According to a February, 2009, Daily Bruin article 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 founding members of the organizing
committee teach Middle East Studies at California institutions:
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 by claiming that,
"Palestine is at the heart of the Arab world." Adhulhadi spoke at an Al-Awda (Palestine Right to Return Coalition)
conference at SFSU in August, 2006, and at York University in March, 2010, for Toronto's "Israeli Apartheid
Week." She was one of the panelists at an event at SFSU timed to coincide with the second anniversary of SFSU's
Edward Said mural 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.
Sondra Hale: UCLA Anthropology and Women's Studies Professor, and Chair of the Faculty Advisory Committee
for the notoriously anti-Israel Center for Near Eastern Studies (CNES). At a CNES conference in October, 2009, Hale
equated the pro-Israel groups StandWithUs and the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) with "Nazis" and
"McCarthyists." In response to widespread criticism regarding the blatantly anti-Israel and, at times, anti-Semitic
nature of a January, 2009, "Human Rights and Gaza" CNES symposium, Hale penned an op-ed in UCLA's student
newspaper, the Daily Bruin, slamming UCLA student and Bruins for Israel member Ben Meiselman for
having the temerity to publish a piece 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, telling the Daily
Bruin in February, 2009 that, were it to go into effect, "foreign exchange and cooperative programs with Israel
would cease."
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:
With a frontier reputation as the "Left Coast," California ability to lure "cutting-edge" academics has attracted
politically likeminded academics from around the world.
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 Leftwing 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.
A succession of Leftist Democratic Party 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.
So it is that California has become the epicenter for the BDS movement, a legacy of which there is nothing to be
proud.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Jews & Anti-Semitism
Israel & the Arabs -- The Israeli-Arab Conflict
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Islamism & Jihadism -- Radical Islam & Islamic Terrorism
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Cinnamon Stillwell is the West Coast Representative for Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum.
She can be reached at stillwell@meforum.org
The foregoing article by Cinnamon Stillwell was originally published in Front Page Magazine, June 15, 2010, and
can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum, a foreign policy think tank which seeks to
define and promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam,
working for Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote
constitutional democracy in the Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly
asserting U.S. interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian threat.
(URL: http://www.meforum.org/2673/target-israel)
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
June 15, 2010
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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