Martin Kramer

[Moses]

PS the wonderful folks over at Daily Kos, to whom I am most grateful for defending me, should please do up an oppo research diary on Martin Kramer. Who is he? Where did he come from? When he was head of the Dayan Center in Tel Aviv, to whom did he report in the Israeli intelligence community? Who funded his work on Hizbullah? Was he fired from heading the Dayan Center? How does he suddenly show back up in the US after a 20-year absence with a book that blames unpreparedness for 9/11 on US professors of Middle East Studies instead of on the Israeli Mossad and the US CIA/ FBI? What was his role in getting up the Iraq War and in advising the US on the wrong-headed policies that have gotten so many Americans killed? Who pays his salary, now, exactly? What are his links with AIPAC, and with the shadowy world of far-right Zionist think tanks and dummy organizations? I.e., don't let Kramer tie you up with his salvoes on minutiae.

www.juancole.com/2005/07/jerusalem-and-terrorism-ariel-sharon.html

[Moses]

About Martin Kramer
A complete c.v. and list of publications

Born 1954 in Washington, D.C.; married to Sandra Kramer (born Jacobs); two daughters (Anat, Keren); one son (Adam).

Present Positions

Principal Research Associate, Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, Tel Aviv University, since 1995.
Wexler-Fromer Fellow, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, since 2002.

Previous Positions
Editor, Middle East Quarterly (Philadelphia), 2001-2004.
Director, Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, Tel Aviv University, 1995-2001.
Editor, Middle Eastern Lectures (Tel Aviv), 1995-2001.
Associate Director, Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, Tel Aviv University, 1987-95.
Senior Research Associate, Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, Tel Aviv University, 1985-95.
Research Associate, Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, Tel Aviv University, 1981-85.

Education
        Tel Aviv University, 1971-73 -- Middle Eastern Studies
    B.A. Princeton University, 1975 (summa cum laude) -- Near Eastern Studies
    M.A. Columbia University, 1976 -- History
    M.A. Princeton University, 1978 -- Near Eastern Studies
    Ph.D. Princeton University, 1982 -- Near Eastern Studies

Distinctions, Fellowships, Grants
McConnell Scholarship, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, Summer 1974.
Center for Arabic Study Abroad Fellowship, American University in Cairo, Summer 1975.
Phi Beta Kappa, Princeton University, 1975.
Fulbright Undergraduate Research Fellowship, 1975-76 (declined with regret).
Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowship, American Research Center in Egypt, 1979.
University Fellowships throughout graduate studies at Columbia and Princeton Universities, 1975-81.
Bronfman Fellowship for the Study of Arab-Jewish Relations, 1982-83.

Visiting Scholarship, Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD), Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg, June 1986.
Visiting Fellowship, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, May-August 1987.

French Government Visiting Scholarship, Centre d'études et de recherches internationales (CERI), Paris, March 1988.

Research Grant for a study of Islamic Fundamentalism in the West Bank and Gaza, Israel Foundations Trustees for The Ford Foundation, 1988-90.
Research Grant for a study of Hizballah, The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, 1988-90.
Fellowship, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 1989-90.
Research Grant, The Lucius N. Littauer Foundation, 1991.
Research Grant, Tel Aviv University Basic Research Fund, 1991-92.
Meyerhoff Fellowship, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, July-August 1992.
Schneider Lectureship, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, November 1992.
Visiting Scholarship, Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD), Martin-Luther-Universität, Halle, January 1993.
Fellowship, National Humanities Center, 1994-95 (declined with regret).
Ira Weiner Fellowship, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, July-September 1999.
Public Policy Scholarship, Division of International Studies, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, October-December 2000.

Visiting Professorships
Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, Spring semester 1984.

Visiting Associate Professor, Department of Government and Public Affairs, George Mason University, academic year 1986-87.

Visiting Associate Professor, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago, Winter quarter 1991.
Visiting Associate Professor, Department of History and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago, Winter quarter 1992.
Visiting Professor, Department of Government, Georgetown University, academic year 1994-95.
Visiting Professor, Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, Brandeis University, Spring semester 2002.

Board Memberships
Member, Advisory Board, The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, Oxford University Press, 1990-95.

Contributing Editor, The Jerusalem Report, 1990-97.
Member, Board of Editors, Middle East Quarterly, 1993-2001.
Member, Editorial Board, Middle Eastern Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, 1997-present.

Member, International Advisory Board, Centre for Israeli Studies, University College London, 2001-present.

Member, The Brookings Task Force on U.S. Policy Towards the Islamic World, 2002-present.

[Moses]

Kramer was skeptical on Iraq War too! (none / 1)

And he blames Academia for Bush's folly ?!?!
Kramer, dah-ling, Bush NEVER listened to Academia...

Annual conference of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, (OCTOBER 11, 2002):
Experts Warn U.S. on Plans To Remake Arab Autocracies

Experts seemed to agree that an ambitious, Wilsonian drive for quickly transforming Arab regimes from autocracies into democracies was risky, at best.

"Such a policy -- if it backfires --could leave us with a Middle East divided between radical nationalist dictators who you have failed to displace and populist Islamist revolutions that you have failed to deflect," said Martin Kramer, an expert on militant Islam and the former director of the Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Tel Aviv University.

Kramer, echoing the prevailing side of the debate in Israel over Arab democratization, explained: "I am skeptical because I believe that the underpinnings of such a transformation are completely lacking in the Arab world. Any attempt to promote democracy, far from making things better, might make them worse."

To many skeptical Middle East experts.. this march of freedom seems more like a march of folly. They caution that the United States could find itself sinking in the quagmire of anti-imperialist resentment among Arabs, which can quickly and easily spawn Osama bin Laden-like terrorism...