Establishment of Nazi-Soviet US by Israeli groups

[Moses]

LRB | Vol. 26 No. 7 dated 1 April 2004 | Sara Roy

www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n07/print/roy_01_.html


Short Cuts

Sara Roy


Recently, at Harvard University where I am based, a Jewish student, using an assumed (gentile) name, began posting anti-semitic statements on the weblog of the Harvard Initiative for Peace and Justice, an anti-war, pro-Palestinian group on campus. The student, it turned out, is the secretary of Harvard Students for Israel - which dissociated itself from the incident - and had previously accused the HIPJ of being too tolerant of anti-semitism. He now went undercover as part of a self-appointed effort to monitor anti-semitism on campus. In one posting, for example, he referred to Israel as the 'AshkeNAZI state'. Incidents of this kind, which are becoming commonplace on American campuses, reflect a wider determination to monitor, report, defame and punish those individuals and institutions within academia whose views the right finds objectionable. The campaign is directed at area studies generally but the most virulent attacks are reserved for those of us in Middle Eastern studies whose ideas are considered anti-Israel, anti-semitic or anti-American.

The relationship between Israel's hardline supporters and the 'Arab professoriat', as we have been called, has been tense for a long time. After 11 September, the right accused Middle East academics in particular of extremist scholarship and intellectual treason. Defending Civilisation: How Our Universities Are Failing America and What Can Be Done about It, a report published in November 2001 by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a non-profit organisation founded by Lynne Cheney, wife of the vice-president, and Senator Joseph Lieberman, effectively accused the academy of being unpatriotic and anti-American, a fifth column providing intellectual support for global terrorism. In evidence it cited over a hundred statements by academics (and others) calling for a more critical examination of the causes of the events of 11 September and the role US foreign policy may have played.

Another indictment of Middle East studies appeared in Martin Kramer's Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America, published in October 2001 by the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Kramer, who teaches Arab history and politics at Tel Aviv University....What is needed, he says, is a new approach to the study of the Middle East that has at its core 'the idea that the United States plays an essentially beneficent role in the world'.

There is no let-up. September 2002 saw the establishment of Campus Watch, a website whose primary purpose is to monitor Middle Eastern studies faculty in departments across the US for signs of anti-American and anti-Israel bias. Campus Watch is the invention of Daniel Pipes, a colleague of Kramer's, and director of the Middle East Forum, a think-tank devoted to promoting American interests in the Middle East.

'.... Not only does Campus Watch monitor universities for signs of 'sedition', i.e. views on US foreign policy, Islam, Israeli policy and Palestinian rights that Pipes considers unacceptable; it encourages students to inform on professors whose ideas they find offensive. Recently, Bush appointed Pipes to the board of directors of the US Institute of Peace, ’an independent, non-partisan federal institution created by Congress to promote the prevention, management, and peaceful resolution of international conflicts'.

Given that the political climate here is in good part determined by an alliance of right-wing supporters of Israel and members of the neo-conservative establishment, it isn't surprising that the attack on area studies may soon be enshrined in law. On 21 October last year, the House of Representatives passed the International Studies in Higher Education Act, HR 3077. ....that would impinge on curricula, faculty hiring and course materials in institutions that accept federal funding.

A key figure behind HR 3077 is Stanley Kurtz, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and an associate of Kramer and Pipes.....Kurtz's testimony was accepted by Congress without debate and many of his recommendations for 'repairing' the damage were adopted by the House.

Potentially the most onerous of these recommendations is the establishment of an international higher education advisory board to ensure that government-funded programmes 'reflect diverse perspectives and the full range of views on world regions, foreign languages and international affairs'. The board would have seven members: three appointed by the secretary of education, of whom two will 'represent federal agencies that have national security responsibilities'; two appointed by the speaker of the House of Representatives; and two by the president pro tempore of the Senate. One of the board's functions will be to recommend ways 'to improve programmes . . . to better reflect the national needs related to homeland security'.

The board's recommendations will not be subject to review or approval by any officer of the federal government, including the secretary of education. And, although the bill states that the board is not authorised to 'mandate, direct or control an institution of higher education's specific instructional content, curriculum or programme of instruction', it is authorised 'to study, monitor, apprise and evaluate' a sample of activities supported under Title VI. Which amounts to the same thing: unprecedented federally mandated intrusion into the content and conduct of university-based area studies programmes.

There is a great deal at stake for American higher education and academic freedom. If HR 3077 becomes law - the Senate will review the bill next - it will create a board that monitors how closely universities reflect government policy. Since the legislation assumes that any flaw lies 'with the experts, not the policy', the government could be given the power to introduce politically sympathetic voices into the academic mainstream and to reshape the boundaries of academic inquiry. Institutional resistance would presumably be punished by the withdrawal of funds, which would be extremely damaging to Middle East centres especially.

HR 3077 contains other provisions that are equally outrageous. For example, it requires Title VI institutions to provide government recruiters with access to students and student recruiting information. The bill even directs the secretary of education and the advisory board to study - i.e. spy on - communities of US citizens who speak a foreign language, 'particularly such communities that include speakers of languages that are critical to the national security of the United States'.

What all this boils down to is an attempt to silence criticism of US policy, and put an end to disagreement with the neo-conservative agenda. It is not diversity that is being sought but conformity.

Sara Roy is a senior research scholar at Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies and the author of several works on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

[Moses]

Thought Control for Middle East Studies

April 3, 2004
by Joel Beinin
antiwar.com/article.php?articleid=2236
A band of neoconservative pundits with close ties to Israel have mounted a campaign against American scholars who study the Middle East. Martin Kramer, an Israeli-American and former director of the Dayan Center for Middle East Studies at Tel-Aviv University, has led the way in blaming these scholars for failing to warn the American public about the dangers of radical Islam, claiming they bear some of the responsibility for what befell us on September 11. In 2003, proponents of this position took their complaints to
Congress. The Senate is expected to review them soon, as it discusses the Higher Education Reauthorization bill.

The neocons initially urged Congress to reduce the appropriation for Title VI of the Higher Education Act. Since 1958 this legislation has provided federal funding to universities to support study of less commonly taught languages, such as Arabic, Turkish, and Persian. Now they want to set up a political review board to discourage universities and scholars from tolerating bad thoughts.

Last year 118 international area studies centers, including 17 Middle East centers, received about $95 million for graduate fellowships, language training, and community outreach. The Middle East studies centers train the great majority of Americans who are competent in difficult Middle Eastern languages. No other institutions are now able to do this job on the required
scale. Lack of Arabic speaking agents hindered the FBI from understanding some of the pre-September 11 clues that might have prevented the attacks. Fortunately for our safety, Congress rejected the neocon proposal to reduce support for foreign language study.

Having failed in their first effort, the neoconservatives are now attempting to assert political control over teaching, research, and public programs of the international area studies centers. In June 2003, Stanley Kurtz, a contributing editor of National Review Online and a fellow of the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank located on the campus of Stanford University, testified before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. His testimony summarized the arguments of Martin Kramer's attack
on American Middle East studies. Kurtz asserted that "Title VI-funded programs in Middle Eastern Studies (and other area studies) tend to purvey extreme and one-sided criticisms of American foreign policy." He urged legislators to take action to ensure "balance." Kurtz, Kramer, and other neocons such as Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum who have written on
this subject are concerned that Middle East scholars often say things American politicians don't want to hear ? including criticism of U.S. Middle East policy and criticism of Israel's policies toward the Palestinians. Some might conclude that perhaps scholars who study the modern Middle East know something worth listening to. But the neocons already know what they want to hear. They have not been able to win in the marketplace of ideas. Critical
and inconvenient thoughts continue to be expressed. So the neocons want the government to help crush wayward ideas.

Representative Peter Hoekstra (R-Michigan) obliged by introducing the International Studies in Higher Education Act, designated H.R. 3077. The bill passed the House of Representatives, after a suspension of the rules, by a voice vote in October 2003. The bill was then referred to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, which is now taking up the issue.

H.R. 3077 calls for establishing an International Higher Education Advisory Board with broad investigative powers "to study, monitor, apprise, and evaluate" activities of area studies centers supported by Title VI. The board is charged with ensuring that government-funded academic programs "reflect diverse perspectives and represent the full range of views" on
international affairs. "Diverse perspectives," in this context, is code for limiting criticism of U.S. Middle East policy and of Israel.

Under the proposed legislation, three advisory board members would be appointed by the Secretary of Education; two of them from government agencies with national security responsibilities. The leaders of the House of Representatives and the Senate each would appoint two more.

This proposal represents a dangerous threat to academic freedom. The advisory board could investigate scholars and area studies centers, applying whatever criteria it pleases. The criteria almost certainly would be political. The whole point of the legislation is to impose political restraints on activities of Middle East centers.

The legislation, if passed, could actually diminish our national security. No first-rank university would accept direct government intrusion into the educational process. Such institutions would likely refuse to accept Title VI funding if it were subject to political oversight. The already dangerously low number of Americans competent in Middle Eastern languages would then be reduced.

Neocons believe it is better for the government to control teaching and research rather than to allow established policy to be questioned. But we are more likely to understand "why they hate us," and what we can do about it when old ideas can be challenged without fear. Freedom, including academic freedom, is the best way to make Americans safe.