Howler of the Month (archive)

"Given that Trump is a narcissistic fraud, it is appropriate that his name be attached to the illegal Israeli theft of Syrian territory. In fact, we should just call the Occupied Palestinian Territories in general Trumpland . . . ."

Juan Cole, University of Michigan history professor, on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's announcement of a new settlement in the Golan Heights named "Trump Heights" after U.S. President Donald Trump, who recognized Israeli sovereignty in the region three months before; Informed Comment, June 17, 2019. (link to source)

We Couldn't Have Said it Better (archive)

"There has been an exponential growth of tenured positions and well-funded Middle East Studies departments. But this trend has fostered a new orthodoxy of opinion about the subject. Far from a bastion of impartial study, these departments became a preserve of those devoted to whitewashing radical Islam, bashing Israeli policies, critiquing and undermining support for Zionism, and supporting the Palestinian Arab war to destroy the Jewish state. In Mideast studies, only one point of view about Israel is welcome."

Jonathan Tobin, Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) editor-in-chief, in "Is There Room in the Academy for Honest Scholarship on Israel?"; JNS, May 23, 2019. (link to source)

CAMPUS WATCH, a project of the Middle East Forum, reviews and critiques Middle East studies in North America with an aim to improving them. The project mainly addresses five problems: analytical failures, the mixing of politics with scholarship, intolerance of alternative views, apologetics, and the abuse of power over students. Campus Watch fully respects the freedom of speech of those it debates while insisting on its own freedom to comment on their words and deeds.