The field of Middle East studies is notorious for producing apologias for radical Islam, particularly where anti-Israel and, at times, anti-Semitic sentiment is concerned.
These same tendencies are also increasingly common in an unexpected sector of university life: Jewish studies. An open letter dated March 3, 2011, and signed by 30 University of California Jewish studies faculty members, is a case in point.
Some ideas are so astoundingly bad that it is not only hard to take them seriously, but also to understand how they could be seriously made. Which brings us to Nicholas Kristof’s recent column entitled “Primero Hay Que Aprender Espanol, Ranhou Zai Xue Zhongwen,” which translates to “First, one must learn Spanish. Then Learn Chinese.”
The starting point of this awful idea is Kristof’s observation that lots of people are asking him “the best way for their children to learn Chinese. Partly that’s because Chinese classes have replaced violin classes as the latest in competitive parenting.”
The Center for Near Eastern Studies (CNES) at the University of California, Los Angeles and the UCLA School of Law’s Journal for Islamic and Near Eastern Law co-sponsored a lecture (podcast available here) last month by Khaled Abou El Fadl, chair of the Islamic Studies Interdepartmental Program, with the vague title “Shari’ah Watch: A View from the Inside.”
Zionist visionary and leader, Ze’ev Vladimir Jabotinsky, was remembered this past Sunday evening, December 19th, as hundreds of Israeli high school students from across the country gathered in the main auditorium of the Knesset building in Jerusalem for the award presentation to the 15 winners of the 2010 Ze’ev Jabotinsky National Essay Contest.
Sponsored by the American Friends of a Safe Israel (AFSI), and an Israeli group called Misdar Jabotinsky, the ceremonious event marked the 70th yahrzeit of the prescient Revisionist Zionist leader and founder of the Betar (Brit Trumpeldor) youth movement. A towering figure amongst pre-state Zionist leaders, Jabotinsky is known as a powerful and prolific statesman, writer, journalist and electrifying orator.
This Memorandum examines the costs and likely impact of the DREAM Act currently being considered by Congress. The act offers permanent legal status to illegal immigrants up to age 35 who arrived in the United States before age 16 provided they complete two years of college. Under the act, beneficiaries would receive in-state tuition. Given the low income of illegal immigrants, most can be expected to attend state schools, with a cost to taxpayers in the billions of dollars. As both funds and slots are limited at state universities and community colleges, the act may reduce the educational opportunities available to U.S. citizens.
As candidates from both sides of the aisle feverishly stump to achieve a victory in the upcoming November mid-term elections, pundits and opinion makers have been focusing on a small but highly significant race for Chicago’s 9th congressional district. It is in this suburban Chicago setting where political neophyte Joel B. Pollak (R) is seeking to unseat the incumbent, Rep.Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) who is running for her seventh term in congress.
Israel National News spoke with Mr. Pollak, a soft spoken 33 year-old Orthodox Jew and Harvard trained lawyer who decided to throw his hat in the political ring for the very first time. “I grew up in a traditional home but my parents and I became observant Jews and I learned first hand of the special significance that Israel holds for the Jewish people” says Pollak. “I love Israel - not just because it is my religious homeland, and not just because of my family roots there, but also because of the principle that it represents. The State of Israel stands for the idea that an oppressed people can take control of its own destiny, and build freedom and prosperity with nothing more than faith and hard work. It is the same idea that built America. That is why our two countries are so close, and will remain so,” he declares.
Official Palestinian Authority TV continues to teach children that all of Israel is “occupied Palestine.” A repeating message on the children’s show The Best Home, currently broadcast three times a week during the month of Ramadan, is that all Israeli cities are “occupied” Palestinian cities.
The PA TV host refers to cities in Israel alternately as “1948 occupied cities,” “occupied cities” or “occupied territories.” The Israeli cities described as Palestinian cities include Haifa, Jaffa, Lod, Ramle and Acre. …
Now that Arizona’s immigration law has at least temporarily been put on hold, President Obama may well be tempted to put the whole immigration issue on the back burner for a while, as his Justice Department’s lawsuit against the state winds its way through the courts. After all, he has plenty of other things vying for his attention — two wars and an anemic economy, for starters.
Who could blame him for wanting to put aside the contentious issue of immigration?
As U.S. policymakers become increasingly uneasy about the fate of the remaining detainees currently held at Guantánamo Bay, greater attention is being paid to so-called jihadist rehabilitation programs that have been established abroad. Numerous governments, including Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Singapore, Canada, and Britain, have established programs that seek either to rehabilitate Islamist terrorists or to prevent further radicalization of jihadist sympathizers. Different states tailor their programs to the mores, laws, and needs of their societies. Muslim-majority countries concentrate on radicals who have either crossed the line into actual terrorist activities or who are active members in Islamist organizations deemed to be a threat to the state. Western initiatives focus instead on individuals who may seek camaraderie with extremist groups online or at local mosques; their programs seek to forestall further radicalization. While there is a clear divergence in approach, both must answer the same question: Have their efforts been successful or have they merely released detainees into their respective societies who feign detoxification but whose commitment to jihad has merely gone underground? The wrong answer to this question poses a serious threat to global, as well as local security.
Hip Hop artists and graffiti virtuosos from New York painting their way throughout Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Sderot? Who’d a thunk it, but it appears that a new organization called Artists 4 Israel will be doing just that. Founded about a year ago following Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, young artists in the New York area had just about enough of the incessant anti-Israel propaganda being spewed forth by the “politically correct” denizens of the radically left-wing enclaves that figure so prominently in the eclectic world of the New York artist and decided to do something about it.
I’ve been having a dialogue through correspondence lately with someone describing himself as a moderate Palestinian who lives in the United States. What most impressed me in the exchanges–both from what my interlocutor said and how he described the views of other Palestinians–is the total lack of comprehension on their part–those who live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip along with those who live elsewhere, both moderate and radical–about Israeli positions toward peacemaking that are easily available on the public record.
Can there be a truly moderate Islam compatible with liberal-democratic notions of human rights and democracy? Is “radical Islam” a modern phenomenon or is Islam itself inherently radical? Such were the questions addressed in a recent debate between Dr. Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, and Dr. Wafa Sultan, a Syrian-born American psychiatrist. James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal moderated.
WASHINGTON (December 10, 2009) — The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) has released a new study detailing the U-6 unemployment rates among native born workers. U-6 is a broader measure of employment that includes the unemployed, people who would like to work but who have not looked for a job recently, and those involuntarily working part-time. A look at these numbers shows the situation is particularly bad for minorities, the young, and less-educated Americans. These are the workers who face the most competition from immigrants — legal and illegal.
In August 2008, the Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute and the Strategic Studies Institute at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, jointly published a manual entitled, The American Military Advisor: Dealing with Senior Foreign Officials in the Islamic World.[1]Authored by Michael J. Metrinko, a leading U.S. government expert on the eastern Islamic world, the 95-page manual is a refreshing and blunt how-to guide for civil affairs and political affairs officers, excerpts from which follow. Metrinko brings to bear considerable experience. He was a Peace Corps volunteer in Turkey and Iran and spent fourteen months as a hostage when Iranian students seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979. Subsequent to the 9/11 attacks, Metrinko reentered government service. After assignments in Yemen and Iraq, he spent four years on provincial reconstruction teams in Afghanistan and eighteen months interfacing with the new Afghan National Assembly as an advisor on parliamentary affairs for the U.S. embassy in Kabul. –The Editors
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