Doc's Talk: Washington and the Ivory Tower: How Government Can Engage Academe in the Service of U.S. Middle East Policy

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Washington and the Ivory Tower: How Government Can Engage Academe in the Service of U.S. Middle East Policy

Martin Kramer and Mark Clark
November 30, 2009

On November 24, 2009, Martin Kramer and Mark Clark addressed a special Policy Forum luncheon at The Washington Institute to discuss how government can engage academe in the service of U.S. Middle East policy. Martin Kramer is The Washington Institute's Wexler-Fromer senior fellow and president-designate of Shalem College in Jerusalem. Mark Clark is director of the National Security Studies program at California State University--San Bernardino and president of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa. The following is a rapporteur's summary of their remarks. Martin Kramer
Today more than ever, academia and government need to reengage with each other. Academia possesses huge assets of knowledge that can be useful to government, but because of the inward focus of academia, these assets have generally been shielded from government. If government engages academia correctly, however, not only can government benefit from academia's assets but, from the academic perspective, government itself will become an asset.

The climate has changed in part because of the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the recent election of Barack Obama. Academic believers in smart power are now more eager than ever to prove that their theories apply in the real world. Such an opening occurs only once in a generation and, as a result, could shift the broader relationship between government and academe. In order for government to engage academe, it must first understand the principal forces motivating U.S. academics. These forces, to summarize, are peer review, independence, and access to sources. If the government supports academics in each of these areas, then the chasm between academia and government can be bridged.

Peer review is at the core of academic life. Academics know that, ultimately, their career paths will be decided by their peers around the world. As a result, academics are particularly sensitive to the zeitgeist of their disciplines, a reality that pertains acutely to the humanities. In a way, this peer community represents the most entrenched obstacle to government's engagement with academe. At the very least, peer reviewers insist on their prerogative to scrutinize every program or relationship to see if it conceals elements that endanger academic freedom, elements that are seen to emanate principally from Washington. In addition, many in the academic community frown on the temptations associated with cooperating with government.

Government has ways of circumventing academic forces that oppose cooperation, however. In some cases, government officials have promoted relationships with academics on an individual basis, usually away from campus. This, of course, represents a very low-grade form of engagement, when the larger objective should be to influence research agendas. Such attempts to influence broader agendas, not surprisingly, can be viewed as especially intrusive and controversial by academics. Yet channels still exist for government to push for scholarly research in support of its interests. Government backing of think tanks and quasi-governmental institutions like the United States Institute for Peace and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars helps encourage scholarship -- and broader research agendas -- in tune with government needs. But additional steps need to be taken. In order for the government to be more successful in engaging academics, it must encourage and nurture large peer groups connecting the two sectors. Such a development could have substantial benefits, with one effect being that government partnerships would no longer be perceived as unusual but rather as a commonplace and sought-after end.

The myth within academia is that it alone can regulate itself -- that the academic community will reliably speak the truth. Perpetuating such a faulty belief are processes associated with tenure and financial endowments, which bolster individual academics' personal security. Sacrosanct though tenure may be, it can exempt researchers from being continuously accountable for the work they produce. Government cannot provide security and status that compete with tenure, but it can create alternative enticements such as funding for multiyear endowments, which inevitably will lead to a more favorable view of government by academics across the country. In addition, the creation of "centers of excellence" gives government limitless funding resources that can lead to viable and instant networks that will earn respect within the academic community.

Access to information has always been the strength of academia, and academics have continued to push the notion that optimal research materials are most accessible when academics are free of government affiliations. In support of such a view, proponents point to places where suspicion of the U.S. government runs high, such as the Islamic Republic of Iran or Palestinian refugee camps. In such locations, they argue, affiliation with the U.S. government can be seen as an impairment to researchers' ability to collect unbiased data. Furthermore, some argue that within certain disciplines, association with government is endangering accessibility for their colleagues and hence anyone who works with government should be censured accordingly by the academic community.

The U.S. government can counter its critics through a number of means, including the sheer amount of information it collects and stores. Government access to open-source materials, difficult-to-reach places and people, and classified information represents a treasure trove for researchers. Fashioning initiatives and programs that provide academic partners with firsthand access to such databases and resources is at the forefront of the challenge for government. By opening the lid of its "treasure chest," government can have a real impact in a competitive academic setting in which special material is viewed as a research advantage.

In certain foreign governments, control of access to resources results in distorted research agendas and their associated findings. For years, research "radicals" in the United States have claimed that cooperating with the government has a corrupting effect. Yet the case can be made that access to authoritarian and police-state governments has a much greater potential to corrupt. All access comes with a cost, and the cost of associating with the United States is negligible. The more broadly this truth is embraced by academics, the easier it will be for them to work with government both openly and without apology -- to the mutual benefit of both sectors.

Mark Clark
In the 2004 National Intelligence Reform Act, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) was given the initiative to reach out to academic institutions. The next year, the ODNI announced a series of grants related to national intelligence in an effort to attract scholars from institutions of higher learning. In the past four years, the effort has gone from attracting four universities to encompassing a web of schools across the nation, including a consortium of seven universities from the California State University (CSU) system. As it continues to grow, the ODNI grant program recently accepted another seven universities to host Intelligence Community Centers of Academic Excellence. We may view the ODNI grant with the CSU system as a potential model for future government programs promoting partnerships with academia.

The program at California State University--San Bernadino (CSUSB), the main campus at which the CSU Intelligence Community Centers of Academic Excellence are being conducted, differs from conventional scholarly partnerships. The main evidence of this is that the focus at CSUSB is not on scholarly research but rather on recruiting both students and military veterans to train for jobs in the intelligence community. The CSUSB program has four principal goals. The first and primary goal is to develop curriculums that encourage students to pursue careers in the intelligence community. The second goal involves the hosting of annual colloquiums and speaker series, at which individuals from a broad range of intelligence agencies can present their views and assessments of current events. These speaker series serve as a parallel learning tool with the curriculums and encourage in-depth discussions and analyses. The colloquiums also provide a venue in which students can present their own findings to the intelligence community, relying on open-source material alone. Finally, leaders at the CSU Intelligence Community Centers of Academic Excellence hope to recruit high school students and encourage opportunities to travel abroad. These two last goals -- to offer a forum for students to present their findings and to recruit high school students -- are, although crucial for the viability of the program, secondary and may change depending on its trajectory and funding.

Programs like the CSU Intelligence Community Centers of Academic Excellence have advantages beside the obvious focus on training students interested in working in the intelligence community. One less overt advantage involves the cooperation it promotes between government
and academic institutions, which ultimately may help narrow the gap between the two sectors. Through this process, intelligence agencies also may learn to embrace methods used by academic institutions, while coming to understand the administrative and scholarly challenges many academics face. On the other hand, academic institutions like those belonging to the CSU system are learning how government bureaucracy works and coming to trust it more easily. Greater harmony will likely result from such collaborations, with government tapping the skills and knowledge of academics, and academics, in turn, gaining access to valuable information. Through the CSU Intelligence Community Centers of Academic Excellence program, the objections of naysayers in academia and elsewhere have thus been diffused.

Although the current ODNI grant will eventually expire, the program may be continued in an alternative form. In a more general sense, such programs can be built upon and possibly used as a model for a national strategy. Rather than having a plethora of agencies fund their own academic initiatives and programs, trimming the bureaucracy to promote a common research agenda can be the next step in our efforts to bridge the gap between academe and government.

This rapporteur's summary was written by Kayvan Chinichian.

No comments:

The IDF’s Minorities in Numbers and Pictures

In honor of IDF Diversity Week, we present diversity through numbers and pictures. Each year, more and more Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouin and immigrants from around the world take on the responsibility of defending Israel.

MUSLIMS:

Muslim Arab Israelis are not required to draft in the IDF, but there are many who volunteer. In 2013, there were over 200 Muslims serving in the IDF and over 300 in the reserves.

Bedouins:

Bedouins are nomadic Muslims who were in Israel when modern borders were set in place and are now considered Israeli citizens. They are not required to draft but a growing number choose to enlist. In 2012, there were over 1,400 Bedouin Muslim soldiers doing regular IDF service and almost 1,500 in the reserves.

Read more:http://www.idfblog.com/2014/02/27/truth-idf-numbers-pictures/#more-34027

Are you aware that in 2013, Middle class taxes go up-significantly?

In January of next year, the federal income tax rate for middle-class taxpayers is scheduled to rise from 25 percent to 28 percent, and the payroll tax is scheduled to rise from 13.3 percent to 15.3 percent… This drives the marginal tax rate based on the aforementioned three taxes to 48.12 percent. Add in state and local property, corporate, excise, and other state and local taxes, and the percentage of each additional dollar that is taxed hovers around 50 percent… When half of each additional dollar earned is taxed away, taxpayers experience a disincentive to start businesses or expand existing ones. This leads to fewer jobs being created.

Why is HAMAS Inside Tampa Schools?

Clare Lopez

Kelly Miliziano, who teaches history classes at Steinbrenner High School in the Tampa, Florida area apparently thinks it’s perfectly OK to invite a senior official of a HAMAS-affiliated organization into her classroom to discuss Islam with her students. According to local media reports, not only has this been going on for years, but in spite of the civil and criminal proceedings that could result from such reckless negligence, the Hillsborough County school superintendent, Mary Ellen Elia, and the chairman of the school board, Candy Olson, also expressed approval for students under their responsibility to be exposed repeatedly to guest speaker, Hassan Shibly, who is the Executive Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the Tampa area.
More...

Did You Know... Ignoring the Call to Islam will Bring Jihad

‘Conquest through Da’wa [proselytizing] that is what we hope for. We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America! Not through sword but through Da’wa.’
-- Yousef al-Qaradawi , Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader The Arabic word ‘Da’wa’ means the “call to Islam.” But do not think that Da’wa is the same thing as an invitation to an optional holiday event. The classical Islamic doctrine of jihad mandates that enemies must be given the opportunity to convert to Islam or pay the jizya tax before it is permissible to attack them.
Clare M. Lopez

Who is being discriminated-facts tell the truth

Religious bias

Hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,409 offenses reported by law enforcement. A breakdown of the bias motivation of religious-bias offenses showed:

65.4 percent were anti-Jewish.
13.2 percent were anti-Islamic.
9.5 percent were anti-other religion, i.e., those not specified.
4.3 percent were anti-Catholic.
3.8 percent were anti-multiple religions, group.
3.3 percent were anti-Protestant.
0.5 percent were anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2010/narratives/hate-crime-2010-incidents-and-offenses.

On March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview

with PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

In March 1977, Zahir Muhsein, a PLO executive, said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism."

"For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

The Arab Apartheid

Ben-Dror Yemini
In 1948, the Arab countries refused to accept the UN partition proposal and they launched a war of annihilation against the State of Israel which had barely been established. All precedents in this matter showed that the party that starts the war - and with a declaration of annihilation, yet - pays a price for it. Between 550,000 and 710,000 Arabs fled because of the war and a larger number of 850,000 Jews were expelled or fled from Arab countries (the "Jewish nakba").
Population exchanges and expulsions were the norm at that time, occurring in dozens of other conflict points and affecting about 52 million people. In all the population exchange precedents that occurred during or at the end of an armed conflict, there was no return of refugees to the previous region, which had turned into a new national state.
Only the Arab states acted completely differently from the rest of the world. Instead of assimilating the refugees, they crushed them despite the fact that they were their coreligionists and members of the Arab nation - instituting a regime of apartheid. So the "nakba" was not caused by the actual dispossession, which had also been experienced by tens of millions of others. The "nakba" is the story of the apartheid, oppression, abuse and denial of rights suffered by the Arab refugees at the hands of the Arab countries. (Maariv)

International Law and Military Operations in Practice - Col. Richard Kemp

"Islamist fighting groups study the international laws of armed conflict carefully and they understand it well. They know that a British or Israeli commander and his men are bound by international law and the rules of engagement that flow from it. They then do their utmost to exploit what they view as one of their enemy's main weaknesses. Their very modus operandi is built on the correct assumption that Western armies will normally abide by the rules, while these insurgents employ a deliberate policy of operating consistently outside international law. "

Lost Historical Moments

What Rabin’s last Knesset speech really said:repudiation of a Palestinian state

Rabin ruled out a fully sovereign Palestinian state :

“We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority.”

Rabin ruled out a total withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and thus a return to the pre-June 1967 borders :

“The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”

Rabin ruled out withdrawing form the Jordan Valley:

“The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.”

Rabin ruled out uprooting settlement blocs, like the Gush Katif bloc in Gaza (which was subsequently uprooted by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon):

“The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif.

AND

Rabin ruled out removing any settlement before coming to a full peace agreement with the Palestinians:

“I want to remind you: we committed ourselves, that is, we came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth.”

Rabin insisted on Israel retaining full security control of the borders with Egypt and Jordan, contrary to Israel’s relinquishment of the Philadelphia Corridor on the border with Egypt:

“The responsibility for external security along the borders with Egypt and Jordan, as well as control over the airspace above all of the territories and Gaza Strip maritime zone, remains in our hands.”

Correcting Oslo Myths-Part 2

3) Kuttab laments that the post-1993 Oslo process resulted in a Palestinian Authority "whose ministers and legislators are not guaranteed passage between Gaza and the West Bank ...."

Before free passage or other perquisites, PA leaders were obligated, among other things, to eliminate the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, end anti-Israeli, antisemitic incitement in schools, mosques, and communications media, and resolve all outstanding issues through peaceful negotiations. They met none of these commitments, sometimes bolstering terrorism and greatly increasing incitement.

4) Kuttab complains that under Oslo the PA got "lightly armed police ---- but no real sovereignty over the land or contiguity between our communities in Gaza and the West Bank."

Oslo agreements repeatedly were revised, regardless of Palestinian non-compliance, until the authorized number of police grew from 8,000 to 40,000. Though they were to be the only armed forces in the territories, Israeli estimates early in the second intifada put the number of gunmen - police, "security services," terrorists, and armed gangs - at 85,000. Their armament reportedly included not only heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, but also anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.

Sovereignty was to be negotiated in the envisioned 1998 "final status" talks - after a five-year period of confidence-building. Palestinian leadership chronically undermined the process. Palestinian terrorism made the 1993 - 1998 Oslo period more deadly for Israelis than the 15 years preceding it.

The United States doesn't have contiguity between the lower 48 states and Alaska and Hawaii; territorial contiguity between the West Bank and Gaza Strip - that is, through the 20 miles of Israeli territory between them - was never promised and would destroy Israeli contiguity.

5) "Palestinians have been made to endure hundreds of checkpoints in the West Bank, an eight-foot wall deep in our territories, and tight Israeli control over borders."

The security barrier is not "deep in Palestinian territories," but rather encompasses less than 8 percent of Judea and Samaria, and is mostly a fence, rarely a wall; the land in question is not "our [Palestinian] territories" but disputed territory to which, according to the authors of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, Jews as well as Arabs have claims; and there are no international borders, only the 1949 armistice lines with Jordan. Under 242, borders remain to be negotiated. As for checkpoints - like the security barrier and "tight Israeli control" - Palestinian Arabs precipitated these measures themselves. No terrorism and there would be no fence or tight Israeli control and few checkpoints - like before the first intifada.

Correcting Some Oslo Myths

1) In Oslo "Israeli, Palestinian and other world leaders promised that ... Palestinian sovereignty would be solidified."

No, they didn't. The 1993 Declaration of Principles and subsequent Oslo agreements outlined a process by which final status negotiations about the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be reached. The process required an end to anti-Israel terrorism and incitement and a commitment to peaceful negotiations. The PA, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other terrorist groups, sabotaged the process from the start.

2) "The reality is that, in defiance of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which states that it is inadmissible to occupy land by force, Palestinian territories are still under foreign military occupation."
Wrong again. Resolution 242 (1967) does note "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war." It also affirms the right of every state in the area "to live in peace with secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." There were no "Palestinian territories." Jordan occupied the West Bank, Egypt controlled Gaza. Israel did not have "secure and recognized boundaries," so retention of some of those territories was possible under 242. Israel is not a "foreign" military occupier in the West Bank but, pending final negotiations, the lawful military administrator as a result of a successful war of self-defense.

Doc's Talk