If you want to understand how the far left controls campuses, consider this story.
There
is no university more supportive of the Arab nationalist
(historically), Islamist, and anti-Israel line in the United States than
Georgetown's programs on Middle East studies. Every conference it holds
on the Middle East is ridiculously one-sided. The university has
received millions of dollars in funds from Arab states, and it houses
the most important center in the United States that has advocated
support for a pro-Islamist policy.
One
day in 1975, not long before he died, the great Professor Carroll
Quigley walked up to me when I was sitting in the Georgetown University
library. Everyone was in awe of this brilliant lecturer (remind me to
write him a tribute explaining why he was so great).
I
thought he might have remembered me from my extended explanation of why
I was late for class one day because I had rescued a sparrow and taken
it to a veterinarian (true). I vividly recall that detail, because I
couldn't think otherwise why he would want to talk to such a lowly
person.
“May I sit down?” he asked.
“Of
course!” I said, stopping myself from adding that it was an honor.
Without any small talk, he launched into a subject that clearly weighed
on his conscience. “There are many who don’t like your people.”
What was he talking about? I thought, is he talking about Jews?
He
explained that he had just come from a meeting where it was made clear
that the university had a problem. They were getting Arab money, but on
the secret condition that it was for teaching about the Middle East but none of it could be used to teach about Israel. How was this problem to be solved?
Simple.
They would call the institution to be created the Center for
Contemporary Arab Studies. It was explicitly expressed that this was
how the problem would be dealt with. Quigley was disgusted. Ever since
then, I have referred to that institution as the Center for Contemporary
Arab Money.
Georgetown
was the place where the university accepted tens of thousands of
dollars from Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi--who was, of course, very
active in promoting anti-American terrorism--to establish an endowed
chair in Middle East studies. When the president of the university
backed down due to bad publicity, the professor who had been named to
the post responded by calling the Jesuit university president a “Jesuit
Zionist.”
This
same professor--and I am not joking in saying that compared to today,
he was a fine scholar and a comparatively decent man given what goes on
now--was also a personal friend of Palestinian terrorist leader
Nayif Hawatmeh and an outspoken Marxist.
To
his credit, he told me in 1974 on a visit of mine to Lebanon, “One day
we will be ashamed of all the terrorism [against Israel].” But I don’t
think he ever spoke out publicly. At my Ph.D. oral exams, he said
something like this as his question: “I don’t care whether you believe
it or not, but give the Marxist analysis of development in the Middle
East.” He did not ask me to critique it! As a Marxist, atheist though, the son of a Muslim imam,
he did participate in the traditional glass of scotch after they passed
me. And they did pass me, something I would never assume might happen
today. These professors really did believe in scholarship and balance in
the classroom.
Another
professor (you can guess I was sure he was not on my board), however,
was an example of the new generation of indoctrinators. One day, I was
standing in the line in the campus post office shortly after I had
clashed with him in class. The two girls, I could overhear, were talking
about the disturbing incident in class. To my relief, they took my
side. I guess that, too, wouldn't happen today.
This
teacher’s radicalism and knee-jerk hatred of Israel was so terrible
that we used to joke about it. A right-wing Zionist in the class did an
experiment. He wrote an exaggerated version of a Marxist, anti-Israel
rant. It read like a satire. He got an “A” from this professor. In
retrospect, however, we should have seen that the field was getting far
worse.
Ironically
that professor was the unjust victim recipient of his own doctrine. He
was later fired on a complaint by an African student that he was a
racist, which of course he wasn't.
In
one graduate seminar, still another professor--an older anti-Israel guy
but still a conservative and a gentleman of the old school--couldn't
stop the class from laughing as it discussed the ridiculous new book, Orientalism,
by Edward Said. We easily pointed out the holes in the book and Said’s
claims of perpetual Western bias against Arabs. We looked at Orientalism itself
as outdated but respectable, too anthropological and generalizing for
our tastes. We looked at ourselves as historians and social scientists.
But
the idea that Orientalists were agents of imperialism was untrue. They
were great scholars, though some did do political work in which their
views weren't shaped but often mistakenly implemented, just like such
things happen today. Who would have believed that this ignorant and
malicious book could ever take over the entire field and destroy
scholarship?!
I
guess we should have also known better from the fate of the professor
who I had openly argued with. He was the new-style leftist referred to
above, the kind who is typical today. While I disliked him, he was
clearly not a racist but the very model of the new Politically Correct
falsifier. He was fired after being accused by an African student of
alleged racial bias due to his low grade. No kidding. This professor was
obviously not racist, a victim though of his own Political Correctness.
I
didn't feel this was a victory but that he had been mistreated, albeit
ironically. I faced similar situations. I will never forget how my job
interview at another university, the only time I ever applied for a
teaching position, was interrupted by one professor screaming at me,
“How could you ever possibly represent the narrative of the Palestinian
people?” To which I responded that I didn’t think I was supposed to represent its case, clearly. I merely thought I was supposed to teach about it.
Note
that the professor who would have been willing to hire me was an Arab
liberal. But he tried to hint to my naive younger self why I didn't have
a chance.
You should understand that at that time, in the early 1980s, I had never written about
the Arab-Israeli conflict. And although this professor had me in his
Arabic class, I don’t think he remembered me and certainly knew nothing
about me. I think the problem was my last name. All of this reminiscing
is prompted by a news story I just read.
An
Arab professor at Georgetown, a place that is flush with Arab money,
full of apologists for anti-American Islamism, a place where no Israeli
or pro-Israel student might dare to tread, has just launched a campaign
claiming that he was discriminated against and fired for anti-Israel bias! So this is how you handle things. You lie.
Take
over the university or relevant departments; spend 30 years or more in
biased hiring practices and dishonest, propagandist “scholarship;” and
no matter how many insiders know the truth, you still claim that the
university is biased against the left and the defamers of America and Israel!
And those who don’t know better may believe it. The
problem for this Egyptian professor is that there was no organized
campaign against him, and no one outside the university knew who he was.
The fact is that his scholarly work wasn't very good. Highly
politicized, though obscure media appearances are still not sufficient
to demonstrate research excellence.
You
could call this the Juan Cole principle after a radical professor whose
radical pronouncements on contemporary Middle East issues were
frequent--though he was a specialist on Middle Ages religious
disputes--and who missed out on a good job (at Duke) because of his lack
of scholarly work, then claimed bias.
It
was sufficient in a notorious case at Columbia University for a
crackpot extremist to get a promotion but not at Duke University. At any
rate, we now see that crying bias is the first refuge of scoundrels.
The real victims never get far enough along in the process for them to
build a case and can never muster support from a biased media either.If you want to understand how the far left controls campuses, consider this story.
“Of
course!” I said, stopping myself from adding that it was an honor.
Without any small talk, he launched into a subject that clearly weighed
on his conscience. “There are many who don’t like your people.”
What was he talking about? I thought, is he talking about Jews?
He
explained that he had just come from a meeting where it was made clear
that the university had a problem. They were getting Arab money, but on
the secret condition that it was for teaching about the Middle East but none of it could be used to teach about Israel. How was this problem to be solved?
Simple.
They would call the institution to be created the Center for
Contemporary Arab Studies. It was explicitly expressed that this was
how the problem would be dealt with. Quigley was disgusted. Ever since
then, I have referred to that institution as the Center for Contemporary
Arab Money.
Georgetown
was the place where the university accepted tens of thousands of
dollars from Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi--who was, of course, very
active in promoting anti-American terrorism--to establish an endowed
chair in Middle East studies. When the president of the university
backed down due to bad publicity, the professor who had been named to
the post responded by calling the Jesuit university president a “Jesuit
Zionist.”
This
same professor--and I am not joking in saying that compared to today,
he was a fine scholar and a comparatively decent man given what goes on
now--was also a personal friend of Palestinian terrorist leader
Nayif Hawatmeh and an outspoken Marxist.
To
his credit, he told me in 1974 on a visit of mine to Lebanon, “One day
we will be ashamed of all the terrorism [against Israel].” But I don’t
think he ever spoke out publicly. At my Ph.D. oral exams, he said
something like this as his question: “I don’t care whether you believe
it or not, but give the Marxist analysis of development in the Middle
East.” He did not ask me to critique it! As a Marxist, atheist though, the son of a Muslim imam,
he did participate in the traditional glass of scotch after they passed
me. And they did pass me, something I would never assume might happen
today. These professors really did believe in scholarship and balance in
the classroom.
Another
professor (you can guess I was sure he was not on my board), however,
was an example of the new generation of indoctrinators. He had served in
the Peace Corps and adopted two Kurdish children in the shah-era. One
day, I was standing in the line in the campus post office shortly after I
had clashed with him in class. The two girls, I could overhear, were
talking about the disturbing incident in class. To my relief, they took
my side. I guess that, too, wouldn't happen today.
I
guess we should have also known better from the fate of the professor
who I had openly argued with. He was the new-style leftist referred to
above, the kind who is typical today. While I disliked him, he was
clearly not a racist but the very model of the new Politically Correct
falsifier. He was fired after being accused by an African student of
alleged racial bias due to his low grade. No kidding. This professor was
obviously not racist, a victim though of his own Political Correctness.
Note
that the professor who would have been willing to hire me was an Arab
liberal. But he tried to hint to my naive younger self why I didn't have
a chance.
You should understand that at that time, in the early 1980s, I had never written about
the Arab-Israeli conflict. And although this professor had me in his
Arabic class, I don’t think he remembered me and certainly knew nothing
about me. I think the problem was my last name. All of this reminiscing
is prompted by a news story I just read. An Arab professor at
Georgetown, a place that is flush with Arab money, full of apologists
for anti-American Islamism, a place where no Israeli or pro-Israel
student might dare to tread, has just launched a campaign claiming that
he was discriminated against and fired for anti-Israel bias! So this is how you handle things. You lie.
Take
over the university or relevant departments; spend 30 years or more in
biased hiring practices and dishonest, propagandist “scholarship;” and
no matter how many insiders know the truth, you still claim that the
university is biased against the left and the defamers of America and Israel!
Published on PJ Media,
Published on PJ Media,
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