Only academe could take seriously something like the “Darrell Norman Burrell Interfaith and Religious Diversity and Inclusion Model” (DIM) as a counter to “Islamophobia.” Yet such intellectual absurdities characterize Middle East studies (MES), despite the surprising intellectual diversity displayed at the daylong Middle East Dialogue (MED) conference in Washington, DC.
DIM’s academic namesake rehashed an error-ridden presentation on “Islamophobia” from last year’s annual MED before about a dozen listeners in the congregation hall of the capital’s Friends Meeting House. They were among about fifty conference-goers who attended various panels throughout the day. One of Burrell’s slides declared that “Islamophobia” is “close-minded prejudice against or hatred of Islam and Muslims,” although critical evaluation of Islam does not equal prejudice, and precisely this term was coined to end, not advance, debate.
Burrell’s portrayal of Muslims as mere victims of bigotry directly contradicted the immediately preceding lecture by Rice University Baker Institute researcher A. Kadir Yildirim. In his analysis of Middle East and North Africa (MENA) survey data, Yildirim warned that “extremist religious discourse has a sizable following.” In Jordan, for example, the Islamic State’s genocidal “caliph,” Abu Bakri al-Baghdadi, “has the most influence of all religious leaders.”
Even more disturbing, according to Yildirim, is the limited ability of MENA region “state religious officials” to counteract such ideologies. “The moment they are associated with U.S. foreign policy; the moment they are viewed as agents of moderation, so to speak, by the broad population, they are going to lose all their credibility and legitimacy,” he stated. By contrast, Turkey’s emerging Islamic dictator Recep Tayyip Erdoğan “is incredibly popular in at least nine countries” covered by the survey.
Earlier, during the conference’s opening plenary address, George Windsor, the Earl of St. Andrews, acknowledged that political Islam presents problems for Western societies such as the United Kingdom. Islam in Britain has been “challenging for our generally easygoing, secular society,” he noted. The conference’s rhetoric of “diversity and inclusion” aside, Windsor observed that “multiculturalism is perhaps something that we were too complacent about.”
In the breakout session following Burrell and Yildirim, Ray Matsumiya from the University of the Middle East Project (UME) hinted at why Muslims living in free countries so often oppose critical debate about their history. As his submitted paper stated, UME’s Oleander Initiative “gathers high school teachers from throughout the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region and the U.S. to Hiroshima, Japan to co-design peace education projects for their students.” In his lecture, Matsumiya cited the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima as a “learning platform” for societies seeking reconciliation following devastating conflict.
The phrase “Forgive but never forget” emblazoned on one of Matsumiya’s slides, was a lesson his grandfather derived from surviving Hiroshima’s annihilation. Yet Matsumiya conceded that illiberal MENA societies prefer forgetfulness to painful enlightenment, a destructive trait that prevents them from emulating Germany and Japan’s postwar cultural transformations from totalitarianism. “For obvious reasons you can’t talk about the Holocaust or the Armenian genocide in Middle East classrooms; it’s much too political,” he stated.
In the same session, Johns Hopkins University Professor Steven R. David sought to address the various “Threats to Israel’s Existence,” including a potential nuclear attack from Iran. However, David emphasized not so much external “hard threats” as supposed internal “soft threats to Israel.” He claimed that Israeli right-wing forces are “pushing Israel evermore to be a Jewish state, and less of a democratic state,” while alleging falsely that discrimination against Israeli-Arabs is turning them into “second-class citizens in Israel.”
During a later presentation, Gettysburg College professor Aisha Mershani proffered rank agitprop against the Jewish state. Mershani, holder of a “Ph.D. in peace studies,” displayed her “Photographs of the Palestinian Popular Struggle,” while concluding bizarrely that “there is a long history of Palestinian nonviolent movements” and “Zionism is violence.” She even claimed that “mainstream media narratives in the U.S. position Israel as a victim of Palestinian violence and depict Israeli actions against Palestinians as self-defense. Extensive research has proven this narrative false.” Such blatant bias typifies the scholarly view of Israel on campuses nationwide.
Predictably, Mershani whined that the “work I do makes it difficult for me to find jobs.” She cited fellow Israel-hating academics Rabab Abdulhadi and Steven Salaita as examples of those who have supposedly been “fired, blacklisted.” (For the record, Abdulhadi is safely employed at SFSU, while Salaita has made himself unwelcome worldwide.) Mershani remarked that Congresswoman “Ilhan Omar said it perfectly” in the anti-Semitic tweets about the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) that she later claimed were merely criticism of a “lobbyist group.”
A subsequent panel offered more unoriginal polemics, this time against President Donald Trump, as well as commonplace Middle East studies apologias for Iran. University of Maryland Professor Sahar Khamis condemned Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement because the “reasonable voices have been saying that was an excellent treaty.” Coppin State University Professor Ahmed Y. Zohny praised President Barack Obama for trying “to create balance between Shia and Sunni in the Middle Eastern region” by appeasing the Iranian regime.
Haifa University Professor Mark Silinsky and his daughter Leah, who works for Washington, D.C.’s National Defense University, gave a far more realistic appraisal of Iran. “Khomeinism fused Islamism with Shia revivalism and with elements of fascism and socialism,” one of Mark Silinsky’s slides stated correctly. Iran’s leaders “mean what they say,” as did totalitarians Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin, Silensky warned. “God help us if they do get nuclear weapons”; it will be a “tremendous threat.”
The Silenskys and others offered some bright spots, but otherwise a predictably politicized approach to Middle East studies continued to dominate the MED. The conference’s saving grace was its commitment – however small – to old-fashioned liberal intellectual inquiry and interchange, even as other MES institutions adhere to rigid biases against America, Israel, and the West. Academia as a whole could draw a valuable lesson from this approach, however slim the chances of such a welcome return to rigor, balance, and objectivity.
Andrew E. Harrod is a Campus Watch Fellow, freelance researcher, and writer who holds a Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a J.D. from George Washington University Law School. He is a fellow with the Lawfare Project. Follow him on Twitter at @AEHarrod.