THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XIV, Issue # 37, February 28, 2012
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
MIDDLE EAST STUDIES IN THE NEWS:
UCLA "Conflict Resolution" Program Features
Anti-Israel Professors on Both Sides
By Cinnamon Stillwell
CONFLICT RESOLUTION, THE MIDDLE EAST, & THE ISRAELI-ARAB CONFLICT: UCLA'S IDEA OF PUBLIC LECTURES, ACADEMIC COURSES, & EDUCATIONAL
PROGRAMS FOSTERING CIVIL DISCOURSE & THE PEACEFUL RESOLUTION OF CONFLICTS -- UCLA PLANNING A BIASED & UNBALANCED PRESENTATION DEALING
WITH THE POLITICAL VIOLENCE IN ISRAEL & PALESTINE -- ANTI-ISRAELI & PRO-ARAB PROFESSORS REPRESENTING BOTH SIDES IN THE DEBATE OVER THE
CONFLICT BETWEEN THE ISRAELI JEWS & THE PALESTINIAN ARABS
FULL STORY:
This just in from the UCLA Newsroom:
UCLA is launching a series of public lectures, academic courses, and educational programs aimed at fostering civil discourse and the peaceful resolution of conflicts.
UCLA Chancellor Gene Block will be among those teaching courses, along with experts on mediation and professors who have opposing viewpoints on politically
charged issues.
"It is our obligation to equip students for success in a complicated and interconnected world," Block said in an email announcing the effort to the campus
community. "From UCLA, alumnus Ralph Bunche, who won the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts as a mediator in the Middle East, to the class of 2012, UCLA
has sought to train the next generation of leaders who will help resolve conflict, here in California and around the world."
And who has been chosen to initiate the first of these enlightened, peace-loving lectures on the Arab-Israeli conflict? None other than Saree Makdisi, a UCLA
English professor, nephew of the infamous Edward Said, and a well-known anti-Israel ideologue. In addition to promoting the usual canards about Israeli
"apartheid" and imaginary atrocities, Makdisi routinely churns out op-eds and delivers lectures promoting the socalled "one-state solution," in which Israel, in its
current form, ceases to exist. As he put it in a June, 2011, lecture at the University of Pennsylvania, the Jews -- without a state and surrounded by twenty-two
Arab-majority states -- will have to "just get on with their lives." In other words, Makdisi is hardly an ideal candidate to teach about "conflict resolution."
Presumably representing the pro-Israel perspective in this seminar will be David N. Myers, former Director of the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies and current
Chair of the History Department:
Myers has been actively involved in ongoing campus efforts to create a safe, respectful environment where divergent points of view can be discussed and
debated, as laid out in UCLA's Principles of Community. These principles promote the mediation and resolution of conflicts that arise from the historical and
divisive biases inherent in modern societies.
To further those efforts, Myers teamed up with his friend and colleague Saree Makdisi, a professor of English and Comparative Literature, to teach a Fiat Lux
undergraduate seminar this quarter called "Learning to Talk About Israel and Palestine."
Although Myers and Makdisi hold different views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they hope to inculcate in their students a shared commitment to
impassioned, but civil, exchanges on contentious issues.
The problem is that Myers, although claiming to "hold different views" from Makdisi, is hardly unbiased. His response to a Center for Near Eastern
Studies-sponsored 2009 symposium titled "Gaza and Human Rights" that garnered widespread condemnation for its anti-Israel invective (Myers's buddy,
Makdisi, one the speakers, asserted that "the goal of Israel is to deliberately starve children") was tepid at best. It's little wonder, since a Jewish Journal of
Los Angeles article on the subject described Myers as having himself "publicly protested the level of Israeli force used in Gaza."
Beyond that, Myers, as noted in the April, 2011 Campus Watch article, "Anti-Israel Jewish Studies":
". . . employed all the usual clichés -- 'cycle of violence,' 'disproportionately
harsh' -- to single Israel out as 'the most responsible party' for the 'escalating
violence' in a July, 2006, Los Angeles Times op-ed. In a piece titled,
'Rethinking the Jewish Nation' in the Winter, 2011, edition of the Havruta
Journal, Myers argued that 'Statist Zionism,' or a Jewish state, should
give way to a 'global Jewish collective.'"
On one side we have a professor who believes Israel should no longer exist as a Jewish state, and on the other a professor who also believes Israel should no
longer exist as a Jewish state.
Looks like there won't be any conflicts to resolve after all.
Originally Published by Campus Watch, February 27, 2012
Republished with the Permission of Campus Watch & the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from Campus Watch, February 27, 2012
URL: http://www.campus-watch.org/blog/2012/02/ucla-conflict-resolution-program-features-anti
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Israel, Arabs, & the Islamic Middle East -- The Israeli-Arab Conflict;
Israeli Politics, Government, & Public Policy -- Public Issues & Controversies;
The State of Israel in War & Peace -- Israel's Role in International Relations;
Israeli Military Defense & National Security -- The Israeli Economy
Education, Training, & America's Schools:
U.S. Institutions of Elementary, Secondary, & Higher Education:
Schools, Colleges, & Universities As Instruments of Political Propaganda:
Propaganda Platforms in the Islamist Jihad Against America & the West
The Islamist Fifth Column -- America's Internal Enemies:
Disloyalty, Subversion, Sedition, & Treason
The Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States, & Their Regional Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Islamism & Jihadism -- Radical Islam & Islamic Terrorism
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Cinnamon Stillwell is the West Coast Representative for Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum. She can be
reached at stillwell@meforum.org.
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