[A-List] neo-McCarthyism in action

["Craven, Jim" <jcraven@xxxxxxxxx>]

The following was forwarded to me with the suggestion that I stay out of
this; of course I can't. I had already forwarded something like the
following:

Dear(?) Fascist Scum:

Please add me to your blacklist as I have also lectured and written
extensively on Middle East issues and for precisely the same reasons that I
stand against any and all forms/sources of anti-Semitism I also stand
against Zionism: Zionism = racism; Zionism = fascism; Zionism = imperialism;
Zionism = neo-colonialism; Zionism = genocide; Zionism = blasphemy against
real Judaism; Zionism = anti-Semitism; etc.

James M. Craven
Member, Blackfoot Nation



Subject: Stay out of it Jim ;o)~ Couldnt resist! Neal.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0928-03.htm


Published on Saturday, September 28, 2002 in the San Francisco Chronicle
Professors Want Own Names Put on Mideast Blacklist [NL]They hope to make it
powerless[NL][NL]
by Tanya Schevitz

In an effort to counter what they label as a McCarthyesque hunt by a
pro-Israel think tank, about 100 professors from across the country have
asked to be added to a "Campus Watch" Web site that singled out eight
professors because of their views on Palestine and Islam. [PARA]The Web site
lists "dossiers" for the eight university professors and teachers, including
a graduate student instructor from UC Berkeley, and portrays them as
preaching dangerous rhetoric to students. The site also calls them "hostile"
to America. [PARA]Run by the Middle East Forum, a Philadelphia think tank,
the site, www. campus-watch.org, also asks for people to snitch on Middle
East lectures, classes and demonstrations. [PARA]"We are all ill-served by
the mistakes, intolerance, the extremism, the duplicity, that one finds in
Middle Eastern studies," said Daniel Pipes, president of the Middle East
Forum. "Middle Eastern studies is in an Enron- type crisis. . . . We are
putting a spotlight on what we consider to be a problem." [PARA]But Judith
Butler, a UC Berkeley professor of rhetoric and comparative literature, said
it is an intimidation tactic. [PARA]The professors listed on the site have
been spammed with tens of thousands of racist, obscene and threatening
e-mails. [PARA]"If a group establishes a Web site and says, 'We are watching
you,' that has a very chilling impact on academic freedom," said Butler, who
was one of the first to ask to be added to the list. "The more people who
actively volunteer themselves for such a list, the less that power of
intimidation works." [PARA]This is among recent tensions on university
campuses regarding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. [PARA]Last week,
Harvard University President Lawrence Summers expressed his concern that a
call by students for divestment of university endowment funds from Israel is
an example of anti-Semitic actions. [PARA]But Butler, who is Jewish, said
there is "a very fundamental mistake in assuming that any position critical
of contemporary Israeli policy is anti- Semitic. One can be pro-Israel and
be extremely critical of (Prime Minister) Ariel Sharon and the occupation."
[PARA]Pipes said he started the site to monitor anti-Israel sentiment
because he saw Middle Eastern studies as a monotheistic field where
alternative viewpoints are not heard. [PARA]"The ivory tower has this
privileged notion that no one can complain," Pipes said. [PARA]The Campus
Watch Web site had received about 20,000 hits since it went up last week, he
said. [PARA]The professors who have asked to be included on the Web site may
be put on a new list under a label of people who associate themselves with
"suicide bombings and militants," Pipes said. [PARA]Professor Hamid Dabashi,
chairman of the department of Middle East and Asian languages and cultures
at Columbia University, said in an e-mail Friday that he is "honored" that
so many of his colleagues across the country have chosen to speak out
against the site by offering their names for the list. [PARA]"I have
received more moral support and endorsement of my career as a teacher and a
scholar over the last couple of weeks than ever before," he said. [PARA]". .
. I have a stake in being party to voices of civilized dissent against this
horrific environment of fear, violence and intimidation that the likes of
Daniel Pipes want to perpetuate so that only their views are heard."
[PARA]The list includes Stanford University, UC Berkeley and San Francisco
State University among 15 institutions to watch. For UC Berkeley, the site
gives information about graduate student Snehal Shingavi, whose dossier is
listed with the targeted professors, because of a controversy over a course
on Palestinian poetry that he is teaching. The site says one class at the
University of Chicago is an "extended rant against Israel" and that
professors referred to modern Israel as Palestine. [PARA]Rashid Khalidi, a
professor of Middle Eastern history and director for the Center for
International Studies at the University of Chicago, who is listed on the
site, said it is filled with "vicious lies" about the institutions and
individuals. [PARA]He is especially offended that the site says Middle East
studies has become the preserve of Middle Eastern Arabs who have brought
their views with them and that the academics generally seem to dislike the
United States. [PARA]"This imputation of un-Americanism, which is a theme in
the writings of these people, is very damaging to our democracy and debate,"
Khalidi said. "It is a kind of gutter name-calling." [PARA](c)2002 San
Francisco Chronicle