Copyright 2009 Middle East Forum Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:12:02 -0500 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Middle East Forum :: Writings http://www.meforum.org webmaster@meforum.org (Middle East Forum) webmaster@meforum.org en-us http://www.meforum.org/2512/nidal-hasan-fort-hood-muslim-doctrine Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:33:32 EST One of the difficulties in discussing Islam's more troubling doctrines is that they have an anachronistic, even otherworldly, feel to them; that is, unless actively and openly upheld by Muslims, non-Muslims, particularly of the Western variety, tend to http://www.meforum.org/2510/fort-hood-academic-apologists Sun, 15 Nov 2009 10:40:27 EST In the wake of the horrific attack at the Fort Hood military base in Texas earlier this month, and the mounting evidence that the shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, was motivated by Islamist beliefs, the media has turned to Middle East studies "experts" http://www.meforum.org/2498/opposition-un-resolutions-banning-defamation-of-religion Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:47:57 EST PHILADELPHIA – The Legal Project has joined the Becket Fund for Religious Freedom and over 100 other non-governmental organizations from around the world, in a joint statement decrying the danger to free speech rights posed by a series of pending UN http://www.meforum.org/2496/islamist-perfidy-western-naivety Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:59:38 EST In a blog entry for Islamist Watch, David J. Rusin shows how the word "jihad" continues to be euphemized in the West. Despite Islamic law's unequivocal portrayal of it as a military endeavor to empower Islam, jihad is still being peddled as "nothing more http://www.meforum.org/2495/dont-take-netanyahu-to-the-woodshed Mon, 9 Nov 2009 13:54:34 EST Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Washington on Sunday following weeks of speculation about whether he would be met by U.S. President Barack Obama during the visit. When his plane took off, there was still with no word from the White http://www.meforum.org/2493/daniel-huff-appointed-legal-project-director Tue, 3 Nov 2009 00:07:47 EST PHILADELPHIA – The Middle East Forum is pleased to announce the appointment of Daniel Huff as director of the Legal Project. Mr. Huff succeeds Brooke Goldstein who led the Project since 2007. Dedicated to providing legal aid for anti-Islamist researchers http://www.meforum.org/blog/obama-mideast-monitor/2009/11/j-street-allied-to-goldstone Mon, 2 Nov 2009 21:03:20 EST I haven't posted for a while, but this is remarkable. Michael Goldfarb at the Weekly Standard discovered ("J Street Adviser Morton Halperin Goes to Work for Goldstone") that a letter purportedly written by Judge Richard Goldstone to criticize a House of http://www.meforum.org/2490/dalia-mogahed-excuses Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:54:28 EST As reported last week by Campus Watch, Dalia Mogahed, appointee to President Obama's Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, executive director and senior analyst of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, and co-author, along with Georgetown http://www.meforum.org/2489/anti-americanism-muslim-world Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:07:54 EST I have always viewed push-up bras as false advertising, but does wearing one deserve a whipping because of their "deceptive" and "un-Islamic" nature? I don't know, but the controlling Islamist Shabaab party of Somalia seems to think so. And if our bras http://www.meforum.org/2485/sharia-law-promote-women-rights Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:20:02 EST In thinking about women's rights, sharia law, or Islamic law, doesn't typically come to mind. Yet, according to a survey conducted by Dalia Mogahed, executive director and senior analyst of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies and appointee to President http://www.meforum.org/2484/juan-cole-between-madison-and-the-mullahs Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:19:41 EST Juan Cole, the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan, produces a steady stream of writings that downplays the threat radical Islam poses to America and the West. His opinions are at odds with the beliefs of http://www.meforum.org/2482/columbia-university-whitewashes-un-arab-states Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:15:52 EST With all the irony of President Richard Nixon's famous quip that, "there can be no whitewash at the White House," the ivory tower played host to a September 25 "debate" at Columbia University's Casa Italiano that exonerated the United Nations Relief http://www.meforum.org/2481/unrwa-at-60-better-alternatives Mon, 12 Oct 2009 10:58:26 EST Abstract The United Nations Relief and Work Agency for the Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) was established in 1948 as a temporary relief agency. In spite of its failure to solve the refugee problem, it has been renewed and expanded for 60 years, with http://www.meforum.org/2480/black-nationalism-african-american-islamist-movement Sun, 11 Oct 2009 12:10:28 EST "America needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem," Malcolm X wrote in 1964 during his pilgrimage to Mecca. Though Malcolm's anti-white rhetoric was moderated after his conversion from the http://www.meforum.org/2479/question-to-osama-bin-laden-islamist Thu, 8 Oct 2009 13:12:21 EST Ever since 9/11, when Osama bin Laden was thrust into the spotlight, he has made it a point to occasionally submit questions to Americans — questions which he apparently thinks are unanswerable. In his last message "commemorating" 9/11, for instance, http://www.meforum.org/2477/dont-sacrifice-human-rights-for-iran-diplomacy Wed, 7 Oct 2009 09:10:38 EST Iranians who took to the streets this summer to protest electoral fraud failed to win a new election. But they nevertheless returned concerns about the Islamic republic's human rights record to the international stage. On June 20, U.S. President Barack http://www.meforum.org/2476/bad-options-on-iran Mon, 5 Oct 2009 08:39:28 EST On October 1, President Barack Obama ascended the podium in the Diplomatic Reception Room at the White House and declared negotiations with Iran a tentative success. "The P5-plus-1 is united, and we have an international community that has reaffirmed its http://www.meforum.org/2474/more-than-talk-iran-stonewalling Wed, 30 Sep 2009 07:07:19 EST Tomorrow, U.S. diplomats and their Russian, Chinese and European counterparts will join Iranian officials to discuss the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. The meeting follows new Iranian missile tests and exposure of a second covert Iranian nuclear http://www.meforum.org/2467/stuck-in-the-middle-east Fri, 18 Sep 2009 03:04:43 EST Eight months into his presidency, Barack Obama is fast approaching his first real moment of truth on the Middle East. At the opening of the U.N. General Assembly session next week, the U.S. president will host a ceremonial summit between Israeli Prime http://www.meforum.org/2463/remembering-9-11-eight-years-later Sat, 12 Sep 2009 14:36:25 EST Eight years after the Islamic terrorist attacks of 9/11, it appears that America has largely drifted back into complacency. Certainly, many Americans still understand that the threat of repeated attacks remains real, but the sense of urgency has faded http://www.meforum.org/2456/british-government-lockerbie-bomber Wed, 2 Sep 2009 07:43:17 EST On Aug. 20, Scottish authorities freed Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the only man convicted in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie. Even though he was sentenced to life in prison, he served just over 11 days for each http://www.meforum.org/2509/brief-reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:35:20 EST http://www.meforum.org/2508/still-broken Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:30:49 EST Rossmiller dedicates the first half of Still Broken to his Iraq experience. Analysts worked 14-hour days, processing data and maintaining a database of questionable accuracy. Rossmiller describes catching obvious errors—Sunni insurgents with names like http://www.meforum.org/2507/reform-in-the-middle-east-oil-monarchies Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:28:07 EST The six Persian Gulf monarchies—Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman—have for decades been undergoing sustained economic development that was matched by little if any political reform. Reform in the Middle East Oil http://www.meforum.org/2506/the-quest-for-democracy-in-iran Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:25:56 EST The Western picture of Iran is of authoritarianism with clerical rule following centuries of shahs—punctuated by Mohammed Mossadegh, an eccentric, 1950s prime minister supported by pro-Soviet forces. Azimi, a history professor at the University of http://www.meforum.org/2505/persian-dreams Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:23:46 EST Each of us looks at the world through our own glasses. The same developments can appear quite differently when examined through a different set of eyes. Parker, a division chief at the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Intelligence and Research, http://www.meforum.org/2504/the-palestinian-military Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:21:18 EST Frisch, a senior research fellow at Israel's BESA Center for Strategic Studies and senior lecturer at the department of political studies at Bar-Ilan University, argues that it is easier to develop a terrorist infrastructure than to unite one's forces http://www.meforum.org/2503/the-much-too-promised-land Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:12:14 EST A key player on the U.S. "peace team" during three administrations, Miller is well-placed to compare and evaluate the different approaches, personalities, and outcomes of the efforts of these three U.S. administrations. The author adds to the flood of http://www.meforum.org/2502/in-search-of-the-moderate-muslim Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:03:47 EST Some analysts divide the Muslim population into two camps, extremists and moderates. That moderates make up the vast majority has become a linchpin of media reporting and government policy. Davies, a sociologist, self-described practicing Christian, and http://www.meforum.org/2501/architects-of-delusion Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:00:25 EST Serfaty, a professor of U.S. foreign policy at Old Dominion University, asks why in 2003, the United States and Great Britain chose war with Iraq while France and Germany resisted it. Chapters separately examine each country as Serfaty tries to explain http://www.meforum.org/2500/al-qaeda-in-its-own-words Fri, 13 Nov 2009 06:57:37 EST Al Qaeda in Its Own Words provides the translated writings of four jihadis—Abdullah Azzam, Osama bin Laden, Ayman Zawahiri, and Abu Musab Zarqawi. Edited by five people with Kepel, a French sociologist of Islam, as lead editor, it contains a wealth of http://www.meforum.org/2497/salah-uddin-shoaib-choudhury-dissident Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:17:22 EST Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury's struggle in Bangladesh has played out dramatically: his 2003 arrest; his 2005 release;[1] middle of the night battles to prevent his re-incarceration; accolades for his stance as a "Muslim Zionist";[2] and resolutions from http://www.meforum.org/2494/israel-and-the-family-of-nations Wed, 4 Nov 2009 07:36:27 EST It is one of the great shames of the modern world that there is still a question as to whether Israel has a right to exist in its present form or any form at all. Despite the relative insecurity of the country militarily, this problem was absent during http://www.meforum.org/2491/cyprus-crossroads Sun, 1 Nov 2009 14:45:14 EST Cyprus is an island boxed in on three sides by Turkey and the countries of the Levant. On the streets of its divided capital Nicosia, silence prevails, except for the tick-tack sounds coming from the tables of the city's backgammon players, who gather http://www.meforum.org/2486/somalia-al-shabaab-strategic-challenge Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:03:39 EST Since emerging from an era of colonialism under Italy and Britain, Somalia has passed through military dictatorship, famine, and civil war to regional fragmentation. In the modern period, Americans best remember the loss of U.S. military personnel that http://www.meforum.org/2483/nagorno-karabakh-limbo Wed, 14 Oct 2009 13:18:46 EST Nagorno-Karabakh is an almost forgotten land in the South Caucasus. Little known outside its region, it languishes as an unrecognized state. For fifteen years it has hovered on the margins of the state system fulfilling the empirical criteria of http://www.meforum.org/2478/suicide-bombing-as-worship Thu, 8 Oct 2009 11:35:30 EST Many motives are cited for suicide bombings, from religious sanctification to revenge for Western foreign policy to hatred of Israel, but one thing ties them together: the boast that Muslims love death, whereas their enemies love life. From killing the http://www.meforum.org/2473/targeting-israelis-international-law Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:50:18 EST Based on principles derived from the Hague and Geneva conventions, individuals have been brought to trial for war crimes, crimes against peace, and crimes against humanity. The outstanding examples of such trials were those held at Nuremberg after World http://www.meforum.org/2472/from-the-commentary-of-tabari Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:00:01 EST Few have commented on the book purporting to be the literal word of God as successfully as Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Jarir at-Tabari (838-923), an Iranian scholar of considerable intellect and perception, and the author of a 30-volume commentary on the http://www.meforum.org/2469/peace-process-or-war-process Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:04:32 EST When Barack Obama announced in June 2009 about Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy, "I'm confident that if we stick with it, having started early, that we can make some serious progress this year," he displayed a touching, if naïve optimism. Indeed, his http://www.meforum.org/2464/quran-covenant-with-jewish-people Wed, 16 Sep 2009 13:38:34 EST Editors' preface: Who has rights to the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River? Zionists cite biblical passages in which God awarded them Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel, in perpetuity in his covenant with the children of Israel. http://www.meforum.org/2462/the-quran-israel-not-for-jews Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:19:21 EST Editors' preface: Who has rights to the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River? Zionists cite biblical passages in which God awarded them Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel, in perpetuity in his covenant with the children of Israel. http://www.meforum.org/2445/tariq-ramadan-repudiated Fri, 28 Aug 2009 09:06:32 EST In an important development for the fight against extremist Islam in the West, the Dutch city of Rotterdam and Erasmus University Rotterdam have dismissed Tariq Ramadan, the Swiss-born Islamist academic, from his two local jobs. Born in Switzerland, http://www.meforum.org/blog/obama-mideast-monitor/2009/08/progress-on-settlements-compromise Thu, 27 Aug 2009 09:31:06 EST One of the essential elements of a workable compromise on the settlement issue that has roiled Obama's relations with Netanyahu seems to be in the works. The Administration apparently recognizes that it made a mistake lumping construction inside the http://www.meforum.org/2441/westernizing-islamic-concepts Tue, 25 Aug 2009 11:16:37 EST Recently, Cathy Lynn Grossman of USA Today wrote an article about Muslim zakat, wherein I was referenced as a "critic of Islam." She then followed up with another article titled "Critic questions the aims and ends of Islamic charity," dedicated to http://www.meforum.org/blog/obama-mideast-monitor/2009/08/settlement-freeze-talks-accelerating Sun, 16 Aug 2009 09:00:00 EST The effort to close the gaps between the Israeli and American positions on the terms of a settlement freeze are accelerating. Netanyahu's top negotiator, Yitzhak Molcho, arrives in Washington Monday, to prepare for the Netanyahu/Mitchell meeting planned http://www.meforum.org/2438/zakat-muslim-charity-in-context Mon, 17 Aug 2009 12:31:11 EST From what American schoolchildren are being taught by their teachers to what Americans are being told by their presidents, concepts unique to Islam are nowadays almost always "Westernized." Whether the product of naivety, arrogance, or downright http://www.meforum.org/2436/norton-mezvinsky-legacy-future Sun, 16 Aug 2009 03:34:17 EST A newly formed "educational think tank," the International Council for Middle East Studies (ICMES), is poised to influence U.S. policy toward the Middle East in ways that could further harm American interests in the region. It will be led by Norton http://www.meforum.org/2461/saving-pakistan-from-itself Thu, 10 Sep 2009 04:32:09 EST Despite being born at the same time as India, Pakistan seems to be regressing while India becomes an increasingly influential player in global politics. This is because Pakistan has refused to end the feudal system unlike India. Pakistani land reforms http://www.meforum.org/2434/terrorist-in-the-ivory-tower Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:31:46 EST Do the ranks of Middle East studies professors include terrorists? If the allegations against University of Ottawa professor Hassan Diab are proved true, the answer will be yes. Diab, a Lebanese-born dual Canadian citizen and author of Beirut: Reviving