How is Middle East studies academia addressing the rise of ISIS? All too often, by denying the group's Islamic supremacist ideology, blaming "Islamophobia" or "grievances," and equating its atrocities with the defense of the U.S. and Israel. Reporting for Campus Watch, CW West Coast representative Cinnamon Stillwell examines these professors in their own words. Her article appears today at FrontPage Magazine:
President Obama's infamous proclamation that ISIS (the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) is "not Islamic" was received sympathetically within the ranks of Middle East studies. While many scholars of Islam and the Middle East have condemned ISIS's heinous actions, a stubborn refusal to acknowledge their theological underpinnings lingers. Those who do concede ISIS's Islamic supremacism are branded "Islamphobes." Others attribute ISIS's rampage of mass murder, beheadings, rape, slavery, and strict Sharia law in pursuit of a caliphate to Western-inspired "grievances" or "root causes."