Middle East Studies Vital for Education

Letter to the editor

Failure of the University in a vital area of the curriculum is pronounced. That was obvious in the Feb. 25 Emerald guest commentary by alumna Jondwlyn Thomas. She describes the political curriculum at the University as deficient because it does not have a Middle East program. No study is more important than one on the area where we keep funneling troops.

This issue is not new. For more than a decade, Oregon’s leading authority on the Middle East, a man who has visited Iran many times in that period, repeatedly has aired the question. His views have been ignored at the University. News media outlets in the Middle East, however, contacted him for his insights as the area began to collapse. There was a heavy-handed response to my published letter, which said a broad program of Middle East studies is essential because a then-new Judaic studies program gave unbalanced attention on campus to the Israeli perspective.

Three professors wrote separate published letters, each calling me anti-Semitic. I received that inaccurate accusation despite my commentary in the Emerald criticizing the Mel Gibson film, “Passion of the Christ,” because of some of the anti-Semitic dialogue. No Jewish readers — including my three critics — were willing to publicly express that view. The reaction of my critics fuels a concern: Is there a campus conspiracy to subtly discourage balanced classroom narratives on the Middle East?

I doubt it. But the suspicion will fester so long as the University chooses to inadequately enlighten students on the most critical area of our world.

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