CW-commissioned pieces appeared today and yesterday. Stephen Schwartz takes a close look at the Model Arab League in “Model Middle East Indoctrination,” which appeared Sunday at American Thinker. What he found should concern parents of students in high school and college who participate in this seemingly benign enterprise:
Most Americans, even many of those concerned with the problems of academic Middle East Studies, have probably never heard of the Model Arab League (MAL), an American exercise similar to the better-known Model United Nations. The stated aim of such efforts is to expand awareness of world affairs among high school and college students. Participants compete in regional role-playing sessions as representatives of constituent countries in the corresponding world bodies and receive awards for their performance. They are then sent to contend at “nationals” held in Washington, D.C. and similar to matches sponsored by many other student societies and sports associations.
But the Model Arab League could be described better as a propaganda network for Arab nationalism, including promotion of the Arab states’ hostile postures toward Israel, than as a contributor to excellence in international studies or debate.
A lecture last week at the UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies (CNES) offered a delightful mixture of intellectually deficient material mixed with a dash of bigotry.
It was delivered by Joseph Massad, associate professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual history at Columbia University.
People in the private sector compensate for inadequacies by purchasing expensive cars. In academia, they just give themselves long titles.
The topic of Massad’s lecture was – I kid you not – “Pre-Positional Conjunctions: Sexuality and/in Islam.”
