Mark LeVine is a professor at UC Irvine and senior columnist for Al Jazeera English. That’s the Qatar-based news outlet that is funded by the ruling family of Qatar. He is also a “distinguished visiting professor” at the University of Lund’s Centre for Middle Eastern Studies in Sweden, or at least, that’s how his highly impressive personal web page describes it as well as his Al Jazeera articles. The Lund University’s current web page (in both Swedish andEnglish) lists him as a “guest researcher” or “Gästforskare”. I am not sure what the difference is, but what the heck, I’m sure he’s an important figure there.
And I must say that’s a most impressive web page. This man has done everything but invent the telephone.
“Mark LeVine is a leader of the new generation of scholars of the modern Middle East and Islam, Globalization, and Popular Culture, and an award winning musician who has performed with many world renown (sic) artists.”
“Ah wunnerful, ah wunnerful, ah.”
Anyway, a couple of weeks ago at UC Irvine, LeVine blew up at me when I had the temerity to call him an “anti-Israel activist”. “That was slander,” he told me.
Perish the thought.
Equally slanderous (and perhaps, outdated) is this article devoted to LeVine by Discover the Networks. In this article, LeVine is painted as a harsh critic of not just Israel, but the US and capitalism as well.
Rather than let the above article stand without challenge, I decided to pull up something more recent from Mark’s Al Jazeera columns in Israel’s defense.
For example, there was one piecehe co-wrote with some other “pro-Israel” professor from UCLA by the name of Gil Hochberg, This is the one where they addressed comments by actor Jon Voight during the most recent Gaza fighting.
But I had already written about that.
Back in July, Mark also wrote this piece for Al Jazeera which I found-again on the Gaza issue.
But I had already writtenabout that as well.
Back in March, Mark wrote this piece for Al Jazeera in defense of another noted friend of Israel, Professor Judith Butler. Now that was one I had not previously written about.
However, you can see that I am having a really hard time finding any articles LeVine has written in Israel’s defense. That’s why I turn to you, Dear Reader for help. Perhaps, you have more time on your hands to search, or perhaps, you have a better web browser. Please send me whatever you can find so that I may consider it for mention on Fousesquawk. Naturally, I will give full attribution.
(If you really want me too. You can send it anonymously, if you prefer.)