No Wonder American Students Are So Ignorant, Uninformed, Uneducated And Malleable

Who is Finding Their Way Into American Students’ Minds?

By Sarah N. Stern November 30, 2017 , 8:00 am

Congress will soon re-authorize Title VI of the Higher Educational Opportunities Act, a bill that was first introduced as the National Defense Education Act of 1958. The original legislative intent was to cultivate a consortium of university graduates who were best equipped to deal with the Soviet threat during the Cold War.

It was at a time when people in Washington began to notice how woefully ignorant American students were about foreign languages and cultures, so they crafted legislation that created regional studies departments—African Studies, Asian Studies, Latin Studies and Middle Eastern Studies—to educate our nation’s youngsters to equip them with the necessary tools to best deal with our adversaries.

But somehow, through the years, the original legislative intent of these programs has been turned on its head. Today, the U.S. government pours $65.1 million annually into various regional studies centers run by staffers who overwhelmingly possess strong anti-American and anti-Western biases that they are communicating with their students.

Even more pernicious is that in order to receive the grant, college professors must conduct workshops for librarians and for teachers of kindergarten through 12th grade. A study of the educational materials used in these teacher training workshops amounts to nothing more than “trickle down propaganda.”

The Middle Eastern Studies programs widely use a supplementary curriculum guide by Audrey Shabbas, called “The Arab World Studies Notebook”—a joint publication by the Middle East Policy Council, which receives its funding directly from Saudi Arabia, and the Arab World and Islamic Resources and School Services, which is bankrolled by Saudi Aramco, the oil conglomerate.

image: https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/28-BIN-OpEd-Experts-300x2501-300x250.png

When leafing through “The Arab World Studies Notebook,” one can easily find instructions on what the Quran teaches, including a lesson on the Quran’s commandments, descriptions of the five pillars of the Muslim faith, glorification of Muhammad, instructions on how to turn a classroom into a mosque and suggestions to “make a field trip” to such a place of worship. (One wonders if the ACLU would have long ago intervened if a Christian or Jewish teacher’s guide offered such blatant religious instructions.)

In the section on “Palestine,” complete untruths are told that are presented as though they are unassailable facts. For example, the material claims that “the Jews wanted to drive out all the Arabs.” And just in case one is not determined to intellectually accept the anti-Israel bias, the student is reached emotionally through the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish.

Darwish’s poems, including “Identity Card,” are as one-sided as they are emotionally galvanizing, such as:

Write Down!

I am an Arab

You have stolen the orchards of my ancestors

And the land which I cultivated

Along with my children

And you left nothing for us

Except for these rocks.

So will the State take them

As has been said?!

Saudi Arabia is not the only Islamic nation that is finding, or rather funding, its way into the minds of America’s youngest, most vulnerable, most impressionable children. In August, The Wall Street Journal reported that Qatar—a state which has long provided funding and logistical support for Al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, the al-Nusra Front and the Taliban—has been providing $30.6 million directly to school districts from New York to Oregon.

One has to wonder why the Muslim world, with a startling illiteracy rate of nearly 40 percent, has such an avid interest in the education of American youngsters.

Even though the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET), the organization that I founded, had worked in 2008 to amend Title VI of the Higher Educational Opportunities Act to “provide a diversity of perspectives,” any review of the writings of the professors of the Middle East programs demonstrates a profound anti-American and anti-Israeli bias.

Take for example a Nov. 14 Facebook post by Hamid Dabashi, the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University’s Middle Eastern Studies Program. Posted under a photo of Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, and Prince Mohammed bin Salman, it reads, “There is a reason why a small gang of European Zionists could land in Palestine and in broad daylight of history steal it under the feet of Palestinians.” Dabashi continued, “Like a rich brat teenager…[Salman] hides behind the wing of his Israeli and American protectors and benefactors buys them with his windblown wealth so that Jared Kushner’s Zionist kins can kill and rob Palestinians even more as they enable him to slaughter Yemeni women and children apace.”

It is simply appalling that our taxpayers’ dollars are helping to fund a professor with such blatant biases. This policy must end. Beyond that, no foreign government should be paying their way into the precious minds of our American students—either directly as Qatar does, or indirectly through Title VI of the Higher Educational Opportunities Act.

As long as our American youngsters receive this poisonous propaganda as a paltry substitute for a solid education of the region, we will never learn to acknowledge and appreciate the extremist ideology of radical Islam that is trying to defeat us. Our enemy has never relented in pursuit of its hegemonic aspirations, and we will be, once again, caught off guard.

Reprinted with author’s permission from EMET Online

Read more at https://emetonline.org/finding-way-american-students-minds/#lK6eIA0JGW4Wvhj4.99

Are All Ills Of The World The Result Of Anti-American, Anti-Western, Anti-Israel Beliefs

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The Bigotry of "Intersectionality" by Alan M. Dershowitz March 29, 2017 at 8:00 pm https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10131/the-bigotry-of-intersectionality Share193 Comment There is no more evidence that Jews are responsible for economic or social inequality in contemporary America, than there was for Jews being responsible for any of the other crimes that formed the basis for traditional blood libels. Indeed, Jews disproportionately support racial equality and other liberal causes. Most successful Jews, like most successful people of other religions and ethnicities, earned this success by hard work, not special privilege. The linking of unrelated "victimizations," despite their tenuous connections, is reflective of a broader trend in hard-left politics, whereby increasingly, radical activists demand that the demonization of "Zionists"—often used as a euphemism for Jews – be included, indeed featured, in the package of causes that must to be embraced by anyone claiming the label of "progressive." Lumping seemingly disparate groups under the "umbrella of oppression" leads to the forming of alliances between causes that at best, have nothing to do with each other, and at worst, are averse to one another's stated mission. Their only common feature is that to join, they must demonize the nation state of the Jewish people. The essence of anti-Semitism is the bigoted claim that if there is a problem, then Jews must be its cause. Hitler started by blaming Jews for Germany's economic downturn. Today, many hard-left activists explicitly or implicitly blame Jews and Zionists for many of the evils of the world. All decent people must join in calling out intersectionality for what it is: a euphemism for anti-American, anti-Semitic and anti- Israel bigotry. Exposing and condemning "intersectionality" for the bigotry that it represents is critical to ensuring that those repressive extremists, who falsely claim the mantle of progressivism, are not able to hijack important liberal causes in support of their own bigoted agenda. What do the terrorist group Hamas and the anti-violence group Black Lives Matter have in common? What does the democracy of Israel have in common with the anti-Semitic Ku Klux Klan? What does the Islamic Republic of Iran, which throws gays off rooftops, have in common with gay right activists? What do feminists have in common with radical Islamic sexists who support the honor killing and genital mutilation of women? Nothing of course. Unless you subscribe to the pseudo-academic concept of intersectionality. Intersectionality – the radical academic theory, which holds that all forms of social oppression are inexorably linked— has become a code word for anti-American, anti-Western, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic bigotry. Nowhere has adoption of this radical paradigm been more pronounced then on college campuses where, in the name of "identity politics" and "solidarity," intersectionality has forced artificial coalitions between causes that have nothing to do with each other except a hatred for their fellow students who are "privileged" because they are white, heterosexual, male and especially Jewish. Students at the University of Illinois (UIC) recently took to social media to express their distress after flyers were plastered around campus calling for the "end of Jewish privilege." The flyer stated in bold letters that: "ending white privilege starts with ending Jewish privilege." The posters had outlines of silhouettes with Stars of David printed out, and an arrow pointing to them with the accompanying caption "the 1%." Although some of the posters identified Black Lives Matter as sponsors, it is not clear whether they were distributed by extreme right wing groups using hard-left anti-Semitic tropes or by hard left anti-Semites. In some respects, it does not really matter because many on the hard right and hard left share a disdain for Jews, their nation state and so called "Jewish privilege." The very concept of "privilege" – the idea that white people benefit from certain privileges in Western society, compared to non-whites living in the same social, political and economic environment – has a long and complex history in the United States. The subjugation of black Americans, and other non-whites, is an endemic problem that requires far-reaching legislative and grassroots action. By attributing this domestic social problem to so-called "Jewish privilege," radicals are engaging in traditional economic anti-Semitism; attributing far-reaching societal problems to Jewish status, occupation or economic performance. This practice resembles the vile, anti-Semitic propaganda of the 1930s, when splashed across Der Spiegel was blaming Jews – and so called disproportionate Jewish wealth – for Germany's losing WWI and the country's subsequent economic downturn. Canards about Jews' controlling world finances – first promulgated by the Tsarist forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion – was anti-Semitic back then and it is anti-Semitic today, whether espoused by the extreme left or right. There is no more evidence that Jews are responsible for economic or social inequality in contemporary America, than there is for Jews being responsible for any of the other crimes that formed the basis for traditional blood libels. Indeed, Jews disproportionately support racial equality and other liberal causes. Most successful Jews, like most successful people of other religions and ethnicities, earned this success by hard work, not special privilege. I certainly did not begin life with any privilege – despite finishing first in my class at Yale Law School, I was rejected by all 32 of the law firms to which I applied. The linking of unrelated "victimizations," despite their tenuous connections, is reflective of a broader trend in hard-left politics, whereby increasingly, radical activists demand that the demonization of "Zionists"—often used as a euphemism for Jews – be included, indeed featured, in the package of causes that must to be embraced by anyone claiming the label of "progressive." Lumping seemingly disparate groups under the "umbrella of oppression" leads to the forming of alliances between causes that at best, have nothing to do with each other, and at worst, are averse to one another's stated mission. Their only common feature is that to join, they must demonize the nation state of the Jewish people. Some intersectional feminists involved with the recent Women's March on Washington, for example, purport to be natural allies with anti-Israel Muslim groups that tolerate, if not accept, the "honor killings" and genital mutilation of women. Similarly, Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP) – an organization that calls for "an end to violence against civilians, and peace and justice for all peoples of the Middle East" – invited Rasmieh Odeh, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and convicted terrorist, to appear as a speaker at its national conference later this month. The idea of Odeh – a terrorist who quite literally has blood on her hands –speaking for a Jewish organization that claims to propagate peace, flies in the face of logic. Fortunately, Odeh is being deported for perjuriously failing to disclose her murder conviction. Perhaps peace-loving members of JVP will have to applaud her on Skype. The following are among many examples of radical leftists conflating unrelated grievances. Consider the linking of our government's handling of the Flint water crisis to the "severe" water crisis in Gaza. Black Lives Matter activists have visited Gaza to express solidarity with the terrorist group Hamas, and with Palestinians oppressed by so-called racist Israeli self-defense measures. While Black Lives Matter claims to disavow violence in securing its political objectives, many of its most prominent members are far more eager to criticize the "Israeli genocide of Palestinians" than to criticize Hamas for using rockets to target Israeli civilians. During a recent interview on PBS's Charlie Rose program, Jonathan Haidt – social psychologist and Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University's Stern School of Business – had this to say about the conflation of various left-wing causes under the banner of intersectionality: "...There is a good kind of identity politics, which is, you know, if black people are being denied rights, let's fight for their rights, that's the good kind. But there is a bad kind, which is to train students, train young people to say let's divide everybody up by their race, gender, other categories. We'll assign them morale merit based on their level of privilege is bad, and victimhood is good. Okay, now let's look at everything through this lens. Israel, the Palestinians are the victims. So therefore, they are the good and the Jews or the Israelis are the bad... [T]here is one totalizing perspective. All social problems get reduced to this simple framework. I think we are doing them a disservice. I think where actually making students less wise." There is a certain irony of many feminists and gay-rights activists refusing to condemn the sexism and homophobia in the Arab world. Increasingly, they try and force other progressives to adopt a "No True Scotsman" worldview, in which they are made to feel that to be a "true progressive," one must embrace a wide variety of so- called hard-left causes, regardless of how unrelated they may be – as long as they also condemn Israel. The essence of anti-Semitism is the bigoted claim that if there is a problem, then Jews must be its cause. Hitler started by blaming Jews for Germany's economic downturn. Today, many hard-left activists explicitly or implicitly blame Jews and Zionists for many of the evils of the world. All decent people must join in calling out intersectionality for what it is: a euphemism for anti-American, anti-Semitic and anti- Israel bigotry. Exposing and condemning "intersectionality" for the bigotry that it represents is critical to ensuring that those repressive extremists, who falsely claim the mantle of progressivism, are not able to hijack important liberal causes in support of their own bigoted agenda. Professor Alan M. Dershowitz is Professor Emeritus of Harvard Law School. Follow Alan M. Dershowitz on Twitter © 2017 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.