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Middle East Studies Profs Distort, Dissemble about Paris Attacks

Mar 13, 2015 6:40 am By Robert Spencer

HatemBazianMiddle East Studies Profs Distort, Dissemble about Paris Attacks
by Cinnamon Stillwell and Rima Greene

Only in academe can a panel discussion on Islamic terrorism turn into an exercise in obfuscation and denial. Titled “Shooting Rampage in Paris: Free Speech, Anti-Semitism, Freedom of Religion, Islamophobia,” the recent University of California, Berkeley panel—which promised to “start a dialog” on the Charlie Hebdo and kosher supermarket attacks in Paris—featured six professors from a variety of UC Berkeley departments. This mixture produced an array of contrasting views, yet neither of the two Middle East studies specialists involved—anthropology professor Saba Mahmood and Hatem Bazian, a Near Eastern studies lecturer and founder of the Islamophobia Research & Documentation Project—addressed the topic in a forthright manner, but deflected controversial issues and issued apologias for terrorism.

The large audience of students, faculty and community members filled Booth Auditorium in UC Berkeley’s law school, Boalt Hall, where Saba Mahmood began the discussion. She claimed to be a “longstanding defender of the right to free speech,” yet condemned “the wide call in European and American media to recirculate and celebrate the [Charlie Hebdo] cartoons” and Slate editor-in-chief Jacob Weisberg’s promise “to escalate blasphemous satire,” which she likened to an “escalation on the attack against France’s most beleaguered minority.” Focusing on the “question of why so many Muslims who do not condone the Paris murders are deeply offended by the cartoons,” she labored to explain that, “They felt what I would call a moral injury on the desecration of the prophet [Mohammad].” She insisted that “the caricaturists . . . find some better way, instead of making Mohammad the icon of terrorism itself,” ignoring that satirists depict Mohammad precisely because they are told not to, both by Islamic prohibitions and Western self-censorship.

Mahmood’s portrayal of French Muslims purely as victims spurred fellow panelist Jeroen Dewulf, director of the Institute of European Studies, to state that his “gay or Jewish friends” reported being persecuted regularly by this same community and that, “it’s important that respect should come from both sides.” In response, she blamed the “poverty and incredible desperation” of life for Muslims in the banlieues, or ghetto-like suburbs of Paris, noting dismissively, “There are serious issues in the banlieues, not simply just how your Jewish or gay friends are treated.” The French government is responsible for integrating this community, not demanding that they “follow the program or get out,” she claimed, adding that:

Precisely because France has a history of fighting anti-Semitism, one would imagine it could provide the resources, seeing some similarities with the way Muslims are being treated in Europe today.

Mahmood exploited the history of Jews in France a number of times to buttress her arguments, without acknowledging that Jews today are fleeing the country for fear of being murdered by her favored victims. “There’s a long history of racism in France that was once directed at French Jews and is now aimed at European Muslims,” she asserted, as if French anti-Semitism was a free-floating virus that infected a different demographic. In an underhanded display of hyperbole and moral relativism, she asked, “Do we have to get to another holocaust before we realize what demonization means?”

As befitting his role as director of UC Berkeley’s Islamophobia Research & Documentation Project (IRDP), Hatem Bazian devoted the bulk of his talk not to Islamic terrorism, but to the mythical scourge of “Islamophobia.” He opened by stating that he was “in France just before this event took place” for “a series of conferences on Islamophobia” throughout Europe, confirming that plans stated at the 2014 annual IRDP conference to create a field of “Islamophobia studies” are underway.

Claiming that the “Broader Muslim community in Europe feels like it’s under siege,” Bazian lamented that, “Their inclusion and integration is predicated on their accepting to be insulted to be part of civil society,” as if being held to the same standards as others constitutes inequity. He claimed to have documented a wave of “violence across the continent directed at Muslims,” yet, artfully dodging the need for evidence, complained that because “they don’t get reported . . . these cases do not get the attention required.”

Pivoting to America, Bazian drew ahistorical analogies between Muslims throughout the West and minorities in the U.S. After alleging job and police discrimination against European Muslims, he likened this “unequal treatment . . . to what African-Americans in this country face.” Later, he referenced the “Black Lives Matter” movement and asserted, against all evidence, that “race is a subject we dance around but never really tackle.” He also claimed that, “Muslims have been used as the patsies to deport two and a half million Latinos under Bush and Obama,” while, regarding “massive migrations and disruptions,” he declared, “basically we want to protect an imagined America that no longer exists.”

Shifting to American foreign policy and alluding to the Iraq War and to the U.S. response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, he thundered:

Why is it we have such radicalization in Europe? Is it because Muslims woke up and a DNA was activated within them, a radicalization DNA? Or is it a long history of instrumentalizing Muslims for a particular distorted global warfare.

During the question and answer period, panelist Edward Wasserman, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism, returned to the topic at hand, pointing out the obvious:

We are not talking who wrote a letter to the editor. We are not talking about people who sponsored a boycott, we are talking about murder. I was a student in Paris grateful for Charlie Hebdo, their lunatic insanity. You don’t murder those you disagree with.

He was met with strong applause, while Bazian merely repeated the aforementioned excuses proffered by Mahmoud:

There are ten million ways to poke fun at the terrorists. When you poke fun at the prophet, you poke fun at all the Muslims, implying that they are in line with or somehow connected to the terrorist act.

At this point, sounds of disagreement and shouts of “No! No!” erupted from the audience; the moderator, history professor Tyler Stovall, interrupted Bazian, saying, “Excuse me, Hatem, I want to move on because there are more questions.”

One attendee reminded the panel that, “This question of anti-Semitism has gotten lost.” Robert Alter, founding director of the Center for Jewish Studies, pointed out that “thirty-seven percent of French Jews are contemplating immigration” and maintained that the cause is “not limited to Muslims,” but to the “French Right” and—in a rare admission in academia—to the “French Left,” where there is a “a blurring between opposition to the Israeli treatment of Palestinians and old-fashioned hostility to Jews in their midst.”

These refreshing breaks with politically correct orthodoxy proved rare. Despite the inclusion of intellectually honest panelists and an audience that challenged prevailing views, the apologetics of Mahmoud and Bazian were all too typical. It is telling that Middle East studies, the one field where the public might hope to encounter rigorous, informed analysis regarding the perils of Islamic radicalism, instead provides obfuscation, moral relativism, and anti-Western bigotry. Until that changes, the discipline’s biases make its pronouncements not simply unhelpful, but misleading and dangerous.

Berkeley resident Rima Greene co-wrote this article with Cinnamon Stillwell, the West Coast Representative for Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum. She can be reached at stillwell@meforum.org.

 

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Filed Under: academia, free speech, Muhammad cartoons Tagged With: Hatem Bazian, Saba Mahmood, University of California - Berkeley


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Comments

  1. Rita says

    Mar 13, 2015 at 7:50 am

    There is a stench around “Berkley” lately, and it’s not pleasant.

    http://littlenotesfromparis.blogspot.com.au/2014/03/an-ugly-postcard-from-paris.html

  2. thomas pellow says

    Mar 13, 2015 at 8:34 am

    “France investigates IS killing video over Merah link”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-31858739

    ‘Daily Mail’-

    “Executioner in ISIS child murderer video is French terrorist whose brother slaughtered Jews in Toulouse and sister took her baby to join jihadists.

    “Sabri Essid, a French citizen, has been identified as man in the lSIS video.
    “Essid, a married father, thought to have joined Islamic State last year.
    “The 30-year-old has served time in France for terror-related offences.
    “Essid part of a family of extremists, including Toulouse terrorist.
    “Half-brother Mohammed Merah killed a rabbi and three children in 2013.
    “Shot dead by French special forces after 30 hour siege in apartment.
    “Merah’s sister Souad travelled to Syria last year with her four children.”

    By PETER ALLEN IN FRANCE and NICK FAGGE

    FOR MAILONLINE.

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2990489/French-terrorist-ISIS-video-half-brother-Tolousse-terrorist-woman-took-baby-join-Islamic-State.html#ixzz3UGcPShef

    • m says

      Mar 14, 2015 at 10:56 am

      I am not surprise. She was one of them.

  3. pdxnag says

    Mar 13, 2015 at 9:14 am

    The Celebrated Seventh Century bandit and rapist needs to be vilified so people today do not find it acceptable to mimic his evil deeds.

    Hatem,

    The Muslims are not victims. They are the perps. And what of their “minority” status?

    The majority Muslim country of Saudi Arabia seems hell bent on enforcing Mohammad’s call for apostates to be killed, even if their numbers (openly at least) are less than a hundred.

    • mortimer says

      Mar 13, 2015 at 9:38 am

      Saba Mahmood and Hatem Bazian are disgraces to academia and should be BOYCOTTED by academics who value freedom of expression.

      The restrictions they demand are medieval and obscurantist.

      It’s ridiculous that they are allowed to teach with their theocratic and totalitarian views. The modern university is based on the fearless pursuit of knowledge.

      Respect must be earned. Sharia law’s death executions of gays, apostates and blasphemers are so at odds with modern principles of human rights that they must be condemned until they cease to be implemented.

      Saba Mahmood and Hatem Bazian defend the indefensible by pretending that criticism of backwardness is invalid. They are disgusting and should be shunned.

      • RonaldB says

        Mar 13, 2015 at 12:19 pm

        “Saba Mahmood and Hatem Bazian defend the indefensible by pretending that criticism of backwardness is invalid. They are disgusting and should be shunned.”

        You said it all, Mortimer.

        It’s very sad to see the total degradation of any critical or rationale standards in academia. These people hold a great deal of power over students, and are in an excellent position to punish any direction of thought with which they disagree. They can not only use grades as a negative sanction, but can subtly ridicule any expression in class they disapprove of. Tolerance is not a strong point of these mediocre academics.

  4. mortimer says

    Mar 13, 2015 at 9:27 am

    Jeroen Dewulf said, “it’s important that respect should come from both sides.”

    Exactly. Respect must be EARNED, but Islam’s doctrines allowing the vigilante murder of gays, apostates and blasphemers deserve our disapproval and comment.

    Cartoonists have a vested interest in the matter because Islamic vigilantes have put them on the front line. Their lives and their freedom are at stake.

  5. Larry A. Singleton says

    Mar 13, 2015 at 9:39 am

    I thought this book “Until Proven Innocent” about the Duke Lacrosse rape case was something along the lines of Edward Humes great book Mean Justice; about prosecutorial misconduct. I’m halfway through it and it is SO much more than that. Like Indoctrination U. The Professors, Ivory Towers on Sand and The War Against Boys, this book utterly and completely kicks the shit out of the academic left. I say “halfway through” the book; because for the last month I’ve been halfway through it. Like Taken Into Custody by Stephen Baskerville I have to take “breaks” after reading a chapter. Or even a few paragraphs. Reading about these moral degenerates who have taken over our universities just Pisses Me OFF. They are the Poster Child for the term “sick society”. You want an example of the Decline of Western Civilization? Look no further than your local college. And increasingly our High Schools and Grade Schools. (I could also rant about those Audio Terrorists/boomer cars that are now an almost constant in our communities)

    I just got shitcanned off of Atlas Shrugs comments. By the end of the day I’m practically kicking over the furniture and I’m in a constant state of “I will not cuss. I will not cuss. I will not cuss….” But it’s a losing battle. I miss my Marlboros which I can’t f-ing afford, I HATE these f-ing Ads. The Internet has degenerated into just one big dysfunctional Ad Whore and extortion racket. And as a construction worker who witnessed first hand what illegal immigration has done, I now have to sit by and watch as vile scum like the Islamic version of the Hitler Youth, the Muslim Student Association and others overrun our learning centers. It seems the all time worst thing I can do when it come to my evil temper is read Jihad Watch and the Middle East Quarterly. But here I am. (I’ll probably end up going to prison for killing the first person who objects to me pissing in a Muslim foot bath at my local public restroom.)

    (Do you really need these frigging ads?)

  6. mortimer says

    Mar 13, 2015 at 9:47 am

    “There are serious issues in the banlieue, not simply just how your Jewish or gay friends are treated.”

    But remember everyone at JIHADWATCH…France officially doesn’t have ‘NO-GO ZONES’!

    Just don’t walk in the non-existent no-go zone wearing a star of David.
    .

  7. Charli Main says

    Mar 13, 2015 at 10:05 am

    “she blamed the “poverty and incredible desperation” of life for Muslims in the banlieues, or ghetto-like suburbs of Paris”

    So, why do these poor victimised and discriminated against Muslims persist in swarming into Europe to suffer a life of poverty and desperation ????

    Why don´t they stay in their Islamic shitholes, where they can enjoy all the wonderful benefits Allah has endowed on Muslims.?????

  8. Beagle says

    Mar 13, 2015 at 10:18 am

    The banlieues of Paris are not that bad. If ontological materialism is correct, 95% of Haitians would be terrorusts, not French-Algerian Muslims.

  9. Alan Celia says

    Mar 13, 2015 at 11:57 am

    /Users/alancelia/Pictures/iPhoto Library_2/Modified/2015/Jan 18, 2015/DSC02079.jpg

  10. Gary Fouse says

    Mar 13, 2015 at 1:26 pm

    Is this the same Hatem Bazian who reportedly once told a campus audience that they should count the number of Jewish names on university buildings? Is this the same Hatem Bazian who once reportedly quoted that quaint little hadith about the Day of Judgment, when the Jews would hide behind the rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees would call out, “O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me. Come and kill him”? Is this the same Hatem Bazian who is on videotape calling for an intifada in the US?

    Just who is besieging whom here?

    • Nancy says

      Mar 14, 2015 at 3:03 pm

      That’s why his name is Hate ’em.

  11. Joe Shmo says

    Mar 13, 2015 at 2:34 pm

    These lies are becoming ever more transparent. And kudos to you Robert, it must be a trial having to sit through this rubbish all the time and then write about it. There was a nice moment though with

    “…You don’t murder those you disagree with.”

    He was met with strong applause

    I look for any shafts of light poking through the dark clouds of lies.

  12. voegelinian says

    Mar 13, 2015 at 3:15 pm

    Cinnamon Stillwell, co-writer of this piece, has been doing a good job on the journalism front of the Counter-Jihad. Her other articles may be found here:

    http://www.campus-watch.org/docs/author/Cinnamon+Stillwell

    Among them is a previous report from February (also featured on Jihad Watch) of another Charlie Hebdo panel discussion at another academic setting, Stanford, in which, among other tragical farces, was one Robert Crews, history professor and director of the Sohaib and Sara Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies (Allah help us!) who tried to connect the the dots of Charlie Hebdo and Islamic terrorism with “African-Americans … subjected to legal state violence and massive incarceration.” And, in this context, Prof. Crews described American foreign policy as “The fetishistic abuse of brown and black, Arab and African bodies”…

    There you have it — the Reverse Racist meme, which I maintain is the crux of the entire PC MC paradigm.

    http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/14573

    • voegelinian says

      Mar 13, 2015 at 3:18 pm

      Prof. Crews’ photo puts one in mind of Anders Breivik (LOL):

      http://explorecourses.stanford.edu/instructorPhoto?sunet=rcrews

  13. pongidae rex says

    Mar 14, 2015 at 10:03 am

    The importance of this website to critical, unbiased reporting on the central issue of our time cannot be overestimated.

  14. Dave J says

    Mar 14, 2015 at 1:29 pm

    How about a study on Muslim victimphilia and why Islamics feel compelled to view themselves as superior to all others?

    A group that claims to be discriminated against while enacting violent murder against Jews, Christians, gays and cartoonists.

    If you really listen to the apologists you can tell it’s a mental illness. Incoherent logic has no place in our Universities.

  15. sheik yer'mami says

    Mar 14, 2015 at 4:25 pm

    “…she blamed the “poverty and incredible desperation” of life for Muslims in the banlieues, or ghetto-like suburbs of Paris, noting dismissively…”

    Blah, blah. All self-inflicted. Nobody asked them to migrate to France. They left far more miserable circumstances back in Algeria.

    “There are serious issues in the banlieues, not simply just how your Jewish or gay friends are treated.”

    Mohammedans live to hate and murder Jews and homosexuals. The hide and the hubris to even mention those minorities in order to deflect from her killer cult.

    “The French government is responsible for integrating this community, not demanding that they “follow the program or get out,”

    No government is responsible for integrating unassimilable, hateful Mohammedans. A responsible government does everything it can to keep its citizens safe from these predators.

  16. Vlad Tepes Blog says

    Mar 14, 2015 at 8:00 pm

    Testing something in comments

  17. yuval Brandstetter MD says

    Mar 15, 2015 at 1:52 am

    as if being held to the same standards as others constitutes inequity

    That’s te whole point. Per Muslims they cannot be held to the same standard because they are above such standards as might be applied to lesser beings such as Jews, Yazidis, Zoroastrians, christians and gays of all faiths. its the essence of Islamism. Its the essence of Nazism. It cannot be stressed enough that Muslims are not above any standard and must be held accountable to the same standards in countries where standards exist and are applied. One might check who constitutes this large crowd in Berkely, and examine if the others, that is Non Muslims, should be educated among the supremacist Islamo-Nazis.

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