By Alyssa A. Lappen
FrontPageMagazine.com | November 17, 2005

The Middle East is changing faster than anyone could have imagined, Iraqis have voted for a constitution, popular protests have help push Syria out of Lebanon, and elections in Egypt have exposed just how fragile the Mubarak regime is. But academic specialists on that region remain stuck in the past.

Their obsolete and petty obsessions will be on full display when the Middle East Studies Association holds its annual meeting from November 19 to 22 at the Wardman Park Marriott in Washington D.C. The coronation of Juan Cole as MESA’s new president will, for example, make the organization’s public face a leading proponent of the theory that the Zionist-Likud cabal controls American foreign policy for the benefit of Israel.

Indeed, MESA’s members display a disproportionate interest in Israel. Nearly 9 percent of the program-14 sessions-is devoted to something called “Israel/Palestine” and Israel, as usual, is routinely equated with South Africa. Thus, a panel titled “Palestine and South Africa: A Fruitful or Futile Comparison” will feature Haifa University’s notorious Ilan Pappe as the key discussant. A double session on “Middle Eastern Refugees: Global and Local Perspectives” will focus on Palestinian refugees. Jewish refugees from Arab countries number nearly 1 million but they seem not to count when MESA is deliberating. Continue reading “The Middle East Studies Association in 2005” →

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