By Alyssa A. Lappen
FrontPageMagazine.com | February 17, 2006

It is a sad fact that many feminist academics “have adopted a pro-PLO and pro-terrorist line of thinking.”[1] Middle East Studies specialists are among the worst.

The doyenne of this camp is Duke University’s Miriam Cooke, a professor of Arabic and Women’s Studies. Cooke champions what she calls the “production of knowledge,” especially on the Middle East, not to impart accurate historical information, but “to question structures of power.” Middle East academics must admit that they belong “to a power with definite interests in the Orient.” And students should only ask questions about power, not what is actually being said. They must learn “to ask, Under what circumstances would such an argument–no matter how preposterous–make sense? In what ways does it legitimate certain kinds of cultures while subordinating or outlawing others?” Cooke’s goal is no less than the eradication of Western “imperialism.”

Cooke is a card-carrying member of the “root causes” crowd. In October 2001, she bemoaned the “catastrophic” 9/11 attacks but blamed them on the U.S. The causes dated “back through the Gulf War to the establishment of Israel in 1948.” The U.S. had instigated the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, she alleged, and the “Afghans” (sic) rightly took their revenge. She also comes close to justifying mass murder; the “apparently innocent business of moneymaking in New York City and of policymaking in Washington DC,” seen as criminal elsewhere, had “direct and mostly negative consequences for most of the rest of the world.” There is little “apparent innocence” when it comes to capitalism. Continue reading “Feminist Middle East Studies” →

By Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen
FrontPageMagazine.com | February 13, 2006

President George W. Bush’s most recent reminder that the U.S. needs to fight the worldwide terrorism of the Islamists, ignored a major target and victim of this terrorism — Israel.

In a February 9 speech at the National Guard Memorial Building, in Washington DC, the President noted many of the countries that have been the victims of Islamist terrorist attacks. As he had done repeatedly several times before, he mentioned: Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Indonesia, Turkey, Spain and England. Conspicuously absent from the list is Israel. Yet, Israel was the first target of the Islamist terrorism, decades before this war started. Moreover, Israel remains at the center of the Islamist Jihad.

The Israeli government official statistics put the number of deaths resulting from attacks by Palestinian terror groups at 1,084 since September 29, 2000, alone.

The number of injured since then is 7,633 Israelis. And this is not all; thousands of Israeli casualties also suffered Palestinian terrorist attacks since the first Intifada in 1987. Yet, Israel’s plight seems to escape the President’s attention when he reminds Americans of the international atrocities committed by Islamist terrorists.

Israel is not only fighting this war on terrorism along with the U.S., it has been fighting the same war for decades. The Islamists opened their first front in Israel decades ago. But because they successfully misrepresented themselves as the “under dog,” they obtained from the West the leeway and the encouragement to expand their reach. Continue reading “Terror’s Missing Link” →

By Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen
FrontPageMagazine.com | February 8, 2006

The way the U.S. is promoting Democracy in the Middle East, it is likely to backfire on the West. President George W. Bush in his State of the Union Address stated:

Elections are vital, but they are only the beginning. Raising up a democracy requires the rule of law, and protection of minorities, and strong, accountable institutions that last longer than a single vote” Yet, the law that rules HAMAS and led to its victory is the same evil Islamofascism that President Bush decries. It is futile to hope that the group whose reason for existence, according to its Charter, is to impose and enforce the Shari’a law in Israel and globally, would be willing to change its raison d’etre.

HAMAS, like other Islamist organizations has mastered the strategy of defeating the West through its own political system. HAMAS does so by leveraging the very freedoms that it wants to obliterate. The First Terrorist People, has declared by the very vote that they reject Western standards. Yet, the West continues to delude themselves and pander to the first democratically elected terrorist entity by projecting Western values on them. For example, President Bush stated his naïve conjecture that “now the leaders of Hamas must recognize Israel, disarm, reject terrorism, and work for lasting peace.” Continue reading “Hamas Will Not Change” →