Campus Watch

] "Campus Watch [..] compiles dossiers on professors and universities that do not meet its standard of uncritical support for the policies of George Bush and Ariel Sharon." Rashid Khalidi, a Director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University and a target of Campus Watch, stated "This noxious campaign is intended to silence such perfectly legitimate criticism, by tarring it with the brush of anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism, truly loathsome charges. They reveal the lengths that these people apparently feel impelled to go to in order to silence a true debate on campus." [cite web |url=http://www.adc.org/index.php?id=1142 |title=ADC Denounces New Efforts to Chill Academic Freedom |work=Press Release |publisher=American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee |date=September 26, 2002 |accessdate=2008-03-09]

After two weeks, Campus Watch removed the list from its website. [cite news |firstname=Tanya |lastname=Schevitz |url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/10/03/MN54056.DTL |title='Dossiers' Dropped from Web Blacklist |publisher=San Francisco Chronicle |date=October 3, 2002 |accessdate=2008-03-09] They no longer maintain dossiers or collect information from students, relying instead mostly on "reading a scholar's writings and lectures, the great bulk of which is available to anyone with an Internet connection".cite web |title=Setting The Record Straight: Response to Hassan Nafaa |url=http://www.campus-watch.org/correction/27 |lastname=Myers |firstname=Winfield |authorlink=Winfield Myers |accessdate=2008-03-09]

Criticism and Responses

Professor Miriam Cooke of Duke University has strongly criticised Campus Watch in a 2005 article, concluding that: [cite web |author=Cooke, Miriam |publisher=Arab World Books |url=http://www.arabworldbooks.com/Articles/article54.htm
title=Contesting campus watch: Middle East studies under fire: The academy and democracy at risk
date=August 1, 2005 |accessdate=2008-03-09] :Campus Watch is the Trojan horse whose warriors are already changing the rules of the game not only in Middle East studies but also in the US University as a whole. They threaten to undermine the very foundations of American education.

In a controversial paper, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" [cite paper |author=Mearsheimer, John J. |authorlink=John Mearsheimer |coauthors=Walt, Stephen M. |title=The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy |url=http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011/$File/rwp_06_011_walt.pdf
date=March 13, 2006 |accessdate=2008-03-09 See also "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy".] (later expanded into a book with the same name), political scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt wrote that::The Lobby also monitors what professors write and teach. In September 2002, for example, Martin Kramer and Daniel Pipes, two passionately pro-Israel neoconservatives, established a website (Campus Watch) that posted dossiers on suspect academics ... This transparent attempt to blacklist and intimidate scholars prompted a harsh reaction and Pipes and Kramer later removed the dossiers."Pipes statedcite web |lastname=Pipes |firstname=Daniel |authorlink=Daniel Pipes |url=http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=F07962E5-5424-4EB0-BB9E-087888B5EBE4 |title=Is Campus Watch Part of a Conspiracy? |publisher=FrontPage Magazine |date=May 12, 2006 |accessdate=2008-03-09] that this "account is inaccurate in several ways (e.g. Martin Kramer had no role in founding Campus Watch) ... Neither the Middle East Forum nor myself has ever taken orders from some mythical ‘Lobby’, and specifically I decided to establish Campus Watch on my own." Later he wrote that "Mearsheimer and Walt unconditionally concede they have no information about the alleged “lobby” giving me orders concerning Campus Watch, confirming the falsehood of their initial claim."

Myers has denied claims that Campus Watch is part of a 'Zionist lobby'. Rather, Campus Watch critiques Middle East studies in North America regardless of whether they address Israel."

References

External links

* [http://www.campus-watch.org/ Official website]