My personal encounter with academic censorship began in the Fall of 1989 when Smith College’s newly appointed Diversity Officer summoned me to her office asking why I had included the following question on an exam in one of my courses during the second semester of the previous academic year —an action taken, she stated emphatically, at the behest of the College’s President and Provost. The question, one of several I posed on a take-home final on Middle East Politics, read: “Is Islam useful in the modern world? Describe the role of Islam in the political development of two states in the Middle East [one Arab and one non-Arab] since the end of World War II.” Opening a folder with my name, the Diversity Officer also added to her cascade of charges a complaint about mentioning slavery in the Muslim world without comparing it [favorably] to the system in America.

Reading Fouad Ajami’s posthumous memoir, When Magic Failed, was like reading my own life story. Both Ajami and I hail from Shia families who moved from a homogeneous countryside to cosmopolitan Beirut. My journey to Beirut took a bit longer—my father hailed from Iraq, and we fled the repression of Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime in the 1980s to my mother’s country, Lebanon.

Three days before Russia's President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, he assembled his top security staff for a televised charade. At it, he quizzed each in turn if they approved of his plan to recognize two areas of eastern Ukraine as independent states. Squirming and sometimes fumbling, they dutifully all bowed to their supremo's will.

Twin Towers and Ivory Towers, 20 Years Later

In 2001, my book Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America became a part of a much bigger and heated discussion over what made the United States vulnerable on 9/11. The main argument in the book was that Middle Eastern studies in America had consistently missed the most important developments in the region. One of them was the rise of very radical forms of Islamist extremism. That claim is why the book took off.

As reports of antisemitic attacks rise throughout the West, Jewish life in the East flourishes at an unprecedented pace with an increasing number of Jews visiting and moving to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. As a Bahraini Jew, it is particularly upsetting to see the alarming reports of attacks against Jews in the United States. We don’t have an issue with that here.

The phrase “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics” probably was not coined by Mark Twain, as is often claimed, but the Washington Post can claim this update on it: Today, there are four kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, statistics, and opinion polling. Just as polling can be corrupted by, for example, the wording of questions, journalism can be corrupted by “scientific polling,” particularly when it substantiates a publication’s anti-Israel bias. Two such cases appeared in the pages and website of the paper that warns on its front page, “Democracy Dies in the Dark.” Shine the light on these two egregious stories:

The public controversy about the non-binding Working Definition of Antisemitism by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) is puzzling. Policy makers in different countries have identified antisemitism as a problem and want to monitor and combat it. In order to do so they need a hands-on definition of antisemitism that helps, among others, police officers to decide if a certain incident should be classified as antisemitic or not. They have then developed a definition together with major groups representing Jewish communities. Many governments and organizations, including the United Nations, have since expressed support for this definition as guidance to monitor and combat antisemitism. The European Commission has just published a handbook how that can be used. So why is there now some opposition to this definition?

Turkey's per capita income is barely $8,900. Its economy is suffering double-digit inflation and unemployment rates. A quarter of Turkish youth are unemployed. On September 21, the Turkish lira sank below a previous all-time low of 7.60 to the US dollar (and 8.99 to the euro). The economy has slowed down sharply (shrinking 9.9% in the second quarter), mainly because of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The central bank and state banks have sold some $120 billion in dollars since last year.

"The Heart Spoke: A famed maimed old man has come to make whole again, my mutilated nation. The Arm Spoke: With his one remaining arm he brings back to my embrace cities severed from my nation. The Brain Spoke: Beirut shall once more be the capital of my thoughts, the harbor of my nation.”

Since late June, there have been dozens of fires and explosions at or near nuclear, military, and industrial facilities in Iran. Experts see the clear possibility of Israeli sabotage in many of these incidents and describe an attempt to disrupt Iran’s re-emerging nuclear program, but Iranian officials have refrained from pointing the finger. Is it plausible for Israel to be behind these serial explosions? And, if it is, why are the Iranians not responding? To answer these questions with any degree of accuracy, an examination of the timing and the locations of these explosions is crucial.