Martin Kramer is an authority on the modern Middle East. He holds research fellowships in Jerusalem, Cambridge, and Washington, and is author of the weblog Sandbox and co-convener of Middle East Strategy at Harvard (MESH). Updates daily.
Follow Martin Kramer on Twitter.Ivory Towers on Sand
Martin Kramer's Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America appeared six weeks after 9/11, and gave rise to an intense controversy. Seven years after publication, the book has been made available as a free download. Click here.
Israel Lobby
Martin Kramer has written several critiques of the Israel Lobby thesis of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt. In reverse chronological order:
• Israel, Iraq, and Cold Feet
• The American Interest
• Mearsheimer/Walt Retreat
• Israel, Oil, Realism
• Israel and Iraq War
• A Powerful Lobby
• Stephen Walt's World
Events
8 past eventsSee All
- How Not to Fix the Middle East...
Roone Arledge Lerner Cinema, Columb...
Monday, November 16 at 8:00pm - Obama and the Two-State Solution
Woodrow Wilson International Center...
Monday, June 8 at 9:00am - 9th Annual Herzliya Conference
Inter-Disciplinary Center (IDC) Campus
Tuesday, February 3 at 9:45am - 6th Annual Jerusalem Conference
Regency Hotel
Tuesday, January 27 at 2:00pm - The US and Israeli Roles in th...
Institute for National Security Stu...
Thursday, December 18 at 2:10pm - What is Middle Eastern Studies...
Grand Salon
Friday, November 28 at 6:00pm - Iran, Hezballah, and Hamas: Te...
Hudson Institute
Wednesday, November 19 at 9:00am - Is Peace Possible?
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law
Monday, November 10 at 6:30pm
Martin Kramer Another quirky report of my Columbia lecture. It’s a bit like reading students’ exam papers. There’s always something arbitrary (and thus surprising) about what gets through and what doesn’t. So “velvet glove” becomes “white glove,“ Obama’s dithering is turned into “dithering praise” of him by others, Columbia is said to have its own Middle East policy, etc. Still, you get the idea.
Source: bwog.net
As a decorated hero in the world of academic politiking, Professor Martin Kramer was expected to lambaste Columbia’s approach to Middle Eastern policy.
Martin Kramer A rough-and-ready summary of my appearance last night at Columbia. My thesis, a bit muddled here, is that Obama’s Middle East policy is plagued by a contradiction. The administration undercuts its own ambitious agenda, by its own ambivalence about US dominance. (Obama: “No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation.”) If the Mideast thinks US power is waning, no one will comply. And they haven’t.
Source: www.columbiaspectator.com
Martin Kramer may not know how to fix the Middle East, but he knows how not to do it.
Martin Kramer The Shalem Center recently published a new and complete Hebrew translation of Hobbes’s Leviathan. It’s the subject of this roundtable, whose participants consider the significance of Hobbes in Israel and the significance of Hebraism in Hobbes.
Source: roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com
What a first full translation of "Leviathan" says about the current concerns of political thought.
Martin Kramer “David Newman [Ben-Gurion U] said the monitoring groups hoped to redirect donations to right-wing academic institutions and think tanks, such as the Shalem Centre in Jerusalem.” First, Shalem is not “right-wing” by any present Israeli standard. Second, I don’t know of any “redirected” donations that have come our way, or any effort by any “monitoring group” to send donors our way. Newman must have made it up.
Source: www.thenational.ae
Right-wing groups want to create a climate of fear among left-wing scholars at Israeli universities by emulating the “witch-hunt” tactics found in the US, Israeli professors claim.
Martin Kramer I take some small share of credit for blocking the appointment of Chas Freeman to head the National Intelligence Council. Read this recent speech by him, just to see how deep the pathology still runs. Israeli actions caused 9/11, which led to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. “There is nothing at all ambiguous or unclear” about it, it’s “obvious.” What a subtle mind.
Source: www.mepc.org
"The 9/11 assault on the United States was carried out by Muslim extremists motivated in large measure by their resentment of U.S. support for Israel and its actions.”
Martin Kramer You'll need a Columbia ID to attend.
Columbia University International Relations Forum (CUIRF)
Location:Roone Arledge Lerner Cinema, Columbia University
Time:8:00PM Monday, November 16th
Martin Kramer Walter Russell Mead has the bug: “The core problem we face is that the two-state solution based on the 1967 borders with some minor modifications leaves too many Palestinians out in the cold.” There’s no more land to divvy, “so what else can we put on the table? Inevitably the answers come down to two things: dignity and money.” Tell me, how do you dignify total defeat? And money? Send it straight to Zurich.
Source: www.thedailybeast.com
With the Palestinian leadership threatening to walk, Walter Russell Mead breaks down the president’s mistakes—and how we can get the peace process going again.
Martin Kramer Please circulate and share.
Source: philanthropy.com
"The Shalem Center, a Jerusalem-based research and educational institution, seeks an experienced Major Gifts Executive to direct our North American fundraising efforts to establish Shalem College, the first liberal arts college in Israel."
Martin Kramer The “one-state solution” fringe cult has a headache in Hussein Ibish. He’s written a book (http://3.ly/3gj) demolishing the analogy with South Africa and the reality-deprived fantasy of a utopian single state. Now on his blog, Ibish delivers a punch to Ali Abunimah, who’s made a cottage industry out of “one state” and who was last seen being ejected for disorderly conduct from Ehud Olmert’s speech at U of Chicago.
Source: www.ibishblog.com
“I can see no other way of arriving at a one-state outcome than decades, and possibly longer, of brutal armed struggle that is increasingly fanatical and increasingly religious.”
Martin Kramer A line suited to a character in Alice in Wonderland: “Just as the perfect can be the enemy of the good, so the good can be the enemy of the real, which is the key to the possible.” And this: “Some will deduce from this that little can be done. It is a conclusion that betrays a lack of imagination.” Are you an enemy of the real or a friend of the imagined? Beware, you have entered... the Peace Process Zone.
Source: www.nybooks.com
"There must be a better way than the flailing and failing to which all have become inured."
Martin Kramer Does Robert Malley have a clue? Now he wants to create “a sense of novelty” in the peace process by... wait for it... appealing to the Palestinian refugees! It’s necessary to “find a way to show that whatever solution you're pursuing takes into account the world view, the histories, and the concerns and the aspirations of the diaspora.” The jeep is stuck in the mud, and Malley’s solution is to double the load.
Source: www.cfr.org
Veteran Middle East expert Robert Malley, who served as special assistant for Arab-Israeli affairs for President Bill Clinton, says it is time to "rethink" negotiations that have failed to produce a solution between Palestinians and Israelis.
Martin Kramer Tunku Varadarajan: “President Obama asked us not to jump to conclusions. To many Americans, this was a grating request, of a piece with the political correctness that was responsible for the hands-off treatment by the Army of Maj. Hasan. How else could he have been left in the position of treating US troops, given the stories we've now heard about his incendiary statements and apparent incompetence?”
Source: www.forbes.com
"We don't have to be paranoid about Arab males; we just have to avoid the opposite: Being fearful of coming across as Islamophobic, and thereby failing to look straight at a situation."
Martin Kramer Ralph Peters at his finest. Asked whether the Fort Hood shooter was a disturbed individual who snapped or an Islamist terrorist, Peters made this retort: "I don’t think there is any contradiction. Terrorists are not by nature happy campers, suicide bombers aren’t necessarily from the middle of the Bell Curve."
Source: www.youtube.com
“What happened yesterday at Fort Hood is the worst terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11.... I’m sorry if it’s inconvenient for Washington to face the facts.”
Martin Kramer
Sob-to-the-judge strategy: "The Arab-Israeli conflict may shift from the battlefield to international organisations and courts. Israel may be forced to recognise fundamental Palestinian political aspirations, and even the right of return eventually, by order of the international community." Is that pathetic? Arab state...s have dropped out, Israel has whipped the "resistance" (three times since 2002), so the Pals will bank on... the Goldstones?Read More
Source: english.aljazeera.net
Expert says state's influence upon public opinion has not grown with its military power.
Martin Kramer
"An international epic production aimed at bridging cultures. The film will educate people about the true meaning of Islam." And Sheikh Qaradawi as adviser! Life imitates art! The late Richard Grenier wrote a hilarious novel, "The Marrakesh One-Two" (1983), about a gaffe-filled, intrigue-ridden attempt to make a biopic... on Muhammad ("The Second Greatest Story Ever Told"?) It will leave you in stitches.Read More
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
Barrie Osborne, part of the Oscar-winning team behind the Lord of the Rings films, says the new production 'will educate people about the true meaning of Islam'. In accordance with Islamic law, the prophet will not actually be depicted on screen.
