Martin Kramer 1244909 225084220 2008-07-11T20:15:45Z Kbdankbot 6505923 Robot - remove category per [[WP:CFD|CFD]] [[Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 July 3|2008 July 3]] {{POV|date=December 2007}} [[Image:Martin_Kramer_press_photo.jpg|thumb|175px|right|Martin Kramer]] '''Martin Seth Kramer''' (b. [[1954]], [[Washington, DC]]) is an [[United States|American]] scholar of the [[Middle East]] at the [[Washington Institute for Near East Policy]], the [[Shalem Center]], and [[Harvard University]]'s Olin Institute. His focus is on [[Islam]] and [[Arab]] politics. ==Education== Kramer began his undergraduate degree under [[Itamar Rabinovich]] in [[Middle Eastern Studies]] at [[Tel Aviv University]] and completed his B.A. in [[Near Eastern Studies]] from [[Princeton University]]. He earned his Ph.D. in Princeton as well, under [[Fouad Ajami]], [[L. Carl Brown]], the late [[Charles Issawi]], and [[Bernard Lewis]], who directed his thesis. He also received a History M.A. from [[Columbia University]].<ref>[http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/13176.html Martin Kramer/Juan Cole: Oppo Research]</ref> *Tel Aviv University, 1971-73 - Middle Eastern Studies *[[Bachelor of Arts|B.A.]] Princeton University, 1975 ([[summa cum laude]]) - Near Eastern Studies *[[Master of Arts (postgraduate)|M.A.]] Columbia University, 1976 - History *[[Master of Arts (postgraduate)|M.A.]] Princeton University, 1978 - Near Eastern Studies *[[Ph.D.]] Princeton University, 1982 - Near Eastern Studies <ref>[http://www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/webcv2.htm Martin Kramer, CV and List of Publications]</ref> ==Career== During a 25-year career at [[Tel Aviv University]], Martin Kramer directed the [[Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies]]; taught as a visiting [[professor]] at [[Brandeis University]], the [[University of Chicago]], [[Cornell University]], and [[Georgetown University]]; and served twice as a fellow of the [[Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars]] in Washington. He is currently the [[Wexler-Fromer Fellow]] at the [[Washington Institute for Near East Policy]], Senior Fellow at the [[Shalem Center]], and Olin Institute Senior Fellow at [[Harvard University]]. He is a senior and past editor of the [[Middle East Forum]]'s [[Middle East Quarterly]].<ref>[http://www.meforum.org/article/500 MESA Culpa], by M. Kramer, Fall 2002</ref> Primarily a scholar of twentieth century Islamist intellectual and political history, Kramer has also published columns in the [[National Review]] magazine<ref>[http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-kramerprint091901.html Hijacking Islam], by M. Kramer, [[National Review]], [[September 19]], 2001</ref><ref>[http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-kramerprint121001.html From Afghanistan to Araby], by M. Kramer, [[National Review]], [[December 10]], 2001</ref> and on the websites of the [[History News Network]]<ref>[http://hnn.us/articles/13658.html Is Sharansky Right? Does Everyone Want to Be Free?], by M. Kramer, [[History News Network]], [[June 22]], 2005</ref>, martinkramer.org<ref>[http://www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/2003_01_05.htm Ignatieff's Empire], by M.Kramer, martinkramer.org, [[January 5]], 2003</ref> and bitterlemons.org.<ref>[http://www.bitterlemons.org/previous/bl200306ed13.html#isr2 Power will not moderate Hamas], by M. Kramer, bitterlemons.org, [[March 27]] 2006</ref> ([[Front Page Magazine]] publishes selected pieces of Kramer's on its website<ref>[http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/authors.asp?ID=1192 Martin Kramer's Columns]</ref>) ==Political involvement== Martin Kramer was an early advocate of attacking [[Saddam Hussein]] in the wake of [[September 11, 2001 attacks|9/11]], arguing in December 2001 that regardless of a possible involvement, he posed a threat to the entire Middle East.<ref>[http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-kramer121001.shtml From Afghanistan to Araby] by M. Kramer, [[National Review]], [[December 10]], 2001</ref> However, he was critical of the shifting rationale for the war in October 2002, questioning the United States' "tools of social engineering" needed to promote an eventual democracy process in the Arab world.<ref>[http://www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/2002_10_11.htm When I Hear "Arab Democracy," I Reach for My Seat Belt] by M. Kramer, [[October 11]], 2002</ref> He was a senior policy adviser on the Middle East to the [[Rudy Giuliani]] Presidential Campaign. ==Critique of Middle Eastern Studies== === ''Ivory Towers on Sand'' === In 2001, the [[Washington Institute for Near East Policy]] published Kramer's book ''Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America''. The work criticizes Middle Eastern Studies in the United States for what Kramer argues is a systematic left-wing bias backed with poor scholarship. [[Zachary Lockman]], Professor of modern Middle East history at [[New York University]], has criticized Kramer's "selective indictment" of Middle East studies, contending that "Kramer’s psychologizing account of why so many scholars and students in Middle East studies were receptive to critiques of the field’s hitherto dominant paradigms is shallow and tendentious." He writes that underlying Kramer's claims in ''Ivory Towers'' is "an extraordinarily naïve and unsophisticated understanding of how knowledge is produced" and that his "inability or refusal to grasp this suggests a grave lack of self-awareness, coupled with an alarming disinterest in some of the most important scholarly debates over the past four decades or so."[http://www.merip.org/mero/interventions/lockman_interv.html]. Lockman also criticized Kramer's promotion of bill HR 3077 as "an attempt to stifle critical voices and diminish the autonomy of American institutions of higher education and long-established principles of academic freedom."[http://www.merip.org/mero/interventions/lockman_interv.html]Kramer in turn accused Lockman of being supportive of academic boycotts for political purposes. <ref>[http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/1115 Prof railed for signing boycott letter]</ref> [[Joel Beinin]], professor and former president of [[Middle East Studies Association of North America]], has also criticized Kramer.[http://www.stanford.edu/%7Ebeinin/Israelization.html]. === Campus Watch === {{main|Campus Watch}} Kramer has supported [[Campus Watch]], an organization which criticizes what it views as flawed and biased scholarship on the Middle East in the United States.<ref>[http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/37/10847/printer Neocons Lay Siege to the Ivory Towers], by Saree Makdisi, reprint from [[The Los Angeles Times]], [[May 4]], 2005</ref><ref>[http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2003/11/06/middle_east/index_np.html Osama University?], by Michelle Goldberg, reprint from [[Salon.com]], 2005</ref> <!-- 2006 -->In early 2006, Kramer was criticised in a working paper entitled ''[[The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy]]'' by political scientists [[John Mearsheimer]] and [[Stephen Walt]], who accused him of a "transparent attempt to blacklist and intimidate scholars" in relation to his involvement in [[Campus Watch]].<ref name="LRB">[[John Mearsheimer|Mearsheimer, John J.]] and [[Stephen Walt|Walt, Stephen]]. [http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html The Israel Lobby], ''[[London Review of Books]]'', Volume 28 Number 6, March 22, 2006. Accessed March 24, 2006.</ref> They subsequently expressed their regret for erroneously attributing a role to Kramer in founding [[Campus Watch]]. <ref>''[http://www.israellobbybook.com/Setting_the_Record_Straight.pdf Setting the Record Straight: A Response to Critics of 'The Israel Lobby', section 'Our Mistakes']'', Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, December 12 2006.</ref> === HR 3077 === Kramer has promoted HR 3077, a bill in the [[United States House of Representatives]] designed to reform Middle East Studies in the US. Saree Makdisi argues in a ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' op-ed that the bill "poses a profound threat to academic freedom".<ref>[http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/37/10847/printer Neocons Lay Siege to the Ivory Towers], by Saree Makdisi, reprint from [[The Los Angeles Times]], [[May 4]], 2005</ref><ref>[http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2003/11/06/middle_east/index_np.html Osama University?], by Michelle Goldberg, reprint from [[Salon.com]], 2005</ref><ref>[http://ga.berkeley.edu/academics/hr3077.html HR 3077 - Action Alert<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> === "Columbia Unbecoming" === {{main|The David Project Center for Jewish Leadership}} Kramer supported [[Columbia University]] students who, in 2005, alleged in a film entitled "Columbia Unbecoming" that they had been intimidated by faculty who they viewed as anti-Israel in the Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures department.<ref>[http://www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/Columbia.htm Columbia University: The Future of Middle Eastern Studies at Stake], address delivered on [[March 6]], 2005</ref> Kramer has also been supportive of [[Daniel Pipes]]' [[Campus Watch]] (another initiative of the [[Middle East Forum]]).<ref>[http://rightweb.irc-online.org/analysis/2004/0403mestudies.php Thought Control for Middle East Studies], by [[Joel Beinin]], [[Right Web]], [[March 31]], [[2004]]</ref><ref>[http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20021125&s=mcneil The War on Academic Freedom], by Kristine McNeil, [[The Nation]], [[November 11]], [[2002]]</ref> [[Joseph Massad]], Associate Professor at Columbia University, has accused Kramer of attacking him and other professors of Middle East Studies. Massad wrote, "Kramer, Pipes, and co. are angry that the academy still allows democratic procedure in the expression of political views and has an institutionalised meritocratic system of judgment…to evaluate its members. Their goal is to destroy any semblance of either in favour of subjecting democracy and academic life to an incendiary jingoism and to the exigencies of the national security state with the express aim of imploding freedom. Their larger success, however, has been in discrediting themselves and in reminding all of us that we should never take the freedoms that we have for granted, as the likes of Kramer and Pipes are working to take them away."<ref>Joseph Massad, "Policing the Academy," ''Al-Ahram Weekly'', 10-16 April 2003.</ref> ==Bibliography== ===Books=== * ''Political Islam'' (1980) ISBN 0-8039-1435-0 * ''Islam Assembled'' (1985) ISBN 0-231-05994-9 * ''Shi'ism, Resistance, and Revolution'' (1987) ISBN 0-8133-0453-9 * ''Hezbollah's Vision of the West'' (1989) ISBN 0-944029-01-9 * ''Middle Eastern Lives: The Practice of Biography and Self-Narrative (Contemporary Issues in the Middle East)'' (1991) ISBN 0-8156-2548-0 * ''Arab Awakening and Islamic Revival: The Politics of Ideas in the Middle East'' (1996) ISBN 1-56000-272-7 * ''The Islamism Debate'' (1997) ISBN 965-224-024-9 * ''The Jewish Discovery of Islam'' (1999) ISBN 965-224-040-0 * ''Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America'' (2001) ISBN 0-944029-49-3 ===Journal Papers=== * ''[http://www.azure.org.il/magazine/magazine.asp?id=331 The American Interest]'' Azure magazine, Autumn 2006. * ''[http://www.meforum.org/article/638 Nation and Assassination in the Middle East]'', Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2004. * ''[http://www.meforum.org/article/541 Coming to Terms: Fundamentalists or Islamists?]'', Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2003. * ''[http://www.meforum.org/article/521 Policy and the Academy: An Illicit Relationship?]'', Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2003. ===Martin Kramer on American scholars of the Middle East=== * [http://www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/PapeKramer.htm Pape-Kramer debate] - a debate involving [[Robert Pape]] and Martin Kramer * [http://www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/IslamObscured.htm Islam Obscured], Martin Kramer on [[John Esposito]] *[http://www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/2006_03_17.htm Stephen Walt's World], a critique of [[Stephen Walt]] *[http://www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/Arslan.htm The Arab Nation of Shakib Arslan] by Martin Kramer, a critique of [[Shakib Arslan]] * [http://www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/Hourani.htm Albert Pasha]: criticism of [[Albert Hourani]] by Martin Kramer * [http://www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/IslamistBubbles.htm Islamist Bubbles], an assessment of [[Gilles Kepel]] by Martin Kramer. * [http://www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/Blunt.htm Arab Pen, English Purse: John Sabunji and Wilfrid Scawen Blunt], a critique of [[Wilfrid Scawen Blunt]] by Martin Kramer * [http://www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/2003_01_05.htm Ignatieff's Empire], criticism of [[Michael Ignatieff]] * [http://www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/2005_02_28.htm The Day the Rabbi Rescued Rashid], a critique of [[Arthur Hertzberg]] ==References== <div class="references-small"> <references /> </div> ==External links== * [http://www.martinkramer.org M. Kramer's website] * [http://sandbox.blog-city.com M. Kramer's blog] * [http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC11.php?CID=119 M. Kramer's entry with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy] {{DEFAULTSORT:Kramer, Martin}} [[Category:1954 births]] [[Category:Living people]] [[Category:Islamic politics and Islamic world studies]] [[Category:American political scientists]] [[Category:American Middle Eastern studies]] [[Category:Tel Aviv University]] [[Category:Washington Institute for Near East Policy]] [[Category:Middle East Forum]] [[Category:American Jews]] [[Category:American journalists]] [[Category:American academics]]