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Politics : Israel to U.S. : Now Deal with Syria and Iran -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: steve kammerer who wrote (11126)	6/9/2006 2:11:29 PM
From: Crimson Ghost	Respond to of 22250

YALE CAVES TO ISRAELI LOBBY OVER TOP MID EAST SCHOLAR LIEL LEIBOVITZ, JEWISH WEEK - Juan Cole, one of the country's top Middle East scholars, was poised for the biggest step of his career. A tenured professor at the University of Michigan, Cole was tapped earlier this year by a Yale University search committee to teach about the modern Middle East. In two separate votes in May, Cole was approved by both the sociology and history departments, the latter the university's largest. The only remaining hurdle was the senior appointments committee, also known as the tenure committee, a group consisting of about a half-dozen professors from various disciplines across the university. Last week, however, in what is shaping up as the latest in a series of heated battles over the political affiliations of Middle Eastern studies professors, the tenure committee voted down Cole's nomination. Several Yale faculty members described the decision to overrule the votes of the individual departments as "highly unusual." The reasons behind the rejection remain unknown; several calls to a Yale spokeswoman went unreturned. But university insiders say that the uncharacteristic rebuff may have been influenced by several factors, central among them the political commentary Cole writes on his blog, "Informed Comment." They also contend that Cole's nomination was torpedoed mainly by senior professors in both departments who were concerned with Cole's controversial persona. Often favoring a pugilistic tone and consistently criticizing Israel's policies in the West Bank, Cole has attracted a visibility that has made him a favorite target of several conservative commentators. . . "The issue is complicated," according to one Jewish official at the University of Michigan who asked not to be named, "because Cole is seen as a scholar who does not intimidate students in class with his Mideast views, but has an appalling Web site, highly critical of Israel. So what are the boundaries of outside behavior affecting academic decisions?" thejewishweek.com AN EARLIER PURGE. . . THE NATION, APRIL 2006 - Richard Rogers, or Lord Rogers of Riverside, as he is styled in Britain, is one of the most distinguished architects in the world. From the day the Centre Pompidou opened its doors in Paris in 1977, his career has been a series of triumphs: the headquarters of Lloyds insurance in London, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, the Millennium Dome in Greenwich, Madrid's new Barajas airport and, most recently, the Welsh Assembly. Rogers is famous not just for his iconic buildings but also for his progressive politics and his extraordinary network of friends, associates and admirers. So when he agreed in February to host the London inaugural meeting of Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine, the event went unnoticed here. That is, it went unnoticed until early March, when Rogers found that even a casual association with the Palestinian cause placed all his New York work in jeopardy. Rogers, who'd been awarded the $1.7 billion expansion of the Jacob Javits Convention Center and a commission to redevelop the Lower East Side riverfront, was summoned to New York to explain himself to Empire State Development Corporation chair Charles Gargano. Sheldon Silver, speaker of the New York Assembly, demanded that Rogers be fired from publicly funded projects; he also threatened that Silvercup Studios, a film studio and office complex in Queens, would be unlikely to get tax credits with Rogers as architect. Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, labeled Rogers's involvement "an affront. . . to the legacy of Senator Javits," noting that the late Republican had been a staunch defender of Israel. The story of Rogers's American inquisition has no heroes. The son of a Jewish doctor who fled Fascist Italy for London, Rogers might have reminded his tormentors that the British organizer of the offending architects' group, his friend Abe Hayeem, is also a Jew. He could have pointed out that the group's criticism of Israel for building its separation wall echoed the findings of the International Court of Justice. Instead, he folded faster than a house of cards, abandoning his colleagues--and the Palestinians--in a recantation that was as brutal as it was effective. thenation.com