Daniel Lubetzky

Charlotte Allen writes in the Wall Street Journal about the creation of ASMEA, the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa, as an counterweight alternative to the highly-politicized MESA, the Middle East Studies Association.

Towering scholar Bernard Lewis, described by Allen as the "eminence grise" of Islamic studies, is oddly enough the founder of both.  He was prompted to create this new body because MESA’s orientalist "political correctness" stifles true analysis, with all MESA activities – panels, papers, symposia – nowadays evaluated through rigid and cartoonish anti-Israel, anti-US filters.

What is disturbing and perhaps inevitable, as Allen observes, is that ASMEA may end up being hijacked by the opposite extreme.  Few university academics attended the inaugural meeting, perhaps for fear of being ostracized by "liberal" dogmatists that rule today campuses.  Military and defense specialists were prevalent, as were think tank researchers with hawkish "know your enemy" perspectives.  ASMEA Vice-chair Fouad Ajami and Professor Lewis have been vilified as "pro-Iraq-invasion" neo-cons.  ASMEA research may end up equally uncritical and trite as MESA’s, just from the opposite political spectrum. 

A week ago I wrote about a potentially similar development in the area of "pro-Israel" advocacy and lobbying, with JStreet seeking to rise as the flag-bearer of left-wing pro-peace DC US-Israel constituents to counteract their perception of AIPAC as the right-wing, anti-Arab DC US-Israel alliance, potentially leaving less platforms for moderate, centrist voices.

A disturbing pattern emerges making it harder for centrist voices to be heard and represented.  Mainstream moderates may make up the overwhelming majority in almost every area of discourse, but they are often overshadowed by the more passionate extremes, and their natural constituencies ready to embrace a black or white side of the spectrum.

Nuanced, balanced thinking has no natural constituency.

The same problem exists with the media.  News Corp’s FOX and Wall Street Journal are primarily platforms for conservative thinking – and you rarely if ever will see an op-ed contribution that challenges the inclinations of an orthodox readership.  NPR, CNN and The New York Times are primarily platforms for liberal (in the left-wing sense) thinking – and their editorials tend to be painfully unimaginative and caricatured.  (Alas, it also tends to be that the more "entertaining" shows and moderators have definite political slants – whether it’s the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Colbert Report and Real Time with Bill Mahr for the left, or Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly for the right; centrist thinking is much more "boring").

Each media platform increasingly caters to audiences primed for "affirmation" rather than "information" – G’d forbid if some new data point challenges our assumptions. 

It is not just the institutions that are to blame, but all of us as products of these institutions. I am fascinated to notice how "news" developments are interpreted with such extraordinary bias by people who have formed an opinion. 

I remember during the Bush-Gore elections debacle how every development, decision or institution that favored George Bush (US Supreme Court, Florida Administration) was seen as correct by Bush supporters and as an afront to justice by Gore supporters.  Conversely, every development that favored Gore (Florida Supreme Court, Palm Beach or Dade County officials) was viewed as perfectly just and logical to Gore supporters and irredeemably flawed by Republicans.

Over the last two months I’ve also asked Clinton and Obama supporters to reflect on the bias of a news source or behavior from one party or the other.  Almost never does an Obama supporter admit that the Obama campaign may be fallible, and almost never does a Clinton supporter admit that their candidate may have done something wrong.

Lack of critical thinking and unbiased analysis presents a major challenge to society.

Daniel Levy asserts (see his Point #4) that the Bush Administration is blocking negotiations that both the Syrian and Israeli Heads of State desire.  He quotes Ambassador Martin Indyk (a member of our Honorary Board and a man who nobody would accuse of coming from the left) on his testimony to the House Foreign Relations Committee:

As I understand it, the Bush Administration is unwilling to encourage Israeli-Syrian peace negotiations…this puts the U.S. in the unprecedented and invidious position of opposing an opportunity for Arab-Israeli peacemaking even when our ally Israel is keen to pursue it.

Today Sherazad Hamit and I were in the Bay Area to discuss OneVoice’s campaign for 2008 with several of our supporters.

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Ben Stein’s article in the New York Times Wall Street, Run Amok highlights one of the core reasons why our financial system is not working: investment bankers are incentivized to leverage themselves to the sky; the more debt they take, the more their upside from structured deals and the more compensation they get, with the downside severely mollified by the public serving as the unwitting insurer.

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Is it me or did anyone else notice the extreme bias of the media against Barak Obama this Sunday in all news shows?  Whether it’s just a media circus game to extend the political party with a longer nomination fight, or whether it was Senator Clinton’s machine that appealed to the media establishment, it is fascinating how biased the media was.

The clearest and most patent example of downright dishonest coverage came this Sunday around 1:40pm EST when Jim Acosta from CNN covered the Indiana contest as follows:

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With growing human population and consumption, our planet is already strained with water scarcity, fossil fuel scarcity, food scarcity, mineral scarcity, and environmental degradation.  Is the big picture that humans will eventually kill each other to compete for scarce resources?

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It sounds so crazy.  With growing climate change, planet earth as we know it is on the brink of a radical transformation that could endanger the very survival of the human race, if not at best require the most painful and radical adjustments for us all.

Why then would any rational human being want to stand in the way of finding solutions to prevent an epic catastrophe?

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Something serious is going on when rice is rationed by the largest retailer in the world in the wealthiest country in the history of the world.

My team member Phil caught this story about it!

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When I wrote Re-Imagining Ourselves in Our Fallen Heroes, I was inspired after starting to read the first couple paragraphs from Taylor Branch’s op-ed in the Sunday New York Times’ Week in Review and his comment that "more than once, the dominant culture has turned history upside Down to make itself feel more comfortable."  After reading the whole article, I was also struck by his comment that the "civil rights movement rose from the the fringe of maids and sharecroppers."  This should resonate among modern activists…

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It is undeniable that AIPAC has tilted to the right over the last 10 years, almost hijacked by hawkish constituents.  Perhaps then the birth of JStreet is an unavoidable outcome.  My concern though

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