Yale May Hire Juan Cole

Charles Johnsonfollow me on twitter
Mon Apr 24, 2006 at 8:26 am PDT • Views: 519

John Fund reports that Yale may be about to ditch former Taliban ambassador Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi—but in another almost unbelievable move, they’re considering hiring notorious anti-Israel wacademic Juan Cole: Cole Fire.

In the next few days the university may hire Juan Cole, a history professor at the University of Michigan, to fill a new spot as a professor of contemporary Middle East studies.

Mr. Cole’s appointment would be problematic on several fronts. First, his scholarship is largely on the 19th-century Middle East, not on contemporary issues. “He has since abandoned scholarship in favor of blog commentary,” says Michael Rubin, a Yale graduate and editor of the Middle East Quarterly. Mr. Cole’s postings at his blog, Informed Comment, appear to be a far cry from scholarship. They feature highly polemical writing and dubious conspiracy theories.

In justifying all the time he spends on his blog, Mr. Cole told the Yale Herald that “when you become a public intellectual, it has the effect of dragging you into a lot of mud.” Mr. Cole has done his share of splattering. He calls Israel “the most dangerous regime in the Middle East.” That ties in with his recurring theme that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee effectively controls Congress and much of U.S. foreign policy. In an article titled “Dual Loyalties,” he wrote, “I simply think that we deserve to have American public servants who are centrally commited [sic] to the interests of the United States, rather than to the interests of a foreign political party,” namely Israel’s right-wing Likud, which was the ruling party until Ariel Sharon formed the centrist Kadima Party. Mr. Cole claims that “pro-Likud intellectuals” routinely “use the Pentagon as Israel’s Gurkha regiment, fighting elective wars on behalf of Tel Aviv.”

Last January, Mr. Cole participated in a “teach-in” at Yale that could have been an audition for his possible hiring. According to the Yale Daily News, he told students that U.S. efforts “in helping create a constitution for the ‘new Iraq’ have increased factionalism.” He concluded that “this is a recipe for continued social turmoil and continued global war.”

Mr. Cole says that he is often unfairly attacked for being anti-Semitic, when in reality he claims he is only critical of Israeli policy. But Michael Oren, a visiting fellow at Yale, notes that in February 2003 Mr. Cole wrote on his blog that “Apparently [President Bush] has fallen for a line from the neo-cons in his administration that they can deliver the Jewish vote to him in 2004 if only he kisses Sharon’s ass.” Mr. Oren says “clearly that’s anti-Semitism; that’s not a criticism of Israeli policy.” (Exit polls showed that 74% of the Jewish vote went to John Kerry.)

UPDATE at 4/24/06 9:32:32 am:

Jeff Goldstein weighs in.

Advertisement

52 comments

^ back to top ^

Name:

Pass:

Register Forgot Your Password? Re-send Confirmation (To log in, cookies must be enabled in your browser!)

Turn off ads by subscribing!
For about 33 cents a day, our subscription option turns off all advertisements at LGF!
Read more...


► LGF Headlines

  • Loading...

► Tweeted Articles

  • Loading...

► Tweeted Pages

  • Loading...

► Top 10 Comments

  • Loading...

► Bottom Comments

  • Loading...

► Recent Comments

  • Loading...

► Tools/Info

► Tag Cloud

► Contact

You must have Javascript enabled to use the contact form.
Your email:

Subject:

Message:


Messages may be published in our weblog, unless you request otherwise.
Tech Note:
Using the Contact Form

More Partners

Compare Electricity Prices in your area. Texas Electricity is deregulated; you have the right to choose Texas Electric Rates from among many Texas Electric Companies.

Then, then there is that public slam of us.
- Sarah Palin.

TwitterFacebook
LGF Pages
Recent Pages

Randall Gross
Anarchists Attack Science : Nature News & Comment
2 hours, 46 minutes ago
Views: 95 • Comments: 1
Tweets: 2 • Rating: 2

MikeySDCA
5 Seemingly Harmless Things That Are Stressing You Out
3 hours, 48 minutes ago
Views: 89 • Comments: 0
Tweets: 0 • Rating: 0

researchok
Lost Classics: An Address Delivered in 2009 to Graduates in Classics at UC Berkeley
10 hours, 29 minutes ago
Views: 123 • Comments: 0
Tweets: 0 • Rating: 0

Haywood Jabloeme
SWATting the Ericksons
13 hours, 32 minutes ago
Views: 136 • Comments: 1
Tweets: 0 • Rating: -1

Mostly sane, most of the time.
So wake up and notice already
13 hours, 41 minutes ago
Views: 90 • Comments: 0
Tweets: 0 • Rating: 1

Daniel Ballard
Late Afternoon Light-Kalanchoe
1 day, 18 hours ago
Views: 199 • Comments: 0
Tweets: 0 • Rating: 5

Eclectic Infidel
City College of San Francisco Budget Update
1 day, 19 hours ago
Views: 230 • Comments: 0
Tweets: 0 • Rating: 1

Aigle
National Geographic Traveler Veers Off Track
2 days, 23 hours ago
Views: 816 • Comments: 17
Tweets: 26 • Rating: -6

MichaelJ
Apple TV Slated to Debut in December?
3 days ago
Views: 304 • Comments: 0
Tweets: 0 • Rating: 1

Ascher
Israeli Who Saved Turk on Everest: You Never Abandon a Friend - Israel News, Ynetnews
3 days, 2 hours ago
Views: 371 • Comments: 1
Tweets: 0 • Rating: 4

 Frank says:

If something goes wrong and you tend to smile it away, then you have someone to blame.