College and University Monitor

...Then, in 1978, the entire field of Middle Eastern Studies was revolutionized by the late professor of English comparative literature at Columbia University, Edward Said, with the publication of his book, Orientalism. The treatise said that no one could speak with any degree of scholarship and authenticity about the Middle East unless he or she was a native of the region (i.e., an Arab or a Muslim).

Therefore, wonderful scholars such as Efraim Karsh and Bernard Lewis were moved aside on the bookshelves, and the university library and classroom doors were opened to a new generation of highly-politicized, rabidly anti-Israel scholars.

This rather facile treatise caught on like wildfire. Academic scholarship of the Middle East became profoundly altered, and polemics started taking the place of serious scholarship. It made a sensational splash, bringing with it waves of academics who parrot the prevailing “group think” that is overwhelmingly anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian, post-colonial and anti-American.

A cannon of almost biblical proportion developed. Edward Said was the grand master, and his disciples include (among many others) Rashid Khalidi, Hamid Dabashi, and Joseph Massad at Columbia, and Hatem Bazian, the founder of Students for Justice in Palestine, which has known links to terrorist organizations....