Islamophilia In America's Classrooms

(With a hat tip to Infidel Bloggers Alliance)



Some reading below the fold:

Saudi-funded textbooks being used in America's K-12 classrooms.

Teaching, among other things, that Jesus was a "Palestinian," the state of Israel never existed, and that the Muslims discovered America before Columbus. At this rate, perhaps even Saudi grade-school textbooks, complete with jihadi and dhimmi declarations, will come to instruct American school-children.

ooo OOO ooo

"Public Schools Teach the ABCs of Islam," by Erick Stakelbeck for CBN News, October 9, 2008:

CBNNews.com - Several recent studies have shown that American students are alarmingly ignorant about U.S. history and world events.

Experts have contributed the problem to everything from failing schools to substandard teachers.

But what about content?

For instance, did you know that Muslims discovered America? Or that Jerusalem is an Arab city? That's just some of the "history" that students in America's K-12 classrooms have been taught in recent years--with the help of taxpayer money.

A new report by the non-profit Institute for Jewish and Community Research finds that American high school and elementary textbooks contain countless inaccuracies about Christianity, Judaism, Israel and the Middle East.

The Institute examined 28 of the most widely-used history, geography and social studies textbooks in America. It found at least 500 errors.

One book ignored the Jewish roots of Christianity, saying the faith was founded by a "young Palestinian" named Jesus.

Another stated as fact that the Koran was revealed to Mohammed from God.

Yet another said ancient Jewish civilization contributed "very little" to to the arts and sciences.

Textbooks like these are used by millions of schoolchildren in all 50 states. [...]

Harvard is one of 18 universities that receives government funding under Title VI of the Higher Education Act of 1965. To qualify for that funding, the universities are required to conduct outreach to K-12 teachers, helping them to shape lessons for schoolchildren. Elementary and secondary teachers have taken full advantage of the arrangement: after all, they believe they're getting expert insight on Islam and the Middle East from distinguished university scholars.

"You have a lot of politically naive teachers--well intentioned teachers who do want their students to learn more about Islamic history," says Stotsky. "It has not been well covered in most history courses they've ever taken, so they do genuinely want to learn more for themselves and teach their students more."

In some cases they may be getting more than they bargained for: the Saudi government has donated millions of dollars to Middle East Centers at universities that receive Title VI funding.

The Harvard Middle Eastern Studies Center--whose recommendations to the Massachusetts Board originally drew Stosky's concern--is one of them. As CBN News reported earlier this year, the Harvard Center received a $20 million donation from Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal in 2005. Georgetown University--another title VI recipient--also received $ 20 million from the Prince that same year.

It's through these Title VI university centers--all of them government-sanctioned and taxpayer supported--that Saudi-funded materials find their way into K-12 classrooms.

"Saudi donations to American universities should be seen in a much larger picture of Saudi promotion of a Saudi point of view," said Daniel Pipes, Director of the Middle East Forum in Philadelphia. "Whether it be Islamic or political, the Saudis have a point of view. And they have been very clever and very generous over the decades to promote that point of view."

Have you looked at YOUR child's textbooks? Do you know what's going on in YOUR child's school?

According to DawaNet:

Students are routinely exposed in their classroom to new information and opinions, hence they tend to be more receptive to new beliefs and ideas.

Schools are therefore fertile grounds where the seeds of Islam can be sowed inside the hearts of non-Muslim students....

[...]

Some aspects of Islam can be incorporated in school projects. For example, for a speech class, if there is freedom to choose a topic, an Islamic topic should be selected. Similar opportunities can be created in history, social science, writing and other classes.

Remember, it was the Will and help of Allah, Iman (faith) and Muslim creativity that won victories for the Muslims. Schools and campuses are no exceptions as places where Islam can be victorious....

The bottom line

We should use every opportunity to sensitize non-Muslim peers and school staff to Islam and to establish an environment in which everywhere a non-Muslim turns, he notices Islam portrayed in a positive way, is influenced by it and eventually accepts Islam with Allah's guidance, Insha Allah (if God wills).

More HERE.

I repeat: Have you looked at YOUR child's textbooks? Do you know what's going on in YOUR child's school?

Must-read additional information about the subversion of the Western education HERE at Trencherbone.

Recommended book for your home library: The Trouble with Textbooks: Distorting History and Religion.

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School Answering Machine

Spew alert! Set down your beverage.

Courtesy of commenter Speedy G:

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Interfaithing Equals Dhimmitude

Ongoing since 2002, the year after 9/11:


This week, at Georgetown University, in Washington, D.C.:

From May 25-27, 2010, Georgetown University President John J. DeGioia will host Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and his 9th Annual Building Bridges Seminar. Since 2002, the Archbishop of Canterbury has chaired an annual seminar bringing together leading Muslim and Christian scholars from around the world to explore issues at the heart of the two traditions. Georgetown University has become a partner in this significant dialogue process and hosted the seminar in 2004 and 2006.

Prince Al-Waleed of Saudi is, no doubt, gratified by the dhimmitude of a Jesuit university as he watches mainstream Christianity submit to Islam via his "educational charities", which finance centers of Islamic study at Western universities.

According to Campus Watch:

Perhaps Alwaleed's animus toward the instruments of "Jewish pressure" explains some of his less-advertised investments -- among them, a $27 million contribution to a Saudi government telethon that raised more than $100 million for the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Both the Middle East Media Research Institute's Steven Stalinsky and columnist Diana West have called attention to the prince's co-ownership of the Saudi ART TV network that, under Alwaleed's watch, aired not only the aforementioned telethon but also the fundraiser "Jihad in Palestine," which encouraged Muslims to triumph over the West through suicide bombings and "slitting of throats and shattering skulls."

Charming, huh? [heavy sarcasm]

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At UC Irvine

(If you desire a break from politics, please scroll down to the post below)

From Infidel Bloggers Alliance:



Information about Malik Ali below the fold.

From Discover The Networks, an invaluable resource:

Amir-Abdel Malik-Ali (also known as Abdul Malik Ali and Abd Al-Malik) is a black Imam associated with the Masjid Al Islam mosque in Oakland. A graduate of San Francisco State University and a former Nation of Islam member, he is a frequent guest lecturer at Muslim Student Union and Muslim Students Association events. A passionate supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah, he helped organize a July 1999 rally in San Francisco at which Imam Abdul-Alim Musa proudly displayed a cashier’s check made out to “Hamas, Palestine.” Malik-Ali endorses suicide bombings as a legitimate “resistance” tactic: “Palestinian mothers are supporting their children who are suicide bombers, saying, ‘Go honey, go!’ That ain’t suicide; that’s martyrdom.”

[...]


Malik-Ali is a favorite guest speaker of UC Irvine’s Muslim Student Union (MSU).

[...]

Also among Malik-Ali’s notable quotes and positions are the following:

* “The enemies of Islam know that when we come back to power we’re gonna check ’em.”

* “Stay conscious and ask Allah to raise the Muslims and give us victory over the disbeliever.”

* “When it’s all over, the only one standing is gonna be us [Muslims].”

* “Sooner or later, today’s Muslim students will be the parents of Muslim children. And they should be militants.”

* “Neo-cons are all Zionist Jews.”

* “The wars against Iraq [Gulf War and Operation Iraqi Freedom] were manufactured by the Jews in America to avert attention from the two [Palestinian] Intifadas.”

* “You [Jews] made all the mistakes we wanted you to make. You went after [former Georgia congresswoman] Cynthia McKinney. So now black folks don’t like you.... You’re walking into all the traps we want you to walk into. You hijacked American foreign policy.”

* “[T]he Israelis were in control of 9-11,” which “was staged to give an excuse to wage war against Muslims around the world.”

* Israelis ought to return “to Germany, to Poland, to Russia. The Germans should hook y’all up. You [Israelis] should go back to Germany.”

* “In America, you’re mostly fighting with your tongue, but you should also learn how to fight with the sword.”

* At the Sixth Annual Muslim Student Association Conference held at UC Berkeley in February 2004, Malik-Ali denounced “the white man, who is the enemy.”

* At the Universal Heritage Foundation’s December 2003 Islamic Conference in Florida, he warned moderate American Muslims that their desire to be “liked” was turning them into “‘house slaves’ in the mansion of a racist, imperialistic and destructive America.”

* He has described Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a “pretty good guy.”

Read it all. The article has embedded links.

Onyx Magazine, the annual awards gala of which is sponsored every year by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida (Floridians, how are your health-insurance premiums these days?), has referred to Ali as "defender of the people."

Apparently, Ali is quite selective as to exactly which people he supports and defends.

One can hope that Ali doesn't gain much support on the campus of UC Irvine. But the fact remains that this traitor and racist is repeatedly invited back there.

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L.A. TEACHER CALLS FOR MEXICAN REVOLT IN THE U.S.

(crossposted from THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS, where I'm privileged to have access to posting)

Note the ranting about the "global struggle against imperialism and capitalism." Much more leftist ranting below from Sanchee High School's history teacher Ron Gochez, paid on the taxpayers' dime:



The above consumer of taxpayer dollars spoke at the UCLA La Raza rally.

UPDATE (RELIAPUNDIT) FROM DONALD DOUGLAS/AMERICAN POWER:

Ron Gochez, Anti-Semitic Social Justice Teacher and Reconquista Activist, Connects With Underage Student Hotties on MySpace

There's a little buzz tonight surrounding a three year-old protest video featuring Los Angeles revolutionary/reconquista activist Ron Gochez -- who's listed as a Social Studies Teacher in the School of Public Service and Social Justice at Los Angeles' Santee High School.

Here's this from Gochez's speech at UCLA in 2007:

We are revolutionary Mexican organization here. We understand that this is not just about Mexico. It’s about a global struggle against imperialism and capitalism… At the forefront of this revolutionary movement is La Raza. We will no longer fall for these lies called borders. We see America as a northern front of a revolutionary movement… Our enemy is capitalism and imperialism.

Well, we find more on Ron Gochez with a little digging.

USE THIS LINK TO FIND OUT MORE. NOW!

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On The U.S. Supreme Court Docket

I recently stumbled across this. Read the entire item below the fold, and leave a comment if you are inclined to do so:

Can Campus Religious Groups Exclude Non-Believers?

The Supreme Court will soon hear arguments to determine whether official student organizations at public universities can exclude students based on their religious views.

The Christian Legal Society (CLS) is a national association of lawyers, judges, law professors, and law students with chapters at universities across the country. In 2004, CLS members at the University of California Hastings College of the Law requested recognition as an official student organization, hoping to secure benefits including financial support and meeting space. The University refused, saying CLS violated its nondiscrimination policies by denying membership to practicing homosexuals and anyone who refuses to sign the group’s “statement of faith.”

“Religious groups on campus have a choice,” says Ethan Schulman, a lawyer representing the school. “If they want to be eligible to receive public funds and access to facilities, they cannot discriminate in selecting members and officers. If they wish to discriminate, they can continue to meet, but without the benefit of public funds and support.”

While any student can attend CLS meetings and activities, leaders and voting members must promise to abstain from all sexual activity outside of heterosexual marriage and adhere to a set of religious principles the society outlines. “A group’s ability to have its leaders share its core values is vital,” says Kim Colby, senior counsel with the CLS Center for Law & Religious Freedom. “All associations, but particularly religious ones, should be alarmed that government officials are trying to interfere with that basic right.”

Jesse Choper, a law professor at UC Berkeley, says that conflicting legal precedents are at work. In 2000, the Supreme Court decided that the Boy Scouts were within their rights to deny membership to homosexuals. However, Choper notes, “even if you have a First Amendment right to do something, it does not entitle you to funding to exercise your right.”

— George Vernadakis

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The Idiocy Continues

You might ask, "Which idiocy?" After all, there are SO MANY IDIOCIES to choose for discussion these days.

Well, instead of posting about BHO (several of those posts below this one), I've chosen the following short video, one about the new euphemisms in our nation's textbooks (hat tip to Weasel Zippers):



The book The Trouble with Textbooks is available at Amazon. If you have children or grandchildren still in school or if you are a teacher, you might want to buy your own copy and start checking the, ahem, new terminology.

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Video: Teaching Islam In Our Public Schools

From this April 5, 2009 article by Islamic expert Raymond Ibrahim:

Textbook Lies About Islam

In recent House hearings dedicated to examining Islamic extremism, I stressed that the fundamental stumbling block to effective policy-making is educational and epistemological. What people are taught about Islam needs a serious overhaul before we can expect to formulate strategies that make sense.

[...]

In my [8] testimony to the House, I wrote: “It should be acknowledged that educational failures exacerbate epistemological ones, and vice versa, leading to a perpetual cycle where necessary knowledge is not merely ignored, but not even acknowledged as real in the first place. When American universities [or high schools] fail to teach Islamic doctrine and history accurately, a flawed epistemology permeates society at large. And since new students and new professors come from this already conditioned-towards-Islam society, not only do they not question the lack of accurate knowledge and education; they perpetuate it.”

This report demonstrates the validity of this vicious cycle. In fact, every last one of those flagrant textbook errors indoctrinating America’s youth is an indisputable “fact” for many of America’s Islam “experts,” particularly those advising the government. The effects are dramatic. For instance, far from objectively examining Islam, the government is now pushing to [9] ban Arabic words connotative of Islamic ideology from formal analysis — such as “mujahid,” “umma,” “Sharia,” “caliphate” — asking personnel to rely primarily on generic terms, such as “terrorists.”

Read the rest HERE.

According to Thomas Jefferson:

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." --Thomas Jefferson to Charles Yancey, 1816. ME 14:384

"The most effectual means of preventing [the perversion of power into tyranny are] to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts which history exhibits, that possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and countries, they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes." --Thomas Jefferson: Diffusion of Knowledge Bill, 1779. FE 2:221, Papers 2:526

"I look to the diffusion of light and education as the resource most to be relied on for ameliorating the conditions, promoting the virtue and advancing the happiness of man." --Thomas Jefferson to Cornelius Camden Blatchly, 1822. ME 15:399

"If the condition of man is to be progressively ameliorated, as we fondly hope and believe, education is to be the chief instrument in effecting it." --Thomas Jefferson to M. A. Jullien, 1818. ME 15:172

But what happens when the very education itself is corrupted with lies and obfuscations? The death of a civilization?

Of course, Jefferson had his own troubles with Moslems, particularly the Barbary Pirates:

...In 1786, Jefferson, then the American ambassador to France, and Adams, then the American ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the "Dey of Algiers" ambassador to Britain.

The Americans wanted to negotiate a peace treaty based on Congress' vote to appease.

During the meeting Jefferson and Adams asked the Dey's ambassador why Muslims held so much hostility towards America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts.

In a later meeting with the American Congress, the two future presidents reported that Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja had answered that Islam "was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Quran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman (Muslim) who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise."

For the following 15 years, the American government paid the Muslims millions of dollars for the safe passage of American ships or the return of American hostages. The payments in ransom and tribute amounted to 20 percent of United States government annual revenues in 1800.

Not long after Jefferson's inauguration as president in 1801, he dispatched a group of frigates to defend American interests in the Mediterranean, and informed Congress.

Declaring that America was going to spend "millions for defense but not one cent for tribute," Jefferson pressed the issue by deploying American Marines and many of America's best warships to the Muslim Barbary Coast.

[...]

During the Jefferson administration, the Muslim Barbary States, crumbling as a result of intense American naval bombardment and on shore raids by Marines, finally officially agreed to abandon slavery and piracy.

Jefferson's victory over the Muslims lives on today in the Marine Hymn, with the line, "From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli, We fight our country's battles in the air, on land and sea."

[...]

Jefferson had been right. The "medium of war" was the only way to put and end to the Muslim problem....

Yet, the textbooks in our schools are glossing over the historical facts about Islam and promoting an insane and dangerous kumbaya. Once that imprint is fastened into the minds of young people, can it ever be dislodged?

Would that advocate of education and Father of the University of Virginia could speak to us from the grave right now and sound a heeded warning as to the dangerous path we are treading in this era of multiculturalism and revisionism!

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How Islam Is Portrayed In Our Textbooks

(Hat tip to Pastorius of Infidel Bloggers Alliance)





Also see this posting at Jihad Watch.

Have you checked your child's textbooks lately? For that matter, have you checked other teaching materials your child is learning from?

Remember this: on a typical school day, your child spends more time in school than with his parents.

Never underestimate the power of classroom teaching.

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Promoting Islam At Georgetown University

(All emphases by Always On Watch)



From The Avid Editor's Insights, on March 10, 2008:

Check out this amazingly illuminating post by konservo

“Researchers” From Gallup Center for Muslim Studies and Georgetown University Publish a “Study”: ”

Georgetown University has been hard at work producing a new ‘study’ to show us infidels how it is really our fault that Islam has been given a bad name.
-----
After all, we are not respecting Islam, and Muslims are a sensitive bunch.

Here are some key points:

• Muslims and Americans are equally likely to reject attacks on civilians as morally unjustifiable.

• Large majorities of Muslims would guarantee free speech if it were up to them to write a new constitution and they say religious leaders should have no direct role in drafting that constitution.

• Muslims around the world say that what they least admire about the West is its perceived moral decay and breakdown of traditional values — the same answers that Americans themselves give when asked this question.

• When asked about their dreams for the future, Muslims say they want better jobs and security, not conflict and violence.

• Muslims say the most important thing Westerners can do to improve relations with their societies is to change their negative views toward Muslims and respect Islam.

Georgetown.edu

You see, according to the ‘research’ gathered for this ‘study,’ it turns out that if we, as Freedom-loving Westerners, had merely turned a blind eye to the atrocious actions and ideological reasoning behind Islamic terrorism around the world along with the concomitant lack of denunciation (which is easily interpreted as quiet approval) from Muslim groups (e.g. MAS and CAIR supporting HAMAS), and rather if we had decided to give up that Freedom which we so cherish and instead submit and give out respect to a religion that has been spread by the sword since its conception, that is what it would take to improve relations between Americans and Muslims, and again, this is according to the ‘research’ found in this ‘study.’

Oh… also,

About Georgetown University:

A $20 million gift from a Saudi Arabian prince to a Georgetown University academic center has not affected its scholarly work, Georgetown’s president said in response to questions from a U.S. congressman

…

U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), wrote to DeGioia Feb. 14, saying he was concerned about Prince Alwaleed’s gift to Georgetown’s Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (which was renamed in the prince’s honor) and the affect it had on research. Has anyone at the Center conducted research critical of Saudi educational or human rights policies? Wolf also asked whether the money fueled any of the school’s training of current and prospective U.S. Foreign Service personnel.

‘[A]ll of us at Georgetown University take very seriously the importance of protecting academic freedom,’ DeGioia wrote. ‘I want to assure you that I am completely confident that the Center’s work, to borrow your words, ‘maintains the impartiality and integrity’ that we expect of all research conducted at Georgetown University.’

The response misses the point, said Martin Kramer, former director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University and a fellow at Harvard and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy…

‘No one at such a center could possibly specialize in contemporary Saudi policy, because to do so objectively would not sit well with the Saudi princes who make the gifts,’ Kramer said in an e-mail exchange. ‘Replicate this a hundred-fold across academe, at universities that would also like $20 million for Islamo-this-or-that, and you have killed off the critical study of Saudi Arabia in the academy. This is no small achievement: the political structure and social norms of the Kingdom are not of the sort that endear themselves to the ‘progressives’ in our universities. But the academics are silent, because they hope and pray that someday, their prince will come.’

Investigative Project on Terrorism

It seems to me that the ‘study’ could very well be the result of Saudi-funded Islamo-this-or-that in an American university. Such a shame.

It's a shame, all right. In fact, it's worse than a shame.

Funded by bucks from Saudi, the home of Wahhabism, we are training the next generation in Islamophilia and continuing the whitewash of Islamism at one of our most respected institutions of higher learning. And we're selling out Western civilization in the process.

It's later than we think, folks.

We in the United States need not look across The Pond and gloat that we are smarter than Europe with regard to the Islamification of the West. We're standing idly by and allowing the camel's nose into the tent right here. Dhimmis and politically-correct people that we've become, we're letting more than the camel's nose intrude into the tent. It seems to me that the camel will take over the entire tent not too far in the future — oh so quietly.

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Those Saudi Bucks

Image credit
An accounting of the Saudi bucks infused into various universities all around the world has not been forthcoming as to the specificity of the usage of those funds. Isn't it important to reveal just what impact those billions have had on curriculum and material presented to the next generation of our nation's leaders?

Read this December 10, 2007 article in the Washington Times. Note that those Saudi bucks may be getting spread around in more places than you've heard of! No doubt you've heard about Prince Alwaleed's gift of $20 million each to Georgetown and Harvard universities, but many other institutions have also received substantial amounts of money. Just how is that money being put to use? According to the article (emphases mine),

...Some call the Saudi gift Arab generosity and gratitude for the years American universities have educated the elite of the Arab world. Others say the sheer size of the donations amounts to buying influence and creating bastions of noncritical pro-Islamic scholarship within academia.

"There's a possibility these campuses aren't getting gifts, they're getting investments," said Clifford May, president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. "Departments on Middle Eastern studies tend to be dominated by professors tuned to the concerns of Arab and Muslim rulers. It's very difficult for scholars who don't follow this line to get jobs and tenure on college campuses.

"The relationship between these departments and the money that pours in is hard to establish, but like campaign finance reform, sometimes money is a bribe. Sometimes it's a tip."

The $40 million gift from the Saudi donor, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, was the latest in a tradition that started in the 1970s — Muslim donors pumping millions of dollars into American universities to fund Islamic studies, hire faculty specialists in Islam and fund books and seminars on the world's second-largest religion.

[...]

At Georgetown, [Prince Alwaleed's] money was funneled toward its Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, which was quickly renamed the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. The center, part of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, trains many of America's diplomats.

...The center's aim, according to its mission statement, is to "improve relations between the Muslim world and the West and enhance understanding of Muslims in the West."

The center's director, John Esposito, a prolific writer and praised by many as being a national authority on the religion, was severely criticized by several scholars for downplaying the threat of Islamic terrorism in the 1990s when he was a foreign affairs analyst for the State Department.

Mr. Esposito, "more than any other academic, contributed to American complacency prior to 9/11," Martin Kramer, a fellow at the Olin Institute at Harvard, wrote in a Jan. 2, 2006, commentary on his blog, sandbox.blog-city.com.

"[Mr. Esposito has] proved that he's still a magnet for Arab and Muslim money," Mr. Kramer wrote. "Prince Alwaleed apparently decided that while Esposito's reputation may be dented, the professor still has some value in him."

Mr. Esposito declined to be interviewed for this article but did defend himself in several e-mails.

[...]

Mr. Esposito said the number of programs sponsored by his center went from 27 last year to 22 this semester alone. The first of three new faculty, Ibrahim Kalin, a scholar on Sufiism and Islamic philosophy, is slated to come on board next fall.

A month before the gift was publicly announced, Mr. Esposito was one of four persons flanking Prince Alwaleed before a photographer at the George V hotel in Paris. It was then that the prince told Georgetown officials of their $20 million windfall — and that Mr. Esposito would oversee how the money was spent.

[...]

"The prince knew very well Georgetown's in a milieu filled with lobbyists and opinion makers; thus any program of his will exert more influence there than at a university not in a power center like Washington," Mr. Meyers said. "The grant also gave Esposito a much bigger microphone. When you've got a $20 million institute, that amplifies your voice considerably."

The Saudi Embassy's press office did not respond to requests for comment on this article, and a spokeswoman for Prince Alwaleed said he was "too busy" to respond.

[...]

In 1979, Saudi Aramco World magazine published a list of recent Middle Eastern gifts, including...$750,000 from the Libyan government for a chair of Arab culture at Georgetown University; and $250,000 from the United Arab Emirates for a visiting professorship of Arab history, also at Georgetown.

In 1986, Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi donated $5 million toward a sports center to be named after him at American University....

[...]

There are 17 federally funded centers on American college campuses devoted solely to Middle Eastern studies centers and another 30 to 40 that do not receive federal aid, according to Amy Newhall, executive director of the Middle East Studies Association at the University of Arizona. Not counting several positions at Georgetown University, she estimated at least 10 chaired professorships currently funded by Saudis at major universities.

"With all the talk of the Israel lobby, no one talks about the Saudi lobby," Mr. Meyers said. "There is no counterweight to Saudi influence in American higher education."

Indeed, Ain-al-Yaqeen reported that King Fahd has spent "billions of Saudi riyals," around the world.

"In terms of Islamic institutions, the result is some 210 Islamic centers wholly or partly financed by Saudi Arabia, more than 1,500 mosques and 202 colleges and almost 2,000 schools for educating Muslim children in non-Islamic countries in Europe, North and South America, Australia and Asia," the paper reported.

[...]

Mr. Kramer, also the author of "Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America," says American universities have allowed themselves to be purveyors of Saudi influence and opinion.

"Universities generate ideas, and [Prince Alwaleed] regards one idea — the 'clash of civilizations" — as positively dangerous to Arabs and Muslims," he wrote on his Web site, martinkramer.org. "So he has embarked on a grand giving spree, to create academic 'bridges" between Islam and the West, and specifically between the Arab world and the United States ...

"The mind boggles at the possibilities, when you think of the purchasing power of the world's fifth-richest man," Mr. Kramer continued. "Of course, this is why we can't ever expect to get the straight story on Saudi Arabia, Wahhabism and oil from people who operate within Middle Eastern studies. If you want a fabulously wealthy Saudi royal to drop out of the sky in his private jet and leave a few million, you had better watch what you say — which means you had better say nothing."

Prince Alwaleed, 52, — who slipped from the fifth richest person in 2005 to the 13th this year, according to Forbes magazine — is best known to some Americans as the man who offered $10 million to the victims of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. That money was rejected by Rudolph W. Giuliani, then the mayor, after the prince scolded the U.S. for favoring Israelis over Palestinians.

[...]

In 2002, [Prince Alawaleed] donated $500,000 to the George Herbert Walker Bush Scholarship Fund, established by the Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass. In 2006, he donated $10 million to the Weill Medical College of Cornell University.

He defends such gifts in interviews, saying that he has financed study programs about American culture overseas, including a $10 million gift to found a Center for American Studies at American University in Cairo and $5.2 million for a similar center at American University in Beirut.

Prince Alwaleed's Cairo and Beirut projects explain American culture, but according to their Web sites, offer no courses in Christianity — America's majority religion. Meanwhile, typical courses at the Georgetown center are "Islamic Theological Development" and "Islamic Religious Thought and Practice."

[...]

"Islamists such as the radical fundamentalists seen with the Saudi Wahhabis exploit American universal tolerance to provide a vehicle for the dissemination of their propaganda free of critique," [Zuhdi Jasser] said...

The interfaithing street seems to run one way, in Wahhabism's direction. So much for promoting understanding among various religions on university campuses around the world. Courtesy of the Saudis, of course.

Mark Alexander reminded me yesterday of this little saying: "He who pays the piper calls the tune." Prince Alawaleed certainly understands the meaning of that proverb, but Western ostriches refuse to pull their heads from the sand.

9/11 is fading into distant memory. We're lulled into complacency. Meanwhile, Islamification is proceeding quietly as the next generation is being turned into the generation of Islamophilia.

Remember the words of CAIR's Ibrahim Hooper:

"I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future...But I'm not going to do anything violent to promote that. I'm going to do it through education."

Saudi is using education as the sword of Islam. And petro-dollars are funding the process.

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The Sense Of Entitlement

I've long believed that embuing a child with a false sense of self-esteem will wreak unintended consequences later in life. Today in our society we are seeing those consequences in all sorts of ways, including at the career and the university levels:

"What employers and universities find is not only that young people lack basic skills, but also they have this overwhelming sense of entitlement," he says, attributing it to schools in which children received "gold stars and happy faces for mediocre work," as well as the "trophies-for-all" approach to youth sports and parents "who were more concerned about being their children's buddies rather than authority figures."

The above quotation from this article in the November 14, 2007 edition of the Washington Times is attributed to Charles Sykes, author of 50 Rules Kids Won't Learn in School: Real-World Antidotes to Feel-Good Education and Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can't Read, Write, or Add. He contends that the "bubble-wrapping" children — insulating them from the bumps, bruises, and frustrations of life — leaves them unprepared for the realities of life. Read the entire article from the Washington Times.

A recent segment 60 Minutes illustrates the result of the rah-rah mentality on the work force. CLICK HERE to watch the video, about twenty minutes in length and worth your time.

"Too Much of a Good Thing," an article from Scholastic.com, illustrates that, despite all the good intentions on the part of the self-esteem builders, young people are being psychologically and academically handicapped when parents and teachers ignore the importance of abandong standards in favor of promoting self-esteem (emphases mine):

We encourage them, we celebrate them, and we give them stickers and stars. But are we doing more harm than good?

Ask Korean eighth graders, “Are you good at math?” and chances are they’ll say they aren’t. Ask an American, and you’ll likely get an enthusiastic response. In a recent study, only six percent of Korean eighth graders considered themselves excellent math students, compared with 39 percent of American eighth graders. Yet the Korean students scored far better in math than their American peers.

We’ve taught our children since birth to believe they can do anything they choose, from starring in the school play to mastering long division. All that self-confidence, however, hasn’t produced more capable students. The Brookings Institution 2006 Brown Center Report on Education finds that countries in which families and schools emphasize self-esteem for students—America for example—lag behind the cultures that don’t focus on how students feel about themselves.

For decades our culture has concentrated on teaching self-esteem first, learning second. In the late 1980s, a California government task force found no connection between low self-esteem and societal ills, such as drug use, teen pregnancy, and school underachievement. Still, California forged ahead with a self-esteem education plan. Today, raising children’s self-esteem continues to be a primary goal in the classroom, and a goal of parents at home.

Downplaying grades, praising children for minimal effort, or using neutral-colored green or purple pens to comment on written work seems harmless enough, but we may be taking away the sense of satisfaction and pride that comes from genuine achievement. Jason Walsh, a special education teacher in Washington, D.C., witnessed this firsthand during his school’s fifth-grade graduation ceremonies. Some students received as many as 14 different awards. “The majority of the students didn’t know what their awards really meant,” says Walsh. The honors “didn’t reinforce a specific achievement—but a sense of entitlement and of being great.”

The long-term impact of this rah-rah mentality is already apparent. In 2004, according to Jean Twenge, author of Generation Me, 70 percent of American college freshmen reported their academic ability as “above average.” But, once ego-inflated students get to college, they’re more likely to drop out, says Twenge, when their skewed sense of self and overconfidence affects their ability to make decisions.

A growing contingent of experts agree that in the classroom, self-esteem should be an outcome, not a method. “Self-esteem,” says Robert Brooks, Harvard Medical School faculty psychologist, “is based on real accomplishments.” It’s all about letting kids shine in a realistic way.

Feel-Good Academics

There is a correlation between self-esteem and grades; studies have shown that high grades do lead to high self-esteem. But rather then praising children for every effort along the way, we should encourage them to focus on achieving particular goals and applaud that achievement. The danger of too much praise is that children may turn their focus to how good they feel and how to get more praise, rather than on what they’re learning. “All children should be held accountable,” says Karen Bernstein, music teacher at Howard B. Mattlin Middle School in Long Island, New York. “We shouldn’t worry about setting boundaries for kids because of their feelings.” In her classroom, Bernstein makes children responsible for their actions, so that when they do achieve, “they feel good.”

If a student’s confidence isn’t built on their actual abilities, failure can be devastating. Walsh worries that his students’ sense of greatness may lead to a “psychological crash and burn” because they don’t understand why they failed. Walsh’s hunch is on track, according to experts; children who work solely for praise don’t feel intrinsic satisfaction. Even if a child feels competent, says John Shindler, associate professor of education at California State University, it’s not real competence if it’s rooted in constant praise. Furthermore, students absorbed with their own sense of self often have difficulty completing difficult tasks. One study shows that adolescent girls have lower self-esteem than adolescent boys. When confronted with a low score, the girls are more likely to work to improve their performance, while the boys are more likely to give up and change activities. “The real issue,” says Rick Weissbourd, who teaches at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, “is getting kids to develop a sense of self-efficacy, along with real competencies and skills. Self-esteem will follow.”

What Teachers Can Do

The latest findings on self-esteem can be dispiriting for teachers. After all, who wouldn’t want to make students feel good about themselves? Rather than tear down your “Shoot for the Stars” poster, reassess your priorities. Make sure that your primary focus is on student performance and improvement, rather than how kids feel about themselves. Emphasize effort and specific character traits, such as persistence, helpfulness, and consideration.

Students need to see that achievement is related to the effort they put out. Establish clear expectations and rubrics that students can use to achieve the outcome, with effort as one of the criteria for success. If a student has trouble with large goals, says Bernstein, break the task into achievable chunks.

It’s all about realism, adds Twenge. Instead of focusing on how great the students are, highlight students’ real strengths. Teach them that none of us can be good at everything all the time. Weissbourd recommends that for each child in your class, identify three of his or her strengths and then make a plan to highlight those strengths.

Ask your students, what can they learn from this situation? What can they contribute? What do they want to achieve this week, month, or year? Then help them create goals and a way to achieve those goals.

Focus on actions and real character traits, not “special” and “great.” The best kind of praise, says Weissbourd, “communicates a specific achievement and the importance of effort in that achievement.” When you correct children, focus on what the child can do better next time, and show them how.

Aha! Diagnostic and prescriptive teaching! A lost art?

Continuing now with the article:

Don’t shelter children from failure. Children who are shielded from failure are not prepared to deal with adversity. When students fail, tell them exactly why and provide clear ways for them to succeed the next time. To break the ice, suggests Brooks, tell your students about a time when you failed in school, and how you recovered.

A Classroom Full of VIPs

Of course, you are working with children who have already been raised in a self-esteem world. They may think that they deserve recognition regardless of how they perform, and believe they should be considered first. Kids who act out don’t have poor self-esteem, says Twenge. Instead, they often think that they’re the most important person in the room and that everyone else is getting in their way.

When a child is disruptive, you need to figure out why the child is acting that way and work with them to fix it. William Ricks, a teacher in Sussex, Virginia, asks his students to walk with him in the hall to talk with them about their behavior. “I try to find the root of their attitude,” says Reid, “and then I talk to them about humility.” Addressing students’ needs is crucial for behavior and academics. Once students’ “social and emotional needs are met,” says Bernstein, “they will be more likely to work harder.”

Focusing on praise and avoiding riticism makes everybody feel good. But children who have high self-esteem may become rude and uncooperative when they’re criticized. Still, “don’t try to protect students from failure,” says Jennifer Crocker, Claude M. Steele Collegiate Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan. Instead, when we make failure a learning experience and not a threat, the student’s self-esteem isn’t on the line, and they’re more open to taking constructive criticism.

Young children are naturally narcissistic, and teaching them self-esteem keeps them focused on themselves, instead of thinking about others. “Narcissism separates you from other people,” says Twenge, while true “self-esteem brings you into connection with other people.” In the long term, narcissism has been linked with aggression and poor relationships, while connecting children to other people has a positive affect on behavior. And, says Crocker, children learn more when they’re supportive of others.

More important than self-esteem, says Weissbourd, is a child’s maturity, or the ability to be aware of other people, coordinate other people’s needs with their own, and regulate intense feelings. By rewarding our students’ social successes, such as helping their peers, being good community members, and listening, we increase their genuine self-esteem and improve their behavior. Allowing children to help around the classroom, says Brooks, increases their “realistic self-esteem [because children are] making a positive difference in the life of someone else.”

Walsh has worked with students who have inflated egos and no sense of responsibility or respect. Too much self-esteem, he says, “creates a sense of entitlement. I’m not saying that children don’t need reinforcement, but you have to make sure that you develop a realistic, practical, and consistent behavior plan.” When we focus on building students’ self-control, sense of belonging, and competence, we create more self-esteem than we do if we dole out constant praise. “Genuine self-esteem,” says Shindler, is “a set of unconscious self-beliefs, formed over a lifetime, reflecting our perceptions and abilities, our ability to love, and how we attribute causality for the events in our lives.”

Of course, for some years now (Decades?) both parents and teachers are themselves products of "bubble-wrappping," so they want to perpetuate the feel-good mentality in themselves, their children, and their students. In sum, the cycle feeds on itself.

Can the cycle be reversed or slowed? Comments welcome.

Note: Please see The Merry Widow's post "Those 'Fine' Young Cannibals."

[Hat-tip to Raven, at whose web site I found the above article from Scholastic]

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Misleading Labels

(All emphases by Always On Watch)

According to this article in the November 14, 2007 edition of the Washington Post, the thinktank Thomas B. Fordham Institute, which advocates rigorous standards for education, recently graded some Advanced Placement (AP) courses, in which some 14,000 students are enrolled and by which high-school students can receive college credit if they pass the AP exams. Literature courses received a B+, history courses a B-, biology courses an A-, and calculus courses a C-. Compared to the marks which Fordham Institute awarded state standards, those for AP courses were significantly higher than for regular-track courses. However, the report found particular fault with math and history courses because

math [programs]...allowed more use of calculators than the authors considered appropriate. AP U.S. History was faulted for mentioning few specific historical events in its course plan....The authors advised teachers to ignore the [course] outlines....

College Board, which oversees AP courses as mentioned above, has a different take than the Fordham Institute when it comes to history courses. Specifically, College Board has indicated that AP courses should

[pursue] changes to social studies courses that might encourage "more time talking about such themes as 'politics and citizenship' or 'continuity and change,' " which report authors worried would reduce time for learning facts about historical events.

That issue of time is, in my opinion, a valid concern. Teachers and students do not have unlimited time to cover course material. Furthermore, just how are students supposed to talk in a reasoned manner about such themes if facts and events are not the basis of such discussions? Maybe the students are supposed to rely on hunches and feelings — those stand-bys of leftist education.

No doubt those factless-based discussions of themes are presented in the list of course objectives and public-relations material for parents as "critical thinking activities." In my view, "critical thinking" is one of today's mean-nothing educational terms, in part designed to make parents feel that their children are learning instead of being propagandized.

Colleges are increasingly finding problems with the content of high-school courses. Students come into higher education without the needed skills and foundational knowledge. As a result, remedial courses of all sorts abound now at the university level. Just how far has our level of education fallen?

One of my former teachers said to me some fifteen years ago, "Now students can graduate from college with a pretty good eighth-grade education." That statement is hyperbole, of course, but still makes the point that our educational system has serious flaws, one of which is abandoning the basics in favor of bells and whistles.

For various reasons, I'm no fan of College Board. That said, the following item from the November 19 issue of US News & World Report provides one reason as to why College Board has a valid concern about the quality of courses designated as "advanced placement":

The College Board's first ever audit of high school Advanced Placement courses found that most of these high school classes did meet college preparation standards. Concerned that some high schools were slapping the AP label on inappropriate classes—in one case, a high school student submitted transcripts to the University of Virginia showing he had taken "AP Study Hall"—the College Board, which administers the AP tests, analyzed 134,000 course syllabuses from 14,383 schools worldwide. More than two thirds of those syllabuses, or 67 percent, were immediately approved by the 839 college and university professors hired to conduct the review, according to the report released last week. The other classes have either been rejected or are still under review, says the College Board's Trevor Packer, vice president of the AP program.

What are "the other classes"? Is one-third of existent AP classes being of questionable merit symptomatic of a serious problem with our educational system? With College Board? You decide.

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Not Just Satire

(All emphases by Always On Watch)

The story of the hundreds of flyers left all over the campus of George Washington University illustrates the leftist bias in academia and in the media. At first, Young America's Foundation or the group's supporters came under suspicion. YAF's official October 9, 2007 statement about the distribution of the posters is HERE, and includes the following:

...Bridgette Behling, the assistant director of the Student Activities Center at GWU, wrote an email to one of the conservative students urging them to disavow hate speech that may originate from any future Foundation events: “due to the inflammatory nature of today’s events [falsified posters], as a good faith effort on behalf of YAF, it is important that YAF drafts a statement which states that you will not allow hate speech to be a part of any of YAF’s events, literature, written or verbal communication planned for Islamofacism Week. This statement should also include your plan for preventing these things from happening as well as the consequences for these things happening. It is important that we have this document should any further incidents occur as we move forward.”...

Later some additional information came to light. According to this article in the university's newspaper the GW Hatchet:

A group of seven GW students sent an e-mail to The Hatchet late Tuesday night [October 9, 2007] admitting to hanging hundreds of controversial posters around campus early Monday morning.

The students - Adam Kokesh, freshman Yong Kwon, senior Brian Tierney, freshman Ned Goodwin, Maxine Nwigwe, Lara Masri and Amal Rammah - said their motives were misinterpreted. Students for Conservativo-Facism Awareness hung the posters in opposition to Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, an event being held beginning Oct. 22.

Kokesh, a graduate student and Iraq War veteran, gained celebrity over the past year because of his vocal opposition to the war. Nwigwe and Rammah are also graduate students.

[...]

Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week is being held at GW and sponsored by the Young America's Foundation, a conservative student group. It will feature several speakers - including controversial conservative author David Horowitz - slated to discuss radical Islam.

One-hundred and forty two colleges nationwide will host the event, according to its Web site. Horowitz is organizing the week.

"While the poster, even if taken seriously was not intended to cause any real harm, the systematic and glorified type of racism represented by this event is being imposed upon us from dangerous divisive outside forces" the e-mail said.

In the letter, members of the organization said their intent was to shed light on the week - which they called racist.

When all else fails, playing the race card is the tactic — never mind that adherents to and supporters of Islamo-fasicsm cross race lines.

Miss Beth of the blog Miss Beth's Victory Dance provides the following, which I haven't been able to confirm:

It was a hoax [they claim satire] perpetrated by the Saudi-funded radical islamic front group Muslim Student Association.

If true, no surprise there. Anything to stir things up instead of participating in a reasoned discussion to show that the term "Islamofascism" is a misnomer. Anything to discredit Islamo-fascism Awareness Week, which begins on October 22 at university campuses all over the United States, according to the left sidebar at FrontPage Magazine:

Berkeley -- Nonie Darwish, October 22

Brown -- Robert Spencer, October 24

Cal Poly -- Greg Davis, October 25

Cal State Fullerton -- Nonie Darwish

Clemson -- Mike Adams, October 25

Columbia -- Phyllis Chesler, Ibn Warraq, Christina Hoff Sommers

Columbia -- Sean Hannity, David Horowitz, October 26

DePaul -- Robert Spencer, October 25

Emory -- David Horowitz, October 24

George Mason -- Luanah Saghieh, Alan Nathan, October 22

Lawrence University -- Jonathan Schanzer

Maryland --Michael Ledeen

Michigan -- David Horowtz, October 23

Northeastern -- Daniel Pipes, October 24

Ohio State -- David Horowitz, October 25

Penn -- Rick Santorum, October 24

Penn State -- Rick Santorum, October 23

Rhode Island -- Robert Spencer, October 24

San Francisco State -- Melanie Morgan, October 24

Stanford -- Wafa Sultan

Temple -- Rick Santorum, October 24

Tulane -- Ann Coulter, October 22

UC Santa Barbara -- Dennis Prager, October 25

UC Irvine -- Ann Coulter

UCLA -- Nonie Darwish, October 24

UCLA -- Frank Pastore, John Ziegler

USC -- Ann Coulter, October 25

Virginia -- Frank Gaffney

Washington -- Kirby Wilbur

Washington -- Michael Medved, October 25

Wisconsin -- David Horowitz, October 22

Hot Air has this update about one of the "masterminds" behind the posters distributed at GWU:

As soon as I saw it, the name Adam Kokesh rang a bell. He’s the Marine vet who got in trouble for wearing his uniform to anti-war protests, and who heads up the Iraq Veterans Against the War....

The situation at GWU could have been much worse, I suppose. Just think of the uproar which could have ensued had a group distributed posters of the Danish cartoons satirizing MTP!

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Madrassa Madness

Check THIS out!



Excerpt from the above link:

Yes, those t-shirts for young girls say “Intifada NYC.” These were sold at the Arab Fair in Prospect Park on July 8.

Is this the kind of “middle eastern cultural enrichment” that Dhabah Almontaser, principal for Khalil Gibran International Academy, will bring to her students and teachers?...

[...]

If these t-shirts were designed, approved, manufactured, received, stored, brought to the Arab Fair and sold by an organization associated with the Yemeni American Association, and she [school principal Dhabah Almontaser] knew nothing of the matter (or did not disavow it if she did), then she is negligent in the extreme and should be fired, and Chancellor Klein should shut down the KGIA project.

No third choice exists.

You must read the entire article: "KGIA principal Almontaser linked directly to “Intifada NYC” t-shirts"!

Visit the site Stop the Madrassah: Protecting Our Public Schools from Islamist Curricula for additional information in other articles.

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Posting Requested By the Washington DC Examiner

Via email to me, Lak Vorha, D.C. Online Editor of The Washington Examiner Newspapers, requested that I post this....

Picture caption:

(AACE Worldwide Pty Ltd)
An automatic wudu washer, shown here on a promotional brochure manufactured by Australia-based AACE Worldwide, has come under scrutiny as many public institutions have approved their use paying for their installation through tax-funded dollars while turning down other religious groups to install equipment to follow their own faith and service.

Article from the Washington DC Examiner Newspaper:

Editorial: No favors for Muslim students

The principle of separation of church and state in tax-funded institutions has been upheld in more than a dozen Supreme Court rulings. As a result, overtly religious symbols of mainstream religions such as Nativity scenes, the Ten Commandments and menorahs have largely been banished from the public square on the grounds that they offend unbelievers.

But many public colleges and universities have been quietly accommodating some students’ religious activities while ignoring or even trampling on the First Amendment rights of other students.

For example, last year administrators at the Minneapolis Community and Technical College banned a coffee cart operator from playing music “tied to Christmas,” but approved the use of tax dollars to install special basins for Wudu so that Muslims could ritually wash their feet before prayer. College President Phil Davis defended this glaring double standard by absurdly insisting that “the foot-washing facilities are not about religion, they are about customer service and public safety.” At least a dozen other public colleges and universities in the nation have also installed Wudu facilities, including George Mason University in Fairfax.

A GMU spokesman said there were no complaints from other student religious groups when the Muslim Student Association was given permission by administrators to convert a common third-floor meditation room into a makeshift mosque. Would Campus Crusade for Christ be allowed to turn the facility into a makeshift Resurrection scene? The spokesman acknowledged that the other student religious groups have to reserve rooms or meet off campus when they want to pray together. At another state-supported school in Virginia, The College of William & Mary President Gene Nichol recently agreed to return the cross he had removed last year from the college’s historically Christian chapel only after angry alumni threatened to withhold millions in donations.

The paradox strains logic. Church and state remain firmly separated on campuses where the majority of students are Christian, Jewish or of no faith, but administrators toss the principle right out the window to satisfy a minority of Muslim students. Many college officials are granting prerogatives to Muslim students in the United States and Canada that are not permitted to other groups. For instance, the Ontario Human Rights Commission regards failure to make special accommodations for Muslim students, including inserting “Islamic perspectives” into secular curriculums like nursing and finance, as a form of “Islamophobia.” Expect similar political correct demands soon on American campuses.

This Orwellian, some-religions-are-more-equal-than-others approach is both hypocritical and discriminatory. The Constitution, to say nothing of basic fairness, demands that the same rules regarding the public expression of religious faith be applied equally to everybody. And for once wouldn’t it be refreshing to see a college president show some real backbone when faced with unreasonable demands from activist minority students seeking exclusive privileges?

Read Other Articles About Muslims on Examiner.com

Northern Virginia blogs Islam

Source

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