Kramer, Martin. “
Setting the Record Straight on Israel (interview).”
The Weekly Standard, 2016, November 7.
Web originalAbstractAn interview with Martin Kramer by Lee Smith, on publication of Kramer's book The War on Error.
Setting the Record Straight on Israel (pdf) Kramer, Martin. “
The Shifting Sands of Academe.” In
The War on Error: Israel, Islam, and the Middle East, 9-17. New Brunswick, NJ and London: Transaction Publishers, 2016.
AbstractMartin Kramer looks back upon the writing of his book Ivory Towers on Sand (2001), recalls his intentions, identifies what he sees as the book’s merits and shortcomings, and assesses its reception.
The Shifting Sands of Academe (pdf) شن های روان در فضای دانشگاهی (pdf)Originally a lecture delivered to the graduate proseminar "Approaches to Middle Eastern Studies" at Harvard in 2007. This is its first publication. The Persian translation, also here in pdf, appeared in the magazine Ghalamo, no. 8, Dey 1396 (December 2017-January 2018).
Kramer, Martin.
The War on Error: Israel, Islam, and the Middle East. New Brunswick, NJ and London: Transaction Publishers, 2016.
Buy at AmazonAbstract
In The War on Error, historian and political analyst Martin Kramer presents a series of case studies, some based on pathfinding research and others on provocative analysis, that correct misinformation clouding the public’s understanding of the Middle East. He also offers a forensic exploration of how misinformation arises and becomes “fact.”
The book is divided into five themes: Orientalism and Middle Eastern studies, a prime casualty of the culture wars; Islamism, massively misrepresented by apologists; Arab politics, a generator of disappointing surprises; Israeli history, manipulated by reckless revisionists; and American Jews and Israel, the subject of irrational fantasies. Kramer shows how error permeates the debate over each of these themes, creating distorted images that cause policy failures.
Kramer approaches questions in the spirit of a relentless fact-checker. Did Israeli troops massacre Palestinian Arabs in Lydda in July 1948? Was the bestseller Exodus hatched by an advertising executive? Did Martin Luther King, Jr., describe anti-Zionism as antisemitism? Did a major post-9/11 documentary film deliberately distort the history of Islam? Did Israel push the United States into the Iraq War? Kramer also questions paradigms—the “Arab Spring,” the map of the Middle East, and linkage. Along the way, he amasses new evidence, exposes carelessness, and provides definitive answers.
Kramer, Martin. “
Fouad Ajami Goes to Israel.” In
The War on Error: Israel, Islam, and the Middle East, 283-89. New Brunswick, NJ and London: Transaction Publishers, 2016.
Web originalAbstractMuch maligned for his truth-telling about Arab political culture, Fouad Ajami became the bête noire of the Middle East studies establishment. Some went so far as to call him “pro-Israel,” even a “Likudnik.” The author knew Ajami from his student days, and often assisted him on his visits to Israel. The article sets the record straight on Israel in Ajami’s worldview.
Fouad Ajami Goes to Israel (pdf)Originally published at Mosaic Magazine on January 8, 2015.