Martin Kramer

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Martin Kramer is an analyst working at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, since 2002. He is also a senior fellow at the at the Shalem Centre and its Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies, since 2006 and is President-designate of the nascent Shalem College.

Activities

Kramer describes himself as "an authority on contemporary Islam and Arab politics".[1]

He is a senior fellow Shalem Center a conservative research institute based in Jerusalem and also the Wexler-Fromer Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He has been affiliated with the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, Harvard University, since 2007[2] where he founded and convened the course Middle East Strategy at Harvard (MESH).

He has also been an Administrator of The Washington Institute Book Prize, since 2008[3]. Formerly he worked at the Moshe Dayan Centre for 25 years eventually becoming director.[4]

Attendance at Herzliya Conference

History

Kramer earned his undergraduate and doctoral degrees in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University. During a twenty-five-year career at Tel Aviv University, he directed the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies; taught as a visiting professor at Brandeis University, the University of Chicago, Cornell University, and Georgetown University; and served twice as a fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.[7]

Views

Comments about aid to Palestinians

At the Tenth Annual Herzliya Conference in 2010 Kramer gave a short speech in which he linked population growth and especially a large proportion of young men in a society with radicalization and violent extremism, saying this could be countered through population control measures and would "happen faster if the West stops providing pro-natal subsidies for Palestinians with refugee status." [8] Critics branded this "genocidal", since the definition of genocide in the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide includes measures “intended to prevent births within” a specific “national, ethnic, racial or religious group.”[9] The directors of the Weatherhead Center at Harvard dismissed these accusations as "baseless".[10]

On American support for Israel

Kramer has argued that not because of "Holocaust guilt or shared democratic values" but because aid to Israel "underpins the Paz Americana in the Eastern Mediterranean" and provides "a low-cost way of keeping order in part of the Middle East."[11] John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt argue that this interpretation "exaggerates the benefits of this relationship and understates the costs"[12]

Kramer has also said that he knows of no "unbiased terrorism expert" who believes "American support for Israel is the source of popular resentment, propelling recruits to al Qaeda."[13]

On alleged Israeli support for the invasion of Iraq

Kramer has written that it is "simply a falsehood" to link Israel and the lobby with the invasion of Iraq, claiming that "in the year preceding the Iraq war, Israel time and again disagreed with the United States, arguing that Iran posed the greater threat."[14] Mersheimer and Walt disagree, arguing that "top Israeli officials were doing everything in their power to make sure that the United States went after Saddam" and were "convinced that Bush would deal with Iran after" though "they might have preferred that America focus on Iran before Iraq".[15]

On the Israel lobby

Kramer has downplayed the influence of the pro-Israel lobby, suggesting that "if the institutions of the lobby were to disappear tomorrow, it is quite likely that American and other Western support [for Israel] would continue unabated."[16] However Mearsheimer and Walt claim that "Kramer's own career suggests that he does not believe his own argument, as he has devoted considerable time and effort to defending U.S. support for Israel and attacking those who question it."[17]

Affiliations

Publications

  • Islam Assembled: The Advent of the Muslim Congresses. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986. 250 pp.
  • Arab Awakening and Islamic Revival: The Politics of Ideas in the Middle East. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1996; paperback, 2008. 297 pp.
  • Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America. Washington: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2001. 137 pp.
  • Protest and Revolution in Shi’i Islam. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuhad, 1985; second printing, 1987. 156 pp. [in Hebrew].
  • Shi‘ism, Resistance, and Revolution. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press; London: Mansell Publishing Limited, 1987. 324 pp. Access via Questia (full text).
  • Middle Eastern Lives: The Practice of Biography and Self-Narrative. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1991. 168 pp.
  • The Islamism Debate (Dayan Center Papers, no. 120). Tel Aviv: The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, 1997. 178 pp.
  • The Jewish Discovery of Islam: Studies in Honor of Bernard Lewis. Tel Aviv: The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, 1999. 311 pp.

Resources

  • Martin Kramer's website Sandbox - martinkramer.org

Notes

  1. ↑ Sandbox, MartinKramer.org, accessed June 18 2012
  2. ↑ Martin Kramer on The Middle East, www.martinkramer.org, Personal CV, Accessed 01-March-2009
  3. ↑ Martin Kramer on The Middle East, www.martinkramer.org, Personal CV, Accessed 01-March-2009
  4. ↑ Elliot Jager,A Progressive First From a Conservative Think Tank, Jerusalem Post, accessed June 14, 2012
  5. ↑ 2008 Herzliya Conference, herzliyaconference.org, accessed 20 May 2012.
  6. ↑ Program, the 9th Herzliya Conference 2009, herzliyaconference.org, accessed 21 May 2012.
  7. ↑ Sandbox, MartinKramer.org, accessed June 18 2012
  8. ↑ Superfluous Young Men, MartinKramer.org, accessed June 14 2012
  9. ↑ Harvard Fellow Calls For Genocidal Measures to Curb Palestinian Births, Electronic Intifada, accessed June 14 2012
  10. ↑ WCFIA at Harvard: accusations are baseless, MartinKramer.org, accessed June 14 2012
  11. ↑ Martin Kramer, "The American Interest", Azure 5767, no. 26 (Fall 2006): 24-5
  12. ↑ Mearsheimer, J. and Walt, S., (2008), The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy. London, Penguin Books.
  13. ↑ Martin Kramer, "The American Interest", Azure 5767, no. 26 (Fall 2006): 24-5
  14. ↑ Martin Kramer, "The American Interest", Azure 5767, no. 26 (Fall 2006): 24-5
  15. ↑ Mearsheimer, J. and Walt, S., (2008), The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy. London, Penguin Books.
  16. ↑ Martin Kramer, "The American Interest", Azure 5767, no. 26 (Fall 2006): 24-5
  17. ↑ Mearsheimer, J. and Walt, S., (2008), The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy. London, Penguin Books.
  18. ↑ Democracy and Security Conference, List of Participants, Accessed 25-February-2009
  19. ↑ Text of Conference Invite Email
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