Nader Hashemi is the head of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Denver. In the wake of the recent stabbing attack of Salman Rushdie by a Muslim man trying to cash in on the fatwa issued decades ago by the Ayatollah Khomeini, Hashemi has a hare-brained theory as to who is really behind the attempted murder.
It's the Mossad, Israel's intelligence service.
The Jewish News Syndicate has the details.
https://www.jns.org/university-of-denver-professor-says-mossad-likely-behind-rushdies-stabbing/
To the uninitiated, one might think this guy is smoking his socks or whatever it is they smoke in Colorado. But in reality, this is precisely what I have come to expect from Middle East Studies departments in universities across the nation. This is typical of Middle East Studies scholarship.
These departments are about as academically valid as gender studies, and LGBTQ studies departments. In truth, they are pan-Arab, anti-West, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic hotbeds dedicated to teachings of people like Edward Said and his post-colonial Orientalism, which teaches that anything connected to the West is racist, colonialist, imperialistic, and whatever other negative label you can attach.
Just as "academics" like Hashemi are loathe to admit that any country outside of Israel in that part of the world could be involved in terrorism, any problems in the region are the fault of Israel, the US, and the West. Oh, they'll condemn any dictators in the region who have been friendly to the West, but the real underlying reason they want to see these particular dictators fall is so that they can be replaced by an Islamist regime. But it's never the fault of Arab/Middle Eastern society or Islam. The only reason they hate the West and Israel (according to them) is because of Zionism, injustices to the Palestinians, and colonialism in general.
But it's always somebody else's fault.
It is also worthy of note that in the cash-crazed atmosphere of academia, much of Middle East studies in the US owes its existence to oil money from countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, who want to see their brand of history, politics, and Islam promoted to gullible US students. Thus, they contribute money to establish these departments and make sure they are staffed with the "right" kind of professors. Pro-Israel professors need not apply. Why would they want to work in that type of hostile environment?
Final point: Call me naive, but which country do you think is more likely to order the assassination of an innocent man like Rushdie, Israel or the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world? I am not saying that Iran was involved, but the original fatwa came out of that country, and they never rescinded it after Khomeini's death. They are a despicable regime, so Hashemi can defend them all he wants at the cost to his own reputation.
