Martin Seth Kramer (

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

: מרטין קרמר; born September 9, 1954,

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

) is an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

i scholar of the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...

Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv University (TAU) ( he, אוּנִיבֶרְסִיטַת תֵּל אָבִיב, ''Universitat Tel Aviv'') is a public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Locate ...

and the

Washington Institute for Near East Policy The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP or TWI, also known simply as The Washington Institute) is a pro-Israel American think tank based in Washington, D.C., focused on the foreign policy of the United States in the Near East. WINE ...

. His focus is on the history and politics of the

, contemporary

Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...

, and modern

Education

Kramer began his undergraduate degree under

Itamar Rabinovich Itamar Rabinovich ( he, איתמר רבינוביץ; born 1942) is the president of the Israel Institute (Washington and Jerusalem). He was Israel's Ambassador to the United States in the 1990s and former chief negotiator with Syria between 1993 ...

Middle Eastern Studies Middle Eastern studies (sometimes referred to as Near Eastern studies) is a name given to a number of academic programs associated with the study of the history, culture, politics, economies, and geography of the Middle East, an area that is gene ...

and completed his BA in

Near Eastern Studies Oriental studies is the academic field that studies Near Eastern and Far Eastern societies and cultures, languages, peoples, history and archaeology. In recent years, the subject has often been turned into the newer terms of Middle Eastern studie ...

from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

. He earned his PhD at Princeton as well, under

Fouad Ajami Fouad A. Ajami ( ar, فؤاد عجمي; September 18, 1945 – June 22, 2014) was a MacArthur Fellowship winning, Lebanese-born American university professor and writer on Middle Eastern issues. He was a senior fellow at Stanford University's Ho ...

L. Carl Brown Leon Carl Brown (April 22, 1928 – April 8, 2020) was a emeritus professor, professor of history at Princeton University. Biography Brown was the Garrett Professor in Foreign Affairs, Emeritus, and professor of Near Eastern studies, emeritus, at ...

, Charles Issawi, and

Bernard Lewis Bernard Lewis, (31 May 1916 – 19 May 2018) was a British American historian specialized in Oriental studies. He was also known as a public intellectual and political commentator. Lewis was the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near E ...

, who directed his thesis. He also received a History MA from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. *Tel Aviv University, 1971-73 – Middle Eastern Studies * BA Princeton University, 1975 (''

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...

'') – Near Eastern Studies * MA Columbia University, 1976 – History * MA Princeton University, 1978 – Near Eastern Studies * PhD Princeton University, 1982 – Near Eastern Studies

Career

Martin Kramer is a historian at

and the Walter P. Stern fellow at the

. He was the founding president of

Shalem College Shalem College ( he, המרכז האקדמי שלם, ''HaMerkaz HaAkademi Shalem'') is a private liberal arts college in Jerusalem, Israel providing undergraduate education and founded with the aim of producing "broadly educated citizens for live ...

in Jerusalem, and first chair of its Middle East and Islamic studies program. Kramer has taught as a visiting

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , pro ...

, the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...

, and The

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

(SAIS). He has also served as a visiting fellow at the

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (or Wilson Center) is a quasi-government entity and think tank which conducts research to inform public policy. Located in the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washi ...

in Washington and

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

's Olin Institute for Strategic Studies. Kramer is a senior and past editor of the

Middle East Forum The Middle East Forum (MEF) is an American conservative think tank founded in 1990 by Daniel Pipes, who serves as its president. MEF became an independent non-profit organization in 1994. It publishes a journal, the ''Middle East Quarterly''. A ...

Middle East Quarterly The Middle East Forum (MEF) is an American conservative think tank founded in 1990 by Daniel Pipes, who serves as its president. MEF became an independent non-profit organization in 1994. It publishes a journal, the '' Middle East Quarterly''. ...

. Primarily a scholar of twentieth century Islamist intellectual and political history, Kramer has also published columns in the

National Review ''National Review'' is an American conservative editorial magazine, focusing on news and commentary pieces on political, social, and cultural affairs. The magazine was founded by the author William F. Buckley Jr. in 1955. Its editor-in-chief i ...

magazine and on the websites of the

History News Network History News Network (HNN) at George Washington University is a platform for historians writing about current events. History History News Network (HNN) is a non-profit corporation registered in Washington DC. HNN was founded by Richard Shenkman ...

Political involvement

Kramer was an early advocate of attacking

Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolution ...

in the wake of

9/11 The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial ...

, arguing in December 2001 that regardless of a possible involvement, he posed a threat to the entire Middle East. However, he was critical of the shifting rationale for the war in October 2002, questioning the United States' "tools of social engineering" needed to promote an eventual democracy process in the Arab world. He was a senior policy adviser on the Middle East to the

Rudy Giuliani Rudolph William Louis Giuliani (, ; born May 28, 1944) is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 107th Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001. He previously served as the United States Associate Attorney General from 1981 to 198 ...

Presidential Campaign in 2007.

Critique of Middle Eastern studies

Kramer is a critic of

Middle Eastern studies Middle Eastern studies (sometimes referred to as Near Eastern studies) is a name given to a number of academic programs associated with the study of the history, culture, politics, economies, and geography of the Middle East, an area that is gene ...

programs in the United States which he thinks are left-wing and backed with poor scholarship.

''Ivory Towers on Sand''

In 2001, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy published Kramer's book ''Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America''. In the book (as reported by the ''New York Times''), Kramer argued that Middle East experts "failed to ask the right questions at the right time about Islam. They underestimated its impact in the 1980s; they misrepresented its role in the early 1990s; and they glossed over its growing potential for terrorism against America in the late 1990s."The book was given positive mentions in

The Chronicle of Higher Education ''The Chronicle of Higher Education'' is a newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty and student affairs professionals (staff members and administrators). A subscription is required to rea ...

and The Washington Post John L. Esposito accused Kramer of trying to discredit the entire Middle East establishment. Zachary Lockman, professor of modern Middle East history at New York University, admits that Kramer's criticism of Middle East scholars' general failure to anticipate the rise of Islamist movements in the 1970s is well-deserved but maintains that " erall, Kramer’s approach is deeply flawed as a history of Middle East studies as a scholarly field."

HR 3077

Kramer was one of the most vocal supporters of HR 3077, a bill in the

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the Lower house, lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the United States Senate, Senate being ...

designed to reform area studies in the US. Saree Makdisi argues in a ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'' op-ed that the bill "poses a profound threat to academic freedom".Osama University?
by Michelle Goldberg, reprint from

Salon.com ''Salon'' is an American politically progressive/ liberal news and opinion website created in 1995. It publishes articles on U.S. politics, culture, and current events. Content and coverage ''Salon'' covers a variety of topics, including re ...

, 2005

Palestinian aid controversy

At the February 2010

Herzliya Conference The Herzliya Conference is an annual summit held at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel to discuss matters of state security and policy. History The Herzliya Conference was established in December 2000 as a "closed-door annual gather ...

, Kramer caused controversy by advocating for the elimination of Western aid in what he termed "pro-natal subsidies" to Palestinian refugees in Gaza in order to discourage population growth and Islamic radicalization: At the time, he was a National Security Studies Program Visiting Scholar at the

Weatherhead Center for International Affairs A weatherhead, also called a weathercap, service head, service entrance cap, or gooseneck (slang) is a weatherproof service drop entry point where overhead power or telephone wires enter a building, or where wires transition between overhead an ...

, and some critics called on Harvard to distance itself from him. Deans at

rejected these calls, stating, "Accusations have been made that Martin Kramer's statements are genocidal. These accusations are baseless." They found that Kramer's critics "appear not to understand the role of controversy in an academic setting" and rejected any attempts to restrict "fundamental academic freedom."Anti-Zionism on Campus: The University, Free Speech, and BDS
Andrew Pessin and Doron S. Ben-Atar, Indiana University Press, pages 151-155 Kramer later referred to the speech as "experimental" and deliberately "provocative."

Bibliography

Books

* ''Political Islam'' (1980) * ''Islam Assembled'' (1985) * ''Shi'ism, Resistance, and Revolution'' (1987) * ''Hezbollah's Vision of the West'' (1989) * ''Middle Eastern Lives: The Practice of Biography and Self-Narrative (Contemporary Issues in the Middle East)'' (1991) * ''Arab Awakening and Islamic Revival: The Politics of Ideas in the Middle East'' (1996) * ''The Islamism Debate'' (1997) * ''The Jewish Discovery of Islam'' (1999) * ''Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America'' (2001)
download
* ''The War on Error: Israel, Islam, and the Middle East'' (2016)

Journal Papers

*
The American Interest
, '' Azure magazine'', Autumn 2006. *
Nation and Assassination in the Middle East
, ''

'', Summer 2004. *
Coming to Terms: Fundamentalists or Islamists?
, ''Middle East Quarterly'', Summer 2003. *
Policy and the Academy: An Illicit Relationship?
, ''Middle East Quarterly'', Winter 2003.

Kramer on interpreters of the Middle East

Pape-Kramer debate
- a debate involving

Robert Pape Robert Anthony Pape Jr. (born April 24, 1960) is an American political scientist who studies national and international security affairs, with a focus on air power, American and international political violence, social media propaganda, and t ...

and Kramer
Suicide Terrorism in the Middle East: Origins and Response
Robert Pape

Kramer on

John Esposito John Louis Esposito (born May 19, 1940) is an Italian-American academic, professor of Middle Eastern and religious studies, and scholar of Islamic studies, who serves as Professor of Religion, International Affairs, and Islamic Studies at Geor ...

Stephen Walt's World
a critique of Stephen Walt
The Arab Nation of Shakib Arslan
by Kramer, a critique of

Shakib Arslan Shakib Arslan ( ar, شكيب أرسلان, 25 December 1869 – 9 December 1946) was a Druze prince (amir) in Lebanon who was known as ' (Arabic for "Prince of Eloquence") because in addition to being a politician, he was also an influential writ ...

31 October 1987
Albert Pasha
criticism of

Albert Hourani Albert Habib Hourani ( ar, ألبرت حبيب حوراني ''Albart Ḥabīb Ḥūrānī''; 31 March 1915 – 17 January 1993) was a Lebanese British historian, specialising in the history of the Middle East and Middle Eastern studies. Back ...

by Kramer 15 June 2002
Islamist Bubbles
an assessment of

Gilles Kepel Gilles Kepel, (born June 30, 1955) is a French political scientist and Arabist, specialized in the contemporary Middle East and Muslims in the West. He is Professor at the Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL) and director of the Middle Ea ...

.
Arab Pen, English Purse: John Sabunji and Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
a critique of

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (17 August 1840 – 10 September 1922), sometimes spelt Wilfred, was an English poet and writer. He and his wife Lady Anne Blunt travelled in the Middle East and were instrumental in preserving the Arabian horse bloodlines ...

by Kramer 31 December 1989
Ignatieff's Empire
criticism of

Michael Ignatieff Michael Grant Ignatieff (; born May 12, 1947) is a Canadian author, academic and former politician who served as the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and Leader of the Official Opposition from 2008 until 2011. Known for his work as a histo ...

January 5, 2003
The Day the Rabbi Rescued Rashid
a critique of

Arthur Hertzberg Arthur Hertzberg (June 9, 1921 – April 17, 2006) was a Conservative rabbi and prominent Jewish-American scholar and activist. Biography Avraham Hertzberg was born in Lubaczów, Poland, the eldest of five children, and left Europe in 1926 with ...

28 February 2005

Kramer on Key Middle Eastern Figures

The Oracle of Hizbullah (Hezbollah): Sayyid Muhammad Husayn (Hussein) Fadlallah

Kramer on U.S. and Israeli Policy

What Do the Financial Crisis and US Middle East Policy Have in Common?
December 2008.
Israel's Gaza Strategy
January 2009.
Sanctioning "Resistance"
January 2009.

Kramer on the Zionist legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

The MLK Day Bundle
17 January 2021.
Martin Luther King Jr. and Israel, then and now
January 2020, Times of Israel
In the Words of Martin Luther King Jr.
chapter in The War on Error: Israel, Islam, and the Middle East (New Brunswick, NJ:Transaction, 2016), 253-67.
Where MLK really stood on Israel and the Palestinians
2019. Mosaic Magazine

References

External links

Martin Kramer's website

Martin Kramer's blog

Kramer's entry with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy

Kramer about Obama and the Middle East
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kramer, Martin 1954 births Jewish American journalists American male journalists Middle Eastern studies in the United States American political scientists Columbia University alumni Harvard Fellows Islam and politics Living people Middle East Forum Princeton University alumni Tel Aviv University The Washington Institute for Near East Policy 21st-century American Jews