Martin Seth Kramer (; born September 9, 1954, Washington, D.C.) is an American-

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

i academic with a focus on the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv University (TAU) is a Public university, public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Located in northwest Tel Aviv, the university is the center of teaching and ...

and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. His focus is on the history and politics of the

, contemporary

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

, and modern

. Kramer has written for the group Middle East Forum, and has argued that Islam and fundamentalism are innately linked.

Education

Kramer began his undergraduate degree under Itamar Rabinovich in Middle Eastern Studies at

and completed his BA in Near Eastern Studies from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

. He earned his

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

at Princeton as well, under Fouad Ajami, L. Carl Brown, 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 ...

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

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

. He gained a

in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University in 1982.

Career

Kramer is a senior and past editor of the Middle East Forum's

Middle East Quarterly The Middle East Forum (MEF) is an American conservative 501(c)(3) think tank founded in 1990 by Daniel Pipes, who now serves as its chairman. Gregg Roman serves as director of the forum. MEF became an independent non-profit organization in 19 ...

. 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 William F. Buckley Jr. in 1955. Its editor-in-chief is Rich L ...

magazine and on the websites of the History News Network.

Political involvement

Kramer was an early advocate of attacking

Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 until Saddam Hussein statue destruction, his overthrow in 2003 during the 2003 invasion of Ira ...

in the wake of 9/11, 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 Disbarment, disbarred lawyer who served as the 107th mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001. He previously served as the United States Associate Attorney ...

Presidential Campaign in 2007.

Critique of Middle Eastern studies

''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 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 is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Artic ...

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

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'' op-ed that the bill "poses a profound threat to academic freedom".Osama University?
by Michelle Goldberg, reprint from Salon.com, 2005

Palestinian population growth controversy

At the February 2010 Herzliya Conference in

, 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,

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

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

's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs 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 (; born April 24, 1960) is an American political scientist who studies national and international security affairs, with a focus on air power, political violence, social media propaganda, and terrorism. He is currently a pr ...

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 American academic, professor of Middle Eastern studies, Middle Eastern and religious studies, and scholar of Islamic studies, who serves as Professor of Religion, International Affairs, and Islamic S ...

Stephen Walt's World
a critique of

Stephen Walt Stephen Martin Walt (born July 2, 1955) is an American political scientist serving as the Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of international relations at the Harvard Kennedy School. A member of the realist school of international relations, Walt ...

The Arab Nation of Shakib Arslan
by Kramer, a critique of Shakib Arslan 31 October 1987
Albert Pasha
criticism of Albert Hourani by Kramer 15 June 2002
Islamist Bubbles
an assessment of Gilles Kepel.
Arab Pen, English Purse: John Sabunji and Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
a critique of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt 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 leader of the Liberal Party and leader of the Opposition from 2008 until 2011. Known for his work as a historian, Ignatieff has ...

January 5, 2003
The Day the Rabbi Rescued Rashid
a critique of Arthur Hertzberg 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 Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 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 American Zionists American critics of Islam