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List members (particularly in the USA) may be familiar with the Campus Watch website http://www.campus-watch.org/ In it's own words: "CAMPUS WATCH, a project of the Middle East Forum, monitors and critiques Middle East studies in North America, with an aim to improving them. The project mainly addresses five problems: analytical failures, the mixing of politics with scholarship, intolerance of alternative views, apologetics, and the abuse of power over students. Campus Watch fully respects the freedom of speech of those it debates while insisting on its own freedom to comment on their words and deeds. To more fully understand what they really mean, it is useful to look at the website of the Middle East Forum (http://www.meforum.org/) It "works to define and promote American interests in the Middle East. Founded in 1990, the Forum became an independent organization in 1994. The Forum holds that the United States has vital interests in the region. In particular, it believes in strong ties with Israel, Turkey, and other democracies as they emerge; works for human rights throughout the region; strives to weaken the forces of religious radicals; seeks a stable supply and a low price of oil; and promotes the peaceful settlement of regional and international disputes" The references to American strategic interests and oil supplies rather give the game away! The website continues" MEF sees the region, with its profusion of dictatorships, radical ideologies, existential conflicts, border disagreements, political violence, and weapons of mass destruction as a major source of problems for the United States. Accordingly, it urges active measures to protect Americans and their allies. Toward this end, the Forum seeks to help shape the intellectual climate in which U.S. foreign policy is made by addressing key issues in a timely and accessible way for a sophisticated public" The aims of its off-shoot, Campus Watch are to: "Identify key faculty who teach and write about contemporary affairs at university Middle East Studies departments in order to analyze and critique the work of these specialists for errors or biases. Develop a network of concerned students and faculty members interested in promoting American interests on campus. Keep the public apprised of course syllabi, memos, debates over appointments and funding, etc. Keep the public informed of relevant university events. Continuously post the results of our project on www.campus-watch.org, including articles, reports from campus and other relevant information" Policing US campuses for perceived anti-American bias seems to be the rationale. As I understand it these organisations are the brainchild of the writer Daniel Pipes - http://www.danielpipes.org/ Going though these various sites seems to reveal the usual dimissals of all left-wing arguments, uncritical use of the term 'terrorism' and 'terrorist' and the dismissal of critiques of Zionism and the actions of the Israeli state by labelling them as anti-semitic. Dave Dr. David Storey Geography Department & Centre for Rural Research University College Worcester Henwick Grove Worcester WR2 6AJ England Tel: 01905 855189 Fax: 01905 855132