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 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 "[o]verall, 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 designed to reform area studies in the US. Saree Makdisi argues in a Los Angeles Times op-ed that the bill "poses a profound threat to academic freedom". Palestinian aid controversy At the February 2010 Herzliya Conference in Israel, 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, and some critics called on Harvard to distance itself from him. Deans at Harvard University'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." 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: