Mark LeVine (home page: www.culturejamming.org)is a leader of the new generation of historians and analysts of the modern Middle East and Islam. With a command of Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish, and Persian, as well as Italian, French and German, LeVine spent the last eight years living, researching and reporting from the region, including Iraq, Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey and Morocco. He has interviewed senior international political figures, reported from Beirut's green line, taught Qur'an to Muslim Brothers, performed from Woodstock to Paris to Damascus Gate, lived next door to Hamas mosques, stood against bulldozers, dodged terrorist bombs, and uncovered damning files in dusty archives. He knows the history, politics, religions­and most important, the peoples­of the region as a friend, but with a highly critical eye.


LeVine's wide and deep knowledge of the politics and history of the Middle East and North Africa, its religions and its cultures, and its relations with Europe, Africa, Asia and the United States, enables a unique breadth of insight into the broader dynamics that have produced the events that dominate the news today. He remains singularly unafraid to write the truth, no matter who it upsets, based solely on facts and data he can confirm, as well as to challenge the actions and opinions of rulers and ruled, oppressed and oppressor alike. Such a philosophy allows his writings to challenge the accepted paradigms for writing about the region, and about hot-button issues such as globalization, terrorism, politics and popular culture. He is a radical voice of reason and honesty at a time when Left and Right remain locked within out-dated arguments and paradigms.


Besides his academic, journalistic and consulting activities, LeVine has a long history of blending art, scholarship and activism. As a musician he has recorded, performed and toured all over the world with artists including Mick Jagger, Chuck D, Michael Franti, Dr. John, Ozomatli, Hassan Hakmoun, blues greats Johnny Copeland and Albert Collins, world music artists Sara Alexander and al-Andalus, and numerous R&B and hiphop acts. He was also a lead organizer of both of 2000's wildly successful Shadow Conventions and the Re-Imagining Politics and Society Conference, both sponsored by dozens of America's leading progressive organizations and which brought together hundreds of leading scholars, politicians, activists and artists from the US and around the world. He is also a founding member of the Culture Jamming movement, and has organized and hosted culture jams in the US, Europe and Middle East that have brought into much-needed dialog an innovative combination of leading artists, intellectuals and activists from Jonathan Kozol to Jello Biafra.


LeVine received his BA in comparative religion and biblical studies from Hunter College. His MA and Ph.D. were done at New York University's prestigious Department of Middle Eastern Studies, home of the most acclaimed new generation of Middle Eastern scholars in America. There he focused on the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and modern Islamic religious and political thought and movements. His new book, Why They Don't Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil, was just published by the Oxford-based Oneworld Publications. His dissertation, Overthrowing Geography: Jaffa, Tel Aviv and the Struggle for Palestine, is published by the University of California Press.

He also is the editor, with Viggo Mortensen and Pilar Perez, of the book Twilight of Empire: Responses to Occupation, which features leading scholars and activists from the US and the Muslim world writing about the US occupation of Iraq (including Naomi Klein, Mike Davis, Nadia Yassine, Jerry Quickley, Amir Hussein, Jodie Evans, Amb. Joseph Wilson, and others, and has recorded with Moroccan Gnawa and world music star Hassan Hakmoun on Ozomatli's new CD, Street Signs, which won the 2005 Grammy for Best Latin Rock/Alternative album (the same day Led Zeppelin won their Lifetime Achievement Grammy (how cool is that...)). Before being hired at the University of California, Irvine, he was a fellow at numerous research institutions, including the International Center for Advanced Studies at NYU, the Stuttgart Seminar in Cultural Studies, in Stuttgart Germany, the Society for the Humanities at Cornell University, the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, where he has a continuing relationship and co-directs an innovative program bringing Israeli and Palestinian scholars together to imagine new ways to approach their country's history and current trouble. His publications have appeared in leading newspapers and journals around the world, including the Los Angeles Times, Le Monde and the Christian Science Monitor, and he has appeared as a guest and consultant on The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, NPR, Pacifica Radio, KPFK, KPFA, WHYY, KABC, WBAI, The O'Reilly Factor, KCAL 9/Channel 2 News, KCET's "Life and Times," KPCA, the Ian Masters Show, KKLA, the Dennis Prager Show, Charles Perez, and NYC's Channel 11. He has been extensively quoted in the NY Times, the Washington Post, Salon and other leading newspapers and magazines. He was also historical consultant for the Oscar-nominated and double Emmy award-winning Promises documentary about the lives, dreams and realities of six young Israeli and Palestinian children.

Blog Entries by Mark Levine

A Sanctuary Attacked, and With it, Pakistan's Future Further Imperiled

Posted October 27, 2009 | 11:00 AM (EST)


Of all the violence that has plagued Pakistan in the last few years perhaps none is more symptomatic of the larger war over the country's future than the double suicide bombing that occurred in the International Islamic University in Islamabad last week.

The Taliban confirmed it was behind the attacks....

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Can Obama Redefine the "Real" in Realpolitik? The Nobel Committee Is Betting That He Can

5 Comments | Posted October 12, 2009 | 10:40 AM (EST)


At first I thought the New York Times website must have been hacked. The idea of President Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize seemed too far-fetched to believe. But when I clicked back a few minutes later the headline was even bigger. Then a colleague, a senior Swedish diplomat who's...

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UC System Funding: Less Can't Masquerade as More

Posted August 25, 2009 | 03:35 PM (EST)


In California today a dangerously small revenue base is perceived as an irreversible fact of nature rather than a reversible artifact of politics. Can this perception change?

Imagine the role that the administrative leadership of University of California and the newly created "Commission on the Future of the University of...

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Obama's Problem in Iran Lies Not In the Past, But in the Present

28 Comments | Posted June 30, 2009 | 11:06 AM (EST)


It took President Obama two weeks of intensified government repression against protesters in Iran before he moved from cautious commentary to describing the crackdown "violent and unjust."

The acknowledged elephant in the room preventing a more robust American response to the Iranian crisis is the US and British organized coup...

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Blog Posts From Iran's Metal and Hip Hop Artists: Is Music the Weapon of the Future in Iran?

9 Comments | Posted June 18, 2009 | 04:16 PM (EST)


Please note: I'm updating this post as I get new emails/tweets/calls from artists in Iran, so keep checking for new material.

Despite a general ban on most forms of popular music by the Islamic government in Iran, rock music has become one of the most vibrant forces for...

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Prague, Beirut, or Tiananmen? Iran Teeters on the Edge

Posted June 16, 2009 | 11:41 AM (EST)


It was just one of thousands of photos circulating across the internet and adorning the home pages of major newspapers as they struggled to keep up with events in Iran, and it's already disappeared off the Huffington Post home page where I briefly glimpsed it. But for me the picture...

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The Student of History Needs to Go to Summer School

11 Comments | Posted June 6, 2009 | 12:12 PM (EST)


Near the start of his much-anticipated speech to the Muslim world, President Obama described himself as "a student of history;" by the end it was clear that he needs to get back to the classroom.

For all its well-intentioned rhetoric, President Obama's speech was, sadly, conceptually flawed, empirically challenged, and...

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Business as Usual for Obama in the Middle East Will Doom the Chances for Peace or Stability

2 Comments | Posted May 5, 2009 | 04:57 PM (EST)


One of the most glaring ironies of the Middle East conflict is the righteous indignation displayed by the region's leaders towards each other's policies. In a region where violent and oppressive rule is the norm, leaders have no trouble pointing out each other's flaws, often menacingly. And so Israeli Prime...

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Iron Maiden Takes Off--Sneak Peak at The Soon to be Released Historic Documentary

Posted March 3, 2009 | 06:36 PM (EST)


You've never experienced "The Trooper" or "Run to the Hills" until you've heard Iron Maiden perform them in front of 15,000 screaming Muslim metalheads in Dubai. Or so I thought as I stood in the middle of an ecstatic crowd in the sands of the Dubai Desert Rock Festival a...

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Led Zeppelin Need to Come Back in Black

Posted January 15, 2009 | 01:05 AM (EST)


Apparently, the dreams of millions of Led Zeppelin fans are now over. Only two days after raising hopes by "confirming" that the remaining members -- Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and Jason Bonham -- were planning to record and tour with a new singer (thankfully, under a new name), Jimmy...

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Who Will Save Israel from Itself?

Posted January 13, 2009 | 02:15 PM (EST)


One by one the justifications given by Israel for its latest war in Gaza are unraveling.

The argument that this is a purely defensive war, launched only after Hamas broke a five-month old ceasefire has been challenged, not just by observers in the know such as former President Jimmy Carter,...

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Americans Need to Demand that Our Government Suspend Military Aid to Israel

Posted January 12, 2009 | 01:06 AM (EST)


Below is the text of a petition I have written calling on the US government immediately to suspend all military aid, sales and deliveries of weapons to Israel and the PA, and to demand that other governments to the same with Israel, the PA and Hamas. From my experience and...

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An Open Letter to My Fellow Blogger, Daniel Pipes

Posted January 7, 2009 | 08:45 PM (EST)


January 7, 2009

Dear Dr. Pipes,

After several years blogging "next" to you, as it were, on our blogs on History News Network (hnn.us), it was a pleasure to finally "meet up," at least via satellite, during our joint appearance on al-Jazeera International last night to discuss the situation...

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Statement on Gaza From California Scholars for Academic Freedom

Posted January 3, 2009 | 07:24 PM (EST)


Press Release
January 3, 2009

California Scholars for Academic Freedom
Condemn Bombing of Gaza Educational Institutions

Contacts:
Sondra Hale, 310-836-5121 (UCLA) [sonhale@ucla.edu]
Rabab Abdulhadi, 914-882-3180 (AMED-SFSU) [amed@sfsu.edu]
Sherna Berger Gluck, 310-455-1028 (CSULB) [sbgluck@csulb.edu]
Jess Ghannam, 415-726-3951 (UCSF) [jess.ghannam@ucsf.edu]

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To Succeed in Israel/Palestine Where Clinton Failed, Obama Needs a History Lesson

Posted December 31, 2008 | 03:21 PM (EST)


The renewed Israel-Hamas war in Gaza presents the incoming Obama Administration with its most difficult immediate foreign policy challenge. Yet it also offers Obama a well-timed opportunity to act on his promise to return to the aggressive Mideast diplomacy that characterized the final years of the Clinton Administration.

But with...

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The Middle East Presents Obama with a Host of Problems, and Few Palatable Solutions

Posted November 10, 2008 | 03:41 PM (EST)


Congratulations! Congratulations! Congratulations!"

"Hope things will get better for U in the US...."

"I'm so happy!"

These are just a few of the comments I've received from friends and colleagues in the Muslim world, most of whom seemed to be more excited about Barack Obama winning the presidency than am...

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To Deal with the Global Economic Crisis, Obama Will Need the Clinton Touch

Posted October 31, 2008 | 10:46 AM (EST)


If Barack Obama is elected President in six days there will be little doubt that the financial crisis of the last few months helped win him the election. But will an Obama Administration be able to solve the world's most complex economic crisis in almost a century?

Of the two...

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Like Music and Oil. Perfect Together?

Posted August 7, 2008 | 06:16 PM (EST)


With few exceptions, it's now possible to say that most everybody everywhere is an environmentalist, especially politicians running for higher office. Even the major oil companies and oil rich Gulf state are sponsoring environmental initiatives and research into alternative energy sources.

Of course, we all want to wean the world,...

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Motley Crue: It's Time to Really Make Rock History!

Posted August 2, 2008 | 05:45 PM (EST)


About a month ago, I walked into my local Guitar Center to buy some equipment and noticed banners all over the store which read, simply, "Make Rock History." There was no other information indicating what the banners meant, but one of the salesman filled me in on the secret: On...

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Obama and the Taliban

Posted July 25, 2008 | 09:02 AM (EST)


Among its many goals, Barack Obama's historic July 24 speech in Berlin sought to demonstrate the Senator's command of the world stage, particularly with regard to creating a united front with Europe against global terrorism. Given the largely positive reception it has received, the presumptive Democratic nominee likely achieved this...

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