I am outraged about some situations involving the so-called Middle Eastern Studies Program being conducted, in part, on the UAA campus. I was alerted to the matter by friends, and the televised comments of Rabbi Yosef Greenberg.

One portion of the program is a ''Tools for Teachers'' workshop for one or two credits to K-12 teachers. According to the registration form on the Internet, the Anchorage School District is paying $35 dollars credit toward the tuition for its teachers. I have reviewed some excerpts from the Arab World Studies Notebook that is on display at the workshop. I am appalled that a list of 21 Middle Eastern nations fails to include the State of Israel, as if the nation didn’t exist. Other outrageous workshop topics include a distorted version of ''jihad'' (holy war*) for student role playing, and ridiculous revisionist history about alleged Pre-Columbian Muslim Native Americans in the New World with names like ''Abdal Rahm'' and ''Abdallah ibn Malik,'' opinions that the Holocaust ''warped'' Jewish people, and that ''Israelis have targeted the Palestinian Christian community for extinction.'' Teacher education workshops should always be fair and balanced and accurate.

The state must never permit any of its educational institutions to grant credit for any form of Anti-Semitism, or facilitate any campus workshop that promotes any form of bigotry or hate toward any ethnic group. This demeans and degrades every Alaskan in every faith community.

Other portions of the Middle Eastern Studies Program include one-sided presentations by the Alaska Center for Peace and Justice, a group that is notoriously opposed America’s war effort by our military men and women in Iraq. This kind of thing exacerbates ethnic tensions at the same time American troops are in harm’s way in the Middle East, while we are concerned about Homeland Security.

^*  Definition of ''Jihad'' in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary: ''A holy war waged in behalf of Islam as a religious duty.'' Broadly ''A bitter strife or crusade undertaken in the spirit of a holy war.''

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