Eric Ciaramella's Radicalism

Everyone knows the name of whistleblower Eric Ciaramella, but no one is allowed to pronounce it in a major news outlet. As for knowing who he is and what his agenda might be, we turn to the American Spectator (via Maggie’s Farm) to discover that young Ciaramella, while an undergraduate at Yale supported the cause of one Bassam Frangieh a radical Islamist professor.

The story began in 2005:

In fact, long before he was digging up dirt with the DNC’s Alexandra Chalupa about President Trump’s mythical collusion with Russia, Ciaramella was involved in leading a protest over what he believed was the poor treatment of Bassam Frangieh, a radical professor of Arabic Studies at Yale. On April 15, 2005, then first-year Yale student Ciaramella dressed in all white to lead a contingent of ten similarly dressed first-year Yale Arabic students to the offices of the Provost and the President of the university to demand that the university provide an incentive to encourage Frangieh to stay at Yale. The students were unhappy because Frangieh had decided earlier in the school year to accept a tenure-track position at the University of Delaware.

Eventually, the administration acceded to the demands and offered Frangieh a better position. From that position it could use his influence to advance Islamist terrorism and the Palestinian cause. Such was the intellectual atmosphere that young Ciaramella bathed in during his years at Yale:

It is likely that Bassam Frangieh wanted to use literature to be able to shape Yale’s undergraduates’ views on what he called the “heroic Arabic poet-martyrs” battling against the unjust occupation in Palestine. In 2000, Frangieh published a chapter romanticizing terrorism in a book entitled Tradition, Modernity, and Postmodernity in Arabic Literature. Ciaramella’s favorite Yale Arabic professor praised the heroism of Abd al Rahim Mahmud, the “first Arab poet-martyr.” Mahmud, who is often used to inspire terrorism and suicide bombings among Arab youth, was described by Frangieh as “carrying his soul in the palm of his hand,” as he “threw himself into the cavern of death.” Romanticizing his terrorism, Frangieh recalls Mahmud’s “premature death at age 35, fighting a battle in an attempt to keep Palestine free from foreign occupation, [which]brought dignity to the hearts of his people. Through his death he eliminated the gap between words and action… he shall remain a symbol of heroism and pride for his people.” (p. 222)

How much of this did young Ciaramella absorb at Yale? We do not know for sure. But we do know what Frangieh was teaching. It was straight up anti-Semitism:

In 2007, Bassam Frangieh signed an Arabic language petition, “Not in Our Name,” which encouraged signatories to “stand together to thwart the Zionist-Crusader conspiracy.” Denouncing U.S. Iraq policy as a “barbaric onslaught of cowboy masters, world Zionist leaders and their local agents, Frangieh claims that the only reason for the invasion of Iraq was the Zionist plan.” A long-time supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement against Israel — designed to “challenge international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism” — Frangieh was recruited to an even more prestigious post at Claremont McKenna College in 2007 where he is currently head of the Arabic Department for the five Claremont Colleges.

Amazingly, Frangieh rose up through the academic ranks, to a prestigious position at the Claremont Colleges. 

Ciaramella, upon graduation, quickly rose up through the ranks in the Obama administration. When he stayed in his post during the Trump administration, he seems to have wanted to sabotage its efforts. Perhaps, he could not stand the fact that Trump’s policies were pro-Israeli. Was Ciaramella simply another notable anti-Semite in the Obama orbit?

Journalist Mike Cernovich exposed Ciaramella back in 2017 in an article claiming that Ciaramella wanted to “sabotage” President Donald Trump. Cernovich was documenting meetings and lunches that Ciaramella was having with high ranking officials at the DNC — including Alexandra Chalupa, and the NSA. And, although ForeignPolicy.com and others attempted to disparage Cernovich as an “alt-right blogger” and one of “Trump’s Trolls, ” it seems that Cernovich was right all along.