Evil spirit taking over Middle Eastern studies?

I am not exactly a believer in all kinds of spirits, save one (that which could be attained from a bottle). The problems of cheapening the higher learning by fashionable political endeavors, like in the case of MESA, where characters like professors Juan Cole, Hisham Sharabi and their supporters pave their way to fame and/or notoriety by bleating (and frequently cheating) about the all-powerful Zionists, are not the problems of ghosts/spooks/spirits. Rather of malicious little men poisoning the wells of academy in general and higher education in particular.

And not only in US of A, I haste to add. Woe to our children and grandchildren.