US Government Strategy Undermined by Arab "Scholar"

Tariq Ali, writing in the London Review of Books, a far-left-of-center radical publication with the usual pretentions of literary and intellectual smugness, has this to say:

A few weeks before the assault on Gaza, the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army published a levelheaded document on ‘Hamas and Israel’, which argued that ‘Israel’s stance towards the democratically-elected Palestinian government headed by Hamas in 2006, and towards Palestinian national coherence – legal, territorial, political and economic – has been a major obstacle to substantive peacemaking.’

The author of that report?

Dr. Sherifa D. Zuhur.

Ms. Zuhur is Professor of Islamic and Regional Studies [where?]. She has lectured and held faculty positions in three countries...Zuhur's research includes Islamic movements, war and peace in the Middle East, modern Middle Eastern politics, Islamic political and religious philosophy, and social and cultural developments...Dr. Zuhur holds B.A. degrees in Political Science and Arabic and Arabic Literature, a Master's in Islamic Studies, and a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern History, all from UCLA. She also completed the Master's level coursework in political science at the American University in Cairo.

Here's from the summary:

HAMAS offers a fascinating glimpse of the dynamics of strategic reactions and the modification of Israeli impulses towards aggressive deterrence, as well as the evolution in the Islamist movements’ planning and operations

By the way, the report is defined thus:

The views expressed in this report are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

So, among other things, Tariq is a bit misleading, but Zuhur is amazing:

Israel has treated certain enemies differently than others: Iran, Hizbullah, and Islamist Palestinians (whether HAMAS, supporters of Islamic Jihad, or the Islamic Movement inside Israel) all fall into a particular rubric in which Islamism—the most salient and enduring socio-religious movement in the Middle East in the wake of Arab nationalism—is identified with terrorism and insurgency rather than with group politics and identity. The antipathy to religious fervor was somewhat ironic in light of Israel’s own expanding “religious” (haredim) groups.

So, Israel's Hareidi population equals Islamic terorist groups?

This is academic scholarship?