Laura and George W. Bush (3rd and 4th from left)
with Islamic Jihad frontman Sami Al-Arian (third from
right) and family (son, Abdullah "Big Dude" Al-Arian,
is on far left).
http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=24738
Posted on 02/20/2003 9:45:15 AM PST by alisasny
Salon.com "The prime-time smearing of Sami Al-Arian By pandering to anti-Arab hysteria, NBC, Fox News, Media General and Clear Channel radio disgraced themselves -- and ruined an innocent professor's life." Salon Eric Boehlert January 19, 2002
Please add all known defenders with quotes they made in defense of Sami AL-Arian that you can find so we have a record of all of them.
http://www.counterpunch.org/lynchnahla.html
NO!!!! Shame on you. I was not allowed to state CONSERVATIVE opinions and was shown the door for doing so. The time is quickly coming where you and your ilk will be shown the door.
How anyone ever got the idea that academic freedom that fosters radicalism was desirable or good is beyond me. Where does this come from? And where did the idea come that professors should be immune from public scrutiny or accountability for their extremist views?
"... Bonior also championed the case of Dr. Mazen Al-Najjar, jailed before Sept. 11 because the FBI and Immigration officials suspected the Gaza native was a mid-level terrorist operative, and because he had violated the terms of his visa.
He was unsuccessful in this endeavor. Al-Najjar was ultimately deported to the United Arab Emirates.
Bonior, who lost a bid to become Michigan's governor, also took campaign contributions from Dr. Sami Al-Arian, the University of South Florida professor said to be Islamic Jihad's front-man in the United States. Al-Arian and his wife, Nahla, donated at least $3,450 to Bonior's campaigns. Al-Arian also raised funds for Islamic Jihad – an ally of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network.
What did such campaign contributions buy for Al-Arian? We got a clue in June 2001, just three months before the terror attacks on the U.S. During a White House meeting on President Bush's "faith-based initiatives" that month, a uniformed Secret Service officer felt compelled to remove a 20-year-old Muslim intern working for Bonior. Apparently the young man was seen as a security threat – and understandably so. The intern's name was Abdallah Al-Arian – the son of Sami Al-Arian. .."
Nor is he the one with the power to fire them.
There is nothing wrong with keeping track of who said what, though. It's always a good excercise, and if people don't want to be on the record, maybe they shouldn't shoot off their mouths.
We endorse the Reinstate Sami Al-Arian Petition to University of South Florida President Judith Genshaft .
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Alan Shearer, editorial director of The Washington Post Writers Group, once bragged to me that the newspaper columnists he syndicates do a lot of research for their columns.
But a recent slipshod column by Washington Post Writers Group columnist William Raspberry shows just the opposite. In fact, Raspberry didn't do the least bit of research for his Oct. 29 nationally syndicated column, "'Freak Out' in Force." If he had, he'd have learned that Abdullah Al-Arian, the "innocent" example of airport Arab-profiling he'd written about, is actually the son of Islamic Jihad's U.S. frontman, Dr. Sami Al-Arian – also a University of South Florida professor on tax-paid leave.
As I've recently written, Dr. Al-Arian is accused in FBI affidavits of bringing terrorists into the U.S. and raising funds for terrorist groups such as Islamic Jihad and Hamas, not to mention laundering money for the 1993 World Trade Center bombers. Dr. Al-Arian said, "Let us damn America. Let us damn their allies until death." He used the name of Allah to preach paying respects to "the river of blood that gushes forth and does not extinguish, from butchery to butchery, from martyrdom to martyrdom, from Jihad to Jihad."
In a hearing regarding his brother-in-law, a suspected mid-level Islamic Jihad terrorist, Dr. Al-Arian "invoked his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination 99 times," according to the Associated Press. As leader of an organization that Islamic Jihad listed as its U.S. headquarters, Dr. Al-Arian employed Tariq Hamdi, who – prosecutors and documents in the 1998 trial of the bin-Laden bombings of U.S. Embassies in Africa say – provided a battery instrumental in those bombings.
And that's just the "Cliff's Notes" version.
Would you want to be on a flight with his son, Abdullah? I doubt Raspberry would, either – if he'd bothered to look into who Abdullah Al-Arian actually is, before gushing over him, like a drooling civil-rights advocate looking for a convenient cause celebre.
All Raspberry would have had to do was put the name "Al-Arian" in any Internet search engine, and he would have pulled up article after article, column after column, about Dr. Al-Arian and family, and their frightening activities here in America. From the Wall Street Journal, to the Tampa Bay Tribune, to my columns – and many other sources – there is a great deal of documentation on the Al-Arians.
And in his sloppiness, Raspberry missed the real story. He missed the fact that Abdullah's family, through Hamdi and others, is tied to bin Laden, and that Abdullah's father who earns only $66,175 annually is suspiciously spending like a Rockefeller. And he missed the fact that in the last several months, even before the Sept. 11 attacks, Abdullah Al-Arian has made something of a career of his phony profiling stories.
Abdullah accompanied Muslim-American leaders to a June White House meeting. But in doing security, the Secret Service apparently pulled up some of his father's disturbing information, and they promptly removed Abdullah from the White House. Like Raspberry, Arab- and Muslim-American leaders, instead of being embarrassed that they brought with them to the White House the son of a suspected terrorist, protested and accused the White House of profiling – and Abdullah, a Duke University student, became a rising star in their communities.
But, in fact, it wasn't profiling at all. On the contrary, neither the younger Al-Arian, nor his father – the Islamic Jihad frontman – should ever have been allowed in the White House or anywhere near it. His father, Dr. Al-Arian, who should be jailed or deported, was instead invited to the White House a few weeks later.
Raspberry may like Abdullah Al-Arian, but Abdullah doesn't necessarily like him. On MSANews, a site of the Muslim Student Association operated out of Ohio State University, father and son Al-Arian often write and communicate to the rest of the Muslim world. The site also sharply criticizes Raspberry for exposing Muslim Arab slavery of black Christians in Sudan, accusing him of "journalistic apartheid." On that issue, Raspberry was 100 percent right, but here, on Al-Arian, he's just plain wrong.
Now Abdullah, whose Duke tuition is rumored to be paid by the bin Laden family, is now Raspberry's new hero.
Abdullah, whom Raspberry describes as empathetic, is a so-called "Freak Out" victim, according to Raspberry, because he wrote in the Duke chronicle that he felt stares at the airport.
Stares are mild compared to the chutzpah of Abdullah Al-Arian, whose family takes advantage of our freedoms to foment its hate. And rebuke is mild for the irresponsible columnist, Raspberry, who lionizes him.
Debbie Schlussel is a political commentator and attorney. She is a frequent guest on ABC's "Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher" and Fox News Channel. Click here to participate in an online discussion group of Debbie's commentary, and here to join the unofficial Debbie Schlussel Fan Club.
What you mean is shame on the university for allowing censorship, MMTU. Jack is right. An open society has to allow open debate. I can think of very little more philosophically disgusting than this professor standing in front of a group of students on the USF campus and soliciting funds to support terrorists and the "good" work they are doing. But, you of all people know the danger of censorship because you've been its victim.
OTOH, as soon as these folks step over the legal line in a conspiracy, throw their butts in jail and lose the key!
http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=24738
From the National Desk
Published 1/14/2002 5:32 PM
TAMPA, Fla., Jan. 14, 2002 (UPI) -- A University of South Florida professor said Monday he intends to fight school administration attempts to fire him for his alleged ties to Palestinian terrorists.
Sami al Arian asked University President Judith Genshaft to reconsider her intent to dismiss him. She said she would study his response but did not back down on her stand.
Al-Arian, a Palestinian-born computer science professor, has taught at South Florida for 16 years.
"This is a unique case of how one person's activities outside the scope of his employment have resulted in harm to the legitimate interests of the university," she said.
"Our primary concern is the safety of the learning environment for students, faculty and staff," she said. "A safe campus is essential for academic freedom, learning and teaching to flourish."
Florida's college faculty union said it supports Al Arian and will lead the fight for his position if he asks for the support.
"What people need to understand about the culture of academic life is that the intellectual freedom in this environment is more important than whether you like any individuals who exercise that freedom," said Tom Auxter, president of the state faculty union (www.uwire.com).
Al Arian in the past has made anti-Israeli comments and has had documented associations with people linked to terrorism. The union said he has never been charged with a crime and the reasons for firing him were "trumped up" so he could be dismissed.
Summer, is that you?
LOL! Hysterical stuff - thanks!
Al-Arian is not an American citizen...sheesh.
How about chanting "Saddam must go"?
Being a KNOWN supporter of terrorism is NOT academic freedom.
Why not? Are you the arbiter of which groups I can donate funds to? Should Hillary Clinton be able to stop me from donating to the NRA?
My point remains that as long as no laws are broken, no censorship should be permitted. There is a reson why freedom of speech is contained in the FIRST Amendment. It's a crucial freedom.
Of course they did. After all, he's only a high-ranking international terrorist with the blood of hundreds of innocent people on his hands.
I mean, it isn't like he opposed affirmative action or anything.
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