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April 5, 2002
Alexander
Cockburn
Sharon's
Wars: How the
News Gets Through
April 4, 2002
Ray Hanania
Sharon's Latest Lie About the Church
of the Nativity
Mike Leon
Rightwing
Assault on Madison Progressives Misfires
Tom Turnipseed
Stop the Killing Now!
Nancy
Stohlman
An
American Under Siege in a West Bank Refugee Camp
Christopher Reilly
Kissinger, Chile and Justice
at Long Last?
M. Shahid
Alam
The
Lies of Thomas Friedman
April 3, 2002
Don Henley
Dear Loathsome Trade Hacks
Bernard
Weiner
An
American Jew Talks
About His Shame
David Vest
Sting of Stings
Tzaporah
Ryter
Under
Fire: an American Student in Ramallah
Gabriel Ash
America's Bravest
John Chuckman
Of
War, Islam and Israel
Robert Fisk
The Siege of Bethlehem
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Sins of the Church
April 2, 2002
Uri Avnery
Murdering Arafat?
Jeff Chang
Is
Protest Music Dead?
Lev Grinberg
Israel's State Terrorism
Norman
Madarasz
Bullying
Brazil
Robert Fisk
Farce and Terror
in Ramallah
Steve
Perry
Let's
Roll! ®:
The Marketing of Lisa Beamer
April 1, 2002
Stanton / Madsen
America's War Inc.
Rep. Dennis
Kucinich
Peace
and Nuclear Disarmament: a Call to Action
Bahour / Dahan
Bloodshed in Palestine:
A Way Out
Molly
Secours
Tennessee's
Kangaroo Court
Phyllis Pollack
The Making of Exile
on Main Street
Dave Marsh
DeskScan:
This Week's
Top 10 CDs
Francis Boyle
The Big Lie:
Palestine, Palestinians
and International Law
March 31, 2002
Jordan
Flaherty
Last
Night the Israeli
Military Tried to Kill Me
Kristen Schurr
Live from Bethlehem
Maha Sbitani
The
Israeli Army Took Over My House
Robert Fisk
Lies Leaders Tell When
They Want to Go to War
March 24/30, 2002
Alexander Cockburn
The Year
of the Yellow Notepad:
Plagiarism and History
Rep. Ron Paul
Slavery and the Draft
Fidel
Castro
A
Better World is Possible
Edward Said
What Price Oslo?
José
Saramago
Justice
and Democracy Denied
Azmi Bishara
Talking to Tanks
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Clearcutting
Montana
Alexander Cockburn
50 Years of James Bond
Wilhelm
Reich
Gethsemane
Claud Cockburn
The Horror of It All
Dave Marsh
What's
Playing at My Houe
David Vest
Remembering Tammy Wynette
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Waylon
Jennings:
an Honest Outlaw
March 23, 2002
Mokhiber/Weissman
A
Corporate Lawyer
Speaks Out
Saeed Vaseghi
The US and Iran's Quest
for Democracy
Brian
J. Foley
Does
Pedophilia Scandal Spell an Opportunity for Catholics?
Sheperd Bliss
American Soul and Empire
James
Packard Winkler
Occupation
and Terror:
Politics from a Gun Barrel
M. Shahid Alam
A New International Division
of Labor
T.W. Croft
Enron's
Attack on Our
Economic Security
March 22, 2002
Robert Jensen
Corporate Power is a
Threat to Democracy
Tommy
Ates
The
Future of Black Academia
Rep. Ron Paul
Why are We in Ukraine?
March 21, 2002
McQuinn,
Munson, & Wheeler
Stars
and Stripes:
Killing for the Flag?
John Chuckman
How Change is Wrought
David
Vest
Hail
to the Chaff
March 20, 2002
Kay Lee
Censorship at Angelfire
Robert
Jensen
The
Politics of Pain
and Pleasure
Sheperd Bliss
Notes from Hawai'i:
Trouble in Paradise
Rick Giambetti
Prozac
and Suicide:
an Interview with
Dr. David Healy
Philip Farruggio
Bullies
Lori Allen
Live
from Ramallah:
The Madness of Occupation
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
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Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
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This Explosive
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April 5, 2002
Tampa Campus Mirrors Middle East
Problems
at the University of South Florida have diminished the University's
reputation and split the campus in two
By Alex Lynch
TAMPA
Dr. Sami Al-Arian is a tenured professor
of computer engineering at the University of South Florida, a
stateless Palestinian and a poster child not only for abuses
of civil liberties, but the defense of academic freedom since
Sept. 11.
On Sept. 26, 2001, Al-Arian was asked
by the producers of The O'Reilly Factor to appear on the
show and represent the Muslim community to downplay the claims
that fundamentalism was as widespread as many Washington pundits
were claiming. That genuine request turned out to be a ploy and
host Bill O'Reilly immediately accused Al-Arian of having ties
to terrorists during a particularly vulnerable time in America.
Al-Arian was forced to defend himself, although none of his words
were actually inflammatory towards US foreign policy from which
he is known to be a detractor.
Al-Arian was immediately put on administrative
paid leave by the university after it received hundreds of phone
calls and a dozen threats on Al-Arian's life.
Since November last year Mazen Al-Najjar,
Al-Arian's brother-in-law, has been held in 23-hour solitary
confinement and is strip-searched twice a day at Coleman Federal
Correctional Facility about 75 miles north of Tampa. Al-Najjar,
a former professor at USF, and Al-Arian together founded and
worked with World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE) and the
Islamic Committee of Palestine (ICP), two USF think tanks formed
to promote understanding of Islam in the late 80s and early 90s.
Ramadan Abdulah Shallah, a former director
for WISE, left in 1995 and resurfaced as the leader of the Palestinian
Islamic Jihad causing alarm not only to the government, but to
Al-Arian as well who has said he had no idea of Shallah's intentions.
Al-Najjar also spent 1,307 days in jail
on secret evidence from 1997-2000 but, on Oct. 27, 2000 R. Kevin
McHugh, an INS judge said after viewing the government's secret
evidence against Al-Najjar, "WISE was a reputable and scholarly
research center and the ICP was highly regarded."
What also brought attention to Al-Arian
was his strong stance against U.S. foreign policy and support
for Palestinian's right to self-determination in the occupied
territories. During one of his speeches in 1990, Al-Arian spoke
the famous words that have been hanging around his neck like
an albatross ever since, and what rightwing pundits and Jewish
interest groups here in this conservative town are using as a
justification of firing a tenured professor; "Death to Israel."
In December last year, the university's
Board of Trustees (a group of conservative businessmen hand-picked
by Gov. Jeb Bush) called for an emergency meeting to discuss
Al-Arian, who was still on paid leave due to his appearance on
The O'Reilly Factor. The meeting turned out to be a one-sided
slander session as the board recommended to Judy Genshaft, the
bumbling saccharine president of USF, that Al-Arian be fired.
The board did not give a 24-hour notice
of the meeting, which is guaranteed by the Sunshine Laws in Florida
and also did not allow Al-Arian to defend himself. Not to mention
the meeting was called during the winter break when many of Al-Arian's
supporters, both professors and students, were not in Tampa.
These sneaky and unjustifiable offenses
did not bode well in the academic community and therefore, Genshaft
and the board were made to answer accusations they circumvented
academic freedom, freedom of speech and the right of due process
since Al-Arian, who has been banned from campus since September,
could not defend himself at the meeting.
Genshaft and the board's arguments to
fire cited the disruption Al-Arian brings to the university because
of the death threats on him and the fact that, as Genshaft mentioned,
donors to USF were withholding funds until Al-Arian was fired.
"Free speech is much more important
than donations to a university," said Dr. Nancy Jane Tyson,
last year's faculty senate president. "The protection of
opinion and right to speak out is priceless. No cost value can
be put on that."
Caving into death threats from what one
would suppose were American terrorists and deciding the fate
of a tenured professor because financial contributors to USF
wanted him out didn't hold water in academic circles.
In January, both the USF Faculty Senate
and the statewide Faculty Union stood behind Al-Arian and pledged
attorneys in his defense. The ACLU and the American Arab anti
Discrimination Committee also threw their support his way.
The issue has split the USF campus as
well. Many protests against the administration's intent to fire
have created strong and enlightened friendships of black, white,
Hispanic and Arabic students as well as professors. They argue
that even though they and many academics in Al-Arian's defense
do not necessarily agree with his beliefs, the freedom to speak
should not be curtailed because of hyper-patriotism since Sept.
11.
On Feb. 20, the two sides met and squared
off against each other as tempers peaked. Hillel, a Jewish organization
on campus, organized a demonstration in support of President
Genshaft's intent to fire. The counter-protesters, against the
firing, produced twice as many detractors with signs, chants
and bullhorns proclaiming that academic freedom and free speech
cannot and will not be bulldozed.
The Coalition of Progressive Student
Organizations (15 campus groups) the Graduate Assistants United
and many other campus faculty and student groups all sent out
memos condemning Genshaft's intent to fire and Dr. Elizabeth
Bird, the board's liaison, resigned due to the lack of due process
afforded Al-Arian.
Strangely, the Student Government, made
up mostly of Republican and Jewish students, voted 22-0 in favor
of Genshaft who gave a speech to the Student Government immediately
before the vote. Still, 14 of the 36 members abstained because
they felt the student body had not been properly polled. Students
were outraged that the Student Government, supposedly representing
student opinion, would vote unanimously to support Genshaft's
intent to fire even after hundreds had signed letters in opposition.
On March 15, the American Association
of University Professors came to town to discuss a possible censure
on the university if it decides to fire the tenured professor.
The threat of academic censure has halted the administration's
decision to fire. USF has already been censured once in the early
1960s during the John's Committees that lobbied to fire supposed
communist and gay/lesbian professors in Florida. Only a few universities
have ever been censured more than once and there have only been
51 total censures ever.
An AAUP censure on a university discourages
many of the most competitive and qualified professors from becoming
faculty members. Showing concern at the administration's behavior,
the AAUP has stepped forward even before a professor has been
fired, the first time that has ever occurred.
There have also been hints that the U.S.
Civil Rights Commission is to conduct an inquiry as to the possibility
of racism behind the firing. President Genshaft is Jewish and
the dean of Al-Arian's department at USF is said to have been
an Israeli soldier.
Genshaft has put all of her eggs in one
basket, hoping the government will indict Al-Arian. She has supported
speakers such as the inflammatory NBC terrorist expert Steven
Emerson.
After all is said and done, many academics
at USF and beyond have forecasted that the only person that is
going to lose their job is President Genshaft. In an age where
the job of a university president isn't so much about academe
as it is about raising money, Genshaft has provided the blueprint
on how presidents should not treat a faculty member whose beliefs
run contrary to that of the administration.
Most recently though, on March 20, John
Loftus, a former Nazi hunter and current president of the Florida
Holocaust Museum, filed a lawsuit that once again claims Al-Arian's
groups WISE and ICP raised funds for terrorist organizations.
During the same day, a slanderous federal warrant naming Al-Arian
alongside Osama Bin Laden raided 14 Virginia Islamic organizations
that supposedly raised money for terrorists.
Loftus, whose reputation has often been
questioned, has once again shown his true colors when he sent
donations to Al-Arian that were intended for the two long-defunct
organizations (WISE and ICP) a few days after he filed the lawsuit.
The reasoning behind the donations (in one of Loftus' donations
he sent two-dollar bills) is that he had to have been personally
defrauded to file a legal complaint against Al-Arian.
The obvious and comical tactics by Loftus
mirrors that of president Genshaft, the board of trustees and
local Jewish interest and is all too symbolic. Every angle has
been manipulated in order to rid the Palestinian, yet, he remains
at home with his family receiving a $66,000 salary.
"What bothers me the most is the
hypocrisy behind the administration." Dr. Tyson said.
One board member, Rhea F. Law even tried
to argue that because Al-Arian is on paid leave, which the board
and president decided to put him on after the O'Reilly interview,
he should be fired because he is unable to perform his duties
as a professor.
For the most part, the faculty has been
silenced and the words of Dr. Tyson have been too few and far-between.
Seeing a tenured professor come under such scrutiny has been
intimidating, and many professors have said in private that they
are not willing to speak out for fear of administrative reprisals.
"It's an insecure feeling,"
Dr. Tyson said.
Alex Lynch
is Founder and Editor of THE SHANACHIE Alternative Campus Newspaper
at the University of South Florida and can be contacted at shanachie51@hotmail.com.
To read more about the Al-Arian family by Alex Lynch go to: http://www.counterpunch.org/lynchnahla.html.
Or, contact the Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace at:
tbcjusticeandpeace@yahoo.com.
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