[2125] in peace2
The Tech prints patent lies about Amer Jubran, here is something you
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Aimee L Smith)
Fri Dec 6 18:23:57 2002
Message-Id: <200212062323.SAA10420@gold.mit.edu>
To: alsmith@MIT.EDU
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Date: Fri, 06 Dec 2002 18:23:16 -0500
From: Aimee L Smith <alsmith@MIT.EDU>
Hi Everyone,
We are writing this email to inform people about the various accusations and
lies that have been printed in the Tech recently. The Tech has not yet printed
any retraction or errata of their own or even a response from one of us. We
feel that it is very important that the full truth be known which is why we are
using the medium of this very long email so that people can make up their own
mind. Moreover, we hope you will join us in signing on to a letter or column
to be submitted for this Tues. Tech.
Below you can find a column (1) decrying the Tech's willingness to print a
letter to the editor (3) by Joshua Katz that included dangerous and false
claims about a member of our activist community, Amer Jubran. In fact, Katz's
letter seems to accuse us all of being part of a community "of terror." We
asked the Tech if they could substantiate the claim that Amer is "an active
member of Hamas" and upon The Tech asking the author for his substantiation
(after already having printed his letter without considering this, mind you)
Katz is alleged to have wrote a retraction, then later recanted his retraction
and stated he had it on the authority of two "trusted" sources. So, no, he
cannot substantiate these complete lies.
Below (2) you can also find a letter from Julia Steinberger that the Tech
decided not to print for some mysterious reason.
Below (4) you can find the original column that Katz refers to that Aimee
wrote.
Below (5) is a great article about the greater cultural context about using
scare tactics and other tactics to divert attention from discussion of the
issues under question about whether or not the Palestinian people have human
rights and a right to be full members of a supposedly democratic country that
lies on their homeland.
Please write to us (peace-request@mit.edu) if you want to sign onto the letter
or column (1) to the Tech. We can not allow silencing and intimidation to
happen on our campus. For more information or discussion, please write to
peace-request@mit.edu.
Please fwd this email as widely as appropriate.
In hope,
Aimee and Julia
PS this email was sent to the following lists:
peace-announce, arab-request, paw-ac, greens-announce, staff@onepalestine.org,
mitai-exec, msa-ec, bostoncampusantiwar@lists.riseup.net
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To the editor:
We live in dangerous times of increasing government threats to civil liberties
and attacks against immigrants. This is the context within which The Tech has
published a patent lie.
The lie is not one hurled lightly, but with deliberation. It is not one issued
simply to score rhetorical points, but to chill discussion and dissent at an
institution where intellectual honesty and open debate is supposed to prevail.
And more than anything, it is a lie that, once created, calls into question the
very safety of its innocent victim.
Joshua S. Katz, an MIT freshman, has written a letter to The Tech in which he
states that Amer Jubran is "an active supporter of Hamas, one of the world's
leading terrorist organizations." According to Mr. Katz, Jubran therefore "has
no business being in this country." In fact, the letter-writer continues, "The
community in which he is active is one of terror, and to fight terrorism, the
'activists' must be stopped."
Every Tech reader should feel a chill running down her or his spine when
reading these words.
Amer Jubran is a presence on the MIT campus. He spoke here recently on a panel
about the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. He lectured for a political
science class in January 2002 on the situation of the Palestinians in the
Middle East and his own experience with police repression in this country.
Several of his co-founders of the New England Committee to Defend Palestine are
MIT students, graduates, fellows, and faculty. That is Mr. Jubran's
"community." And now it is painted with a broad and frightening brush as
"terrorist."
We understand that Mr. Katz was asked by The Tech to substantiate his
scurrilous charge, and at first recanted. Then he told the editors that a
reliable source had assured him Mr. Jubran had been seen wearing a Hamas
armband - another lie. The truth is that Amer Jubran is no terrorist. He is a
supporter of the rights of Palestinians to their liberation.
We believe Mr. Katz's letter and charge - which he levels not only against Mr.
Jubran but against everyone who works with him or even dares to speak out
against Israel and Zionism - is part of an orchestrated effort on U.S. campuses
to shut down dissent. It is part and parcel of a new wave of suppression of
free speech. It is in league with similar efforts across the country. They run
the gamut from the "Open Letter to the Jewish Community" sent out by the
Rutgers University Hillel leadership, which demanded that Jews keep their
consciences and their concerns about Israel silent, except within the closed
confines of their "own community," to the "Campus Watch" website established by
Daniel Pipes and Martin Kramer of the Middle East Forum, where academics are
denounced for having shown "hatred of Israel." Pipes wants students to inform
on professors who are guilty of "campus anti-Semitism."
We don't know whether Mr. Katz is the genuine author of his letter. Obviously,
there are many out there who would gladly offer to help him in his effort to
chill free speech on this campus. Wherever it comes from, though, it must be
repudiated by every woman and man at MIT, irrespective of their views on the
situation in the Middle East. Otherwise, what kind of university are we? And
what will be The Tech's excuse for its own complicity be if this lie is allowed
to stand and spurs someone to harmful action?
signed Scott Cooper
Aimee Smith
Julia Steinberger
Brice Smith
Anton Van der Ven
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Subject: Response to Joshua Katz's letter
Date: Wed, 04 Dec 2002 08:54:06 -0500
From: Julia Steinberger <julias@MIT.EDU>
Dear Tech,
This is in response to Joshua Katz's letter in the Tech of Dec 3.
Joshua Katz's December 3rd letter in response to Dr. Aimee
Smith's article about Amer Jubran ("Speaking While Palestinian")
demonstrates that Mr. Katz is himself a master of what he accuses
Dr. Smith: lying for political purposes.
To rebut some of his most outrageous and unfounded assertions:
Amer Jubran's politics are nothing like that of Hamas. He supports
unconditionally the Palestinian people's right to resist an unjust
occupation (a right recognized as a basic human right). He supports
a one-state solution: a secular and democratic Palestine. Many
people do not agree with these political opinions, but that does not
make the man who holds them "a threat to national security", or a
"terrorist".
Mr. Katz's efforts to dehumanize and discredit Mr. Jubran by
calling him names are terrifying (Mr. Katz would like to see an
honest, outspoken man, innocent of any crime, locked up because he
disagrees with his politics) as well as pathetic (Mr. Katz disagrees
with Mr. Jubran's politics, but rather than arguing on political
grounds, he would rather silence his opponent by slandering and
jailing him).
Mr. Katz is also mistaken when he states that the government
always has a good reason for jailing people indefinitely without
charges. If he truly believes that, he should read some histories of
the FBI (like "The COINTELPRO Papers" by Ward and Vander Wall). Was
our government right to promote the harassment and death of Martin
Luther King Jr? I am sure that if Mr. Katz had been an government
agent at the time, he would have found ample justification by stating
that MLK was a "terrorist" and "a threat to national security".
There can be no good reason for jailing people based on their
political opinions. The fact that Mr. Katz advocates this only proves
that he is unworthy of living in a democracy.
Julia Steinberger, G
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Letter-to-the-editor published in The Tech Tues, Dec. 3, 2002
Palestinian Activist Rightfully Targeted
Time and time again, Aimee L. Smith PhD '02 has demonstrated the lack of focus
and connection that consume her ultra-liberal ideals. Her insistence on
holding Israel and the United States responsible for all the problems plaguing
our world ["Speaking While Palestinian," Nov. 22] simply causes her goals and
motives to be ignored as the extremist views that they are.
Smith relates the detainment of Arabs to the racial profiling employed by the
New Jersey state police in past years. However, she fails to recognize the
significant difference between the two cases. The NJ police utilized racial
profiling for the purpose of controlling drug traffic. The rationale was that
since the majority of drug users in NJ were of African-American descent, it was
legitimate to target them. This was correctly ruled unfair and a violation of
African Americans' Fourteenth Amendment Rights.
However, the involvement of Arabs with the law goes beyond the drug trade to
matters of national security. It should be noted that the number of people
affected by this crackdown on terrorism is small, and that the government is
not acting blindly. When the government arrests someone, it has a legitimate
reason. It is a principle in this country that rights of the individual may be
limited for the protection of our national security. Freedom is not absolute
anywhere in the world, and people should be thankful for the rights they are
afforded in the United States. One certainly cannot find them anywhere in the
Arab world.
To say that Amer Jubran was arrested without cause is also a complete falsity.
As an active supporter of Hamas, one of the world's leading terrorist
organizations, Amer Jubran has no business being in this country, especially if
he is not here legally, as Smith suggests. Why he has been denied legal
counsel, I cannot comment on, but to call for his unconditional release because
he is only a "community activist" who happens to be Palestinian is absurd. The
community in which he is active is one of terror, and to fight terrorism, the
"activists" must be stopped.
Joshua S. Katz '06
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COLUMN published in The Tech Nov. 24, 2002
Speaking While Palestinian
Aimee L. Smith
You have probably heard about the sarcastic quip, "Driving While Black" in
response to racial profiling. "DWB" burst into mainstream awareness with the
1996 lawsuit against New Jersey Turnpike Authorities that documented that
Troopers on I-95 were almost five times more likely to pull over drivers of
African descent over other drivers. I can personally attest that members of my
family have been pulled over on the New Jersey Turnpike, with a complete
unwarranted search of the vehicle being made, only when traveling with African
Americans. As problematic as this behavior is, the lawsuits and publicity had
opened up the dialog to the point were even white Americans and law enforcement
officials were condemning the practice of racial profiling. That was pre-9/11.
The response to 9/11 led not only to an increase in the profiling and illegal
detention of people of Arab descent and practitioners of Islam and a wave of
hate-crimes against people perceived to be in one of these categories, but it
also led to a return to widespread acceptance of racial profiling. Over 1,000
immigrants of Arab or Pakistani origin have been swept up and detained in INS
jails, often without informing their friends and family. The exact numbers are
still unknown and many have not had access to legal representation. Even an
American citizen, Jose Padilla, has been stripped of his constitutional rights
to due process as the government has condemned him without a trial as an enemy
combatant. He is currently being held in a military base and has been denied
access to a lawyer. None of this would be possible if it weren't for the
acquiescence of the United States citizenry, who have been bombarded with
messages of hatred, xenophobia, nationalism and fear since that fateful day.
On Nov. 2, I and many others participated in a legal protest for Palestinian
rights in the streets of Boston with respected community activist and
Palestinian Amer Jubran. The following Monday at eight in the morning, Jubran,
a legal United States resident, was visited at his home by INS and FBI agents.
His home was illegally entered and he was taken in for questioning. Amer was
told that if he cooperated with the FBI, he could be home in time for lunch. If
he failed to comply, they could let him rot in jail for 50 years. Apparently,
exercising his right to have the benefit of legal counsel during an FBI
interrogation is considered "not cooperating," because he remains in jail to
this day. Amer spent first 24 hours in the prison with hands and legs shackled
in solitary confinement. When he told one of the guards that this treatment
would not satisfy the standards of Amnesty International, the guard reportedly
said, "Amnesty International standards do not apply in here, my friend."
Amer Jubran is being held on some alleged immigration technicality that does
not even warrant incarceration. But his real crime, as far as the FBI is
concerned, is his willingness to exercise his first amendment rights of
assembly and speech in the streets of Boston, followed by his refusal to be
interrogated without benefit of legal counsel. This is not the logic of
security; this is the logic of repression.
I suppose if we American citizens really fell for the line about the 9/11
hijackers -- "they hate us because of our freedoms" -- then fear without
reflection might make us willing to give up those very freedoms so that "they"
would have no reason to hate us anymore. The fact is, the reasons that drive
desperate people to violent acts are much more complicated than the rhetoric we
are made to believe, and we really aren't stupid enough to accept the empty
Bush administration analysis.
The United States has been the perpetrator of many crimes against humanity, has
created and funded the creation of many weapons of mass-destruction, and is the
only nation to have dropped the atomic bomb on regions with dense civilian
populations. There is much in our history to feel shame about. But at the same
time, there is one major thing that we should feel proud about, and that is the
promise of the enshrinement and protection of rights that are offered by the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights. How closely these promises are realized is
directly proportional to how willing each and every citizen and resident of
this land will fight to protect them. It is a lot like maintaining strong and
healthy muscles: use them or lose them.
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Source: CounterPunch - http://www.counterpunch.org/kates1204.html
CounterPunch
December 4, 2002
"Tension on Campus":
A Call to Silence
by CHARLOTTE KATES
"Tension on Campus." The phrase has become unfortunately common at a wide
range of universities, including my own Rutgers University. From San Francisco
State University and the University of California at Berkeley; from Concordia
University in Montreal, Canada to the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor,
universities with active, growing Palestine solidarity movements and campaigns
for divestment from Israel are being tagged with a new concern about "tension
on campus."
This "tension" is described in a number of ways; "making Jewish students
feel unsafe on campus"-despite the involvement of a number of Jewish students
in the very movements accused of causing this tension, "creating an environment
of hate," "causing discomfort among students," "making people afraid to be
Jewish on campus," and "poisoning the dialogue." However it is described, it
usually returns to a thinly-veiled allegation of anti-Semitism and demands
that, in some way, this tension be stopped.
In any environment of strong debate, mobilization, protest and
organizing, there can be, will be, and, in fact, should be, a certain amount of
discomfort, tension and conflict. These conflicts exist not because of hatred
or intolerance, but because there is a very real and meaningful difference
between calling for liberation of the Palestinian people and ceasing U.S. aid
to their oppressors in Israel, and demanding support of the Israeli government
at all times. The student and community based movement for justice in Palestine
is an antiracist movement at its core-it is based on a demand for full equality
for all citizens of Israel (and end to Israeli apartheid) and recognition of
human rights for all citizens of historic Palestine-the rights of
self-determination, of freedom from foreign occupation, of liberation from
colonialism, of return of refugees. These rights are denied
Palestinians-citizens of Israel or residents of the Occupied
Territories-because they are Palestinians, and specifically because they are
not Jewish. The movement for justice in Palestine stands in solidarity with the
Palestinian people inside and outside the Green Line in declaring that this
form of state-sponsored racism and oppression is unacceptable and
indefensible-and should not be supported with our money.
Those who, in response, defend the actions of the Israeli state, its
guiding ideologies, laws and practices, who declare that "Wherever we stand, we
stand with Israel," are defenders of state racism, military occupation and the
denial of human rights to Palestinians. This defense of Israeli actions is in
direct opposition to a movement demanding liberation for Palestine, and in
direct opposition to a movement declaring that, as Americans and others,
government, university and corporate money should not go to prop up the racist
occupation regime. Rather, however, than addressing that direct opposition and
conflict of beliefs, defenders of Israeli government policy have resorted to
raising concerns about "tension on campus."
The university is envisioned as and expected to be an environment of open
debate, innovative ideas, incisive questioning and analysis. Of course, it is
also supposed to be an environment of tolerance of difference. However, what we
are witnessing in much of the discussion of "tension on campus" is not a
concern about tolerance but rather a demand for silence and an utter lack of
any toleration of viewpoints critical of Israel. We are told that open debate
is negative, dangerous and harmful; that political ideas make others
uncomfortable or unsafe. Criticism of a government strongly linked to the US
government is rephrased as dangerous, anti-Semitic and intolerant -creating an
environment where many truly are afraid to share their concerns about Israeli
oppression of Palestinians.
Indeed, open debate may cause an amount of "tension." There is a very
real conflict between defense of racism and opposition to racism-but this
conflict is not a negative development; rather, it is a necessary conflict in
order to end racist practices. Racist beliefs should be called into question;
defense of racist state practices should make people feel uncomfortable. There
is no right to political belief without feeling discomfort, tension or
insecurity in those beliefs; this is a tension that reflects a struggle between
justice and injustice. Tense it might be, but more importantly, it is
necessary, positive and has the possibility of creating lasting and meaningful
change. It is the sort of tension and conflict we should seek to encourage-open
debate and expression of political ideas-rather than to suppress on the ground
that someone may be emotionally discomfited by its existence.
"Tension on campus" is another way of saying "active movement for justice
in Palestine on campus." This struggle is portrayed as somehow uniquely
"complicated," somehow uniquely prone to guidelines of "appropriateness" in its
conduct. Unlike seemingly all other struggles for justice, it must be subject
to mediation and moderation under the guise of "dialogue." There is nothing
uniquely complicated here; every national situation is complicated, intricate
and bears a long history. Nevertheless, justice applies despite these
complications; there is nothing specifically "complicated" about the Middle
East that precludes the Palestinian people from their rights to justice and
self-determination. This justice will not be obtained through any number of
well-meaning dialogues about "tension on campus"; it, however, might very well
be obtained by the economic pressure on the Israeli state generated by
effective divestment campaigns on the university, community, corporate and
government levels.
The focus on neutrality, on setting up dialogues and discussion, on
condemning partisanship and passion as somehow negative, obscures the very real
situation in the Middle East, as well as our own campus organizing. In the face
of injustice and oppression, we should not seek to be neutral in tone or
action, but rather to struggle mightily to end that injustice and oppression.
The specter of "dialogues" between white racists and civil rights advocates, or
between misogynists and feminists, so that those advocating for change might
express their opinions in an appropriately timid and subservient manner, is
both absurd and disturbing. It is absurd on its face; very few, today, would
advocate that Jim Crow racism and segregation could have been overcome by
creating an environment that is comfortable for racists. It is disturbing
because at the time those movements were on the ascendancy there were a number
of people who cautioned against such dangerous militancy as boycotts,
demonstrations and uncompromising demands. Those movements overcame such
demands for their silence and rightly rejected them as such. Here, however, a
new method of silence is at work-labeling opposition to racism as itself
intolerance, hate, and anti-Semitism, and placing anti-racist activists on the
defensive to prove their own anti-racism. We need not accept this defensive
position. There is no basis for allegations of anti-Semitism and hatred
stemming from political expression of disapproval of the actions, ideologies
and laws of the state of Israel. We need not accept "tension on campus" as a
negative description. We have no desire to create an environment where racists
may feel comfortable and secure in their racism; we very much want to call
fundamental assumptions into question, to create an environment where it is,
indeed, uncomfortable to declare oneself an unequivocal supporter of an
oppressive, racist state. It should be uncomfortable; it should not feel
equally welcomed and valid to defend oppression as to fight for its end.
There is nothing making Jewish students afraid to be Jewish on campus;
nothing that is, except for those whose Jewish identity leads them to condemn
the racist practices of the state of Israel. The Rutgers University Hillel
leadership sent out an Open Letter to the Jewish Community, demanding that Jews
keep their consciences and their concerns silent, except within the closed
confines of their "own community." Students who criticize racism, who dare to
show the links between the oppression of Palestine and war against Iraq, who
stand up for their own dignity and the dignity of their fellow human beings,
are told that their words cause tension and discomfort, blamed for their great
sin of bringing political conflict to the forefront, told to be silent, demure
and inoffensive. Declaring that Israel is an apartheid state is not offensive;
declaring that it is unacceptable to dehumanize Palestinians is not
anti-Semitism; demanding that our money not go to support the Israeli state's
oppression and racism is not dangerous. These statements do cause tension-the
tension between those fighting for justice, and those fighting to preserve an
unjust status quo.
Across the country, students are being called to silence. Their words are
too political, their demands too principled, their activism too committed. A
coordinated campaign is in place to silence activists, to declare their work
and their words beyond the pale. Nevertheless, students are refusing to be
silent, continuing to organize. New divestment campaigns are launched on a
constant and regular basis. Organizers are refusing to be intimidated by the
campaign of silence masquerading about concern about "tension on campus." There
is an active campaign for justice in Palestine; that campaign might well make
defenders of injustice uncomfortable and insecure. That is not a sign of
intolerance and hatred; it is a call to rethink defense of injustice and racism
and take a stand with those struggling for human rights. "Tension on campus"
indeed is a euphemism for Palestine solidarity on campus. May the tension
continue to escalate, and the movement continue to grow, until it is recognized
not as tension but as an irresistible force for global justice.
Charlotte Kates is a law student at Rutgers University School of Law and
an activist and organizer for social justice in Newark, New Jersey. She is
Education Chair of New Jersey Solidarity, a community/campus organization
working for justice in Palestine, and may be reached at
ckates@pegasus.rutgers.edu.
