Editorials are posted and archived on JN Online: www.detroitjewishnews.corn Dry Bones Terrorizing The Campus r or most of last year, a university in Tampa, Fla., tried to find a good way to fire a com- puter science professor who, in his spare time, ran a think tank devoted to "Islamic Studies." In trying to get rid of Sami Al-Arian, the uni- versity said the professor's public statements justifying Palestinian terror attacks on Israeli civilians had endan- gered the campus by making it a likely target for retali- ation. Al-Arian said he wasn t actually fomentinc, fomenting vio- lence but simply exercising his academic freedom and lence his free speech rights as a permanent U.S. resident. So the matter rested until last week when federal agents arrested Al-Arian and charged him with being the head of North American fund-raising for Palestinian Islamic Jihad, one of the groups most responsible for terrorist acts against Israeli civilians. A 121-page indictment against him and seven others laid out a 10- year history of how they allegedly transferred hun- dreds of thousand dollars to the Damascus-based PIJ to pay the families of suicide bombers. Al-Arian and his co-defendants are entitled to the presumption of innocence as the charges against them proceed through the courts. But the action against him provides another proof — as if another one were needed — of just how irresponsible some American colleges and universities have been about the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Repeatedly since Israel's victory in the Six Day War of 1967, academics have allowed Arab sympa- thizers to blame the Jewish state for all the ills that have befallen the Palestinians. The professors have generally remained silent about the hateful, despotic nature of most of the Arab states. And they have turned a blind eye to the anti-Semitic filth that pours out of the Palestinian mosques and schools. They have conspired in the myth of Palestinian vic- timhood and the lies about Israeli brutality in the "occupied territories." Campus-sanctioned "think tanks" like Al-Arian's World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE) have provided an academic cover not for serious study of Mideast . issues but for propaganda and for raising money that has been used to prolong the conflict rather than help resolve it. One particularly serious conse- quence has been a generation of American higher education stu- dents raised on totally mistaken beliefs about Israel's history and conduct. The current — and hap- pily mostly ineffective — student- led campaign to get universities to sell their endowment investments in Israeli companies is a direct result of this intel- lectual corruption. The Would that campaign blv6s? have even started if the professors had been more careful to explain to students that the funds raised for Palestinian organizations were TE-RRo .R I ST being used to set the bombs at AVA&S P6SPOND? Hebrew University that killed, among others, American students? The willingness of the professors to ignore plain truths about the Palestinian backers was particularly dramatic at Al-Arian's campus, the University of South Florida in Tampa. Even though the Tampa Tribune reported exhaustively in 1995 about what WISE and Al- Arian were doing, the faculty senate refugees, but in the last two decades, the intellectual just last year voted strongly against the university's pendulum swung way too far in the other direction, efforts to fire him. The national American Association toward a Palestinian sympathy that would not dare of University Professors threatened to censure the uni- criticize the Arab failures. versity if it got rid of this obvious hate-monger. Maybe the case of Sami Al-Arian and his co- In the 1950s and 1960s, American campuses defendants will provide a useful spur to get campus- probably gave excess praise to Israel's post-partition es back on an intellectually honest track about the struggles and ignored the serious problem of Arab Middle East. Grim Reminder national origin." It's hard to believe in today's more tolerant, inclu- sive society that someone can be so spiteful they would make the effort to strike fear in the heart of a college student walking in Ann Arbor and talking by cell phone to his mother in Boston. It wasn't just a matter of the convicted teens hurl- ing insults at Danny Aghion, a Jewish U-M junior of Egyptian descent, and driving off. They took the time to throw a bottle at him, then stop their car and get out ready to fight, causing Aghion to, for the first time ever, fear. for his life. Senseless. Cruel. Begging for trouble. That sums up the mindless acts of two high school students taught to taunt instead of embrace a stranger just because he openly displayed his Jewish identity. The assailants, both of Arabic descent, ele- vated religious insults to a near physical attack. So their vulnerability to arrest grew as the encounter il ' START? (A)146K) S1-0P? Gu HA - r uA f17 6-■ AFTEK? eD EDITORIAL University of Michigan student's successful ethnic intimidation case against two teenagers who attacked him off campus because he was wearing a kippah and an "I Stand With Israel" T-shirt, making him easily recog- nizable as Jewish, underscores the state's commitment to celebrating diversity among residents and visitors, not stifling it. It's sad but apparent that people who hate Jews only because of their religious faith still live in our midst. And that's why the 1988 state statute designed to protect people against violence or threats based on race, religion, ethnicity or gender continues to be vital. The law makes it illegal to con- front a person physically, or to damage, destroy or deface a person's property, "because of that person's race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or A cosT/m HUMAN - oR HOW (A,C, SAMAR'S - ❑ EDIT ORIAL worsened. Anti-Jewish incidents are rare in Ann Arbor, a city where Jews not - only are welcome, but also become involved in the community. Still, the Aghion case reminds us that Jews, no matter where, can fall vic- tim to myth, stereotype and pent-up hate. Aghion could have dismissed the attack as isolated ignorance and, though shaken, returned to campus, where there's a critical mass of Jewish students and educators. But he chose to stand up for justice and say discrimination is repulsive in America. He prosecuted because he wanted to send a mes- sage that resonated. He wanted his assailants to know felonious intimidation is a crime, not a right. Hate crimes are among the worst because they aim to strip away a person's dignity. Danny Aghion, whose parents fled religious persecution in Egypt, preserved his dignity. He reminded Jews that, cultur- ally rich as this state is, we aren't immune to preju- dice. ❑ 2/28 2003 29