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Jewish World Review Sept. 4, 1998 / 13 Elul, 5758
Jonathan S. Tobin
Like many other minority groups, Arab-Americans have a legitimate beef.
Understandably, Arab-Americans are outraged when depictions of Arabs in the
movies and on television are limited to characters who are bloodthirsty
terrorists or quaint exotics. The millions of ordinary peace-loving and hard
working American citizens who are Muslim or of Arab descent deserve and have
a right to expect -- like everyone else -- to be treated with respect.
To that end, Arab-Americans have followed the pattern of American Jews and
established groups dedicated to fighting discrimination and defamation of
Arabs and Muslims. In that effort, they deserve the support of American
Jews.
Indeed, their efforts have gained a lot of press lately with their protests
against a forthcoming feature film entitled, "The Siege." The Edward Zwick
production stars Denzel Washington and Bruce Willis in a story about Arab
terrorism in the U.S. The producers went all out to avoid stereotypes --
even making one of the good guy policemen an Arab-American. But that wasn't
enough for the Arab groups, who are still unhappy about the movie.
But the story isn't quite that simple. The problem is, the claim of
discrimination falls apart when it demands that depictions of terrorism
never be associated with Arabs or Muslims. The problem with their protests is that
Arab and Islamic terrorism isn't a stereotype or a racist fabrication. While
it ought not to tar every Arab or Muslim, it is still real.
Unfortunately, in their effort to halt discrimination, these same groups
have chosen not to disassociate themselves from the excesses of Islamic
fundamentalism and Arab nationalism in the Middle East. Indeed, some of
these same Arab and Muslim anti-defamation groups such as the Council on American-
Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
(AAADC), have become the most important defenders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad
in the United States. Even worse, they have taken on the task of smearing
anyone who speaks out against these groups or investigates their activities.
The main target of their ire has been investigative journalist Steven
Emerson.
Emerson has earned this enmity with ground-breaking work on the network of
supporters of Arab terror groups operating in the United States. His
documentary film "Jihad in America" was shown on public television and won
many awards. His writing regularly appears in leading newspapers such as the
Wall Street Journal and he has testified as an expert on the topic of terror
support groups before Congress.
All this has made him a marked man. But rather than argue the merits of the
cause of the bloodthirsty terror groups like Hamas whose actions they
rationalize, CAIR and others have gone on the offensive smearing Emerson as
a racist.
Emerson's reporting has revealed the hate and support for terror
inside their groups that goes on in a routine manner inside CAIR. But, as
far as CAIR is concerned, the mere fact that Emerson has told the truth about
them and other Hamas supporters makes him dangerous. And like all political
extremists they believe those who disagree with them must be destroyed.
Given the fact that Emerson's work has been confirmed by law enforcement
agencies who have started to crack down on Hamas fundraising, one would
think that radicals like CAIR would have no more influence than the nuts who make
up the far-right militias.
But that is to underestimate them.
Leading Arab-
Americans such as Washington Democratic party insider James Zogby, a man who
has entry to the White House and the highest levels of political leadership
in the country, have taken up their drumbeat, repeatedly blasting the truth-
telling Emerson.
But the latest and most egregious instance of these "anti-discrimination"
activities is their apparently successful effort to persuade National Public
Radio to ban Emerson from its airwaves.
After a campaign by the
Arab-American
Action Network (AAAN), NPR's national news editor Michael Fields apparently
promised that Emerson would not appear on the publicly funded radio network
again. But after Emerson was interviewed last month on NPR's "Talk of the
Nation" program, AAAN leader Ali Abunimah demanded again that Emerson be
banned.
Astonishingly, the program's producer Ellen Silva apologized and promised in
an e-mail that Emerson "won't be used again. It is NPR policy."
When Boston Globe and JWR columnist Jeff Jacoby inquired about this statement, Silva
backed off and claimed there was no NPR policy on Emerson. But if not, why
had she said in writing that there was such a policy? Jacoby rightly questioned
why NPR, which is funded by U.S. taxpayer dollars approved by Congress, had
banned a man whom Congress has used as an expert on the topic.
But that's where the anti-Arab discrimination crowd came in again. Following
Jacoby's Aug. 31 column in the Globe and on JWR, the Council of American-Islamic
Relations fired off a press release accusing -- you guessed it -- Jacoby of
being an anti-Arab racist. Citing Jacoby's defense of the Jewish claim to
Jerusalem as well as his writing about Yasser Arafat's references to the
Prophet Muhammad's broken treaty with the Jewish tribes of Arabia (a
troubling precedent for those who place their faith in Oslo), CAIR falsely branded
Jacoby as someone who had defamed Islam.
But they didn't stop with that. They had the audacity to claim that Jacoby's
column about what these same Arab groups were doing to Steve Emerson was
"fabricated" and called for his firing. After the demise of columnists
Patricia Smith and Mike Barnicle for fabrications, that's a fighting word at
the Boston Globe. Will the Globe's editors try to assuage the claims of
anti-
Arab bigotry by "investigating" Jacoby?
Anything is possible.
The unpleasant fact in this sordid story is that the people crying
discrimination and bigotry are themselves the haters. They are the front men
for groups like Hamas whose main purpose is to kill and maim as many Jews
and
Americans as possible and to destroy the state of Israel. Their enemy isn't
discrimination against Arabs, but the truth that men like Emerson and Jacoby
are risking their careers to bring out into the light.
American Jews have an obligation to rise to their defense with at least as
much fervor as Arab and Muslim groups have displayed in trying to blacklist
them. NPR and the Boston Globe need to be told that we will not tolerate
theirgiving in to front groups for Hamas.
If Emerson and Jacoby are effectively
silenced, then no one is
Pro-terror groups' cry of discrimination rings hollow
IN RECENT YEARS, a new group has been added to the pantheon of victims in
modern culture. Arab-Americans have organized, and in the best tradition of
American democracy have cried out against what they claim is systematic
discrimination.
People who look, sound and talk different from the majority have always faced an
uphill fight in America. Though anti-Arab discrimination was never as
institutionalized as anti-black hatred, as ingrained in American history as
anti-Hispanic sentiment or as rooted in the culture of western civilization
as Jew-hatred, it exists nonetheless in our society and popular culture.
JWR contributor Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of the Connecticut Jewish Ledger. He was
the recipient of the American Jewish Press Association highest award: First
Place in The Louis Rapoport Award for Excellence in Commentary and Editorial
Writing. The Rapoport award is named for the longtime editor of the
Jerusalem Post and was given to Mr. Tobin at the AJPA's 1997 Simon Rockower Awards dinner
at Cleveland on June 18, 1998.
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