Middle East Forum
Daniel Pipe established the group "Middle East Forum" (MEF) with the explicit idea of promoting Israeli agenda couched as an American agenda to combat what he terms anti-American and anti-Israeli trends on US campuses. One of the most controversial projects was that this group set up a website to "monitor" academics. The website http://CampusWatch.org was considered a witch hunt (Scott Smallwood, "Web Site Lists Professors Accused of Anti-Israel Bias and Asks Students to Report on Them," Chronicle of Higher Education - web daily - September 19, 2002). The Nation had a report and in part it said:
Based in Philadelphia and headed by anti-Arab propagandist Daniel Pipes, CampusWatch unleashed an Internet firestorm in late September, when it posted "dossiers" on eight scholars who have had the audacity to criticize US foreign policy and the Israeli occupation. As a gesture of solidarity, more than 100 academics subsequently contacted the Middle East Forum asking to be added to the list. In response, Pipes has since posted 146 new names, all identified as supporters of "apologists for suicide bombings and militant Islam." Kristine McNeil, The War on Academic Freedom, The Nation, November 11, 2002 http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20021125&s=mcneil
Pipes was undetterred. He wrote a defamatory article titled "Professors who hate America" listing people Like Noam Chomsky, myself, Glenda Gilmore (Yale), Thomas Nagy (George Washington Univ), and others all because we criticized US foreign policy in the Middle East. Many of us subsequently received threatening letter (Gilmore was threatened with rape). George Bush had the temerity to nominate Pipes for the US Institute for Peace. When people around the nation complained (Senators, academics, civil rights groups etc), Bush went around this by appointing Pipes without Senate approval (a loophall called Summer appointment which means Pipes would serve one year without need for Senate Confirmation). Senator Edward Kennedey thought that such an appointment was extremely harmful to the reputation of the US government and its "Institute of Peace" to appoint such a figure. Prof. Tom Nagy subsequently left he United States writing a letter explaining why he would not stay in country that allows such demagogue as Pipes to intmidate and pressure professors. Even after being appointed to the "Institute of Peace" Pipes still attacks Muslims and Arabs and any defenders of basic human rights for Palestinians. He also continues to write to newspapers to try to intimidate them. He wrote a letter to the Day recently threatening lawsuits. Dan Levine also reported on more recent Pipes' efforts Piping Up Against the Day .
After we threatened legal action on Daniel Pipes for stating that we are apologists for terror or violence, he changed his web site. Here is how the new version read (I guess he ran it by a lawyer):
"Following the launch of Campus Watch on September 18, 2002, this site received more than 100 e-mails from faculty and graduate students requesting to be listed on http://www.campus-watch.org in solidarity with academics we identified as apologists for suicide bombings and militant Islam listed on this site. (For more, see the New York Times article )."
Big difference from the earlier version which unfortunately I did not save. If anyone knows how to get a hold of web pages already removed, please let me know. This teaches us a lesson: we should take images (I know how to do that) of offensive web pages before their authors change them under pressure. They would be useful in legal actions.
Now, we still have a possibility of legal action against Pipes and this time, he cannot take his words back because they are published. That is the article published in the NY Post.
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/61867.htm
Here is his quote about me as an example from the Post article:
Mazin Qumsiyeh, associate professor of genetics at Yale University and co-founder of "Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition," wrote in a Connecticut newspaper that "if Saddam Hussein is a dictator, (Washington) created him." He concludes that a U.S. war against Iraq would be just a diversion created by "Israeli apologists and (U.S.) government officials" who share a "tribal affiliation" (in other words, are Jewish). The only purpose of war would be to provide cover for Israel to commit what he calls "even higher atrocities" against Palestinians by removing them from the West Bank and Gaza.
The same column appeared in the Hartford Courant with an interesting change:
Mazin Qumsiyeh, associate professor of genetics at Yale University and co-founder of Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, wrote in The Day of New London that "if Saddam Hussein is a dictator, we (America) created him." The only purpose of war would be to provide cover for Israel to commit what he calls "even higher atrocities" against Palestinians by removing them from the West Bank and Gaza.
Here is what I really wrote and published in The Day September 2, 2002
Israeli apologists and government officials are now pushing the U.S. to attack Iraq so that it can use the pretext to commit even higher atrocities against the Palestinian natives (perhaps finishing the ethnic cleansing job started in 1947). Everyone else is telling the U.S. it would be a big mistake to listen to these warmongers. It is estimated that the new war on Iraq will cost $100 billion of our tax money and countless lives (the last war and ensuing embargo cost hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives and also tens of thousands of Americans diagnosed with Gulf War syndrome).
There is simply no good reason given to go to war again. If Saddam Hussein is a dictator, we created him, and there are many other dictators everywhere whom the U.S. supports (Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan, Gen. Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan, Hosni Mubarak in
Egypt). If weapons of mass destruction are the issue, then why didn't Saddam Hussein use them in the last war and why do we not insist other countries with corrupt and racist regimes abandon their weapons of mass destruction (yes, including Israel and some of our many other "allies" in the Middle East)? Clearly, our government's agenda recently has not been
about human rights or curbing weapons. We are clearly supporting many countries that violate human rights (just ask Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch). We are making and selling most of the world's weapons. Sixty percent of our weapon sales go to the Middle East.
These arms manufacturers and other huge multinational corporations are some of the biggest donors to our politicians (including President George W. Bush and Sen. Lieberman). The money goes to benefit a few individuals, and the result is very clear today to anyone with a 401k plan of retirement. Isn't it time to start connecting the dots, and look at the real picture and where we are being led?
Let us also enact true campaign-finance reform, insist that our politicians become accountable to the American people, redirect the billions sent to Israel to help here at home in this sagging economy, remove corporate power over our legislatures, and insist that
dual citizenship and voting in other countries for U.S. citizens are prohibited. In short, let us return to true liberty and justice for all.
Now if you re-read his statements in the Post, it is clear that he lies, changes words and puts words in my mouth and the title alone is actionable ("Profs who hate America").
see also http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/312 |