THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 197, August 9, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
"POPULAR PALESTINIAN CONFERENCE" PEDDLES PROPAGANDA
By Cinnamon Stillwell
PRO-PALESTINIAN, PRO-ARAB, ANTI-ISRAELI PROPAGANDA ACTIVITY IN THE U.S.A.: PALESTINIANS & THEIR RADICAL
ACTIVIST SYMPATHIZERS IN THE U.S.A. SEEKING POLITICAL INDOCTRINATION OF AMERICAN STUDENTS -- THE "POPULAR
PALESTINIAN CONFERENCE 2008" PLANNING TO DEMAND AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL CURRICULA THAT COVER THE
ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT IN A MANNER THAT IDENTIFIES ISRAEL AS THE AGGRESSOR & OPPRESSOR, THE
PALESTINIAN ARABS AS THE PERPETUAL VICTIMS, & THE U.S.A. AS AN ACCOMPLICE IN CRIME -- INVOLVEMENT OF
UNIVERSITY MIDDLE EAST STUDIES ACADEMICS IN THE ENDEAVOR TO DEMONIZE ISRAEL & TO PROMOTE & JUSTIFY
DESTRUCTION OF THE JEWISH STATE
FULL STORY:
This weekend, the "Popular Palestinian Conference 2008" will be held in Chicago, and, if past is prologue, a slew of
anti-Israel propaganda will be part of the repertoire. The organizers make no effort to conceal their nefarious intentions,
titling one of the workshops "Inserting Palestine into High School Curricula in the U.S. & Empowering Students to
Challenge Dominant Narratives" and subtitling the conference, "Palestinians in the U.S.: Reclaiming Our Voice,
Asserting Our Narrative." Unfortunately, this "narrative" is a false one in which Israel is the oppressor, the Palestinians
are its perpetual victims, and the United States of America an accomplice in crime.
Various Middle East Studies academics will be on hand to help propagate this fictitious narrative. University of
California - Berkeley Lecturer Hatem Bazian, a skilled propagandist for Palestinian victimhood in the classroom and a
radical activist outside it (he called for an "Intifada in this country!" at a 2004 anti-war rally in San Francisco), will be
speaking on a panel titled, "Palestinian Political Prisoners in the U.S.: The Attack on Palestinian Activists and Scholars."
Bazian has long perpetuated the idea that off-campus criticism of Middle East Studies is a form of persecution. To state
the obvious, there are no "Palestinian political prisoners" in the U.S.A., only criminals convicted through the criminal
justice system of aiding and abetting terrorist organizations.
One of them, former University of South Florida Computer Science Professor Sami Al-Arian, who pled guilty in 2006 to
conspiring to provide goods and services to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and who awaits an August 13 trial for criminal
contempt, will be represented on the panel by his daughter, Laila Al-Arian. Al-Arian has enjoyed unstinting support
from the Middle East Studies establishment, particularly from Founding Director of Georgetown University's Prince
Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, John Esposito. Unmoved by the murder of innocent
civilians by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Esposito penned a letter last month to the presiding judge urging that Al-Arian be
granted bond and describing him as "a man of conscience with a strong commitment to peace and social justice."
Al-Arian's radicalism is nothing new: at a 1991 commemoration of the Palestinian Intifada featuring Islamic Jihad spiritual
leader Abdel-Aziz Odeh, he called Jews "apes and pigs."
Wayne State University Anthropologist Thomas Abowd will moderate the "political prisoners" panel. This is fitting, for
Abowd fashions himself the victim of what his supporters call "Rightwing Zionist elements on campus." But Abowd is
hardly impartial. He is affiliated with the radical group Anti-Racist Action (ARA-WSU), whose members have accused
Israel of "ethnic cleansing" and pro-Israel groups at Wayne State of practicing "white supremacist politics," along with
defending the use of a swastika to equate Israel with Nazi Germany at one of their rallies.
Abowd spoke at "Palestine Awareness Week," an anti-Israel event at the University of Michigan in February, 2008.
Several students who attended Abowd's lecture described in a Michigan Daily op-ed his hostile and dismissive
attitude towards a student who dared ask a challenging question. Abowd, as they put it, "smirked and glared" and "used
scare tactics to intimidate and to alienate the student and to negate the importance of his question."
The conference ends with the panel, "One-State Solution to the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict." The socalled one state
solution is really just a fig-leaf for the destruction of Israel. There's no evidence that the Palestinian political leadership
has any inclination towards the sort of multi-religious, multi-ethnic democratic nation envisioned by "one-state solution"
proponents. The pathological hatred towards Jews, persecution of Christians, advocacy of Sharia law, indoctrination of
children, and violence among rival Palestinian clans and terrorist groups all demonstrate the danger to Israel that lies
down this path.
Yet some scholars advocate the "one-state solution," in spite of these glaring obstacles. Jennifer Loewenstein, Associate
Director of the Middle East Studies program at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, will be one of the conference
panelists doing just that. In a March, 2008, article for the rabidly anti-Israel, Far-Left publication Counterpunch
with the ridiculous title, "Gazan Holocaust," Loewenstein asserts that "Israel and its U.S. Master have long since resided
in the lowest circle of Hell for betraying the name of humanity." No word from Loewenstein on the betrayals of humanity
by the Palestinians, both towards Israelis and each other.
Another panelist, Tomis Kapitan, Chair and Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Northern Illinois University,
displays a similar blind spot. In a 2004 paper on the Arab-Israeli conflict, Kapitan waxes philosophically about the
"reciprocal" nature of Arab terrorism, calls the suggestion that "cultural or religious beliefs" motivate suicide bombings
"incredible," and concludes that "the maximalists in charge of Israeli policy and their supporters in the United States and
elsewhere, are chiefly to blame for the ongoing cycle of violence."
Panelist Seif Da'Na, Professor of Sociology and International Studies at the University of Wisconsin - Parkside, takes a
Marxist, populist approach. In a 2001 Media Monitors Network article, Da'Na calls for a "Palestinian liberation
strategy" and urges activists to view the "Palestinian struggle against Israel … in the larger context of the struggle to
bring human dignity and social justice to the world." Surely "human dignity" and "social justice" would first need to be
established within before serving as some sort of shining beacon to the world, but Da'Na overlooks this minor matter.
So, too, do conference organizers, who, as part of pushing their "narrative," bemoan the 60th. anniversary of "al Nakba,"
the Arabic word for "catastrophe" used to describe the creation of the modern state of Israel in 1948. But the "60 Years
of Catastrophe" trumpeted at the conference website would more appropriately be placed upon the heads of Palestinian
and regional Arab leadership. They have perpetuated a constant state of victimhood and refugee status while fomenting
chaos and violence. Palestinians are the second largest per capita recipients of foreign aid in the world, yet precious few
resources have been dedicated to the building of a functioning civil society. In fact, rising levels of violence can be
directly correlated to rising levels of aid. The current civil war between Fatah and Hamas and the resultant human rights
abuses are just the latest examples.
If the Palestinians in the U.S.A. whom the "Popular Palestinian Conference" organizers profess to represent, and Middle
East Studies academics sympathetic to their cause, truly wanted to effect a just resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict,
they would start looking within for answers. Instead, conferences of this sort simply peddle propaganda intended to
demonize Israel. Those seeking the truth would do well to steer clear.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Israel & the Arabs -- The Israeli-Arab Conflict
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Islamism & Jihadism -- Radical Islam & Islamic Terrorism
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Cinnamon Stillwell is the Northern California Representative for Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum. She
can be reached at stillwell@meforum.org.
The foregoing article by Cinnamon Stillwell was originally published in Front Page Magazine, August 8, 2008, and
can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum, a foreign policy think tank which seeks to
define and promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam,
working for Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote
constitutional democracy in the Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly
asserting U.S. interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian threat.
(Article URL: http://www.meforum.org/article/1969)
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
August 9, 2008
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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