>>Steve Emerson is "controversial" and "has been accused of shoddy journalism" -- yes, by whom? just by CAIR? and what were the facts? <<
Emerson warned the US about Al Qaida. So have many others: journalists, US presidents, etc. I believe anyone remotely paying attention -especially to the first WTC attack- was aware there was a threat.
And Emerson certainly was not flawless; reporting that the Murray Bldg bombing in Oklahoma City was the work of Muslim terrorists was a major gaffe. He has his critics and they are not all Arab or Arab sell-outs.
>>And I don't buy that little two-step about Al-Arian's raising money for Hamas -- "it wasn't illegal until 1996". Remember all those Jerusalem buses that blew up in 1995 - 1996? That was Hamas. Support for Hamas is support for terrorism.<<
Fechter wrote his opening salvo against Al-Arian in May 95, which I think (and I may be wrong) was before those bus bombings. I will not defend Al-Arian's words to others suggesting they should send aid to Hamas; I think he was wrong. I can conceive though, that Hamas may be viewed differently than other strictly terrorist groups by some because of its social & charity functions.
I have also visited American Irish pubs that openly raised money for the IRA, without the least repercussions.
Yet I also believe he deserves to be criticized for his vocal support of Hamas. As for his anti-Israeli statements made in 1988, he has stated he regrets those, attributing it to his younger, hot-headed years.
>>Steve Emerson certainly has his defenders. He has testified before the Senate and been published in the WSJ. If he's a fraud, he's fooling lots of people:<<
Jeff Jacoby and Daniel Pipes represent a common voice from one color in the political spectrum out of many.
But the Slate article's principal target for scorn was not Emerson. It was Fechter, who compiled quite a detailed record of unsubstantiated claims, and assertions that had to be retracted, which Slate detailed at length.
Where it did go after Emerson, (or O'Reilly) on specific points, it raised questions I found to be legit:
>>O'Reilly insisted that "to this day," Al-Arian "has contacts with Hamas and the Islamic Jihad" and remains "very tight" with the head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Those are allegations not even Fechter or Emerson have dared to make.<<
>>Emerson, citing anonymous sources, assured the audience that Palestinian radicals at USF were involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Testifying before Congress that same year, Emerson said that materials seized at Al-Arian's home constituted "one of the largest acquisitions of raw terrorist material ever found in the United States." <<
The article pointed out that no evidence of anything of this sort has ever emerged to substantiate such claims.
>>After reading all 1,400 words, readers learned the document was A) written 20 years ago by B) an unknown person C) seized by investigators in 1996 who D) confronted Al-Arian with it one year earlier and then took no action.<<
>>And during a 1997 speech Emerson laid it on thick, insisting, "From the safety of [his] Tampa office, Mr. Al-Arian operated a terrorist organization, raising funds, recruiting terrorists and bringing them into the country, devising terrorist strategies, and actually directing specific terrorist attacks." Again, Emerson's unspecified sources made it impossible to verify these sensational charges. Of course, if Emerson had real evidence to support them, Al-Arian wouldn't be sweating an appearance on the "The O'Reilly Factor" today; he'd be doing hard time.<<
>>Emerson told "Dateline" reporter Bob McKeown that Islamic Jihad "had essentially relocated to the United States in the city of Tampa," where it was operating as "a shadow government" for the terrorist group.
Emphasis on shadow, since neither the FBI, the INS, the CIA, USF nor the Tampa police were ever able to uncover it. Only Emerson.
Of course, Emerson never mentioned that Judge McHugh had looked at these allegations in 2000 and found no wrongdoing.<<
The full truth of the involvement of these Palestinian-Americans may not ever be known, but to date, the government, the experts and the media have not displayed any hard evidence and the small bits of info they had amounts to a few things that looked suspicious at first glance only.
Now I recognize that times have changed post 9-11 and when it comes to visa violations, deporting illegals- terrorist-tied or not- is the order of the day. And that the prevailing attitude is 'better safe than sorry'.
But I'd also maintain that what FrankW spoke of about evenly applied morals, and principles about freedom and justice holding weight only in consistent application, is true here, as well.
No evidence has been produced to justify one man spending 3 years behind bars, or for both to be constantly vilified in the press, simply because they knew someone else who did something wrong later, or because they've verbalized support for a struggle they are tied to by their native ethnicity.
I've heard more than one pundit express the view that we oughta just go nuke this country or that, which to me is a far more terrifying statement. Yet both do, and should, fall under the protection of free speech rights. |
