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Send this artic le Send this article Are Arab Professors Masterminding Terror? Federal trial of alleged Islamic Jihad leaders receiving less-than-comple te coverage up north. Jonathan Mark - Associate Editor Lori Strouch Kolinsky, right, director of UJA-Federations Hands On progra m, views a Jewish Museum exhibit with participants in new Connections pr oject. From left are Betty Hankin, Lindsay Cahn and Reuben Ingber, all f rom the Samuel Field Y It has been called the most significant terrorism trial since 9-11: the f irst time alleged leaders of Islamic Jihad, self-confessed killers of mo re than 100 Israelis and two Americans, are being tried in an American c ourt; the first time the controversial Patriot Act has lassoed jihadists of this magnitude; and the first time that Arab professors in an Americ an university who have claimed academic freedom for their pro-Palestinia ns views have been indicted for using their university offices to direct and finance terrorist activity. Charged with racketeering, conspiracy, materially aiding terrorists and r unning the American office of Palestinian Islamic Jihad are Kuwaiti-born Palestinian Sami Al-Arian, former professor at the University of South Florida; Sameeh Hammoudeh, a former instructor at the university; and tw o Islamic activists, Hatim Fariz and Ghassan Ballut. Also mentioned in the indictment is Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, who was an adjunct professor of Middle Eastern studies at USF before returning to S yria when he was appointed leader of Islamic Jihad in 1995. Shallah came to the United States on a visa sponsored by Al-Arian. Government prosecutor Walter Furr declared to the jury that Al-Arian at o ne point from his Tampa office was the most powerful man in all of Islam ic Jihad. The Times ran Michael Jacksons acquittal in a multi-column banner across the front page, and provided daily coverage to the trial of Edgar Ray Killen, the former Kla nsman convicted of manslaughter in the deaths of three civil rights work ers in Mississippi 41 years ago. Clearly the Mississippi trial warranted that coverage, but one can make t he case that Islamic Jihad is to the 21st century what the Klan was to t he 20th and that the trial of Al-Arian is every bit analogous to Killens . The Times, however, after three stories covering the opening of the Al-Ar ian trial has decided to take it off the daily beat. Eric Lichtblau, the Times reporter on the case, wrote in an e-mail to The Jewish Week, Its uncertain when Ill be back in Tampa, but well be monit oring the trial and probably doing occasional stories along the way on k ey witnesses, the start of the defense, closings and the verdict. There are very few trials that we or other national media cover on a day-to-day or even weekly ba sis, and the slow start for the prosecution in Al-Arian didnt suggest th ere would be enough to warrant frequent coverage. But if you hear of som ething interesting on it, let me know. Its hard to agree that the prosecution is off to a slow start. The lawyer for Hammoudeh, Stephen Crawford, a USF graduate who was born on the Wes t Bank, told The New York Sun that he expected shock and awe from the pr osecution. Newsday (June 16), picking up a story by The Associated Press, reported t he testimony of Kesari Ruza, who in 1995 was riding on a bus in Gaza alo ngside her friend Alisa Flatow, 20, a college student from West Orange, NJ, when a suicide bomber plowed his van filled with explosives into t he bus. She told the court, As soon as I woke up, Alisas head kind of fell toward me. Her eyes were rolled back in her head and her hands were sort of curled in. A 10-minute video taken at the scene and introduced to the court showed t he carnage and a close-up of Flatow lying on her back outside the bus. Michael Fechter, reporting in the Tampa Tribune (June 16-17), described t he blood, noise and chaos that follows a terrorist attack displayed to j urors. He described how blood soaked the steps of the Egged bus, with wh at sounded like crashing rocks giving way to the sound of cries as peopl e were hurled to the ground obviously in pain. Newsday reported Stephen Flatows account of how he flew to Israel and fou nd his daughter in a hospital with bandages on her head and her long, da rk hair shaved off. Flatow told how he took his daughters hand and talke d to her, hoping she might respond. But, he said, When I let go of Alisas hand, it just fell limp by the side of the bed. Fechter in the Tampa Tribune (June 16) wrote: Flatow, wearing a yarmulke, had difficulty maintaining composure as he identified pictures of his d aughter as a young school girl He repeatedly sighed heavily and paused a t times to fight back tears. Everythings going to be OK, but what Al-Arian wrought was beyond a daddys capacity to repair. Media critics who scolded The Sun and Bill OReilly for having an agenda i n their relentless coverage of radical Middle Eastern professors OReilly on his Fox News show in September 2001 challenged Al-Arian on his suppo rt of terrorism and a video in which he called for death to the Jews are now silent about the Times agenda of minimal coverage. Its not that the Times was always reticent about Al-Arian. Jeb Bush and the University of South Florida dishonor ideals of public universities by trying to fire Palestinian professor Sami Al- Arian whose anti-Israel statements have produced threats to campus and a decline in contributions. Al-Arian was the focus as well of two Times columns by Nicholas Kristof. On March 1, 2002, he wrote that Al-Arian denounces terrorism and promote s interfaith services with Jews, and warned that a university, even a co untry, becomes sterile when people are too intimidated to say things out of the mainstream. Three exhaustive studies of his conduct have found n o evidence of wrongdoing. Now that evidence is being presented and Kristof is silent. A columnist in the Tampa Trib, Daniel Ruth (June 8), wrote: Its merely a guess, but when youve been captured on videotape in the company of Omar Abdel-Rahman, the thug who was one of the masterminds of the first World Trade Center bombing, and when youve been caught on film saying, Jihad is our path Death to Israel, it is sort of hard to later argue you were just kidding around. Ruth went on to say, Nobody has denied his right to free speech. Shrapnel that prosecutors say Sami Al-Arian paid for did.
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