What You Aren’t Supposed to Know About The Arrest of Sami Al-Arian

By John Sugg

Here’s what you’re supposed to know: Sami Al-Arian was indicted as a terrorist leader on Feb. 20.

Here’s what you’re not supposed to think about: Sami Al-Arian never, even according to the indictment, committed violent acts. His nemesis Israel, on the other hand, will conduct “targeted killings in the United States and other friendly countries.” (UPI, Jan. 15, 2003). An FBI official told the wire service that the agency regards the planned murder campaign as a “policy matter,” not an issue for criminal investigation. The St. Petersburg Times and The Tampa Tribune didn’t note the story.

Here’s what you’re supposed to know: Sami Al-Arian raised thousands of dollars for Palestinian causes, much of it allegedly funneled from fund-raising events to political front groups.

Here’s what you’re not supposed to know: Bob O’Neill, the federal prosecutor who for years led the Al-Arian probe, raised hard cash for the political front group for one of the most deadly terrorist organizations in the world, the Irish Republican Army. O’Neill was part owner of Tampa’s Four Green Fields, whose walls are crowded with inflammatory anti-British hate rhetoric similar in tone to vitriolic statements by Al-Arian. This bar hosted numerous fundraisers for Sinn Fein and, by reasonable extension, the often-outlawed IRA. Twice since 1995, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, at the time regarded as a terrorist by the British, has been the star guest at the fund-raisers. The local dailies ran articles promoting Adams’ visits; no one suggested “ties to terrorists.”

Here’s what you’re supposed to know: Gerry Adams is a solidly Western name.

Here’s what you’re not supposed to know: Al-Arian (in his indictment, a.k.a Abu Abdullah, Amin and The Secretary) and his colleagues, such as Abd Al Aziz Awda (a.k.a Sheik Odeh, The Sheik and Al Shiek) are, if nothing else, guilty of being Arab, exotically foreign, and from a culture that has received never-rivaled mountains of bigoted media attention. After all, while it’s safe, even admired (by media thugs such as Bill O’Reilly) to be blatantly racist about Arabs, even mild criticism of the policies of a foreign nation, Israel, results in immediate screeches of “anti-Semitism.”

Here’s what you’re supposed to know: Palestinians have terrorist groups that kill civilians. Two young American women who were slain in a bombing claimed by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, along with scores of murdered Israelis, figure into Al-Arian’s indictment. He is accused of being an intellectual leader and financial manager of the group, not a military commander.

Here’s what you’re not supposed to consider: Palestinians have no nation and no army. They have been under military occupation for 35 years. International law supports the right of occupied people to resist—although the civilized world has recoiled at the suicide bombings of civilians. However, Israel, with one of the most powerful armies in the world, has killed far more civilians than the Arab terrorist groups.

Here’s what you’re supposed to know: Al-Arian supposedly used clever financial schemes to conceal fund-raising for Palestinian causes. Keep in mind, the total amount at stake is, at most, several hundred thousand dollars, and all money that flows to Palestinians from the United States is a trickle.

Here’s what you’re not supposed to consider: Tens of millions of dollars are collected annually by American pro-Israel groups, funneled through tax-exempt organizations, and routed to questionable destinations. In other words, Americans’ tax burden is increased by contributions to a foreign country. Some of the money funds military support operations, freeing Israeli money for weapons and lethal operations against Palestinians. Other money goes to underwrite “settlements,” the colonial taking of Arab lands. One American businessman, Irving Moskowitz, has raised as much as $80 million for settlements—regarded by many Israelis and all Palestinians as ethnic cleansing.

Here’s what you’re supposed to believe: Al-Arian posed the most serious terrorist threat in Florida’s recent history. Clearly, all the news reports prove that (310 nationwide in the three days after his arrest), don’t they?

Here’s what you’re not supposed to recall: At the same time the feds were doing the bad cop routine aimed at Tampa Muslims, there was a real terrorist plot in Jacksonville in 1997 to bomb and kill former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres. The perp was an Orthodox Jew, Harry Shapiro, who intended to blame the murder on (who else but?) Muslims. (That received one tiny brief in the Tampa Bay area dailies; 119 reports nationwide.) And, just last year, St. Petersburg podiatrist Robert J. Goldstein was collared with a stash of guns and bombs, and a plan to blow up mosques (91 reports across the nation). There was similarly light reporting nationally (474 articles worldwide over many months) with the arrest and many legal maneuvers of Jewish Defense League boss Irv Rubin, who also planned to blow up mosques. The press uncritically accepts the standard “mentally ill” explanation in these cases—and neither the media nor authorities show interest in pursuing the possibility of broader conspiracies.

Here’s what you’re supposed to know: Al-Arian and friends associated with known terrorists (although mostly the “known” didn’t become known until after the association).

Here’s what you’re not supposed to know: A lot of people have associated with terrorists, including George W. Bush, who posed in 2000 for a touching photo with the Al-Arian family. George’s brother, Jeb, has long been chummy with one of the Western Hemisphere’s most notorious terrorists, Orlando Bosch, mastermind of a jetliner bombing that killed 73 people in 1976.

And, of course, President Bush is offering Israeli strongman Ariel Sharon an Iraq war gift of more than $10 billion, maybe as much as $16 billion (at a time when America faces trillions in deficits and the 50 states are looking at collective budget shortfalls of about $70 billion this year). Sharon is regarded as a war criminal by much of the world, stemming from his complicity in the slaughter of as many as 800 people, mostly women and children, at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Sharon began his military career as part of the brutal “Unit 101” that massacred Palestinian villagers.

Here’s what you’re supposed to know: Attorney General John Ashcroft said of the indictment: “We make no distinction between those who carry out terrorist attacks and those who knowingly finance, manage or supervise terrorist organizations.”

Here’s what you’re not supposed to ponder: There are many interesting terror and money connections in Washington—Dick Cheney’s Halliburton eagerly did business with Saddam Hussain, and Donald Rumsfeld was a director of a company that, in mid-February, was revealed as having provided nuclear technology to North Korea (oops). Iran sued the United States in an international court in February for giving weapons of mass destruction to Saddam Hussain (almost no U.S. media coverage). The Bush and Bin Laden families have long, friendly business associations, and there is considerable documentary evidence that Bush the First in 1991 ordered federal agents to back off from probing his Bin Laden partners. Bush’s grandfather was an executive of a bank that “traded with the enemy”—Nazi Germany. In short, “evil,” according to federal government, is relative—it isn’t the act, but who is doing it.

Here’s what you’re supposed to embrace: Al-Arian’s critics—notably Tribune reporter Michael Fechter, and Fechter’s mentor, terrorism “expert” Steven Emerson—have been right all along. (In a little sideshow, Fox’s Bill O’Reilly is trying to claim credit for Al-Arian’s arrest. In fact, he was snookered into the story by one-sided information fed to him by Fechter.)

Here’s what you’re not supposed to know: The reporting that led to the federal probe was incredibly fault-ridden, whether Al-Arian is convicted or wins acquittal. Fechter’s first reporting on Al-Arian attempted to link him to the Oklahoma City bombing—a colossal mendacity the Trib refuses to recant. Emerson has, after being ousted from much of the media, rehabilitated himself as an “expert,” but has made such wild claims as calling the Washington Post “pro-Hamas,” and most infamously trying to pin the Oklahoma City bombing on Arabs. He claimed seven years ago he had proof that Tampa Muslims were part of the plot to bomb the World Trade Center in 1993; Emerson never delivered. The Weekly Planet last year gave Emerson’s lawyers a list of apparent mistakes contained in the Tampa passages of his book American Jihad—errors such as wrong titles and dates, as well as mischaracterizations of events and major judicial decisions. He has never responded.

Verdict First, Evidence Later

In short, the Trib and Emerson declared Al-Arian guilty, and then tried to find proof. What’s clear is that the basis of the indictment is information Emerson and Fechter displayed no knowledge of until recent months. Their reporting, now as always, seeks to blur distinctions between the nationalist-based Palestinian movement—which generally has avoided conflict with America despite being dismayed at our lack of balance—and the ideologically twisted totalitarian followers of Osama bin Laden.

Here’s what you’re supposed to know: Al-Arian had all sorts of sinister documents in his possession, some of which said the Palestinians would never accept a peaceful solution to their demands.

Here’s what Al-Arian’s press tormenters don’t want you to know: Emerson and Fechter have long been allies of the ultra-right Likud party, which is as opposed to peace as any Palestinian group. Likud sent agents to America in the early 1990s to try and scuttle the Oslo treaty—and, as reported by famed journalist Robert I. Friedman, they stayed at Emerson’s home while in Washington. One of those agents is Yigal Carmon, and the largest U.S. Jewish newspaper, The Forward, reported last year that Carmon led “a small group of hard-line American terrorism experts that includes investigative journalist Steve Emerson.” That newspaper reiterated what the Planet had earlier reported—that the group was Israeli-funded.

Here’s what you’re supposed to know: The indictment, all 121 pages, is so detailed, it must prove the guilt of Al-Arian and his associates.

Here’s what you’re not supposed to know: There have been an estimated 1,500 people, mostly Muslims and Arabs, detained by the federal government since 9/11. There has been one conviction. The federal government has a long list of “airtight” cases that have blown apart. And the government has an equally long list of political persecutions. One of the most famous in Florida was the 1970s trial of seven veterans and a friend who opposed the Vietnam War. The government claimed they plotted terrorist actions to disrupt the 1972 GOP convention in Miami. The “Gainesville 8” were completely exonerated; the only ones advocating violence were government agents provocateurs. In the Al-Arian indictment, there are scores of actions, many if not most of them innocent in appearance, strung together into a “conspiracy.” “It takes a tremendous leap of logic to get where the government wants you to go,” says Al-Arian’s lawyer, Nick Mattasini. “I think it’s a fantasy based on politics.”

Here’s what you’re supposed to know: The allegations are soooooo compelling.

Here’s what you shouldn’t think about: Barely noted, often totally ignored, in U.S. press reports—but given serious treatment in Israel’s Ha’aretz the day after the arrest—is that much of the evidence comes from Israeli intelligence. That raises the possibility of political concoction. Interestingly, in 1992, Emerson was involved in the release of an incendiary wiretap allegedly of PLO leader Yasser Arafat. That tape was accused of being manufactured by Israel’s Mossad. Famed American journalist Daniel Schorr said at the time: “It’s the kind of thing Israel’s Mossad has done in the past. Information, misinformation, and disinformation: all potent weapons.”

Here’s what I conclude: Short of wholesale fabrication of evidence—which I don’t believe—the indictment shows that Sami Al-Arian was far more involved in, at best, a political movement or, at worst, a terrorist group, than he has acknowledged to his supporters and the press. If true, he is reprehensible. That said, there’s a terrible disparity of justice at work in how America treats two sides in the Middle East conflict.

Here’s what I suspect: Much of the indictment stems from the availability of new information released after the passage of the deceptively named USA PATRIOT Act. Now Ashcroft wants even broader powers, including Orwellian authority to make secret arrests and strip Americans of their citizenship—all without trial. Meanwhile, George Bush is beleaguered in his obsessive drive to go to war. We may have wrecked the northern alliance, and the world increasingly sees America (or, Bush) as the problem. The economy is in shambles—our grandchildren will still be paying for the tax breaks for the rich. So, it’s time to crank up another headline-grabbing jihad against an Arab terrorist.

Here’s what I fear: The U.S. attorney’s office won’t make an estimate of how much time and money has been spent since 1995 chasing Al-Arian, who, as noted, never planned any violence in America. But the feds, pushed by Israel (as reported by Ha’aretz) and its polemicists such as Emerson, used an army of agents and millions of dollars. Meanwhile, only a short distance from Tampa, in Hollywood, Mohammed Atta and his pals had a headquarters—and our intelligence services didn’t have a clue.

Should Americans wonder at the priorities signaled by Al-Arian’s arrest?

John Sugg, former editor of the Weekly Planet, is senior editor of Creative Loafing, the Planet’s sister paper in Atlanta. He can be reached at (404) 614-1241 or at <john.sugg@cln.com>.