Naseer Aruri

By John P. Egan

As a human rights activist, Dr. Naseer Aruri was deeply disappointed when, last February, the United Nations refused to give non-governmental organization status to the Arab Organization for Human Rights (AOHR), a group he had helped found in 1983. However, this was not the first setback for the AOHR: the groups's Board of Directors is supposed to meet every three years, but in 1983 the first meeting had to be held in Cyprus, and the second meeting, scheduled for December 1986 in Cairo, had to be moved at the last minute to Sudan.

Dr. Aruri, a professor of political science at Southeastern Massachusetts University, is also a member of the Board of Directors of Amnesty International USA. He has twice been president of the Association of Arab-American University Graduates (AAUG), and he chaired the AAUG publication committee for ten years, from 1977-1987. To all of these commitments Dr. Aruri brings his belief in the universal applicability of human rights.

Los Angeles 9 a Human Rights Issue

"Human rights are universal—they can't be segmented," he said in a recent interview. He feels at home in the human rights community, working with a broad mixture of professionals and liberals to secure wider respect for internationally-recognized freedoms, such as freedom of religious worship, freedom of the press, the right to a fair trial and decent prison conditions, and freedom from governmental interference in the lives of citizens.

Aruri said that government interference was the main issue in the case of the "LA 9," as those Palestinians arrested in Los Angeles in January came to be known. Originally charged with violating a variety of McCarthy-era laws, and then with possession of material which advocated doctrines of world communism, the case was thrown out of court in mid-May. Charges were again filed and the group may be tried later this summer. Aruri contends that the LA 9's experience has had both positive and negative effects on the Arab and Palestinian communities in America. These communities now fear that what happened to Japanese Americans during World War II—they were forced to leave Pacific Coast states—could happen to them. However, Aruri said, the process of holding rallies and raising money for the LA 9's defense fund served to unify the Palestinian community.

Has Lectured Widely in US and Abroad

Born in Jerusalem in 1934, Aruri left Palestine to attend American International College in Massachusetts when he was 20. In 1967 he received his Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts. Shortly after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, he helped found the AAUG.

Since 1968, Aruri estimates that he has spoken on at least 100 American college campuses, including Harvard and Cornell as well as the universities of Pittsburgh, Michigan, Arizona, and Utah. Aruri has also lectured at McGill University in Canada, Kuwait University, and Bir Zeit University in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Aruri believes that American college students were more supportive of the Palestinian cause in the late 1960s and early 1970s then they are today. Now, he says, US university students seem less interested in Third World issues generally, and they seem to have accepted uncritically the Israeli government's outlook on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. College students today ask more questions about terrorism and political violence than they did 15 years ago, Aruri notes, and fewer young people seem to question the assumption that the Palestinians are terrorists and the Israelis are the wronged party in the conflict.

Evaluates Recent PNC Meeting

One of the most important human rights is that of indigenous people to be free in their historical homeland, Aruri believes. With this in mind, he says the April 1987 meeting of the Palestine National Council in Algiers was a "historic reaffirmation of the Palestinian national will." Although he was not able to attend the PNC meeting, Aruri disputes media reports that the PNC's resolution too a "hard-line," and that the PLO has dealt itself out of the peace process: "The only peace process the Palestinians have dealt themselves out of is a peace process where the parameters are laid down by the US and Israel."

The PNC's abrogation of the 1985 Amman Accord between Jordan's King Hussein and the PLO was "not that significant," Aruri said, because the King had suspended that agreement in February 1986. In addition, Aruri says the PNC worked hard not to alienate Egyptian President Mubarak when it criticized the Camp David accords.

What the 18th PNC did was restore the Arab consensus on the Palestinian question which had existed until the early 1980's, Aruri maintains. By reaffirming the Rabat summit of 1974 and the Fez declarations of 1982, which implicitly recognized Israel, the PNC showed its interest in peace. Now, says this Palestinian-born American activist, the PLO is waiting for the governments of Israel and the US to meet it half-way.

John P. Egan is managing editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.