IntifadaNYC: Racist campaign claims Khalil Gibran principal

The resignation of Debbie Almontaser as principal of the proposed Arab language school in Brooklyn has caused a great deal of controversy. The DOE replaced her with Danielle Salzberg. There's so much stuff flying it is hard to keep track of it all. An interesting interview by Amy Goodman posted on Democracy Now can be found here. Also this piece written by Almontaser, not long after 9/11.

By Steve Quester
UFT chapter leader
P.S. 372/418K The Children’s School
from Education Notes Online

Imagine...
A veteran Latina educator, with a years-long record of service supporting Latino/a youth and building bridges between Latino/a and non-Latino/a communities, is slated to be principal of a new middle school with a focus on Hispano-Caribbean studies and Spanish language. She endures months of vitriolic attacks from right-wing hate websites and blogs, and from the Murdoch news organizations. Finally, the Murdoch media uncover that she’s on the board of an organization that shares an office with a Latina girls’ empowerment organization. The organization has produced a T-shirt with the image of Che Guevara and the words “Hasta la victoria siempre.” The Murdoch media point out (rightly) that the “victoria” to which Che referred was the violent overthrow of all capitalist governments, including the U.S. The media demand that the educator condemn the T-shirt, but instead she says that the girls’ intention was to point to the victory of tolerance and coexistence over anti-Latino/a bias in New York. The media howl. The educator quickly apologizes, admitting that she did not take into account the effect that the image of Che has on Cuban-American refugees of Castro’s oppression.

After the apology, the United Federation of Teachers president [hypothetically Randi Weingarten —JB], who had been supportive of the new middle school and its principal, is quoted condemning the educator’s initial defense of the T-shirt...

The president makes no mention of the educator’s exemplary record, or the racist context in which the controversy about the T-shirt has taken place. The UFT president says, "maybe, ultimately, she should not be a principal." The print, broadcast, and Internet media trumpet the UFT president’s condemnation far and wide, and the next day, the educator resigns from the principalship.

Now imagine that the educator is a respected African-American, and the new middle school will have an Afrocentric focus. The T-shirt has an image of Malcolm X holding a rifle and the words “By any means necessary.” The media point out (rightly) that the “means” to which Malcolm X referred included armed struggle. The educator says that the girls’ intention was to point towards non-violent African-American empowerment, not armed struggle. When the educator apologizes, she admits that she did not take into account the effect that the image of Malcolm X holding a weapon might have on efforts to combat gun crimes in New York City. The UFT president is quoted saying, "maybe, ultimately, she should not be a principal." The next day, the educator resigns from the principalship.

In reality, it’s unlikely that these T-shirts would have prompted sustained media attacks, or that the UFT president would have ever taken such an extreme public reaction. And if the president had taken such action, there would have been an outcry from the rank and file, and not just Latino/a or African-American members. In New York City, T-shirts of Che Guevara, Malcolm X, Mumia Abu-Jamal, or Leonard Peltier do not instill fear, provoke tabloid campaigns or result in demands for any person to make a wholesale repudiation of other members of their community.

Now imagine that the veteran educator is an Arab-American and a Muslim, with a years-long record of service supporting Arab-American and Muslim youth and building bridges between Arab-American, Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities. The new middle school will focus on Arab studies and Arabic language. After months of vitriolic attacks from right-wing hate websites and blogs, the Murdoch news organizations uncover that she’s on the board of an organization that shares an office with an Arab-American girls’ empowerment organization. The collective has produced a T-shirt with the words “Intifada NYC.” The Murdoch media point out (rightly) that for most New Yorkers “intifada” connotes terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians.

When the media demand that the educator condemn the T-shirt, she says, “The word [intifada] basically means 'shaking off.' That is the root word if you look it up in Arabic. I understand it is developing a negative connotation due to the uprising in the Palestinian-Israeli areas. I don't believe the intention is to have any of that kind of [violence] in New York City. I think it's pretty much an opportunity for girls to express that they are part of New York City society… and shaking off oppression."

The media howl. The educator quickly apologizes, saying, “The word 'intifada' is completely inappropriate as a T-shirt slogan. I regret suggesting otherwise. By minimizing the word's historical associations, I implied that I condone violence and threats of violence. That view is anathema to me.”

After the apology, the UFT president, who had been supportive of the new middle school and its principal, is quoted in the media condemning the educator’s initial defense of the T-shirt. The president makes no mention of the educator’s exemplary record, or the racist context in which the controversy about the T-shirt has taken place. The UFT president says, "maybe, ultimately, she should not be a principal." The print, broadcast, and Internet media trumpet the UFT president’s condemnation far and wide, and the next day, the educator resigns from the principalship.

The third scenario happened, in August of 2007. Our union could have stood with Arab-American and Muslim students and educators against the onslaught they have endured since 9-11, but instead we joined the chorus of racists, led by the teacher-hating, Arab-hating New York Post and Fox News, who hounded veteran educator Debbie Almontaser out of her job as principal of the Gibran Academy.

In writing all of this, I do not claim to speak for the members of my chapter. I did not consult them. I do not claim to speak for a UFT caucus. I do not belong to one. I certainly do not claim to speak for Debbie Almontaser. Although, as a District 15 educator, I am acquainted with Debbie and her work, I have not seen or spoken with her since long before the Gibran Academy controversy erupted at P.S. 282. In presenting the imaginary scenarios, I do not claim to speak for the political views of anyone in the Latino/a or African-American communities.

I write as a White, Jewish anti-racist educator who is heartsick over the role his union played in this sordid affair.

Comments

[JB]

I'm not going to argue Dov Hikund's proper label.

Nor am I particularly interested in debating brownshirts. They were never too interested in debate. They only began to question their faith in the days after Stalingrad, and so I suspect will it be this time, whatever the change in geography.

[Poster with the Moster]

Hey Stan,

Can you try and fit your comments in one post when they come in a sudden flurry like this? The multiple posts pushes other recent comments off the radar.

[Shlomo Bund]

Finkelstein denied tenure after lies and attacks from prominent Zionists.

My Name Is Rachel Corrie dropped from supposedly free theater group in NYC, despite successful run in London and critical acclaim.

Mantaory Zionist hoop-jumping expected of all Democratic Party politicians, with threat of losing seats as with Cynthia McKinney.

Here's a suggestion for the Zionists: If you equate being Jewish with Israeli war crimes and official racism, such as claiming that only a Jews-only state should exist on a multi-ethnic land – you are the number one promoters of "anti-Semitism" in the world.

Not even scumbags like the Iranian mullahs claim that jews-as-jews are all Sharon. That is the special provence of the Likudnik self-haters. They hate the real diversity of Jewish people, call those who recognize our common humnanity self-haters, and then work overtime to equate humanism and the democratic instinct with anti-Semitism.

Thank G-d the Zionists do not speak for me or my family. Thank G-d we moved to America and not that shtetl on the Mediterranean.

Thank you, Mr. Quester for speaking the truth. You are a brave man and we need more like you. When my child is school aged I hope she gets a teacher like you who knows the meaning of tikkun, to heal the world and make it right.

[Christopher Day]

Well, the claim that NOBODY is speaking out against this outrage appears somewhat exaggerated if this article in The Jewish Week is correct:

http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=14422

If Abe Foxman has nice words for Almontaser she might not be as isolated as it initially appeared. we'll see what happens after tonight.

[JB]

No, she is not totally alone... nor the issue really about her.

My frustration at how many people just roll over in the face of such blatantly racist bullying, that Almontaser (who I know little about as a "moderate voice", etc.) felt compelled to resign rather than risk the fate of the school is past the boiling point.

The fact is that Arabs can be degraded, abused, bullied and denied the very integrity of their right to speak while liberals and conservatives alike run around talking about what a free country it is.

Randi Weingarten... man. A supposed union leader? In NYC? An educator? A woman who enables and participates in the equivelant of an inquisition, which I mean in the literal sense...

And to take it even further, that a man who serves as a professional flack for Israeli war crimes has kind words... I mean, that says to me that this woman has bent over backwards to accomodate people like him... and even still gets run over the grill.

I'll be at the event this evening... and I hope anyone checking in makes it if they can:

Communities in Support of the Khalil Gibran International Academy

Monday, August 20, 6pm
NYC Department of Education
Tweed Courthouse, 52 Chambers Street
Between Broadway & Centre St. in Manhattan
Subways: 4, 5, 6, N, R, W, M, J, 2, 3, A, C

[srogouski]

No, she is not totally alone... nor the issue really about her.

The issue is about control.

If Abe Foxman is allowed to have veto power over who gets to head a NYC public school (Almontaser) or who gets to speak at the Polish embassy (Tony Judt) or if Alan Dershowitz gets to have veto power over who gets to have tenure (Norman Finkelstein), the issue isn't about Almontaser (about whom I know nothing) or Finkelstein (an anti-zionist Jew and critic of the Jewish right) or Judt (a liberal non-zionist Jew).

It's about neoconservatives having the power to push racist propaganda against Arabs, it's about neoconservatives having the power to dictate what's acceptable in the Jewish community.

That's a bit like William Donahue or Tony Perkins having veto power over the Christian community. Bad news all around.

[srogouski]

Here's a suggestion for the Zionists: If you equate being Jewish with Israeli war crimes and official racism, such as claiming that only a Jews-only state should exist on a multi-ethnic land – you are the number one promoters of "anti-Semitism" in the world.

Rudy Giuliani has actually come out and said there shouldn't be a Palestinian state, not now, not ever.

Since I'm assuming Rudy isn't in favor of Israel annexing the West Bank and Gaza and giving the Palestinians the vote, that means he's in favor of a permanent military occupation and a permanent disenfranchisement of 3 million people.

Now Rudy (to put a label on him) may be an authoritarian racist but he's no marginal figure in American politics. So I'm assuming that the fiction of the two state solution is over.

[The New Centrist]

"Ah. The New Neocon is back."

Typical. Disagree with someone? Call them a neocon or a fascist or a racist. That is so droll. Reminds me of the dittoheads who call Hillary Clinton a communist. You are birds of a feather.

[zerohour]

Centrist, you said: "But when you condone violence against civilians you're going to get sweated. That's the bottom line in civilized cultures." Unless you happen to support Israel, which does target civilians, then you get applauded. But you're right, no civilized culture would support this, much less subsidize it.

Your insistent mischaracterization of the phrase "intifada" reflects the conservative political bias behind your facade of even-handedness. Rather than targeting civilians, the Palestinian intifada [which the phrase most certainly refers to] was an uprising of civilians to resist their brutal treatment at the hands of the Israeli state.

You probably wont read this, but here's a source that might clear up your confusion: Intifada - Joel Benin, ed.

Neocon? Maybe it's slightly exaggerated but it's a more accurate description of your politics than yours of "intifada."

[Christopher Day]

I don't think the "Neo-Con" label is being thrown around loosely, nor frankly the fascist and racist labels. How else to characterize the politics of vanity papers (the Sun and the Post) or the principal players involved in the foul "Stop the Madrassa" campaign. Pipes et al. are hard rightists and the rank intellectual bad faith, dishonesty, demagoguery, and scape-goating that literally jump off the page of their work should leave little doubt as to where this stuff all leads. These folks are authoritarians of the first order, determined to demonize Arabs and muslims on general principle. Anybody who defends them should be regarded as similarly suspect.

[JB]

zerohour: you are mistaken. "New Centrist" believes that Zionist Jews have the right to push Arabs off their land, and that even a civil resistance movement such as the Intifada is intolerable.

He isn't rational, he knows full well what he advocates: a racial state where citizenship is based on who your grandmother was, not where you live. The word for it is apartheid, except even the "centrist" leaders of the anti-apartheid movement like the Archbishop Desmond Tutu noted that they never faced the same kind of existential annihilation that Israel is imposing by force of arms on the Arabs of Palestine, which is the country from the Jordan River... to the sea.

[srogouski]

Pipes et al. are hard rightists and the rank intellectual bad faith, dishonesty, demagoguery, and scape-goating that literally jump off the page of their work should leave little doubt as to where this stuff all leads.

And for what it's worth, most people know this. Most people to the left of Hillary Clinton regard Pipes, Hikind, Horowitz, Steve Emerson et al as widely extremists.

That's what was so shocking about this. The pressure didn't come from even the normal mainstream Jewish rightist like Foxman. It came from extreme neoconservatives, the type who criticize Bush as being soft on Islam. These are the people who booed Paul Wolfowitz when he mentioned something about there being "innocent Palestinians". These people are the Jewish equivalent of Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins, James Dobson, and William Donohue. In other words, they're people with big time money behind them but not part of the mainstream.

The fact that Weingarten and Bloomberg caved when they barked is dangerous. You tend to think of New York as a city free from religious fundamentalism. Well, guess again, it's not. Weingartena and Bloomberg caved into the extremists as surely as the mayor of Colorado Springs would cave into Focus on the Family.

[JB]

I remember when I was 12 and watched Arab school children exactly my age have their arms broken on television. Israeli troops, under the explicit orders of the "peace-maker" Rabin, would place the child's arm over a wooden saw horse and then snap their forearm with a sharp blow from a truncheon. They would snap them until they hung limp, then smack them around a little for good measure.

Their crime?

Children who had grown up entirely under the military occupation of an openly Jewish-suprematist army would refuse cooperation, and use non-lethal means to make their own streets ungovernable to the occupier.

This included throwing rocks at men armed with assault rifles, attack helicopters, tanks, armored personnel carriers... and of course nuclear weapons.

These occupation troops also used torture as an official state policy, as well as the shutting of schools for years on end. The Israelis would shoot them in the head with live ammunition or, as the mood struck, with "rubber" bullets and other technologies of brutality.

These children of the Intifada, or the "casting off" of the occupation as the world implies, were among the greatest heroes the world has ever known.

I remember my grandmother saying pretty matter of factly that she "didn't care to know about those people" because "it's all ours", meaning Jews-only of course. The land was "ours" – they just lived there. Really, they're Arabs and they aren't like us. (Which is hilarious if you even bother to open a book, let alone talk to people.)

When pressed on it, she said "they had to learn somehow" and as a liberal American Jew, she was unfortunately typical in the perverse pride she got from the "tough" leaders of Israel who knew how to "get things done"... like break the bones of children who did the Warsaw martyrs proud.

See – Jews can be just like Europeans! They can even slap the wogs around like the best of 'em.

Needless to say, my grandmother was sick in the head.

Anyone curious about the history of Zionism should read it's founding documents... and then note where they were written, who paid for the settlement of Palestine – and how you might have viewed that if, say – you were actually from the land at issue. Hertzl and company were pretty straight up. Hell, the predecessors of the Likud (called Revisionist Zionists) collaborated with Hitler to help force Jews out of Europe and into Palestine. Mussolini's navy even helped train the early Zionist efforts at manning a navy. You'd think it was ironic, if you didn't engage in what Zionism is: it's fascism for Jewish people.

Anyway, I'll let the brownshirts continue posting as they see fit – but there's no argument to be had.

They don't speak for Jews anymore than Goebbels spoke for Germans. For a while, it sure seemed like he did... but by the end of the war, well... you know how that turned out.

Your time will come, and it will be with all the glory your spiritual mentor brought back home to Berlin.

No one will cry for Israel any more than they did for Nazi Germany, but among those who do... they will be roughly the same sordid crowd.

[srogouski]

Some more information on Steven Emerson (one of the people behind the Stop the Madrassa group).

LIKE TO FAIR WEBSITE

A New York Times review (5/19/91) of his 1991 book Terrorist chided that it was "marred by factual errors…and by a pervasive anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian bias." His 1994 PBS video, Jihad in America (11/94), was faulted for bigotry and misrepresentations--veteran reporter Robert Friedman (The Nation, 5/15/95) accused Emerson of "creating mass hysteria against American Arabs."

Emerson was wrong when he initially pointed to Yugoslavians as suspects in the World Trade Center bombing (CNN, 3/2/93). He was wrong when he said on CNBC (8/23/96) that "it was a bomb that brought down TWA Flight 800."

Emerson's most notorious gaffe was his claim that the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing showed "a Middle Eastern trait" because it "was done with the intent to inflict as many casualties as possible." (CBS News, 4/19/95) Afterward, news organizations appeared less interested in Emerson's pronouncements. A CBS contract expired and wasn't renewed. Emerson had been a regular source and occasional writer for the Washington Post; his name doesn't turn up once in Post archives after Jan. 1, 1996. USA Today mentioned Emerson a dozen times before September 1996, none after.

"He's poison," says investigative author Seymour Hersh, when asked about how Emerson is perceived by fellow journalists.

[JB]

srogouski writes: The fact that Weingarten and Bloomberg caved when they barked is dangerous. You tend to think of New York as a city free from religious fundamentalism. Well, guess again, it's not. Weingartena and Bloomberg caved into the extremists as surely as the mayor of Colorado Springs would cave into Focus on the Family.

Huh. I hadn't thought of it like that, but I know exactly what you're saying.

[srogouski]

BTW, and sorry for messing up the flow of the threads by not consolidating this.

It's interesting to note the timeline on Steven Emerson.

Here's a guy with connections to the Likud Party who's been pushing anti-Arab hysteria for years.

EVERYBODY, including Thomas (The World is Flat) Friedman of the New York Times marks him off in the early 90s as a demented racist lunatic.

In the mid 90s, he shows that he's not only a racist but a downright fucking idiot. The Yugoslavs bombed the World Trade Center. Okalahoma City showed signs of the "Arab Mind".

So OK, the mainstream press burns this jackass. His careers over. They want nothing to do with him.

1996.

What happens? Fox News and Murdoch happen. Emerson's career, like a zombie from Dawn of the Dead (or maybe Shawn of the Dead) is brought back to life and the discraced flesheating monster is then seen walking through the world of Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity.

Come 9/11 and the market for anti-Arab racist lunatics is flush (fortunately for Emerson he didn't try to say the Serbs did it this time) and Emerson is riding high (and in hiding because he's convinced all the evil Muslims are trying to kill him).

So now what is he doing? He's making decisions about the curriculum of the NYC school system.

God help us. Maybe he thinks they're going to be teaching Serbian at the Khalil Gibran Center.

[princess of queens]

Is it okay to hate racists?

I think so.

You degrade a whole culture, celebrate occupation and dispossion.

For that you can be hated.

For attacking school children and the very language they speak – you are monsters. Fear is your blood.

[nancy debolt]

I love the film RED DAWN!!!! Communist hate me!!!

[susan e. lanza]

Communist like Lenin and Stalin did far worse than this to surpress freedoms. I don't hear any REDS saying this. RED DAWN!!!!