17 May 2008
Hugh Fitzgerald
When Sami Al-Arian was arrested and charged with his support for terrorism, a number of professors championed him. Martin Kramer gives pride of place to Esposito; Cantori is listed next:
"John Esposito, director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, has been Al-Arian's most distinguished academic champion. Early last year, he wrote a letter to the president of USF, professing to be "stunned, astonished, and saddened" by moves to dismiss Al-Arian, whom he described as a "consummate professional." The university had to resist the "pressures" of "biased, inflammatory" media. (Esposito specifically mentioned the journalist Steven Emerson, who was the first to establish Al-Arian's links to Islamic Jihad.) USF's actions would not only "reflect on the University's reputation but also send a clear message to your students about what American democracy and academic freedom mean." Last September, after another move to dismiss Al-Arian, Esposito cancelled a lecture appearance at USF, which he denounced as "a university that so clearly violates the academic freedom of one of its professors." (Esposito has also employed Al-Arian's daughter, a Georgetown undergraduate, as a research assistant.) It's all confirmation of the obvious: Esposito never met a Muslim extremist he didn't like.
Esposito has another, more remote connection to yesterday's arrests. He still sits on the board of a London institute run by his Hamas friend, Azzam Tamimi. Another board member, Basheer Nafi, was indicted yesterday along with Al-Arian. I urged Esposito to resign from this board back in September. How many more indictments will it take for Esposito to realize that he's been running with funders and apologists for the worst suicide terrorism?
Other Middle East profs supported Al-Arian. The University of Maryland political scientist Louis Cantori complained to USF's president that Al-Arian was being "pursued as a political radical. This he is not. Period."