Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace

July 26, 2005

The Latest in Dr. Al-Arian’s Trial

Dr. Sami Al-Arian’s trial entered its seventh week on Monday.
Throughout the trial, many observers have noted that the government
has been giving jurors a distorted, inaccurate and biased
representation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, specifically
excluding anything to do with the Palestinians’ suffering under
Israeli military occupation (or their circumstances in general). In
fact, Palestinians are only mentioned as perpetrators of violence or
violent acts.

But last week the courtroom finally got a glimpse of life under
occupation, when the government brought Palestinian legislator and
academic Ziad Abu-Amr to testify.

Dr. Abu-Amr was called to testify about an affidavit he wrote in
2000 for the case of Dr. Mazen Al-Najjar (Al-Arian’s brother-in-
law), who was detained in the U.S. for nearly four years under the
use of secret evidence. The government had hoped their witness would
prove a charge of obstruction of justice against Dr. Al-Arian, but
instead Dr. Abu-Amr said Dr. Al-Arian had not influenced him in any
way when he drafted his affidavit as an expert witness.

Abu-Amr, a professor at Birzeit University who has published works
on Islamic movements in Palestine, testified about the effects of
Israel’s occupation on Palestinians, including the lack of academic
freedom in the occupied territories. One example of this is the
Israeli military’s ban on thousands of books from entering
Palestinian territories.

Abu-Amr also explained that Israel’s decades-long economic
strangulation of the West Bank and Gaza has left an enormous vacuum
that must filled by local charities, which in turn must be approved
by the Palestinian Authority to operate. Groups operating in the
Palestinian territories offer a high number of social services,
including clinics and kindergartens, he continued. He said the P.A.,
which is poor and inefficient, “could not deliver services to people
all over the occupied territories.”

Under cross-examination, Abu-Amr said Israel periodically closes
Palestinian universities. He recalled several occasions in which his
own university was closed for months at a time, and classes were
held in private homes, unions and churches. The ad-hoc university
classes were “raided by the Israeli military,” he said.

With the Israeli forces carrying out arrests, deportations, home
demolitions, curfews, school and university closings, travel
restrictions, etc. against Palestinians, “not a Palestinian home
[is] not influenced by the occupation,” Abu-Amr said, comparing the
situation to Apartheid South Africa.

Clarifying a number of terms, concepts and figures that have been
distorted thus far, Abu-Amr described the first Palestinian Intifada
as “a popular, peaceful resistance to the Israeli occupation by the
Palestinian population.” He said Palestinians use the term “martyr”
to refer to those who sacrificed their lives for the sake of their
country, including those who “die by stray bullets by Israelis.”

Also during cross-examination, Dr. Al-Arian’s attorney William
Moffitt presented Abu-Amr with a flyer of a lecture in which he
participated over 10 years ago, sponsored by the World and Islam
Studies Enterprise, a think tank Dr. Al-Arian helped found. Abu-Amr
recalled that the event, titled “Palestinian-Israeli Peace
Negotiations: A Palestinian Perspective,” was well-attended and
featured well-known, respected and moderate scholars. (see news
report below for more on Abu-Amr’s testimony).

During the rest of the week, the government entered evidence (namely
faxes and transcripts of telephone calls acquired as a result of
secret wiretaps on Dr. Al-Arian and several others) through three
government translators. As they did the week before, prosecutors
continued to introduce heavily redacted or edited videotapes and
phone calls. One particularly startling example is a government-
introduced videotape with a one-minute clip of Dr. Al-Arian
speaking, taken from a speech that was originally 90 minutes long.

During cross-examination, many questions were raised about the
accuracy of the translations and the circumstances under which they
were prepared. Under questioning by Moffitt, FBI translator Camille
Ghorra admitted that the FBI pays him over $90,000 a year, and that
he was employed as a taxicab driver before becoming a translator for
the agency in 1997. Furthermore, Moffitt asked Ghorra why he failed
to indicate that Qur’anic verses written on faxes or spoken were in
fact verses from the Qur’an.