-Caveat Lector-
http://64.176.94.191/article1580.htm
US government mounts conspiracy frame-up of Palestinian activists
By the Editorial Board: WSWS
22 February 2003
The indictment and arrest February 20 of University of South Florida (USF) Professor Sami Amin Al-Arian and three other men on terrorist conspiracy charges is an outrageous attempt to railroad individuals to prison because of their political opposition to the murderous policies of the Israeli government and Washington’s complicity in the repression of the Palestinian people.
In addition to the four men arrested in Florida and Chicago, four others living in the Middle East were indicted. Among those charged is Abd All Aziz Awda, a resident of Gaza and a founder of Islamic Jihad. Abd All Aziz Awda is a member of the Palestine National Council.
In the guise of the so-called “war on terrorism,” the Bush administration is employing state repression to intimidate and silence political speech and expression that is expressly protected under the US Constitution’s Bill of Rights. It is seeking to criminalize political opposition to the policies of the US government and its ally, Israel. In so doing, it is utilizing sweeping and unconstitutional powers of police surveillance sanctioned by the USA Patriot Act, which was passed in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001.
In a case concocted entirely on the basis of guilt by association, the government has employed methods that 18 months ago would have been thrown out of court as violations of constitutional protections. The arrest of Sami Amin Al-Arian and his three co-defendants marks a major escalation in the Bush administration’s attack on basic democratic rights.
Al-Arian, who has steadfastly denied any involvement in terrorism, told reporters as he was being led away in handcuffs, “It’s all about politics.” His attorney, Nicholas Matassini, said, “He’s a political prisoner right now as we speak.” He described the indictment as “a work of fiction” and added that his client, who has diabetes, had launched a hunger and medicine strike to protest his arrest.
The 50-count indictment handed down Thursday makes it clear that the government was engaged in spying on legal activities carried out by Al-Arian and the others for at least 15 years without finding anything to justify an arrest. It has decided to act now for two central reasons.
First, the arrest and prosecution of Al-Arian and his codefendants are being carried out at the behest of the right-wing Israeli government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The indictment, which alleges that the four provided support for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad organization, is designed to silence all supporters of the Palestinian cause.
The arrests in Florida and Chicago came in the midst of a bloody crackdown by Israeli military forces against the 3.5 million Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. In a rampage of death and destruction, the Israeli Defense Forces killed 35 Palestinians in the past week and wounded scores more. In Gaza, they erected barriers to internally divide the impoverished territory to make it easier to suppress the population.
While railing against “terrorism” and invoking alleged Iraqi violations of UN weapons inspections procedures as grounds for war, the Bush administration has solidarized itself completely with Israel’s state terror against the Palestinian population, and ignored the Sharon regime’s ongoing violation of UN resolutions demanding an end to the Israeli occupation.
Never has there been a US administration so intimately tied to the Israeli right. Two of the most influential figures in the Pentagon—and key architects of the impending war against Iraq—are Richard Perle, head of the Defense Policy Board, and Douglas Feith, the Defense Department’s Undersecretary of Policy. Together in 1996 they wrote an advisory document for incoming Likud Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, urging an end to the Oslo negotiations with the Palestinians. Feith went further, calling for the reoccupation of the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip, noting that “the price in blood would be high,” but worth it. While Netanyahu failed to take the advice, Sharon seems to be embarked on just such a project.
Another vocal supporter of right-wing Zionism, Elliot Abrams, notorious for his felony conviction for lying to Congress about the Reagan administration’s illegal support for the Nicaraguan “contras,” has been tapped as the director for Near East affairs on the National Security Council.
Ironically, one of the charges leveled against the Palestinian defendants is that they encouraged “violent attacks designed to thwart the Middle East Peace Process,” precisely the posture adopted by leading members of the Bush administration itself.
If support for the Middle East “peace process” were the real aim of the indictment, there are any number of more prominent targets the government could pick, including right-wing Zionist org
