Jewish World Review Nov. 1, 1999 /21 Mar-Cheshvan, 5760

Hamas at Harvard?

"Enlightenment" and freedom of speech, it seems, only goes so far at Cambridge.

By Matthew S. Robinson

http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- WHEN AWARD-WINNING documentarian Steven Emerson recently came to Harvard Law School (HLS) to deliver the Alisa Flatow Memorial Lecture, named after a Brandeis University student who was killed in 1995 by terrorists in Gaza, he hoped to alert his audience to the dangers of terrorism. Unfortunately for Emerson, his audience was greatly disinterested and, in fact, quite confrontational.

Outside the presentation hall, Harvard’s Islamic Society (HIS) and the Muslim Law Students Association protested, positing Emerson (whom The New York Times has called “the nation’s foremost journalistic expert on terrorism”) to be nothing more than a “Zionist puppet.”

“The reception I received,” Emerson contends, “indicates that there seems to be some support of militant Islamic fundamentalism at Harvard. I doubt very much that they would have tried to prevent similar sympathies for radical Jewish fundamentalists or the Ku Klux Klan.”

Pre-lecture postings on muslimsonline.com framed Emerson’s ideas as a string of “unenlightened stereotypes” and suggested combating them through the use of picket signs with messages such as “Steven Emerson: Are you mad at yourself because you were not born a Muslim?” and “Get a life.” However, on the advice of HIS, who feared such demonstrations would appear “aggressive,” pamphlets citing inaccurate quotes were disseminated instead.

Emerson's “Jihad in America,” the documentary which accompanied his lecture, won 6 journalism awards including the George Polk Award for best documentary and the Investigative Reporters and Editors Award for best overall investigative reporting in either print, TV or book format.

Representatives of muslimsonline.com and CAIR did not respond to requests for explanations of their respective positions.

“When you look at the material they handed out,” says an assistant to Emerson, “you can tell that it was an organized smear campaign that Emerson has had to face ever since the film came out.”

Apparently, much of the (mis)information included on the pamphlets had been provided by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Washington, D.C.-based organization whose founder, Nihad Awad, has publicly expressed support for the terrorist group Hamas.

“There was no attempt to disrupt,” says Emerson, “but their comments were rather startling in their implicit and explicit support for Hamas.”

Though Emerson repeatedly stressed the distinction between the great majority of the world’s Muslim community and an aberrant radical element who base their beliefs on a distorted version of the faith, Emerson’s critics would not be silenced. Claiming that the documentary’s use of Arabic chanting “demonized the language,” and that use of the term “Islamic terrorist” stigmatized the entire Muslim nation, attendees argued that Emerson was himself a propagator of destructive messages who had not properly contextualized the acts he was documenting.

“No matter how many times I reiterated the fact that moderate Muslims are not represented by fundamentalists,” Emerson recalls, “members of the audience ... refused to see the distinction, claiming that I was condemning all Islam.

Though few in attendance openly admitted to seeing Emerson’s point, many made a point of confiding their true feelings in their purported enemy.

“A Muslim woman came to me,” Emerson recalls, “and apologized, claiming that the views expressed were those of extremists. But she was afraid to openly challenge them because of fears for her own safety.”

According to Aharon Friedman, vice president of the HLS Jewish Law Student Association (JLSA), there were many such silent dissenters who were “afraid to speak out publicly for fear that they would be ostracized ... at Harvard.”

When Alisa Flatow's father, Stephen, was approached by the JLSA to talk about terrorism, he was flattered. When they asked if he would approve of an annual tribute to his martyred daughter, he gave his blessing.

“We put this lecture series together,” says Friedman, “to pay tribute to a student who many of us knew ... and to educate others about an important topic.”

When it came time to choose a speaker for this year’s lecture, Mr. Flatow thought of Emerson almost immediately, echoing the sentiments of many major media outlets in citing him as “the maven on terrorist fronts in the U.S. “I thought he would be an eye-opener as to what was going on under our very noses,” Flatow offers.

Commenting on the reaction that Emerson drew at this year’s lecture, Flatow says it was to be expected.

“I knew it would have that kind of reaction,” Flatow asserts, “because I have seen it in my own affairs. By all accounts,” he adds, “Mr. Emerson handled himself very well.”

Matthew S. Robinson is a reporter for Boston's Jewish Advocate. Comment on this article by clicking here.

©1999, Boston Jewish Advocate