So far, after 10 weeks of trial, all that the U.S. Government can say about Mohammed Salah and co-defendant Abdelhaleem Ashqar is that they opposed the Oslo Peace Accords and that they didn’t believe that their Muslim children should mingle in peace with Jews.
Actor Mel Gibson and comedian Michael Richards said far worse about the Jews
and they haven’t gone to jail for their anti-Semitism or
racism. And in case anyone
hasn’t noticed, the Oslo Peace Accords were a miserable
failure in part because Israel’s governments dragged their
feet on making real concessions in what was supposed to be "land for
peace."
Well, the government did have the testimony of one Judith Miller, the proven professional liar at the New York Times whose exposes on Iraq’s "weapons of mass destruction" are lies that are far more criminal in nature than anything Salah or Ashqar have been proven to have done.
Miller admitted that her access to Salah was facilitated by the Israeli MOSSAD and Government. In other words, Miller has even less credibility on this case than she does on the issue of WMDs.
Let’s not get into the time she spent in jail for lying about the outing of the wife of a diplomat who criticized President Bush’s Iraq War policies.
Salah is from Bridgeview, someone I have known for years. Ashqar is a university professor from Virginia. Supposedly, according to FBI testimony, they got together 13 years ago in Philadelphia to discuss ways to "oppose" the Oslo Peace Accords. Ironically, Salah was in an Israeli prison when the alleged "secret meeting" that was a highly publicized anti-Oslo summit took place.
But don’t let the facts get in the way of truth when the issue is the failed American response to the terrorist threat.
FBI agents testified that Salah, Ashqar and others at the Philadelphia meeting came together to explore ways to oppose the Oslo Peace Accords. And, they admitted that no acts of violence were discussed or planned.
Isn’t the planning of violence a key component in a federal terrorism charge? Obviously not in this case.
Questioned under cross examination by attorneys for Salah and Ashqar, the FBI agent admitted he was unaware many Israeli leaders, like former Israeli Prime Ministers Benjamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon, also opposed the Oslo Peace Accords.
That testimony is what I found the hardest to believe. It suggests that the FBI agents, according to the testimony of one of their Middle East "specialists," don’t read newspapers, watch TV or listen to the Radio.
What’s really taking place in the Chicago federal court room is that the Bush Administration refuses to back down from its mistakes. Mistakes that are of the very kind that allowed Sept. 11 terrorism to occur.
We knew al-Qaeda was engaged in trying to attack the United States. They tried to destroy the World Trade Center in 1993. They tried to kill Americans. And there was ample evidence that terrorists even planned to use hijacked commercial airplanes as suicide missiles.
But, the best the government can do is arrest a Palestinian who has said bad words about Israel – hasn’t every Palestinian said bad words about Israel one time or another? (And hasn't every Israeli said something bad about Palestinians, too?) But, Salah and Ashqar have NEVER threatened violence not only against Israel but against the United States.
The Federal Government under former U.S. Attorney John Ashcroft were so embarrassed and taken by surprise by the Sept. 11 terrorism that they had to run out and arrest the very first person they could who was disliked enough by the public to brand as a "Sept. 11 terrorist."
Salah was arrested in Israel and sentenced to five years in prison there, where he served. He was released and he entered the United States because Salah was not considered a terrorist threat, despite the Israeli conviction. Salah lived with his wife and children in Bridgeview and the fact also is that despite Israeli claims he was engaged in terrorism, they set him free.
That was before Sept. 11 and the failures of the Federal Government were so embarrassingly exposed by al-Qaeda terrorists operating out of a cave in Afghanistan.
The tragedy is that justice has been sacrificed for lies.
Salah is not guilty of terrorism. Whether he supported Hamas or not is a non-issue. Many Palestinians support Hamas in part because Hamas is a creation of Israel’s refusal to make genuine peace.
When Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin did make peace with the Palestinians, it wasn’t a Palestinian who murdered him. It was one of Netanyahu’s rightwing fanatic supporters.
And, when Salah was even involved in speaking in support of the politics of Hamas, Hamas was NOT designated a terrorist organization. In fact, the evidence linking Salah to Hamas chronologically takes place BEFORE Hamas was officialy designated a terrorist organization by the United States.
What is happening in a Chicago courtroom for the past 10 weeks is a moral shame and a corrupt judicial travesty. Salah and Ashqar are not defendants in a terrorism trial.
They are political prisoners in a kangaroo court that has shunned justice and the rule of law in favor of political whim and a public opinion that is driven by a public ignorance of the real facts.
Salah and Ashqar are political prisoners in the American Gulag of political oppression, persecuted in the same way the Soviet Union once persecuted Jews for criticizing the Soviet Government.
The people who should be standing trial today are Judith Miller, all of the FBI's so-called witnesses, and most of all, U.S. Attorney John Ashcroft for making the pathetic, false accusation that Salah and Ashqar were engaged in terrorism when all they were engaged in was the very free speech that this country claims is every citizen and non-citizen’s right.
Rather than being prosecuted, this case should have been thrown out long ago.
But that’s only something one might expect if they were living in a real Democracy.
(Ray Hanania was named the 2006/2007 Best Ethnic Columnist by New America
Media. He can be reached at www.hanania.com)
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