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Criticism Grows of Axing of NYC Principal

New York City's pit bull newspapers have succeeded in forcing the resignation of Debbie Almontaser, principal of the brand new Khalil Gibran School in New York City, but criticism is growing. In a long analysis in the New York Times on August 29 Samuel G. Freedman called attacks on Almontaser a "smear". A teacher union steward made a fine statement critical of United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten for joining in the defamation and a noted Israeli columnist said his heart goes out to American Muslims like Almontaser.

The Khalil Gibran School is to teach Arabic language and culture as one of the city's system of dual-language programs. The city currently has more than 60 similar language and culture schools including French, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Greek, Korean, among others. From the start the far-right New York Post and New York Sun attacked the Gibran school publishing articles that called the school a "madrassa" and spreading absurd fears that it would of indoctrinate students into terrorism and holy war. A website stopthemadrassa was started featuring the notorious Muslim basher Daniel Pipes.

As Freedman points out Almontaser is quite mainstream. He writes, "Ms. Almontaser has twice been profiled on Voice of America as an accomplished Muslim American. Her son, Yousif, spent several months on rescue efforts at ground zero as a member of the Army National Guard. Four of her nephews and cousins have served in the United States military in Iraq." Ah, but she is a Muslim and that is what starts Pipes and his ilk frothing at the mouth.

The "last straw" for the pit bulls was Almontaser comment about a t-shirt. The shirt was issued by a women's group and has the words "NYC Intifada" on it. During a New York Post interview Almontaser was asked to comment on it. The supposed reason for the question was that Almontaser sits on the board of an organization that shares an office with an Arab-American women's group that sells a T-shirt with those words, upon it.

According to the Post she answered "The word [intifada] basically means 'shaking off.' That is the root word if you look it up in Arabic. I understand it is developing a negative connotation due to the uprising in the Palestinian- Israeli areas. I don't believe the intention is to have any of that kind of [violence] in New York City." Pretty reasonable statement, but the pit bulls went ballistic and the city big wigs joined in. Nothing less than a denunciation of the word and the Palestinian uprising would do.

The president of the 160,000 member United Federation of Teachers is Randi Weingarten. She didn't have to say a word about the controversy since she doesn't represent principals. Yet, she wrote a letter to the Post saying that she agreed with its denunciation of Almontaser. She wrote, "As someone who traveled to Israel within the year, I know intifada means more than simply 'shaking off oppression,' as Almontaser claims. The rampant violence and bloodshed resulting from these upheavals are blatantly obvious and very painful to those of us who hope for a lasting peace in the region. While the city teachers' union initially took an open-minded approach to this school, both parents and teachers have every right to be concerned about children attending a school run by someone who doesn't instinctively denounce campaigns or ideas tied to violence."

Almontaser resigned soon after Weingarten pulled the rug out from under her. She was replaced by a Jewish teacher who doesn't speak a word of Arabic. The New York Post crowed in a headline on August 14 "Taking a Jew Turn".

Weingarten's "pacifism" is touching. Too bad it wasn't in evidence last summer during the savage Israeli invasion of Lebanon when she helped ram through a resolution in support of Israeli violence and bloodshed at the national American Federation of Teachers convention in Boston. The resolution was grotesquely entitled "On State-Sponsored Terrorist and the Crisis in the Middle East" and condemned wholeheartedly … Iran, Syria and Hezbollah. In her speech to the convention Weingarten pulled out all the stops tugging at the heart strings with anguished irrelevances about the "World Trade Center", "the Holocaust", and "suicide bombings". The Israeli violence that was to kill over a thousand civilians and to leave a million cluster bomblets in Lebanon was praised as "defense".

Steve Quester, a union steward in Weingarten's local, had a far different message. On a union caucus blog he wrote "In August of 2007. Our union could have stood with Arab-American and Muslim students and educators against the onslaught they have endured since 9-11, but instead we joined the chorus of racists, led by the teacher-hating, Arab-hating New York Post and Fox News, who hounded veteran educator Debbie Almontaser out of her job as principal of the Gibran Academy.

"In writing all of this, I do not claim to speak for the members of my chapter. I did not consult them. I do not claim to speak for a UFT caucus. I do not belong to one. I certainly do not claim to speak for Debbie Almontaser. Although, as a District 15 educator, I am acquainted with Debbie and her work, I have not seen or spoken with her since long before the Gibran Academy controversy erupted at P.S. 282….. I write as a White, Jewish anti-racist educator who is heartsick over the role his union played in this sordid affair."

Yes, the two intifadas were violent, but so were other events in the history of Israel/Palestine: the Nekba with its massacres and expulsions, the 20,000 dead during Israel's '82 invasion of Lebanon, the demolition of 18,000 Palestinian homes, the one million bullets shot at Palestinians in the opening weeks of the intifada in 2000 and on and on. It is utter hypocrisy for the champions of Israel to demand that Muslims and Palestinians denounce every act of violence from resistance to terrorism when they never criticize any Israeli atrocity or act of discrimination.

In August the UFT's parent, the American Federation of Teachers joined the gang screaming at British unions for proposing academic and other boycotts of Israel. An outrageous blow at "academic freedom", it said. Of course the AFT didn't have a word to say about years long closures of Palestinians schools during the first intifada or the intolerable bars to movement right now for Palestinians students. In August the Israeli high court ruled that a group of occupational therapists from Gaza could not complete their education at the only place in Palestine where they could finish their program, Bethlehem University. They were "security risks" because they were in dangerous group: young men between the ages of 16 and 34. Did the AFT raise its voice in protest? Not a peep.

In contrast to the UFT president's hysteria, the New York group Jews for Racial and Economic Justice called for Almontaser's reinstatement. This is part of their statement, "As parents, students, teachers, New Yorkers, and Jews, we are outraged by the series of events that have culminated in Debbie Almontaser's resignation as principal of the Kahlil Gibran International Academy. We are particularly disturbed that Mayor Bloomberg, Joel Klein, the Chancellor of the Department of Education, and Randi Weingarten, the President of the United Federation of Teachers, bowed to right-wing pressure and did not strenuously resist and condemn the unjustified attacks on Ms. Almontaser, which fed on and fostered anti-Arab and anti-Muslim prejudice. We call for Debbie Almontaser to be reinstated to her position as principal if that is what she wishes, and for full support for the Kahlil Gibran International Academy. "

I give the final comment to Bradely Burston. Burston writes a column in the Israeli paper Ha'aretz. He's not particularly warmhearted towards Palestinians, but he wrote a fine column about Almontaser. He concluded his piece with this sentence, " My heart goes out to Raed Jarrar and Debbie Almontaser and the multitude of Arabs and Muslims in America who on a routine basis are profiled, humiliated, stifled, and shunned, their universe of belief and language and identity written off as a culture of death, an agent of world jihad, their legitimate and honest efforts at self-expression buried in an avalanche of intentional misreading and misrepresentation."