White House Incident Spotlights National Prejudice Against Palestinian and Muslim Americans

By Sameer Ahmed

Interning in the nation’s capital is not as exciting as Monica Lewinsky would want us to believe. Picture the movie “Office Space,” replace the computer scientists with ambitious political science majors, and you’ll know what I mean.

Until June 28, my roommate Abdullah Al-Arian was your average DC intern. A rising senior at Duke University double majoring in political science and history, Abdullah spent his weekdays interning for House Minority Whip David Bonior (D-MI) to further his interest in law and public service. And after a long day at work, Abdullah, our other housemates and I would come home and play a few games of basketball before dinnertime.

On June 28, Abdullah did not come home for dinner. He was still at Bonior’s office answering questions from CNN, the BBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, The Associated Press, Al Jazeera and a number of other worldwide media outlets.

An Unwanted Escort

That morning, while Abdullah was attending a White House briefing with members of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, a Secret Service agent escorted him out of the meeting without any explanation. Once Abdullah was removed, about two dozen leaders from various American Muslim organizations walked out of the meeting in protest, sparking a media frenzy.

The incident forced President George W. Bush to apologize the following day, calling the Secret Service’s treatment of Abdullah “wrong” and “inappropriate.” Earlier, the Secret Service issued a statement calling Abdullah’s expulsion a simple “mistake.”

A mistake? Hardly. Abdullah’s only crime was that he is a Muslim of Palestinian descent, and his expulsion from the White House was just another example of the erroneous and racist belief prevalent across the United States that labels Muslims, especially Arabs, as anti-American security threats.

Unfortunately, this attitude has spread to the Bush White House. Just a week before Abdullah’s ousting, Vice President Dick Cheney canceled a meeting with members of the American Muslim Council after the Zionist Organization of America released a statement labeling the mainstream American-Muslim group an “extremist anti-American organization.”

Perhaps the pinnacle of the anti-Muslim and anti-Arab sentiment in the United States is demonstrated by the Secret Evidence Act, passed in Congress as a part of the 1996 anti-terrorism law. The Secret Evidence Act allows the Immigration and Naturalization Service, without providing any proof, to arrest and detain indefinitely any non-U.S. citizen if he or she is deemed “a threat to national security.”

For example, Abdullah’s uncle, Mazen Al-Najjar, was confined in a Florida jail for three and a half years, never charged with a crime, and then finally released by Attorney General Janet Reno late last year after the U.S. government admitted it had no evidence to keep Al-Najjar in jail.

In addition to completely contradicting the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution, the Secret Evidence Act is used as a legalized form of racial profiling. Of the more than 20 people arrested under the act, all but one have been a Muslim or Arab male.

For these reasons, two years ago, Bonior and Stanford law professor [and former congressman] Tom Campbell introduced House Resolution 2121, which would repeal the Secret Evidence Act. While President Bush claimed to support HR-2121 during his campaign—a transparent attempt to attract the Arab and Muslim vote—the bill is still being debated in Congress.

15 Minutes of Fame

Which brings us back to Abdullah, who has been working with Bonior to repeal the Secret Evidence Act. For the past week, Abdullah has felt the benefits as well as the disadvantages of his 15 minutes of fame. On the one hand, Muslim leaders throughout the world have been referring to Abdullah as a Rosa Parks for Muslim civil rights in America. On the other hand, some news organizations have been unfoundedly linking his family to terrorist groups.

When Abdullah finally returned home on the night of June 28 and was getting ready for bed, I told him that, 10 years from now, he’d look back to that day, sift through the newspaper and magazine clippings and laugh. Yet, while Abdullah continues to be amazed by the amount of press coverage he has been receiving, he has remained apprehensive. Abdullah says he fears that the Secret Service’s “mistake” could haunt him in the future.

But let us hope that the reverse will become true. Hopefully, Abdullah has taught the Bush administration, which claims inclusiveness, and the American public, which values diversity, the dangers of cultural and religous prejudice.

Sameer Ahmed, is a junior majoring in international relations at Stanford University, where he was managing editor of the Stanford Daily. This article originally appeared in the July 5, 2001 edition of the Daily.