Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, September-October 2002, pages 21, 74

Special Report

Sami Al-Arian and Mazen Al-Najjar: A Tale Of Two Palestinian Brothers-in-law

By Richard H. Curtiss

The story of Sami Al-Arian and his best friend and brother-in-law, Mazen Al-Najjar, is a saga of tragedy and cruel fate. There is no moral. There is no villain. There is no hero. What is needed, however, is relief from a nightmare that otherwise might never end.

Sami is a Palestinian who was born in Kuwait and whose family later moved to Cairo, where Sami’s father owned a small clothing store. He put all of his limited means into his eldest son’s U.S. education. When Sami finished college he went on to earn a Ph.D. degree and soon found a position with the University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa, with an enrollment of 31,000.

Meanwhile Sami’s friend Mazen Al-Najjar went with his Palestinian family to Saudi Arabia. Later Mazen arrived in the United States on a visitor’s visa. The two friends now had become brothers-in-law, with Sami’s marriage to Mazen’s sister, Nahla.

By this time Mazen, too, had a Ph.D. degree and began teaching at the same university as Sami. Mazen eventually had three daughters, and Sami had five children.

Together the two friends set up a mosque in Tampa, along with two charitable and educational organizations. These were Islamic Committee for Palestine (ICP), which raised money for orphans, and World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE), which sponsored scholarships. They published an Arabic journal and held conferences, some of the speakers at which had radical connections.

Then fate took an unexpected turn for the worse. The Immigration and Nationalization Service arrested Mazen because he had not been able to regularize his immigration status, due to the fact that he was Palestinian and therefore had no nationality of record.

By this time, with three American citizen daughters and a wife, and no other violations of any kind, it should have been simple enough to change Mazen’s status. Typically in such cases, immigration authorities only require character references, which can easily be found. If all else fails, a friendly congressman can usually help. Mazen is a Palestinian, however—which always presents complications.

With the best intentions in the world, Sami went public to defend Mazen. In retrospect, it probably was not a wise decision. That is because Sami already had become involved with a related problem having to do with another USF professor, Ramadan Abdullah Shallah. Two years after he joined the university faculty, Shallah abruptly moved to Syria to work for the Syria-based Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which the United States considers a terrorist organization.

Sami and Mazen’s problems became intertwined with that of the Jihad member. Like a bulldog, the media had a story and wouldn’t let go.

It should have been simple enough to change Mazen’s status.

“Self-styled” investigative journalist Steven Emerson also had taken up the case, charging that Sami Al-Arian and Mazen Al-Najjar were part of a conspiracy to raise funds for terrorist groups. The Tampa Tribune received sensationalist allegations that provided great copy. Other Florida papers took sides but were unable to resolve the conflicting claims for many months.

All along, Sami and his wife, Nahla, worked tirelessly on behalf of Mazen and his wife, Fedaa. It was at this point that I, along with a number of other Americans, came one by one to Florida to attest to Mazen’s good character and called for amelioration of the circumstances in which Mazen was now entangled. There were many witnesses who helped in any way they could. Collections were taken up, some from members of his mosque and others from supporters who were concerned with Mazen and his family’s well being.

I wrote about the family’s plight and also asked a friend, former Mossad case officer and author Victor Ostrovsky, to help publicize the fact that there was no trace of anti-Semitism involved in the Florida case. Finally, threeyears after Mazen’s arrest, former Attorney General Janet Reno resolved the case in Mazen’s favor and released him, and Mazen at last was able to rejoin his family.

Then came Sept. 11. Two and a half months later, on Nov. 24, Mazen Al-Najjar left his apartment to get quarters to do the laundry. His wife, Fedaa, a pharmacist, was at work. His three daughters were asleep. A dozen INS agents were awaiting his return. They had a court order for his deportation.

Mazen ran and the agents wrestled him to the ground. He later said he had “panicked,” and had only wanted to tell his daughters goodbye. Then, once again, Mazen was incarcerated.

This time he was sent to a federal maximum-security prison 70 miles from Tampa and put into solitary confinement. The government alleged that Mazen had “ties to terrorist organizations” and had leadership in “front groups” that raised money for the Palestinians.

Again Mazen’s case was in the news, not only in Florida but also around the world. Washington Post reporter Richard Leiby has written a fair, in-depth report on the two Palestinians, published in the paper’s July 28 edition.

Mazen has stood up reasonably well, Leiby wrote, although he is a man of retiring nature and has desperately missed his wife and family and their once-a-week visits. This time, however, it is clear that Mazen is just about at the end of his rope. His luxuriant once-black hair has turned white. How much longer could anyone withstand such treatment without breaking down completely?

Catch-22 All Over Again

Meanwhile, once again, the case is hung up in a “Catch-22”-type impasse. The U.S. government wants to deport Mazen, but no country will receive him. Since Mazen has no place to go, logic would dictate that the U.S. government either prove that Mazen has committed a crime or release him.

The U.S. government, however, says it has “secret evidence” which cannot be divulged. So what is Mazen to do? He cannot prove his innocence if no one will tell him the charges so he can defend himself.

In a just or logical world the answer would be simple: Let Mazen rejoin his family and work to help support his wife and daughters. Unfortunately the matter has become extremely politicized, with Emerson and other Palestinian-haters all too quick to announce new allegations and thus create new headlines.

In a letter addressed to The Washington Post’s Leiby, Mazen wrote from his cell, “Government officials know that I have no ‘terrorist’ connections of any kind, but it is hard for them to retreat from previous assertions after seven years.”

In an interview with Leiby, Vincent M. Cannistraro, former chief of CIA counterterrorism operations, said that, based on his own sources, the professor never was involved with terrorist attacks.

One solution would be to call on Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to intervene on behalf of the Al-Najjar family. That option, too, may have been pre-empted, however, because Jeb Bush inexplicably has become involved in calling for Sami Al-Arian’s dismissal from USF. Sami Al-Arian, a tenured professor of computer science, has been on paid leave since Sept. 27. USF president Judy Genshaft is trying to fire Sami because he received death threats in the wake of Sept. 11, and a Fox network talk show re-aired the old disproved accusations. This, in turn, has prompted the American Association of University Professors to demand Al-Arian’s return to his tenured position.

Ironically, members of the Al-Arian family have made progress in their own right. For example, a USA Today summer internship went to Sami Al-Arian’s daughter, Laila, a senior at Georgetown University.

The first Al-Arian son, Abdullah, had his own encounter with George W. Bush in Florida during the 2000 Bush presidential campaign. When Sami, his wife and family were pictured with Bush at a campaign stop, the then-candidate, who is in the habit of nicknaming people he likes, called Abdullah “Big Dude,” based on his lanky size.

Early last year Sami Al-Arian was one of a group invited to the White House by Karl Rove, Bush’s campaign strategist. Eight days later Abdullah, who was interning in Rep. David Bonior’s office, arrived for a White House meeting to discuss the president’s “faith-based initiative.” After the delegation was seated, a secret service agent inexplicably insisted that Abdullah leave. (See Aug./Sept. 2001 Washington Report, p. 47.)

When other Muslim members of the group saw what was going on, virtually all of them insisted that if Abdullah had to leave, they would go as well. A White House staffer later apologized profusely for the “misunderstanding,” and Abdullah’s mother, Nahla Al-Arian, subsequently received a formal apology.

The confusion reflects Bush’s attempt to woo Arab voters without losing Jewish-American voters. For example, a clear majority of Arab-Americans decided to vote for Bush, given presidential candidate Al Gore’s pointed snubs against Arab voters. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Arab-Americans voted as a bloc for Bush.

In Florida, Sami Al-Arian said bluntly, enough voters from mosques in his area alone clearly made the difference in the presidential outcome. Ironies continue. Many Muslim and Christian Arab-Americans, who certainly are about twice as numerous as Jews in the U.S., also supported the Republican presidential candidate in the 2000 election.

Given the snubs, deliberate or unintended, Arab-Americans right now are deeply discouraged. It is likely that the majority of Christian and Muslim Arab Americans now do not know where to go. Eventually, however, they will have to decide to cast their votes for one party or the other. It is very likely that that contest alone could make the difference in the 2004 elections.

Mazen, meanwhile, is on the verge of a nervous collapse. His wife is having to support the family, and nothing can be done about freeing Mazen until the abominable “secret evidence” charge is lifted. If ever there were a case in which U.S. political leaders should intervene, this is it. Only political cowardice keeps justice from a family that needs help without further obfuscation or delay.

Richard Curtiss is the executive editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.