This is not "news" in the sense that its neither "new" nor "surprising". Imagine my, er, shock when reader Mike e-mailed me about yet another antisemitic conspiracy theorists and terror supporter in academia. Given that this is Georgia, though, I would have imagined that the good people of the state would have demanded the firing of Dr. Hassan A. El-Najjar. He teaches Sociology at Dalton State College.
Dr. El-Najjar runs the website Aljazeerah.info, which is not associated with Arabic satellite television station from Qatar, which is the al Jazeera, or with aljazeera.com, a British Islamists website. No, Dr. El-Najjar's al Jazeerah is an antisemetic conspiracy website---much worse than the al Jazeera, if that is imaginable. Needless to say, they are pro-terrorism. Oh, they claim they are against "terrorism", but, like so many Muslims in the world, define "terrorism" in such a way as to exclude, you know, real terrorists.
So, who are the 'terrorists' according to Dr. Hassan A. El-Najjar? The Israelis, of course! Israeli occupation terrorist forces kill youngman
While Shaikh Ahamed Yassin, a man who was the head of an officially listed terrorist organization Hamas, is called a "martyr". Similarly, Abu Ali Mustafa, the dead leader of another group specially designated by the State Department as foreign terror orgainzation, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palesitne (PFLP), is also labelled a "martyr".
IDF soldier trying to find terrorists = terrorist.
Leaders of officially listed terror organization = heroes.
But Dr. El-Najjar does not simply single out those that kill Jews as "not terrorists". He also includes those that kill Americans, Iraqi police and soldiers, and Iraqi women and children in the "not terrorists" camp. From one of his stories he published today: "5 Iraqi resistance fighters were killed in north Baghdad".
Dr. El-Najjar, who supports officially designated terrorist organizations, also has the audacity to call his website the "Aljazeerah Peace Information Center". He also solicits contributions.
So, we've established that Dr. El-Najjar is pro-terrorism, but what about conspiracy theories? My case will begin this editorial: How Israel Lobby Controls US Policies: The Arab Bank Case then move to the fact that his website used to link to a copy of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (source--no longer linked).
And then end with this, from the same news story, linked above, written by Dr. El-Najjar, and published today:
It is inaccurate to describe the war in Iraq as if it is fought between Muslim Shi'is and Muslim Sunnis...It is more accurate to describe it as fought between US-led forces and Iraqi resistance fighters. Even killing civilians is part of the war, as the evidence earlier demonstrated that Interior Ministry death squads and British soldiers were caught either targeting or attempting to target civilians to make the war appear as if it is between Shi'is and Sunnis....Moreover, on September 19, 2005, two British soldiers were arrested by Iraqi police for driving a car bomb in a Basra street. They were freed by British forces before being interrogated by Iraqi police. This incident sheds some light on who might be behind car bomb explosions in Iraq.
In other words, all those deaths we hear about? A U.S. & British plot to make it look like civil war!! This is exactly the kind of stuff you read in the radical Islamist press. The pro-al Qaeda propaganda outlets. The only thing missing is an allusion to a Zionist plot!
Wow, that's what we call in academia "scholarship". As for El-Najjar's other "scholarship", this includes a self-published book called The Gulf War : Overreaction & Excessiveness. One of the two reviews of the book is by fellow Dalton State College professor, Dr. James A. Stevenson, who, shockingly, contributes antiwar columns to the pro-terror conspiracy website. The other reviewer? Also a Dalton State professor.
From reading a few of both Dr. Stevenson's and Dr. El-Najjar's columns, it seems likely that the pair are old-school Leninists (eg, Zionism: The Highest Stage of Imperialism; While World Capitalists Spend Trillions of Dollars on their Wanton Wars, Hunger Kills 18,000 Children Each Day). Not surprisingly, the website has many links to The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and a link to our favorite peace-rage activist Rachel Corrie.
Again, none of this is "news" in the sense that its "new". Campus Watch reran an extensive 2003 Washington Times story about El-Najjar here. American Intelligence has all the still valid hosting info here. Nor, as I said, is it at all surprising that terror supporters are in academia (eg, Julio Pino at Kent State; Joseph Massad and others at Columbia, etc.). Like I said, what is really surprising is that the people of Georgia aren't demanding the immediate firing of Dr. Hassan A. El-Najjar.
Or does tenure & academic freedom trump all other considerations? Including that of supporting terrorism and spreading antisemetic conspiracy theories?
PS: The President of Dalton State College, Dr. James Burran: jburran@daltonstate.edu. Be civil.
And here is complete telephone contact information for the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia. E-mails can be sent via this page.
Double P.S.: Just in case there was any question as to whether the editor of aljazeera.info was really the same man as the Dr. Hassan A. El-Najjar, who teaches at Dalton State. A) He openly admits it and B) Here is the address listed at the contact page:
Editor,
Al-Jazeerah Information Center,
P.O. Box 724, Dalton, GA 30722, USA.