When the Beirut Revisionist Conference was canceled at the last minute, news on the Internet traveled so fast that I could barely keep up with what was streaming onto my desk top. Seldom have I seen such interest in a piece of news cutting through demographic strata like a hot knife through butter!
This cancellation brought mostly Western Revisionists and Arabs together for mutual benefit in ways that we have never seen before!
As you will remember, one of the "triggering mechanisms" seems to have been the "fact" that 14 highly respected Arab intellectuals got a petition together to ban the Revisionist conference. Or so, at least, we were told!
Guess what?!
Read what one Arab intellectual, Dr. Ibrahim Alloush, wrote to his list. Then read the letter from Dr. Edward Said, a well-known Palestinian activist. Finally, read Ernst Zündel's brief analysis of this development.
1. Dr. Alloush:
Dear List members,
Below you shall find a message from Edward Said on the banning of the conference of revisionist historians. As you all know, that conference was supposed to take place in Beirut on March 30. However, the Lebanese government banned it as a result of pressures from Western governments and the Zionist movement.
A statement by fourteen Arab intellectuals calling on the Lebanese government to ban the conference of revisionist historians in Beirut was circulated in the media and on the internet. That alleged statement was used as a political cover to justify the banning of the conference and the curtailing of free speech rights.
It seems, however, that the statement was FABRICATED according to a statement by Dr. Edward Said below. The original text read to signatories over the phone was different from the one published in the press.
Edward Said says he still does not have a copy of either texts. Many of the signatories did not know that they (would) be signing a request to an Arab government to ban free speech.
Initial contacts with Mahmoud Darwish indicate the same, even though there is no document like the one below to prove that yet.
This journalistic scoop was made by Samaa Abu Sharar, the daughter of Majed Abu Sharar, the Central Committee member of Fateh who was assassinated in Rome in 1981. Samaa is a journalist living in Amman, Jordan, who writes in English and French. She was out to prove that even if Edward Said disagreed with revisionist historians, he could have never signed the statement calling for banning their conference, which constitutes a violation of free speech rights. After all, Arab regimes don't need much encouragement in this area.
Below you shall find Edward Said's response to Samaa Abu Sharar's query. Please be aware that he authorized her to quote him in part or in full, and hence, she forwarded his message to others to make her point.
In the cause of objectivity, I am forwarding it to those who supported the banning of the conference of revisionist historians in Beirut without any alterations. I still think, however, that it is incumbent upon those whose names were added to a statement that they did not endorse, to MAKE A PUBLIC DECLARATION to that effect.
Later
Ibrahim Alloush
2. Letter from Edward W Said
To: samaa Abu-Sharar
Subject: Re: A message from Amman
Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2001 07:15:17 -0400 (EDT)
Dear Samaa, I don't have and never saw the memo since I was called by phone, told that there was no time to send a copy for me to see, and was asked to approve the text for signature. I did, on condition that there would be no appeal to any government concerning the banning of the conference.
I don't believe a, in addressing governments and b, asking governments to ban anything, least of all conferences, books, etc.
Having been the victim of such governmental decisions I couldn't put myself in such a position. I was very clear about this.
The next think I knew is that the statement appeared with a request to Hariri's governmenbt to ban the conference. All I had agreed to sign was a statement denouncing the holding of such a conference in Beirut.
To repeat, I did not ask the government to ban it, nor would I ever. This request was added against my wishes, and without my knowldge.
I am deeply opposed to holocaust-deniers but I am equally opposed to banning by government edict everyone's right to free speech.
This was a terrible breach of confidence and a small group of franc0 -arab "intellectuals" simply betrayed my trust. To this day they haven't had the dcecency to send me a copy of what I supposedly signed.
You may use any and all of the information I've sent you here. Best, Edward Said
3. Ernst Zündel's analysis:
What happened here was a typical intelligence "sting" type operation, revealing a guiding mind and a guiding hand with a sophisticated intelligence apparatus at one's fingertips - an intelligence system that contained not only the names, addresses, telephone and fax numbers as well as e-mail but also personality profile information.
This guiding mind with an anti-Revisionist agenda knew from these profiles and, chances are, a clipping morgue or perhaps a sophisticated databank filing system capable of mining Arab language publications to ferret out who was "approachable" or even "blackmail-able" or who might be vainglorious, ego- driven, publicity-hunry enough to be a potential "blind signees" of such a "petition" or "declaration" to ban this type of a conference.
These "blind signees" were contacted by phone by someone obviously speaking a suave, flawless Arabic. We don't know how many were contacted by these mysterious callers. We don't know what line of arguments were used to persuade, cajole or strong-arm these "contactees" into signing something which, according to Edward Said, he at least never saw or was sent before he agreed to "sign" it. Not even a draft was sent, it seems, to these "blind signees" beforehand.
How many educated, intellegent people would sign a document of such importance over the phone, without ever having seen what wording it contains? It would take chutzpah by a psychologically well-trained, persuasive, quickwitted, historically well-educated person to get them to do that - an individual who could muster all the Anti-Revisionist arguments wrapped in the convoluted politics and intellectual streams, schisms, divisions and rivalries encompassing most of the Moslem Crescent from Morokko to Malaysia.
This was not the job of a lone journalist, as the world is led to believe.
Who would be financed, trained and staffed well enough to pull something like this off of short notice? This was not the work of an individual reporter at some Arab language newspaper in Beirut who for some reason "hated" Revisionists. To ferret out these Arab intellectuals in the first place, approach them via expensive, difficult-to-accomplish international phone connections under pressure of time and then do the persuading was a sophisticated operation, which exceeds the capabilities of a private citizen.
Thought for the Day:
"Racism has become like ketchup - you can put it on almost anything."
(Thomas Sowell)
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