Ah, Sami, you Rumpled Academic you, we hardly knew ye. If only I had known about the farewell dinner at the Dar al-Hijrah Mosque; I would have dropped everything to be there. Longtime Jihad Watch readers will remember Al-Arian, who for years was a darling of the Leftist intelligentsia. In March 2002 Nicholas Kristof went to bat for the professor in the New York Times: “The point is not whether one agrees with Professor Al-Arian, a rumpled academic with a salt-and-pepper beard who is harshly critical of Israel (and also of repressive Arab countries) — but who also denounces terrorism, promotes inter-faith services with Jews and Christians, and led students at his Islamic school to a memorial service after 9/11 where they all sang ‘God Bless America.’ No, the larger point is that a university, even a country, becomes sterile when people are too intimidated to say things out of the mainstream.”
Unfortunately for Kristof and others like him, the Rumpled Academic eventually pled guilty to being a leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. And now he finally about to depart from this stage, although he is likely to wreak more havoc elsewhere.
“Report: Al-Arian to be Deported Wednesday,” IPT News, February 3, 2015:
Sami Al-Arian, a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)’s governing board during the 1990s, will be deported from the United States Wednesday, a Tampa radio station reports.
WUSF, a public radio affiliate at the university where Al-Arian worked as a tenured computer science professor, cites Al-Arian associates who say he is headed to Turkey.
Al-Arian agreed to leave the country as a condition of his 2006 plea agreement for conspiring to provide goods or services to the PIJ, which President Clinton first named as a terrorist organization in a 1995 executive order.
The deportation ends a 20-year saga for Al-Arian, who was first exposed as a PIJ supporter in the Polk Award winning documentary “Jihad in America” produced by IPT founder and Executive Director Steven Emerson.
Under President Tayyip Recep Erdogan, Turkey has moved closer to radical Islamic movements including the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. Several key Hamas leaders are believed to be operating in Turkey, many, like Hamas political chief Khaled Meshaal, recently were asked to leave Qatar.
Al-Arian became a cause celebre among Islamists and their political allies. They ignored his documented role in PIJ leadership, and cast the law enforcement scrutiny against him as the product of an Israeli conspiracy to silence him solely for espousing his political views.
While a University of South Florida professor, Al-Arian created a charity and a think tank that operated nearby. The think tank, called the World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE), provided cover and refuge in Tampa to Ramadan Shallah (as Ramadan Abdullah), who emerged in Syria as the PIJ secretary general in 1995. Shallah remains in that position today.
Like Al-Arian, Shallah served on the PIJ Shura Council – essentially its board of directors – during his time in the United States. Al-Arian also helped arrange U.S. visas for two other Shura Council members – Mazen al-Najjar and Basheer Nafi – both were deported.
The charity, the Islamic Committee for Palestine (ICP), hosted annual conferences and other events from 1988-92 that featured prominent figures from PIJ and other radical groups. The PIJ’s spiritual leader, Abdelaziz Odeh, was a staple at these events. At this 1991 event in Cleveland, Al-Arian sits passively as the ICP is described as the PIJ “active arm” in America. Donations for the jihad can be sent to the ICP.
Four years later, in the wake of a double-suicide bombing that killed 21 people in Israel, Al-Arian wrote to a Kuwaiti associate soliciting money for the PIJ. Federal investigators found a copy of the letter in Al-Arian’s home during a 1995 federal raid. Al-Arian claimed he never sent the hand-written solicitation, in which he urges his acquaintance “to try to extend true support of the jihad effort in Palestine so that operations such as these can continue.”
But it was only after he was under federal investigation for terror support that Al-Arian developed real political clout. Casting himself as the victim of government overreach, he made contacts on Capitol Hill and was considered someone who might help steer Muslim voters toward political candidates, including George W. Bush during the 2000 presidential campaign.
His 2005 trial ended with a mix of acquittals and counts on which jurors could not unanimously reach a verdict. Rather than face a retrial, Al-Arian entered his guilty plea to one conspiracy count.
As U.S. District Judge James Moody said in sentencing Al-Arian in 2006, “The evidence was clear in this case that you were a leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. You were on the board of directors and an officer, the secretary. Directors control the actions of an organization, even the PIJ; and you were an active leader.”
His deportation was delayed after he was found in contempt and later indicted for refusing to testify before a federal grand jury in Virginia investigating terrorist financing despite a grant of immunity for his truthful testimony. That case languished for five years when U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema refused to rule on a motion to dismiss but also would not set the case for trial.
Prosecutors dropped the case last June, paving the way for Wednesday’s removal.
Al-Arian became a cause celebre among Islamists and their political
But it was only after he was under federal investigation for terror support that Al-Arian developed real political clout. Casting himself as the victim of government overreach, he made contacts on Capitol Hill and was considered someone who might help steer Muslim voters toward political candidates, including George W. Bush during the 2000 presidential campaign.
Sam says
What a racist thing to do deporting an enemy of freedom.
M S case says
Only one of thousands… NOT ENOUGH!!! Get all of those muslim profs. out of our colleges
Miriam Feldstein Case says
I do hope you are joking!
Miriam Feldstein Case says
I put my comment in the wrong place. I am referring to the comment from Sam.
Yonatan says
And good riddance to a contemptible piece of garbage *ptooh*!
Carlos Danger says
Don’t let the door hit you in the arse.
Write when you find work.
Matthieu Baudin says
May this help open the floodgates for the deportation of terrorist supporters in North America, Europe and elsewhere.
Bill says
Is the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization? If you think so, then support Michelle Bachman’s H.R.5194 — Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act of 2014 (Introduced in House – IH)….
Bill says
Support H.R.5194 — Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act of 2014 (Introduced in House – IH)
Bill says
Support Michelle Bachman’s legislation declaring the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization.
Salah says
“WUSF… cites Al-Arian associates who say he is headed to Turkey.”
Why not send him to Egypt? let him join his beloved Muslim Brotherhhod thugs…in jail!!!
Angemon says
Good riddance to rotten garbage.
duh_swami says
I remember him…I forgot about him…and after I post this, I’m going to forget about him again…
Ayatrollah says
It warms my heart to think of him, rumples and all, absent mindedly stumbling through the halls of academia in some foreign land, thinking of new way to fund the killing of the infidel.
MKG says
Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on your way out.
neversink says
They should deport Kristoff also….
George says
How can i show my support for Michelle Bachmann’s HR bill #5194?
Kevin Bass says
I thought his cousin or brother inlaw was also deported for terrorist activities.al-najar.now lets work on closing down c.a.i.r. and some of the radical mosques
myburmesse@hotmail.com says
So long, farewell, BYE, BYE, BYE!
Surak says
Where is the discussion as to the issue of how this jihadist got hired by one of our universities? I hope the Florida state legislature investigates this, and that alumni will pressure the administration to put in a new policy of not hiring terrorists.
Enragedsince1999 says
The nobility of Steven Emerson, one of the very few courageous voices of truth here in the US. And the base nature of Nicholas Kristoff who represents practically the entire US mainstream media. And the English media are lowlier still. And the Norwegian and Swedish media lowlier yet. What absolutely astonishes me is the current scandal re: MSNBC’s Brian Williams’ lying about the copter is that his lie is very innocent one compared to the lies by practically the entire US media back in 1999 about “the Serb atrocities in Kosovo”. The lies that were used as an excuse for the NATO war on Serb Christians on the side of the rabidly racist, sadistic, genocidal Kosovar Albanian KLA terrorists. And THE CURRENT lies on the Ukraine conflict. To Obamus and MSM the violent putsch that had toppled the democratically elected President Yanukovich of Ukraine on Feb. 22 was “victory of democracy” ! The putsch spearheaded by the West Ukrainian Bandera Nazis who take pride in applying 139 methods of horrid torture – executions to innocent civilians ! Folks, those of you who don’t read Russian: I recommend the RT TV . It is far from perfect, but it is your only source of truth on Ukraine.
Ruslan Tokhchukov, EnragedSince1999.