Allegation is not proof of guilt!

Submitted by Lawrence Rosler (United States), Oct 19, 2004 at 15:06

Dear Dr. Pipes,

I have admired and promulgated your views on Islamofascism for years. Indeed, I risked a hostile environment to attend your appearance earlier this year at UCBerkeley. But I fear that your article criticizing Betty Castor over her handling of USF professor Sami al-Arian tilts over the edge of objectivity into McCarthyism.

As an academic yourself, you are surely aware of the protections afforded to tenured professors to express their views, no matter how off-base they may be -- and as the loathsome al-Arian certainly was. Yet you approvingly quote Rudolph Giuliani's mock of Ms. Castor, that she "couldn't figure out how to fire an alleged terrorist."

The key word here, of course, is "alleged." In the absence even of an indictment, you would have a college president fire a tenured professor on the basis of an allegation of terrorism by a journalist!

In areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority, "alleged" collaborators with Israel are summarily executed in public. You are advocating summary professional execution based on allegation of terrorism.

If these are the standards according to which we must combat terrorism, then the terrorists will indeed have won. We deserve better of you (and don't expect any better from the win-at-all-costs Republican campaign machine).

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