Why is “terror expert” attacking US solidarity groups?

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Why is “terror expert” attacking US solidarity groups?

January 10th, 2012

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

A concerted effort is underway in the US to silence critics of the Israeli occupation and US aid to Israel. (Steve Rhodes / Flickr)

Kristin Szremski
The Electronic Intifada
5 January 2012

Discredited journalist Steven Emerson, who traded in a career with national news outlets for his Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), is trying to entangle an American non-profit organization in a shroud of secretive conspiracy theories intent on branding it a “supporter of terrorism.”

Emerson has crowned himself the “expert” on terrorism through his production of scurrilous blog posts and videos that he tries to pass off as credible reports. Now he’s targeting the American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), the organization for which this writer works, and by extension, Students for Justice in Palestine.

After students convened their a national SJP conference in October 2011, Emerson posted an article on his blog, calling SJP a “radical student organization” (“SJP’s ‘Dialogue’ Goes Nowhere”) The accompanying graphic shows a large iceberg labelled with SJP at the top connected to AMP, which is shown lurking under the surface with the bulk of the iceberg.

“AMP’s support for Students for Justice in Palestine is troubling, given AMP’s radical rhetoric and its ties to extremist groups,” Emerson writes. And after AMP concluded its national convention in November, Emerson posted yet another attack, whose headline borrowed from the convention theme — with a dangerous twist. Emerson changed “A New Era of Activism” to a “New Era of Terror Support” (“American Muslims for Palestine’s Web of Hamas Support”).

Emerson attacks SJP and AMP because of their success in raising awareness about Israel’s continual violations of international law and abuses of Palestinians’ human rights. AMP was co-founded by Dr. Hatem Bazian, a professor of Near Eastern and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Bazian also co-founded the first SJP chapter at Berkeley in 1993.

AMP is now on the radar of Zionist groups such as the Anti-Defamation League and the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT). Bazian, an outspoken advocate of Palestinian human rights, has been under attack for much longer.

Emerson, whose articles are quickly picked up and parroted around the Internet by sycophantic bloggers, cannot argue the facts with AMP and that’s why he resorts to inflammatory, deceptive and dangerous rhetoric to smear the organization and its founder.

Meanwhile, Emerson makes millions of dollars falsely branding Muslims and pro-Palestine advocates with the deadly label of “terrorism supporters.” Though he calls himself an expert on Arabs and terrorism, Emerson’s background is in sociology and he does not know Arabic. He was all but run out of the field of journalism after his “expert analysis” on the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 turned out to be dead wrong, after he told CBS News it had a “Middle Eastern trait” because it “was done with the intent to inflict as many casualties as possible” (“Steven Emerson’s Crusade,” Fairness Accuracy in Reporting, January/February 1999).