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Unattributed Conspiracies
The Tribune has this problem. A lot of its Jewish readers think it skews its coverage and editorial comment on the Middle East in favor of the Palestinians. So they read whatever the Tribune has to say about Muslims and Jews carefully and critically. An August 24 story by religion reporter Geneive Abdo was no exception. It began, "The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has revoked a visa granted to Tariq Ramadan, a renowned Islamic scholar who is accused by some Jewish groups of being a Muslim extremist, effectively barring him from a teaching post he was to begin this week at the University of Notre Dame." The important news is exactly what Abdo said it was: our fretful government had decided to protect us from a Muslim intellectual who would have brought controversial ideas to an American classroom. But some Jewish readers noticed a loose piece of string in that lead and began to pull on it. Those "Jewish groups" -- the ones who accused Ramadan of being an extremist, the ones whose criticism presumably influenced Homeland Security to bar him from our shores -- who were they? To whom did they speak in Washington? Readers never found out. Ramadan, a Swiss citizen who was described by Abdo as a "rising academic star in Europe who is regarded by Islamic scholars and experts as a Muslim moderate," had been appointed to teach Islamic philosophy and ethics at Notre Dame's Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. But Homeland Security, which gave him a visa last February, changed its mind in July -- after he'd shipped his possessions to South Bend. Abdo couldn't say why, but she reported that under the Patriot Act, visas can be denied visitors connected to organizations or political activities that support terrorism. John Esposito, a professor at Georgetown University, protested the decision. Abdo wrote that Esposito "and other scholars said they suspected the government's decision to bar Ramadan could have been influenced by some Jewish groups that have waged a campaign against scholars and public intellectuals whose views on Islam and the Middle East conflict with their own." That sentence is written so cautiously it almost nullifies itself. Nobody knows, but some scholars "suspected." Not that the government was influenced, but that it "could have been." By whom? By "some Jewish groups." Would readers at some point be told who "some Jewish groups" might be? Here's the best Abdo could do: "For example, Web sites such as Campus Watch, run by pro-Israel activist Daniel Pipes, seek to expose professors who allegedly hold anti-Israel views." Pipes is Jewish, but Campus Watch isn't a Jewish group per se. It's basically a Web site that calls out scholars it disputes but asserts that it "supports the unencumbered freedom of speech of all scholars [and] takes no position on individual academic appointments." And Campus Watch was the only example given. Abdo went on to say that "some Jewish groups in France have called Ramadan an anti-Semite, and pro-Israel activists in the United States have contended he is connected to Al Qaeda." But "some Jewish groups" in France, like the ones in the States, went unidentified, as did the "pro-Israel activists." Most readers probably don't even notice the repeated use of a nebulous phrase like "some Jewish groups," but it's the kind of tic that drives readers who already resent the Tribune up the wall. A spokesman for Notre Dame told me the university heard from "a few individuals" protesting Ramadan's appointment, "some of whom identified themselves as Jewish. To my knowledge, there was no criticism by a particular group." Nor was Notre Dame ever contacted directly by Pipes. Abdo wrote that Pipes told her that "he did not know of any Jewish groups in the United States that had filed a complaint about Ramadan with the federal government." But he said, "I do know that elements in France have told the U.S. government that he is not suitable for the position." Pipes didn't say these were Jewish elements, and maybe they weren't. |
