Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November 2007, page 52

Arab-American Activism

Community Rallies for Resigned Principal

MANY SIGNS WERE visible beneath the massive stone columns of the old Tweed Courthouse in Lower Manhattan, where demonstrators gathered Aug. 20 outside Department of Education headquarters to protest the forced resignation of Debbie Almontaser as principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy—which The New York Times described as “New York City’s first public school dedicated to the study of Arabic language and culture.” Two of the signs touched upon the recurrent themes of the interfaith, multi-group rally: “Mr. Mayor, Who Runs This City, You or the Post?” and Another Jewusg UFTer for Debbie Almontaser,” a Muslim American.

According to the Aug. 5 New York Post article that triggered the uproar against Almontaser (see story p. 45) “activists with ties to the principal” were “hawking T-shirts that glorify Palestinian terror.” The Post article assumed that the T-shirt’s slogan, “Intafada NYC,” was “apparently a call for a Gaza-style uprising in the Big Apple.”

The T-shirt “activists” were the members of AWAAM (Arab Women Active In The Arts And Media)—who, in fact, had no ties to Almontaser.

“We look forward to the day when the press reports on the news, not instigates it,” AWAAM co-founder Mona Eldahry told the crowd.

“Once the tabloids came out with their smear campaign, where was the rest of the media?” wondered Deborah Howard, one of the school “designers.” “If this is a Department of Education school,” she added, “why aren’t they standing behind Debbie?”

Rabbi Michael Feinberg, part of a large contingent of Jewish supporters, called the Khalil Gibran school a “gift” to the city.

“Where is the mayor?” shouted someone in the crowd.

Priscilla Gonzalez, representing the Center for Immigrant Families, told the crowd: “We wrote a letter to UFT [United Federation of Teachers] president Randi Weingarten, because we believe she played a particularly destructive role in Debbie Almontaser’s forced resignation. We believe Ms. Weingarten should make a public apology for her outrageous action.”

In addition to denouncing Weingarten for furthering “anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism” in New York City, the letter said: “It is not the word intifada that promotes violence and should be denounced; rather what should be denounced is an occupation that promotes violence and that made the intifada necessary.”

—Robert Hirschfield