- Record: found
- Abstract: found
- Article: found
From 1967 to Operation Boulder: The Erosion of Arab Americans' Civil Liberties in the 1970s
Abstract
This article examines the US government's targeting of Arab Americans for surveillance and harassment in the wake of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and the Palestinian terrorist group Black September's murder of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972. In the late 1960s, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) included Arabs as targets of its COINTELPRO surveillance program, and in 1972 the Nixon administration created the Cabinet Committee to Combat Terrorism and the visa check system Operation Boulder to monitor Arab residents and Arab Americans. The federal government overstepped its constitutional boundaries and used its powers to repress Arab American activism on behalf of Palestine. The article explores Arab Americans' responses and resistance to government violations of their civil liberties. Ironically, the government's attempt to divide and intimidate Arab Americans actually served to heighten their unity and advance their activism.
Content
Author and article information
Notes
“Abdeen Jabara Discusses Lawsuit against FBI,” AAUG Newsletter September 1979; Abdeen Jabara interview, Tracked in America, American Civil Liberties Union, http://www.trackedinamerica.org/timeline/civil_rights/jabara/, accessed July 18, 2012; Billy Bowles and Susan Brown, “FBI Admits Wiretapping Detroit Arab Spokesman,” Detroit Free Press May 22, 1974; M. Cherif Bassiouni, “The AAUG: Reflections on a Lost Opportunity,” Arab Studies Quarterly 29: 3–1 (Summer-Fall 2007): 29.
“Ford: Mideast Agitators on U.S. Campuses,” Sandusky Register April 25, 1969; Irving Spiegel, “Pro-Arab Groups in U.S. Assailed,” New York Times April 21, 1969; Arnold Forster, Letter to the Editor, The New York Times May 28, 1969; Hatem I. Hussaini, “The Impact of the Arab-Israeli Conflict on Arab Communities in the United States,” in Ibrahim Abu-Lughod and Baha Abu-Laban, eds., Settler Regimes in Africa and the Arab World: The Illusion of Endurance (Wilmette, IL: Medina University Press International, 1974), 216–217; Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, Not Quite American? The Shaping of Arab and Muslim Identity in the United States (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2004), 20.
Seymour Hersh, “Alien-Radical Tie Disputed by CIA,” New York Times May 25, 1973; Charles R. Gessert, “A Non-Arab Looks at an Anti-Arab-American Policy,” in M. C. Bassiouni, ed., The Civil Rights of Arab-Americans: “The Special Measures” (North Dartmouth, MA: Association of Arab American University Graduates, 1974), 23.
Seymour Hersh, “Nixon '70 Domestic Security Plan Detailed,” The New York Times May 24, 1973.
Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Fedayeen Impact—Middle East and United States, June 1970,” http://www.governmentattic.org/2docs/FBI_Monograph_Fedayeen-Impact_1970.pdf, accessed April 18, 2013; FBI, “The Fedayeen Terrorist—a Profile,” 1970, http://www.governmentattic.org/docs/FBI_Monograph_Fedayeen_Terrorist_June-1970.pdf, accessed April 18, 2013.
Abdeen Jabara, “Operation Arab,” in M. C. Bassiouni, ed., The Civil Rights of Arab-Americans (North Dartmouth, MA: Association of Arab American University Graduates, 1974), 1–15.
For example, see “U.S. Checks Arabs to Block Terror,” The New York Times October 5, 1972; “U.S. Measures against Terror,” Newsweek October 16, 1972.
Nicholas Horrock, “New Senate Panel May Study F.B.I. Drive on Arab Terrorism,” The New York Times February 13, 1975; Abdeen Jabara, “Investigating the FBI/CIA Apparatus: Will It Include the Arab-Americans?” Text of speech delivered to Illinois AAUG, Chicago, IL, March 8, 1975, in Abdeen Jabara Papers, Bentley Historical Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan (hereafter AJP), Box 10, Folder: Activities—Harassment of Arab Americans—Testimonials; Tim Weiner, Enemies: A History of the FBI (New York: Random House, 2012), 292–295, 313–314. Led by Senator Frank Church, and often referred to as the Church Committee, the Senate's Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities learned in its 1975 hearings of the FBI's 1972 burglary of the Arab Information Center as part of its investigation of the FBI's illegal activities.
Secretary of State William Rogers, Memo to President Nixon, September 18, 1972, National Archives, Record Group 59.
Cabinet Committee to Combat Terrorism (CCCT) Working Group, Minutes of 10 October and 12 October 1972 meetings, Nixon Presidential Library, White House Special Files, State Member and Office Files, Richard C. Tufaro, Subject Files 1972–3, CCCT Working Group, Box 1, in Salim Yaqub's personal collection.
CCCT Working Group, Minutes of 6 December 1972 and 7 March 1973 meetings, Tufaro files, Box 1; Acting Director of FBI to White House situation room, re: Arab Terrorism, March 1973, Tufaro files, Box 3; quote from FBI to US Attorney General Edward Levi, April 28, 1975, in National Archives, Record Group 60: Department of Justice, Box 32, Subject Files of Attorney General Levi, Folder: Counter-intelligence—Arabs.
Jabara, “Operation Arab,” 9.
Jabara, “Operation Arab,” 9; Charlotte Saikowksi, “Arabs in U.S. Cite Harassment,” Christian Science Monitor January 22, 1973.
Saikowksi, “Arabs in U.S. Cite Harassment,”; Joe Stork and Rene Theberge, “Any Arab or Others of a Suspicious Nature,” MERIP Reports 14 (February 1973): 3–6, 13; Betty Edwards, “Victims in the War on Terrorism,” The Palestinian Voice April 16, 1973, clipping in Fayez Sayegh Papers, University of Utah, Marriott Library, Salt Lake City, UT, Box 355, Folder 13.
Walt Murray, “U.S. Checking Arab Students in Colleges,” Independent Press-Telegram (Long Beach), November 8, 1972, in AJP, Box 13, Folder: Operation Boulder -Press Clippings 1972–9; Stork and Theberge, “Any Arab or Others,” 4. In April 1973, Edwards, “Victims in the War,” quoted the Los Angeles district INS director stating that between 300 and 500 Arab students in the area had been questioned.
Edwards, “Victims in the War”; Stork and Theberge, “Any Arab or Others,” 4.
Quoted in Edwards, “Victims in the War.”
Gessert, “A Non-Arab Looks,” 18.
Bassiouni, “The AAUG: Reflections,” 28; Lawrence Mosher, “Arabs Taste U.S. ‘Terror,’” The National Observer November 18, 1972.
AJP, Box 10, Folder: Activities: Harassment of Arab Americans—Correspondence, Folder Harassment of Arab Americans—Testimonials and Misc.; Box 13, Folder: Operation Boulder—Correspondence and Miscellaneous; author interview with Ismael Ahmed, May 22, 2012.
Bassiouni, “Introduction,” The Civil Rights of Arab-Americans vi; Jabara, “Investigating the FBI/CIA Apparatus”; Saikowksi, “Arabs in U.S. Cite Harassment,”; Elaine Hagopian, “Minority Rights in a Nation-State: The Nixon Administration's Campaign Against the Arab Americans,” Journal of Palestine Studies 5 (Fall 1975): 101–102.
Stork and Theberge, “Any Arab or Others,” 5.
Hagopian, “Minority Rights,” 102–103; “AAUG Defends Rights of Arabs,” AAUG Newsletter March 1973.
Jabara, AAUG President to AAUG Members and Friends, October 5, 1972; and Steve Hollopeter of National Lawyers Guild and Community Legal Assistance Center, Los Angeles, to Jabara, October 27, 1972, both in AJP, Box 10, Folder: Activities: Harassment of Arab Americans—Correspondence; Aryeh Neier, Executive Director of American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to Richard Kleindienst, US Attorney General, October 16, 1972, in AJP, Box 13, Folder: Operation Boulder—Correspondence and Miscellaneous; National Lawyers Guild newsletter, January 1973, reprinted in Bassiouni, ed., The Civil Rights 34; Organization of Arab Students, Wayne State University, to Members and Friends, November 20, 1972, in AJP, Box 10, Folder: Harassment of Arab Americans—Correspondence.
Jabara, Telegram to Rogers, in AJP, Box 10, Folder: Activities: Harassment of Arab Americans—Correspondence; Bassiouni's correspondence with Nixon and Gray is reprinted in Bassiouni, ed., The Civil Rights 28–30. Also see Jabara, Bassiouni, and Omar Ghobashy to US Attorney General, February 8, 1974, The Civil Rights 86–90.
Greene, Associate Commissioner of INS, to Jabara, November 1, 1972 and November 24, 1972, in AJP, Box 9, Folder: Activities—Harassment of Arab Americans—Correspondence; Saikowksi, “Arabs in U.S. Cite Harassment,” 27.
Farrell to Hart, December 20, 1972 in AJP, Box 13, Folder: Operation Boulder—Correspondence and Miscellaneous; Hart to Farrell, December 29, 1972, and Hart to Jabara, December 29, 1972 in AJP, Box 9, Folder: Activities—Harassment of Arab Americans—Correspondence.
Abourezk to Clarence Kelley, Director of FBI, November 8, 1973; Hassan Husseini to Abourezk, December 1, 1973; Jabara to Abourezk, June 3, 1974, all in AJP, Box 9, Folder: Activities—Harassment of Arab Americans—Correspondence.
“Is the Nixon Administration Playing Politics with Civil Liberties?” New York Times October 29, 1972; Hagopian, “Minority Rights,” 102–103. Other sponsors of the ad were the Action Committee on Arab-American Relations (New York City), the Ad Hoc Committee for Lebanon (Washington DC), American Arab Yemeni Benevolent Society (Dearborn, MI), American Arabic Association (Boston), Cleveland Council on Arab-American Relations, World Lebanese Cultural Union, Washington DC chapter. Other Arab American activist organizations vocally protested the government's harassment during the Operation Boulder years. For example, Dr. Mohammed T. Mehdi, the New York City-based director of the Action Committee on American Arab Relations spoke out against Operation Boulder investigations. The New York Times quoted Mehdi denouncing the operation as “witch-hunting” and “defamation,” and declaring that “Zionist terrorism against the Arabs is a greater menace to American society and its Arab community than any possible Palestinian terrorism.” Mehdi quoted in John L. Hess, “Mideast Tensions Afflicting the Arab Communities Here,” The New York Times October 7, 1972.
Diab quoted in Mosher; Hussaini, “The Impact of the Arab-Israeli Conflict,” 218–219; David Young, “Arabs in US Accuse FBI of Spying on Them,” Chicago Tribune July 13, 1975.
Jabara, “IRS Proposes to Revoke AAUG Tax Exemption: Another Form of Political Harassment,” in The Civil Rights 49–54.
“A Plan to Screen Terrorists Ends,” The New York Times April 24, 1975.
Matt Ross, People's Law Office to NLG Middle East Subcommittee, February 2, 1979, in AJP, Box 12, Folder: NLG Middle East Delegation correspondence; “Always, It's the Homeland, Even in U.S.” Detroit Free Press September 17, 1982.
Jabara, “Investigating the FBI/CIA Apparatus.” COINTELPRO's illegal tactics were exposed and terminated in 1971, but the Nixon White House was developing a similar plan to harass groups and individuals it considered political enemies, such as anti-war activists and the Black Panthers. Although the program—dubbed the Huston Plan after its main author, White House aide Tom Charles Huston—was never officially approved, elements of it were secretly implemented, and the federal government's illegal surveillance of leftist organizations persisted in the early 1970s. See Weiner, Enemies 289–295, 335.
Hersh, “Nixon '70” and “Alien-Radical Tie”; Bassiouni, “Introduction,” in The Civil Rights vii–viii.
Jabara, “Investigating the FBI/CIA Apparatus”; Author interview with Jabara, July 23, 2012; Bassiouni, “The AAUG: Reflections,” 28.
Hagopian, “Minority Rights,” 106; Bassiouni, ed. The Civil Rights 48.