Muslims and Liberals

The Daily Star – Lebanon
May 20, 2008

The other day my wife and I headed for New Hampshire to spend the weekend with my in-laws. At the Baltimore-Washington International airport, Patricia used her e-ticket to get her boarding pass from a machine. But when she keyed in my e-ticket information, a message on the computer screen directed me to the check-in counter.

“I got my boarding pass from that machine but couldn’t get my husband’s!” Pat told a woman behind a Northwest Airlines desk. The clerk checked out my ticket in her computer and said, “You’re on the watch list, sir!”

I had suspected that for five years.

The Northwest employee would not say what I was being watched for but confirmed that the watch list had come from the Department of Homeland Security.

I believe my views on the Palestinian issue and terrorism are the main reasons for my being on that list.

On January 13, 2003, Pat had just summoned me and our two children for dinner in our home in the Washington suburbs when three men appeared at the door. They introduced themselves as “terrorism investigators” from Homeland Security and wanted to talk to me. Alia and Jamal, then teenagers, looked scared, and I sent them to the living room. My wife sat by as the men interrogated me at the kitchen table.

They quizzed me about a host of Muslim intellectuals and activists in the United States, Europe and Pakistan whom I had known or interviewed. Did any of them have ties to Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hizbullah or any other “terrorist” groups? I said I did not know and asked the lead interrogator how he would “define terrorism.”

“Well,” he said, “do any of them support the Palestinians?”

My wife’s eyebrows rose.

“Gentlemen,” I said, “I support the Palestinians.”

A Homeland Security terrorism investigator visited me again. He asked me about some of my other Muslim contacts, and even though I had been writing about a variety of issues, he asked my views only on terrorism and Palestinian militant groups. I reiterated that the Palestinian guerrillas were doing what Massachusetts Minutemen had done during the American Revolution: fighting for national liberation.

These federal agents could have learned about my meetings with some Muslim activists and academics from published articles in which I had quoted them. But they also quizzed me about those whom I had contacted by phone and e-mail but had not mentioned in any writings. I realized that my phone conversations and e-mails could have been intercepted.

Homeland Security appears to have circulated my profile to airlines. This past March 31 I boarded a British Airways flight in Dhaka, Bangladesh, to return to Washington. A flight attendant handed me a lunch packet about 10 minutes before the lunch carts rolled in to serve lunch to everybody else. I asked her why she had served me before other passengers. She said mine was a “Muslim meal,” meaning the meat was kosher. I said I did not request a kosher meal and asked how she knew that I was a Muslim.

“I also know,” she whispered, “that you speak four languages!” She scampered away before I could ask about the source of her information.

During my international flights, my luggage is held up, apparently for special scrutiny. Since 2003 I have flown out of the US four times. On every occasion my luggage arrived one to five days late.

On June 10, 2007, for example, I flew to the United Arab Emirates along with a several other American journalists to cover the surge of trade and business in that country. At Abu Dhabi airport I was the only one of the group whose luggage was missing. It was only delivered five days later, on the eve of my departure. All week I interviewed government ministers and other officials and attended banquets and meetings in the same pair of jeans and short-sleeve shirt in which I had flown in. (As I expected the luggage to arrive by the next fight, I didn’t buy new clothing.)

On my return to New York on June 17 I had to spend 20-25 minutes answering questions about where I went, whom I met, what I did, and more, while my companions breezed through without any hassle. I was the only Muslim among the group.

There have also been discernible attempts to provoke me into criticizing Israel and America. Several suspicious characters have sought me out to discuss Palestine and Israel and Muslim militancy. All began by railing against Israel, the “Jews” and American policy in the Middle East. Some claimed to be journalists whom I could not track down later. Then there was the TV “producer” who wanted to retain me as a consultant for her documentary to “expose” Israeli atrocities in Palestine. Whenever I returned her calls, she would not hear me well or would be on another call. A couple of minutes later she would call back and begin blasting Israel’s “state terrorism” and America’s “anti-Muslim” foreign policy. She went through this routine after each of my calls. I realized that she was probably taping my comments. An Internet search failed to show a documentary she claimed to have produced and stories she claimed to have written for US News and World Report.

One day she called to announce she would have an assignment to do a major story on India’s underclass. If she could get the funding for me, would I join her? During the conversation, she reviled Israel’s “crime against humanity” in Gaza. After the conversation she e-mailed me her photograph. What an attractive blonde, I thought.

I asked my wife, who shared my suspicions of her, if I should accompany this pretty “journalist” to India. “If you do,” my wife warned, “you will be on my watch list!”