-Caveat Lector-
From
1 - http://www.frontpagemag.com/guestcolumnists2002/hitchens03-18-02.htm
2 - http://www.frontpagemag.com/horowitzsnotepad/2002/hn03-18-02.htm
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You Have Published A Nasty Hoax
By Christopher Hitchens
FrontPageMagazine.com | March 18, 2002
DEAR DAVID,
Since our last contact was so agreeable you will, I hope, believe me when I say that
I'm very distressed indeed at what I have just learned. I do not know who Hamid
Faraoui may be (and I don't know anyone who does) but Hussein Ibish would be
quite incapable of the foul action your anonymous informant alleges. I saw a good
deal of him during that period, and can affirm that he was one of the indispensable
voices in the American-Arab circle. He is a staunch defender of secularism and
spends a good deal of his time in combating and fending off the extremists and the
"moral equivalence" types. He was very adamantly opposed to any muddying of the
waters - i.e. he refused to say "this is awful but what about Palestine etc" - and he
was very useful to me in supplying figures about, say, the number of Yemeni workers
killed at the WTC.
You might suspect that pressure of events and opinion led him to do this but I can
speak to that, too, from long experience. Whenever anything shady or anti-Semitic
emanates from any pro-Palestinian quarter, he has always been extremely vigilant
and unequivocal, and has made himself quite unpopular among the true believers as
a result. At last year's ADC convention, where he organized a panel for Tom
Friedman and myself and several Arab journalists, the whole emphasis was on the
shortcomings of Arab regimes and societies.
Quite apart from all this, I have spent a good deal of time with him socially and this
is
- apart from the considerable pleasure of his company - because I find it invaluable
to have a friend who is so learned about the Arab and Muslim world while being so
convinced of the secular and internationalist world- view. So I repeat for emphasis -
your man (who has the nerve to sign himself "beloved Mecca", perhaps to test your
susceptibility to a nasty hoax) is really not even a liar. He is not just saying
something
untrue. He is saying something that could not be true.
You know just as well as I do that in the present circumstances an allegation of this
kind is something more than a mere smear. It is the nearest anyone could want to
come to circulating an incitement. I really think you have no honorable course except
to repair the damage as swiftly as possible.
As ever,
Christopher
Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair and the Nation. His most recent
book is Letters to a Young Contrarian (Basic Books, 2001).
End<{{{
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An Apology to Hussein Ibish
By David Horowitz
FrontPageMagazine.com | March 18, 2002
ON MARCH 15 we posted a feature called �A Disturbing Letter From A Saudi.�
Among other claims, the writer of this letter alleged, �I was with Hussein Ibish and
Hamid Faraoui [on 9/11], watching them cheering and singing, then denouncing the
attacks on TV later that day.� I am now persuaded that the particular claim about
Hussein Ibish is false, at least insofar as the Hussein Ibish who is the
Communications Director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee is
concerned. I say this because on March 16, I received an apologetic message from a
K. Saaidi who claims to have written the quoted e-mail. He says that he is the son of
a Saudi Wahhabi Muslim and an American and was referring to two clerics in Medina
named Ibish and Faraoui. I don�t know if this letter is a fiction either.
In any case, insofar as I am able to tell the following statement by the Hussein Ibish
who is the Communications Director of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination
Committee is true: �This is an outrageous and a damned lie. I did no such thing, and
I was with no Saudi individual on that day, which was probably the worst and most
mournful day of my life. Not only was my country attacked and thousands of my
fellow citizens killed by maniacs whose philosophy I detest, all of our efforts on
behalf
of Arab-American civil rights were dealt a severe blow from which we have yet to fully
recover.� Hussein Ibish is rightly upset that the letter from the alleged �Saudi
Citizen�
contains what are in his words �false accusations� which �constitute not only a vicious
and absurd slander, but also an incitement to violence against me.�
He is also correct in saying �I have never met Mr. Horowitz, and he doesn�t know a
thing about me.�
For this very reason, however, Hussein Ibish is wrong to claim that posting the words
of the alleged Saudi was �pure malevolence� and a calculated �smear� campaign
against him, especially since I had no idea who he was. This, too, is an
embarrassment. Hussein Ibish is a familiar figure to many cable watchers and would
be to me if I were able to spend more time watching cable (or network) TV. I should
have recognized his name, but did not. After this whole matter was brought to my
attention I did recall seeing him once on Hannity & Colmes, but I did not connect him
with the name in the letter, and in any case by the time I realized the connection it
was too late.
The fraudulent nature of the claim in the �Saudi� letter (at least insofar as it may
have
been intended to refer to this Hussein Ibish) was brought to my attention on the
evening of the day it was posted (Friday March 15) by my friend Christopher
Hitchens, whose word on this matter as far as I am concerned is conclusive. I
received Christopher's e-mail Friday night when I returned from a weeklong trip to
the Northeast and immediately sent an e-mail apology to Hussein Ibish. In my
absence my staff had already removed the letter from FrontPage (actually around
10am Pacific Time, Friday morning). I am posting Christopher�s e-mail as a
testimonial to the character of the Hussein Ibish who is Communications Director of
the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee. I have profound political
disagreements with the way this Committee conducts itself and therefore probably
with Hussein Ibish. I also have some important areas of disagreement with my friend
Christopher Hitchens. But these are irrelevant to the fact that this is a matter of a
man�s character and reputation, and it is important to set the record straight. I have
therefore removed the letter from our site and am taking this occasion to make a
public apology. �Hamid Faraoui� has not been identified by anyone. But if he exists
(and is not a cleric in Medina and did not express those sentiments) I apologize to
him as well. I also owe an explanation to the readers of FrontPage who count on its
editors to post features that are accurate. The offending letter was obviously not an
article by one of our regular contributors whose journalistic integrity we count on.
Hence it does not reflect on the vast bulk of material that appears on this site. It
was
an e-mail to �In Your Face,� which is a section of the site reserved for readers to
communicate their views to me. In the past I have only posted a handful of letters like
the alleged �Saudi� letter, which came from these e-mails or from correspondents
unknown to me. As a result of this incident, I will probably not be publishing many
such letters in the future.
I did of course indicate in my short note introducing the letter that I had �no way of
knowing whether it is authentic.� But I also undermined this caveat by adding that �its
particulars seem accurate to me.� I should have been more specific as to which
particulars and should have removed names of individuals other than heads of state
from the post. I thought at the time that �Hussein Ibish� and �Hamid Faraoui were
generic Arabic names and would not be identifiable as individuals except by the
writer of the letter.
David Horowitz
David Horowitz is editor-in-chief of FrontPageMagazine.com and president of the
Center for the Study of Popular Culture.
End<{{{~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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