Weekly Terrorism Spotlight

Volume 1, Issue 4 (April 7)

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

NYC public madrassa conflict heats up

Academic backers, activist critics, trade barbs over New York City public-funded Islamic madrassa conflict

Parent activists in New York City told PRB News Monday, April 7, they are being called intolerant extremists because they oppose a public-funded Islamic religious madrassa: Khalil Gibran International Academy.

Academy supporters, friends of its deposed founder and first principal Debbi Almontaser, said it was the parental group and some NYC government leaders casting unfair accusations. They added it is incorrect to call it a madrassa in the first place.

A recent open letter to NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Education Dept Chancellor Joel Klein supported the school as a chartered Arab language and culture education opportunity.

The parental group said the academy stands for public funded teaching of Islamic religious prayers, holidays and theological instruction.

“Khalil Gibran International Academy finds itself under new fire from angry parents in the Green-point section of Brooklyn who feel KGIA is being imposed on [them],” parent spokesperson Beth Gilinsky told PRB News.

Parental discomfort with the school since its Sept. 4, 2007 opening in Brooklyn is due in part to its shared space with Brooklyn High School for the Arts and a school for math and science.

“Radical Islamist groups and their enablers are attempting to silence American citizens through boycotts, name calling…and other forms of intimidation,” Gilinsky added.

She is a leader of NYC-based Stop the Madrassa Coalition – parents opposed to the public funding of programs favoring Islamic religious instruction.

Stop the Madrassa said it is some of the Khalil Gibran apologists for Islamic education who should be investigated because of links among some of them to a left-wing subversive past.

The supporters countered Khalil Gibran is an approved public school, it is a done deal and that fact should not be swept aside amidst the storm of protest.

“This small dual-language school addressed a need and dream of many in NYC’s Arab community. [Almontaser is] a respected educator and community leader who was selected to become the school's founding principal,” the letter stated.

“Before the school ever opened its doors, Almontaser was forced to resign…a blow was struck against the rights and academic freedom of educators everywhere,” the letter stated.

“A campaign of lies, racial fear and anti-Arab prejudice…including the New York Post and supported by Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein, forced Almontaser from her post.”

Supporters stated the loss of Almontaser left the academy with unqualified leadership, and the cause of the school flounders as a direct result.

“KGIA was attacked by a small group of fear-mongering bigots,” they said. “It was labeled a "terrorist school" and a "madrassa," But this campaign of slander has been met by a broad coalition supporting the school and its intended principal.”

Stop the Madrassa said Almontaser publicly stated KGIA is a school reflecting her vision and she believes America is a racist country, at fault for 9/11 and fighting in illegitimate war on terror.

Almontaser was forced to resign last August due to the public outcry over her support of terrorism against Israel’s national authority – the Hamas insurrection called intifada.

In New York, “NYC Intifada” t-shirts sold by the Arab Women in the Arts and Media were endorsed by Almontaser – and she refused to back down on the controversy.

Gilinski also turned her attention to some of the letter’s signers. “Among them…were a number of well-known former leaders of extremist Leftist organizations,” she said.

She cited published reports of numerous signers reportedly involved in named organizations alleged to have carried out radical activities in the 1970s.

Included was a report by Wikipedia of a bomb-making accident March 6, 1970, destroying a Greenwich Village townhouse and killing three fellow members of the Weather Underground.

Gilinski said a second named supporter of Khalil Gibran helped start Students for a Democratic Society in 1967 and two years later founded the October League, an organizational committee for the 1977 founding of the Communist Party in New York.

Supporters countered the signers include “leading organizations spanning the many diverse communities in New York…pursuing every channel to restore Almontaser to her rightful position and to clear her name and her reputation.”

Stop the Madrassa is pressing forward in their fight against Khalil Gibran after a Freedom of Information Act request to review complete textbook and lesson plan documentation.

“Because the Department of Education did not comply [we were] forced to file an Article 78 petition in Manhattan Supreme Court,” Gilinski said.

“Not surprisingly, the documents turned over pursuant to the FOIA request substantiated [our] concerns,” she added.

“To date the school does not have proper textbooks, curricula, or lesson plans for teaching middle and high school Arabic language and culture…KGIA is poorly thought-out.”

Khalil Gibran supporters countered, “Will bigotry be allowed to decide which public schools can exist and who can lead them?”

This “is also an attack on the small-schools movement and on the push for diversity and equity within our system of public education.”

Gilinski said Stop the Madrassa is expanding its fight nationwide to halt Islamism in curricula, Arab language programs, history classes, textbooks, teacher training and charter schools.

We “do not oppose the teaching of Arabic language or Arabic culture in a balanced public school curriculum offering several languages and covering all cultures,” she said.

“We will not be silenced and we stand in solidarity with others who have been defamed or targeted for exposing the dangers of Islamic fascism and jihadism.”