American Arab Anti Discrimination Committee

Resolutions adopted by the Board of Directors of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) on June 7, 2001.

The Arab-American community gathered at the 18th annual convention of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), the nation's largest Arab-American membership organization, which was held in Arlington, VA from June 7-10, 2001. At the Convention, ADC's Board of Directors adopted resolutions committing the organization to:

1) Strongly Support the Struggle of the Palestinian People for Freedom and Independence

ADC will do everything in its power to support and show solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people to be free of Israeli occupation. ADC strongly supports the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and the creation of a Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem. ADC notes that the current uprising against Israeli rule in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel has been made necessary by Israel's refusal, for over 34 years, to end the occupation. ADC demands an end to the occupation and immediate international protection for the Palestinian people.

Israeli settlement activity, which has continued at a steady pace throughout the past decade, is going ahead in spite of the conflict and numerous calls for it to halt, including from the Mitchell Commission. Settlements are designed to thwart peace by making Palestinian independence impossible, are a violation of the 4th Geneva Convention and numerous UN Security Council resolutions, and have been described by the International Committee of the Red Cross as amounting to a "war crime." ADC demands that all settlement activity cease at once, and that the settlements are dismantled as required by international law.

Israel has resorted to brutal violence, largely against unarmed civilians, in an effort to crush the uprising, including the use of tanks, heavy artillery, helicopter gunships and F-16 war planes. Many of these US-supplied weapons have been used in violation, not only of the 4th Geneva Convention and the laws of war, but also United States law. ADC calls upon the United States government to suspend all aid to Israel as long as it continues to maintain its occupation through excessive force and the illegal use of US-supplied weapons.

2) Assert the Right of Return for All Palestinian Refugees

ADC resolves to do everything possible to promote the prompt realization of the right of return for Palestinian refugees. The dispossession of the Palestinians constitutes the largest and most long lasting refugee crisis of our time. There are currently over 3.7 million Palestinian refugees registered with the UN, and at least one million more in a diaspora which reaches throughout the Middle East and the rest of the world. These millions of Palestinians have an absolute, inalienable and individual human right to return to their original homes and country. The right of return is guaranteed to all displaced persons by the most basic documents of human rights law, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Fourth Geneva Convention. Moreover, these rights have been explicitly and specifically applied to the Palestinian refugees by UN Resolution 194 and countless other UN Resolutions. Palestinian refugees are also entitled to a full restoration of their property, and to compensation for all losses incurred as a result of their dispossession and forced exile.

3) Defend Lebanese Sovereignty, Ensure Israeli Reparations

ADC demands that all parties respect the territorial integrity of Lebanon, insists that all Israeli attacks and threats against Lebanon cease and that Israel withdraw from the Lebanese territory it continues to occupy. ADC welcomes the one-year anniversary of the defeat of Israel in south Lebanon, but notes that Israel continues to violate UN Security Council Resolution 425, given that it still occupies parts of the Shebaa Farms area. In 1978, the UN Security Council, including the United States, unanimously demanded in Resolution 425 that Israel withdraw its troops from Lebanon "forthwith" and without condition. ADC notes that Israel's withdrawal cannot be considered complete until it removes its soldiers from every inch of Lebanese territory and stops threatening Lebanon. Israel also continues to hold a large number of Lebanese civilians hostage inside Israel, which is an unacceptable violation of human rights, and international law and norms of conduct. Moreover, Israel clearly owes the Lebanese people substantial reparations, for which international aggressors are now held to be liable. ADC calls upon the US government and international community to ensure that the Israeli withdrawal is completed and the hostages freed, Israeli threats stop and Israel meet its obligations to pay reparations to the Lebanese people

4) Complete Israeli Withdrawal from the Golan Heights

ADC demands the full withdrawal by Israel from all occupied Syrian territory seized in June 1967, and a return to the borders of June 4, 1967. This means a complete withdrawal from all of the Golan Heights, including the northern shores of Lake Tiberias. The tens of thousands of Syrians expelled from the Golan Heights must be allowed to return to their homes and live free from foreign military occupation, threat or intimidation.

5) End the Sanctions and Bombing Against Iraq

ADC resolves to do all it can to bring an end to the sanctions and bombing attacks against Iraq. After a decade of an unprecedented blockade of their country, the people of Iraq are enduring a man-made humanitarian disaster unlike any in history. Reports from UNICEF and other United Nations agencies operating in Iraq estimate that over one million civilians, mostly children, have died from malnutrition and disease as a result of the embargo. UNICEF also reports that, despite the UN's Oil-for-Food program, several thousand children under the age of 5 die every month. ADC welcomes the Bush Administration's willingness to rethink the sanctions policy, but insists that the only "smart sanctions" are no sanctions at all. Although not widely reported in the American press, since January 1999 almost daily bombing attacks on targets on Iraq have been conducted by the US and British military. In 1999, Iraq was bombed on 138 separate days, with more than 450 targets attacked, 1,800 bombs dropped and 156 people killed, many of them civilians including children. According to Iraqi sources, in 2000 US and British aircraft violated Iraq's air space 11,065 times, in the course of which 68 civilian buildings were bombed resulting in 30 civilians being killed and 134 more injured. These attacks have continued into 2001, including a major bombardment just outside Baghdad. These attacks fuel a strong sense in the Arab world that a moral inconsistency informs the American approach to the Middle East, whereby Arab nations are routinely and casually bombed. The sanctions and bombings, which amount to a ten-year siege of Iraq, threaten not just Iraqi society but regional stability. It is high time to end, and not simply revise, the policy of cruel and pointless sanctions and bombings against the Iraqi people.

6) Defend Due Process Rights and Abolish Secret Evidence

ADC resolves to do everything in its power to abolish the use of secret evidence in American courts, and to that end promote passage of H.R. 1266, "the Secret Evidence Repeat Act." Since 1996, some two dozen persons, almost all of Arab ethnicity and/or Muslim religious affiliation, have been incarcerated without charge and on the basis of evidence withheld from the defendants, the attorneys and the public. Due to the serious constitutional problems with the use of such evidence, for several years the government has failed to win a single major ruling and has lost case after case. While only two and a half years ago, ADC was aware of over 20 cases of secret evidence detention, it is our understanding that all Arabs and Muslims so held have been released and that there is only one individual still detained on the basis of secret evidence. Several deportation proceedings involving secret evidence but not incarceration are ongoing. ADC will work to see to it that Congress passes the Secret Evidence Repeal Act as soon as possible. In the meantime, ADC insists that Attorney General Ashcroft and the Justice Department should confirm that they do not intend to continue the use of secret evidence in deportation cases. As an important first step, the INS should at long last end its 14-year effort to deport Khader Hamide and Michel Shehadeh, and drop the LA 8 case.

7) Defend Civil Liberties from Excessive Counter-Terrorism Measures

ADC will combat all efforts to restrict or reduce civil liberties in the United States in the name of counter-terrorism. There is steady pressure for the government to significantly weaken civil liberties protections on the grounds of an increasing terrorist threat. Last year, the National Commission on Terrorism demonstrated this trend by proposing more wiretaps on Americans using the Army to replace civilian law enforcement, encouraging the CIA to employ the worst villains, and investigating international students for majoring in science. Arab Americans are extremely concerned about the threat of terrorism, but such concerns cannot justify violating basic Constitutional rights and core values of American democracy. If implemented, recommendations such as these would severely damage civil liberties and facilitate abusive behavior by the government, without necessarily producing any increase in security. ADC resolves to defend civil liberties by opposing the implementation, whether by executive action or through legislation, of all such proposals.

8) End Racial Profiling

ADC resolves to continue to work with other civil rights organizations, including the NAACP and ACLU, to end all forms of profiling in US law enforcement, including the use of profiling at airports and by US Customs. ADC strongly supports passage of legislation which would bar US Customs from using race, religion, gender, national origin or sexual orientation in its law enforcement profiles. Following the TWA Flight 800 crash in 1996, a White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security chaired by Vice-President Al Gore mandated a "profiling" system of airline security which has resulted in the singling out, abusing and humiliating of Arab-American travelers solely based on their national background and ethnicity. However, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has not been able to point to a single case where profiling has led to the apprehending of someone who posed a threat to airport or airplane safety. No form of racial or ethnic profiling is acceptable in any aspect of US law enforcement.

9) Correct Media Biases

ADC demands greater responsibility from the entertainment and news media in the United States, both of which routinely indulge in severe anti-Arab bias in representation and reporting. Coverage in the US media of the uprising in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel has revealed shocking levels of hostility to Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims from many American commentators and journalists. ADC notes that the bias against Arabs in the American media has, in some cases, reached scandalous proportions, with commentators using outright invective and racist pejoratives against Arabs in many of the nation's leading newspapers and television networks. It has become clear that a level of outright hatred for Arabs, especially Palestinians, is permitted in the mainstream press which would not be allowed if directed against almost any other ethnic group. ADC calls upon the editors of major American publications to maintain consistent standards and ensure that their publications are not a platform for hostile anti-Arab prejudice.

The American entertainment industry in both films and television has consistently resisted positive or realistic representations of Arabs and Arab Americans. Negative representations in popular culture reinforce, and are reinforced by, biased and at times hostile journalism in the mainstream news media, academic polemics that urge a confrontational and aggressive approach to the U.S. role in the Middle East, and government policies and law enforcement behavior which are informed by anti-Arab bias. The result is a self-perpetuating vicious circle of negativity about Arabs and Arab Americans, who have been all-too-successfully represented as "the enemy" in contemporary American culture. While efforts to combat such defamation have led to a growing recognition of the problem, anti-Arab stereotyping of the worst kind continues. ADC is committed to working with the news and entertainment media to put an end to anti-Arab bias and defamation once and for all.

10) Encourage Strong Arab American Participation in Electoral Politics

ADC strongly encourages all segments of the Arab-American community to participate fully and energetically in the political process in the United States. The Arab-American community emerged more strongly than ever as an important national and local constituency in the 2000 elections. We need to build on this momentum and ensure that Arab Americans are involved at every level of the political process. Arab Americans are encouraged not only to vote, but to run for office, volunteer for campaigns, raise funds, make their views clearly known to candidates and organize electoral participation in the community.

11) Redouble efforts to bring Alex Odeh's killers to justice.

ADC pledges to redouble its efforts to bring the killers of the late Alex Odeh to justice. On October 11, 1985 Alex Odeh, Western Regional Director of ADC, was killed when a bomb exploded at the regional office of ADC at 1905 East 17th Street in Santa Ana California. Odeh was killed when he unlocked and opened the door of ADC's office at approximately 9:00 a.m. In addition to killing Odeh, the bomb injured several other people and caused massive damage to the building. The FBI suspects that the killers are Jewish extremists and supporters of the late Rabbi Mier Kahane. It believes that they are living in a Jewish settlement in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel. The FBI is offering up to one million dollars for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for this murder.

12) ADC reaffirms its support for freedom of expression and the press, civil rights and liberties, and human rights in the Arab World and for all people.

	12, June, 2001
	ADC Resolutions 2001

	Resolutions adopted by the Board of Directors of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) on June 7, 2001. The Arab-American community gathered at the 18th annual convention of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), the nation's largest Arab-American membership organization, which was held in Arlington, VA from June 7-10, 2001. At the Convention, ADC's Board of Directors adopted resolutions committing the organization to: 1) Strongly Support the Struggle of the Palestinian People for Freedom and Independence ADC will do everything in its power to support and show solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people to be free of Israeli occupation. ADC strongly supports the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and the creation of a Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem. ADC notes that the current uprising against Israeli rule in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel has been made necessary by Israel's refusal, for over 34 years, to end the occupation. ADC demands an end to the occupation and immediate international protection for the Palestinian people. Israeli settlement activity, which has continued at a steady pace throughout the past decade, is going ahead in spite of the conflict and numerous calls for it to halt, including from the Mitchell Commission. Settlements are designed to thwart peace by making Palestinian independence impossible, are a violation of the 4th Geneva Convention and numerous UN Security Council resolutions, and have been described by the International Committee of the Red Cross as amounting to a "war crime." ADC demands that all settlement activity cease at once, and that the settlements are dismantled as required by international law. Israel has resorted to brutal violence, largely against unarmed civilians, in an effort to crush the uprising, including the use of tanks, heavy artillery, helicopter gunships and F-16 war planes. Many of these US-supplied weapons have been used in violation, not only of the 4th Geneva Convention and the laws of war, but also United States law. ADC calls upon the United States government to suspend all aid to Israel as long as it continues to maintain its occupation through excessive force and the illegal use of US-supplied weapons. 2) Assert the Right of Return for All Palestinian Refugees ADC resolves to do everything possible to promote the prompt realization of the right of return for Palestinian refugees. The dispossession of the Palestinians constitutes the largest and most long lasting refugee crisis of our time. There are currently over 3.7 million Palestinian refugees registered with the UN, and at least one million more in a diaspora which reaches throughout the Middle East and the rest of the world. These millions of Palestinians have an absolute, inalienable and individual human right to return to their original homes and country. The right of return is guaranteed to all displaced persons by the most basic documents of human rights law, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Fourth Geneva Convention. Moreover, these rights have been explicitly and specifically applied to the Palestinian refugees by UN Resolution 194 and countless other UN Resolutions. Palestinian refugees are also entitled to a full restoration of their property, and to compensation for all losses incurred as a result of their dispossession and forced exile. 3) Defend Lebanese Sovereignty, Ensure Israeli Reparations ADC demands that all parties respect the territorial integrity of Lebanon, insists that all Israeli attacks and threats against Lebanon cease and that Israel withdraw from the Lebanese territory it continues to occupy. ADC welcomes the one-year anniversary of the defeat of Israel in south Lebanon, but notes that Israel continues to violate UN Security Council Resolution 425, given that it still occupies parts of the Shebaa Farms area. In 1978, the UN Security Council, including the United States, unanimously demanded in Resolution 425 that Israel withdraw its troops from Lebanon "forthwith" and without condition. ADC notes that Israel's withdrawal cannot be considered complete until it removes its soldiers from every inch of Lebanese territory and stops threatening Lebanon. Israel also continues to hold a large number of Lebanese civilians hostage inside Israel, which is an unacceptable violation of human rights, and international law and norms of conduct. Moreover, Israel clearly owes the Lebanese people substantial reparations, for which international aggressors are now held to be liable. ADC calls upon the US government and international community to ensure that the Israeli withdrawal is completed and the hostages freed, Israeli threats stop and Israel meet its obligations to pay reparations to the Lebanese people 4) Complete Israeli Withdrawal from the Golan Heights ADC demands the full withdrawal by Israel from all occupied Syrian territory seized in June 1967, and a return to the borders of June 4, 1967. This means a complete withdrawal from all of the Golan Heights, including the northern shores of Lake Tiberias. The tens of thousands of Syrians expelled from the Golan Heights must be allowed to return to their homes and live free from foreign military occupation, threat or intimidation. 5) End the Sanctions and Bombing Against Iraq ADC resolves to do all it can to bring an end to the sanctions and bombing attacks against Iraq. After a decade of an unprecedented blockade of their country, the people of Iraq are enduring a man-made humanitarian disaster unlike any in history. Reports from UNICEF and other United Nations agencies operating in Iraq estimate that over one million civilians, mostly children, have died from malnutrition and disease as a result of the embargo. UNICEF also reports that, despite the UN's Oil-for-Food program, several thousand children under the age of 5 die every month. ADC welcomes the Bush Administration's willingness to rethink the sanctions policy, but insists that the only "smart sanctions" are no sanctions at all. Although not widely reported in the American press, since January 1999 almost daily bombing attacks on targets on Iraq have been conducted by the US and British military. In 1999, Iraq was bombed on 138 separate days, with more than 450 targets attacked, 1,800 bombs dropped and 156 people killed, many of them civilians including children. According to Iraqi sources, in 2000 US and British aircraft violated Iraq's air space 11,065 times, in the course of which 68 civilian buildings were bombed resulting in 30 civilians being killed and 134 more injured. These attacks have continued into 2001, including a major bombardment just outside Baghdad. These attacks fuel a strong sense in the Arab world that a moral inconsistency informs the American approach to the Middle East, whereby Arab nations are routinely and casually bombed. The sanctions and bombings, which amount to a ten-year siege of Iraq, threaten not just Iraqi society but regional stability. It is high time to end, and not simply revise, the policy of cruel and pointless sanctions and bombings against the Iraqi people. 6) Defend Due Process Rights and Abolish Secret Evidence ADC resolves to do everything in its power to abolish the use of secret evidence in American courts, and to that end promote passage of H.R. 1266, "the Secret Evidence Repeat Act." Since 1996, some two dozen persons, almost all of Arab ethnicity and/or Muslim religious affiliation, have been incarcerated without charge and on the basis of evidence withheld from the defendants, the attorneys and the public. Due to the serious constitutional problems with the use of such evidence, for several years the government has failed to win a single major ruling and has lost case after case. While only two and a half years ago, ADC was aware of over 20 cases of secret evidence detention, it is our understanding that all Arabs and Muslims so held have been released and that there is only one individual still detained on the basis of secret evidence. Several deportation proceedings involving secret evidence but not incarceration are ongoing. ADC will work to see to it that Congress passes the Secret Evidence Repeal Act as soon as possible. In the meantime, ADC insists that Attorney General Ashcroft and the Justice Department should confirm that they do not intend to continue the use of secret evidence in deportation cases. As an important first step, the INS should at long last end its 14-year effort to deport Khader Hamide and Michel Shehadeh, and drop the LA 8 case. 7) Defend Civil Liberties from Excessive Counter-Terrorism Measures ADC will combat all efforts to restrict or reduce civil liberties in the United States in the name of counter-terrorism. There is steady pressure for the government to significantly weaken civil liberties protections on the grounds of an increasing terrorist threat. Last year, the National Commission on Terrorism demonstrated this trend by proposing more wiretaps on Americans using the Army to replace civilian law enforcement, encouraging the CIA to employ the worst villains, and investigating international students for majoring in science. Arab Americans are extremely concerned about the threat of terrorism, but such concerns cannot justify violating basic Constitutional rights and core values of American democracy. If implemented, recommendations such as these would severely damage civil liberties and facilitate abusive behavior by the government, without necessarily producing any increase in security. ADC resolves to defend civil liberties by opposing the implementation, whether by executive action or through legislation, of all such proposals. 8) End Racial Profiling ADC resolves to continue to work with other civil rights organizations, including the NAACP and ACLU, to end all forms of profiling in US law enforcement, including the use of profiling at airports and by US Customs. ADC strongly supports passage of legislation which would bar US Customs from using race, religion, gender, national origin or sexual orientation in its law enforcement profiles. Following the TWA Flight 800 crash in 1996, a White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security chaired by Vice-President Al Gore mandated a "profiling" system of airline security which has resulted in the singling out, abusing and humiliating of Arab-American travelers solely based on their national background and ethnicity. However, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has not been able to point to a single case where profiling has led to the apprehending of someone who posed a threat to airport or airplane safety. No form of racial or ethnic profiling is acceptable in any aspect of US law enforcement. 9) Correct Media Biases ADC demands greater responsibility from the entertainment and news media in the United States, both of which routinely indulge in severe anti-Arab bias in representation and reporting. Coverage in the US media of the uprising in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel has revealed shocking levels of hostility to Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims from many American commentators and journalists. ADC notes that the bias against Arabs in the American media has, in some cases, reached scandalous proportions, with commentators using outright invective and racist pejoratives against Arabs in many of the nation's leading newspapers and television networks. It has become clear that a level of outright hatred for Arabs, especially Palestinians, is permitted in the mainstream press which would not be allowed if directed against almost any other ethnic group. ADC calls upon the editors of major American publications to maintain consistent standards and ensure that their publications are not a platform for hostile anti-Arab prejudice. The American entertainment industry in both films and television has consistently resisted positive or realistic representations of Arabs and Arab Americans. Negative representations in popular culture reinforce, and are reinforced by, biased and at times hostile journalism in the mainstream news media, academic polemics that urge a confrontational and aggressive approach to the U.S. role in the Middle East, and government policies and law enforcement behavior which are informed by anti-Arab bias. The result is a self-perpetuating vicious circle of negativity about Arabs and Arab Americans, who have been all-too-successfully represented as "the enemy" in contemporary American culture. While efforts to combat such defamation have led to a growing recognition of the problem, anti-Arab stereotyping of the worst kind continues. ADC is committed to working with the news and entertainment media to put an end to anti-Arab bias and defamation once and for all. 10) Encourage Strong Arab American Participation in Electoral Politics ADC strongly encourages all segments of the Arab-American community to participate fully and energetically in the political process in the United States. The Arab-American community emerged more strongly than ever as an important national and local constituency in the 2000 elections. We need to build on this momentum and ensure that Arab Americans are involved at every level of the political process. Arab Americans are encouraged not only to vote, but to run for office, volunteer for campaigns, raise funds, make their views clearly known to candidates and organize electoral participation in the community. 11) Redouble efforts to bring Alex Odeh's killers to justice. ADC pledges to redouble its efforts to bring the killers of the late Alex Odeh to justice. On October 11, 1985 Alex Odeh, Western Regional Director of ADC, was killed when a bomb exploded at the regional office of ADC at 1905 East 17th Street in Santa Ana California. Odeh was killed when he unlocked and opened the door of ADC's office at approximately 9:00 a.m. In addition to killing Odeh, the bomb injured several other people and caused massive damage to the building. The FBI suspects that the killers are Jewish extremists and supporters of the late Rabbi Mier Kahane. It believes that they are living in a Jewish settlement in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel. The FBI is offering up to one million dollars for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for this murder. 12) ADC reaffirms its support for freedom of expression and the press, civil rights and liberties, and human rights in the Arab World and for all people.