Posted on 08/07/2007 3:00:27 PM PDT by Baladas
The principal of an Arabic-language public school due to open next month is under fire for taking what several Jewish groups are condemning as a soft stance on the violent Palestinian Arab uprising known as the intifada. The principal, Debbie Almontaser, was quoted yesterday interpreting T-shirts that say "Intifada NYC" as not an endorsement of violence but rather "an opportunity for girls to express that they are part of New York City society ... and shaking off oppression." She followed the word's literal Arabic meaning, which is "struggle" or "uprising."
In a statement late yesterday afternoon, Ms. Almontaser backed away from her comments, reported by the New York Post, saying she regretted suggesting the T-shirt slogan was appropriate. "By minimizing the word's historical associations I implied that I condone violence and threats of violence," she said. "That view is anathema to me and the very opposite of my life's work."
Ms. Almontaser has previously led inter-group tolerance lessons for city schoolchildren, and her supporters say her school, the Khalil Gibran International Academy, will bridge differences by teaching a diverse group of students the Arabic language alongside a traditional college preparatory curriculum.
Among the critics to emerge before she released her statement yesterday were several groups that had extended close support to the school, set to open in Brooklyn this September.
"I feel like a fool. I think Abe Foxman should feel like a fool. And certainly Joel Klein if he sponsors it will be a fool," a CUNY board member who had decided to support the school, Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, said
(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...
al-taqiyya.
TRANSLATION: I’m sorry I got caught.
Jeeeeezzzz...ye ole BS’o’meter is going to get posted a lot today!
Liar, liar, burqa on fire.
Time to lower the curtain on this farce. Someone ought to be suing them for violating the Establishment clause. The woman sounds like a head case, and definitely too stupid to be running any kind of school.
What’s the problem here? Currently, we import people from the Middle East to do the terror work that Americans won’t do. Now, we’ve set up a school that will teach Americans how to be terrorists. Isn’t it good that we’ve expanded such opportunities for our young people?
/S
I am opposed to this school for several reasons:
We have no idea of the lesson plan. it sounds like a madrassa, with public funds.
We should be teaching kids in English, not in hundreds of different languages.
It’s discriminatory to have a school just for the Arabic community when we don’t have schools exclusively for all other communities.
And it’s a dihonor to the good name of Khalil Gibran.
I dare say dear Debbie came to realize she just charted herself on millions of radars that she would have been better off not appearing.
I am so torn over my future as an American born woman.
Do I learn to wear a burqa?
Do I also need to learn Spanish?
Someone should print up some shirts that say “Mein Kampf NYC.” Ms. Almontaser won’t be offended, since the literal meaning of the word “Kampf” is struggle.
I’ve asked some acquaintances at the NYC Dep of Ed and a lawyer I know at the NYCLU (ugh) how an Arabic culture school can be justified when Arabic culture cannot be studied, addressed, or explained without studying Islam, and wouldn’t this be a violation of church and state. The responses I received were perfect imitaitons of Ralph Kramden’s “homida homida homida...”
Why can these people not see what the Arabs are really up to?
Do I also need to learn Spanish?
I say, burqa. Chicks in burqas are hot! But then, combine burqas with Latino chicks, and, as Cosmo Kramer says, oh, baby!
As someone who works with criminals on a daily basis, when a criminal says they’re sorry, what they mean is they are sorry that they got caught and now have to be in jail.
Are you sure they're chicks, or hairy guys with bombs?
Indedd, it can not be studied without glorifying Islam? Is anyone going to talle the truth about the first Muslim centuries, when a few thousand Arab rulers feasted on the labor and the cultures of the Syrian and Persian cultures which they had taken over? Virtually everything was derivitive. Apart from religion and government the Arabs brought nothing to the table. Neither art nor science. What they brought was the law and order of their form of colonial government.
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