Terrorists under the bed

"Terrorism expert" Steven Emerson paints a terrifying picture of lethal Muslim fundamentalists among us in "American Jihad." But he doesn't know the difference between Osama bin Laden and Yasser Arafat.

By Eric Boehlert

March 5, 2002 | Steven Emerson, the self-styled terrorism expert, has enjoyed quite a rebound since Sept. 11. Best known for his 1994 PBS documentary "Jihad in America," which painted an ominous picture of Muslim terrorists and terrorist sympathizers lurking in the United States, Emerson has always been highly controversial. His defenders see him as a voice crying in the wilderness; critics accuse him of being a propagandistic crank. After he went on TV to suggest, immediately after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombings, that Muslim terrorists were responsible, many mainstream news organizations shunned him. But since the Sept. 11 attacks, Emerson is suddenly being embraced as that slightly eccentric uncle we all should have paid more attention to. Because, the conventional wisdom now goes, Emerson has been vindicated by last year's terrorist attacks. He tried to warn us about Islamic terrorists among us but we, as a nation, were too complacent to listen.

Lately, television cannot get enough of Emerson, who's always quick with a quip and offers up "expert" commentary that usually goes unchallenged by hosts and guests. He works as a consultant for NBC News, but is regularly booked by Fox News. CBS's "48 Hours" recently aired a segment on him, playing up the fact that, for security reasons, visitors to Emerson's Investigative Project headquarters must be blindfolded first and staffers have to remain anonymous. (Why, if safety is such a concern, Emerson is willing to sit in front of any television camera with a red light flashing, or remains a regular on the speaking tour, was never addressed.)

Now Emerson is trying to cement his Cassandra image -- and capitalize on it -- with "American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us," a quickie, large-print book that, minus the appendices, totals just 175 pages. This sensationalistic, poorly reasoned book will do nothing to enhance Emerson's stature among serious scholars. The "expert" who emerges from "American Jihad" is a heavy-handed scaremonger who fails to grasp -- or deliberately blurs -- the most rudimentary distinctions between different radical groups, asserting, for example, that the militant Shiite group Hezbollah, which is now a major political party and social services network in Lebanon, poses the same threat to America as al-Qaida. Whether this egregious conceptual flaw, which renders most of his book all but worthless, is the result of a political agenda to demonize passionate supporters of the Palestinian cause as terrorists or terrorist sympathizers, or is simply the result of hysteria and/or ignorance, is unclear.

For a decade, Emerson has been issuing dire, over-the-top warnings that Muslims in America -- many of them supporters of radical Palestinian groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad -- pose a catastrophic threat to the country. According to Emerson, Americans face a hideous threat in our own backyard: sophisticated, stateside Mafia-like Muslim groups that have been brazenly funding terrorist activities, infiltrating universities, recruiting killers, plotting attacks and waiting for the signal to rise up. He would like us to believe that Sept. 11 proves he was right all along. But it doesn't.

Sept. 11 obviously proved that one militant Islamic fundamentalist group does pose a deadly threat to the United States. But Emerson wants us to think they all do, and that they're working together -- yet there is no evidence to support either claim. In fact, with the exception of al-Qaida and the group that carried out the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, none of the groups and organizations Emerson denounces have ever carried out terrorist attacks in America, nor does Emerson present any evidence that they intend to do so. Nor does he provide any evidence that the terrorists who carried out the 1993 and 2001 attacks were welcomed by the American Muslim community at large, were shielded while they plotted their attacks or assisted in any way. Finally, there's nothing in "American Jihad" to suggest any American-based Muslim organization had anything to do with, or had any advance knowledge of, the attacks.

"The Hamas of Palestine, Hizbullah of Iran, the Islamic Salvation Front and Armed Islamic Group of Algeria, An-Nahda of Tunisia, the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Gama'at al-Islamiyya of Egypt, the Jam'at Muslimeen of Pakistan, and the Holy Warriors of the Philippines and Chechnya -- all share the same goal of an Islamic world," Emerson writes -- the context making it clear that he believes all of these wildly disparate groups are willing to use terror against the United States to achieve that goal. "In the past 12 years, however, these groups have achieved a new level of coordination, owing to their exploitation of the civil liberties of the U.S." Emerson provides no evidence, except for a few scattered anecdotes, for this irresponsible claim -- one that, coming from a "leading terrorism expert," can be used to justify the ongoing erosion of Americans' civil liberties.

Of course, there have been, and may still be, terrorists among us. It's no secret that some of the al-Qaida terrorists were "sleepers" who lived in America for a long time, and that the terrorists who carried out the 1993 World Trade Center bombing lived here and made converts and contacts through a Brooklyn mosque. That's alarming, and worthy of serious investigation. And if there really are ties between anti-American groups like al-Qaida and, for example, mainstream Muslim organizations that support radical Palestinian groups, we need to know about them. Emerson claims there's a connection -- a murky, ominous one. But the ominousness is all in Emerson's overheated rhetoric. When you clear away the posturing, no connection emerges beyond their shared Islamic fundamentalism and shared views on Israel and Palestine.

Nor does Emerson's at times loose way with the facts inspire confidence. For example, he recounts the story of Ghazi Ibrahim abu Mezer, a Palestinian who in 1997 was arrested and charged with planning to bomb New York's subway system. That's a scary enough story, but Emerson wants to make it scarier, by tying Mezer to the radical Palestinian movement. Emerson writes that Mezer had applied for political asylum in the U.S. "on the grounds that he was in danger of arrest by Israeli law enforcement thanks to his membership in the Hamas organization." In fact, Mezer's application asserted that he had been falsely accused by Israeli authorities of belonging to Hamas. American law enforcement officials denied that abu Mezer was a member of Hamas, or that Hamas was involved in the bombing attempt in any way. James Kallstrom, head of the New York FBI office, at the time said "it is totally wrong to say that these individuals are connected to and directed by Hamas." Hamas also disavowed any involvement. Emerson fails to report any of this.

Emerson draws attention to the fact that many mainstream Muslim organizations and individuals in the United States raise money, give speeches on behalf of or otherwise support groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which have terrorist branches that stage horrific attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians. This is a legitimate point, but Emerson isn't satisfied with making it. According to him, Hamas and Islamic Jihad and all the other radical Islamicist groups aren't just fighting Israel thousands of miles away -- like al-Qaida, they're plotting attacks on America to achieve their dream of an Islamic world. Unfortunately, since there's no evidence to support this, Emerson has to fall back on conjecture: "As confrontation with the West heats up, Hamas operatives are ready to turn their formidable apparatus against American targets."

Emerson won't admit it, but radicals within the pro-life movement, for instance, have killed more innocent American civilians in the U.S. than has Hamas or Hezbollah or Islamic Jihad. Indeed, Emerson's book doesn't contain a single example of Hamas, Hezbollah or Islamic Jihad carrying out terrorist activities in this country.

That's because there are none, according to Vince Cannistraro, a former director of counterterrorism for the CIA. "Neither Hamas or Islamic Jihad, which have an infrastructure in the U.S, political organizations in the U.S., has ever targeted Americans here," Cannistraro told Salon. "It would be counterproductive to their cause. And their focus is Israel and occupied territories."

Robin Wright, author of "Sacred Rage: The Wrath of Militant Islam," agrees, noting the Palestinian groups "don't target the American embassy or consulate in Jerusalem. That's not what their goal is. Their focus is on Israel."

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