By Brian Carnell

Monday, March 19, 2001

While the debate over free speech on college campuses rages, Columbia's Edward Said offers an interesting take on what constitutes protected speech. From his professorship at Columbia, Said has been one of the most visible Palestinian opponents of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.

In the past few months two media reports gave supporters of Israel fresh ammunition against Said. The first was an article by Justus Reid Weiner published in Commentary which claimed that Said had lied in casting himself as victim of Israeli oppression. Said claims to have vivid memories of his family being forced out of his childhood home by the Israeli government in December 1947. Weiner claimed that this was an outright fabrication since at the time of the alleged dispossession of the Said family's estate, Said was living in Egypt.

But the negative publicity about Said really hit when Agence France Presse published a photograph of Said throwing a rock across the Israeli-Lebanese border during a visit he made to Lebanon in July 2000. Said maintains that the area of the border where he threw the rock was an empty wasteland. Other witnesses claimed that, in fact, Said was only about 30 feet away from a small Israeli watchtower which was the target of the rock.

Some pro-Israeli activists want Columbia to fire Said, claiming that a student or professor who threw a rock at an administrative building on Columbia's campus would face severe disciplinary action. Said, however, has a different view, and one he says is shared by Columbia's administration -- rock throwing is protected speech.

The comedy of it all, the total lack of logic that tried to connect a trivial incident in South Lebanon to my life and works, was to no avail, however. Colleagues rallied to my side, as did many members of the public. Most important, the university administration magnificently defended my right to my opinions and actions, and noted that the campaign against me wasn't at all about my having thrown a stone (an act rightly characterised as protected speech), but about my political positions and activity that resisted Israel's policy of occupation and repression.

That's a pretty expansive definition of free speech (one wonders how Said would respond to the obvious Zionist response that small arms fire from Israeli soldiers simply constitutes more speech).

Source:

Freud, Zionism, and Vienna. Edward Said, CounterPunch.Org, March 16, 2001.

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