Supporters of an Arabic-themed academy are calling for the reinstatement of the public school’s founding principal, who resigned amid a frenzy of negative publicity after she defended the word “intifada” on T-shirts.
About 200 people demonstrated in support of the Khalil Gibran International Academy on Monday night, gathering in front of the city’s Department of Education.
They carried signs that read “NYC needs multi-cultural education” and “The Torah and the Koran both teach peace.” Many were Muslims themselves, while others were Jewish.
They shared outrage over the political flaying that led Deborah Almontaser, the founding principal, to resign earlier this month.
“I thought this was not just an attack on her as an Arab, as a Muslim, but this was an attack on our community as a whole,” said Sara Said Alkhulaidi, originally from Yemen, but now living in Brooklyn.
Almonteser had defended the use of the word “intifada,” an Arabic term commonly used to refer to the Palestinian uprising against Israel, by Arab Women Active in Art and Media on T-shirts. The term, literally translated, meant “shaking off,” Almonteser said, while asserting that she didn’t think violence was suggested by the T-shirts.
But that response only helped to infuriate critics of the school.
They kept the volume of their rhetoric high on Monday, with critics warning students could be “indoctrinated” with radical Islamic beliefs.
State Assemblyman Dov Hikind said the school’s children could be “indoctrinated” and warned in a statement that “establishment of an Arab school is a misguided and dangerous idea.”
“It will not, as suggested, be a hope for peace; it is a blueprint for anti-Israel and anti-U.S. extremism,” he said, adding that the school has been endorsed by “radical” groups.
Supporters called such statements “racist.”
“Unless we all send a clear message that racist comments associating Arabic language and culture with terrorism will not be tolerated, we will continue to hear them again and again,” the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee and other community groups said in a statement in support of the academy.
School organizers have said religion will not be taught at the school, which will focus instead on Arabic language and Arab culture. There are a number of city schools that focus on a specific topic or culture.
Officials have said they plan to open the academy on schedule on Sept. 4 despite statements by its vocal critics equating it with a madrassa, an Islamic religious school, and portraying it as a potential radical training ground.
Rabbi Michael Feinberg, who spoke at the rally, said elected officials should come forward to defend the school.
“It’s really the lowest of McCarthyite tactics,” he said of the virulent Internet campaign against the academy, which was named after a Lebanese-American Christian poet.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on his radio show that Almontaser is “certainly not a terrorist,” but he called her resignation the “right thing to do.”
Some of the school’s supporters argued Monday that education officials’ quiet persistence in planning to open the school is not enough.
“‘Welcoming’ Ms. Almontaser’s resignation and remaining silent on the underlying anti-Arab, anti-Muslim bigotry has the effect of legitimizing the very thing that should be condemned,” the groups said in a statement.
The city Department of Education did not return a telephone call seeking comment.
