Dear Editor:

The letter published in the Stanford Daily (June 8, 2006) signed by several Stanford faculty and students protesting a pamphlet I published called “Campus Support for Terrorism,” is puzzling. The signers claim to be speaking in behalf of “every American who believes in the right to speak without intimidation and fear,” yet they seem not to have noticed that Professor Beinin’s copyright suit against me is an act of intimidation aimed directly at my free speech rights.

If Joel Beinin thinks that my assessment of his work as a support for terrorism is false and is an attempt to “destroy his reputation” as the letter says, why doesn’t he sue me for libel? The answer is that truth is a defense against libel, and Beinin (or his lawyer) knows this. Therefore he has chosen the underhanded tactic of suing me over a copyright that he didn’t even own until a year after the pamphlet was published (copyright law is quirky on this point).

A lawsuit, in the event any readers might be innocent of such matters, is pretty serious intimidation. Legal costs in a case like this can mount quickly to five figures and not particularly the low five figures either. Perhaps there are Stanford students and professors who have $50,000 in their pocket to defend themselves should they upset a political opponent. Others will understand the problem this poses for free speech.

The protesters’ letter claims that my view of Beinin as a supporter of terrorism is “ludicrous.” Is it? Joel Beinin wrote a long article attacking the Ford Foundation for withdrawing its funding from four terrorist “charities” in the Middle East. Joel Beinin supported terrorist leader Sami al-Arian even after his indictment based on 10 years of phone taps that revealed his conversations with terrorists in Syria arranging for the payments of suicide bombers in Israel. The Stanford Daily itself reported Beinin’s demand that then Secretary of State Colin Powell stop “lecturing Yasir Arafat about the need to do more to stop terrorism.” Instead, Beinin insisted that the terrorist Arafat had to be recognized as a respected statesman and treated accordingly. Arafat, said Beinin, “is the elected president of the Palestinian Authority and the symbol of Palestinian national aspirations and should be respected as such.”

This is what I call “support for terrorism.” I concede that there may be room for honest disagreement on this matter. But not for lawsuits designed to chill free speech and ludicrous letters supporting them in the name of free speech.

Sincerely,

David Horowitz