Open Letter to the Globe Editorial Board

Dear Members of the Globe Editorial Board:

 

Jacoby's April 25 op-ed, "New Questions for the ISB," has been puzzling me since I first read it because it would be hard for a Globe reader that has not been closely following the legal battle between the Islamic Society of Boston and the David Project (DP) to understand the content of the column. The material is so obscure that writing a short pithy reply is practically impossible. You can read my attempt below my signature.

 

Jacoby's article could not have been written without considerable help from the DP because it depends on analysis of the discovery materials from the court case. I hypothesize two possible motivations for such an op-ed piece.

1. The DP is using Jacoby to goad the ISB into adding the Globe as a defendant in the ISB complaint because in the public DP campaign against the ISB, the DP claims that the ISB is an intolerant immoderate organization that uses lawsuits to prevent Americans from exercising free speech rights (http://tinyurl.com/2ca2lt). The DP would then be able to argue that any broadening of the current lawsuit would support at least one DP claim against the ISB and probably all of them.
2. The DP is worried that arguments of ISB attorney Howard Cooper before the Massachusetts Appeals Court (MAC) with regard to the Anti-SLAPP motion were more effective than those of Floyd Abrams, who represented non-media defendants including the DP, and now the DP is looking for backdoor means to influence the judges. In this case, the DP would be using Jacoby to publicize material meaningful to the MAC judges via the Globe's op-ed page for the purpose of affecting the ruling on the merit of ISB case under the Anti-SLAPP statute (http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/mgl/231-59h.htm).

If I had an employee, whom a third party was using either to get my company sued or to engage in an unethical manipulation of court proceedings (the ISB has no way to reply unless the Globe makes comparable op-ed space available), I would quickly fire him. In Jacoby's case I might try to determine whether he is a dupe or consciously conspiring with the DP. In the former case, I would probably forbid further contact with the DP and any more op-ed columns related to the ISB lawsuit.

 

Sincerely yours,

 

Joachim Martillo

President

Telford Tools, Inc.

 

Why does the Globe waste an op-ed column with material that should be a paid advertisement?

Joachim Martillo (ThorsProvoni@aol.com)

 

Dear Editor:

 

Jeff Jacoby argues in "New questions for the [Islamic Society of Boston (ISB)]" (The Boston Globe, April 25, 2007, http://tinyurl.com/2egahh) that a November 2000 payment by check, which was signed by an ISB director and which was made out to a third party with the memo "Travel for speaker Abdurahman Alamoudi -- 11/10/00 - 11/12/00," belies contentions by the ISB that "[Alamoudi] has had no role in, or affiliation with, the ISB for approximately 20 years."

 

The check to a third party is a thin thread on which to hang a claim of a connection between Alamoudi and the ISB at a time period when Alamoudi was often meeting with Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush, and conservative tax reformer Grover Norquist. Lots of people associated with him both publicly and also frequently, but when I search news reports from the November 2000 time frame, I find no mention of Alamoudi in any way linked with the ISB.

 

In his March 21, 2007 column entitled Defeating radical Islam (http://tinyurl.com/2qzfta), Jacoby wrote, "On 9/11, many Americans woke up to the fact that a deadly enemy is arrayed against us and that effective counterterrorism is critical to our national security. But even more critical is the need to delegitimize the Islamist message that resonates with so many Muslims. To permanently end the 'war on terrorism,' we must defeat the ideology that motivates the terrorists."

 

Jacoby is wrong. To end the war on terrorism, we must replace the uncivil invective, which Jacoby and similar ideologues fling at Muslims, with civil discussion of issues. The ISB offered genuine dialogue and mediation, but the defendants in the ISB lawsuit rejected it. Jacoby debases American social political discourse when he serves as a mouthpiece for the dubious insinuations that the defendants have cobbled together from discovery materials.

 

When he aids the defendants in their ongoing campaign of demonization and defamation to prevent Muslim Americans from exercising their basic civil rights, Jacoby becomes the real threat to America because he is participating in a racist subversion of the US Constitution under cover of a vigilante anti-terrorist witch-hunt.

 

Joachim Martillo

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