Naseer Aruri, who built Palestinian solidarity movement in US, to be memorialized this Saturday

posted on: Apr 9, 2015

Naseer Aruri, a leading Palestinian scholar and activist in the Diaspora, died in February in Massachusetts. There will be a memorial service for him on Saturday on the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth campus where he taught for decades.

Aruri died in February, and was remembered at Middle East Monitor:

Palestine and The Arab World lost an eminent academic scholar, an internationally recognised and highly respected intellectual, a committed and unwavering Palestinian patriot and a progressive Arab nationalist… Dr. Aruri was a leading voice in the field of human rights and an authoritative reference on US foreign policy in the Middle East, particularly towards the Palestine/Israel conflict. Born in 1934 in Jerusalem, Palestine, Dr. Aruri held a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and was a prolific writer and lecturer who appeared often in the media throughout the past half century.

Nadia Hijab wrote about starting the US Campaign to End the Occupation in 2001 with Aruri as an adviser. Her obit at Palestine Chronicle of a teacher and a friend began:

There are those whose life and work touch the lives of tens of thousands, for decades. Naseer Aruri was one such man. The news of his passing on 10 February 2015 was quickly relayed from North America through Europe and to the Arab world, bringing shared sorrow and reflection on his manifold contributions to the cause of justice for the Palestinian people, progress for the Arab nation, and human rights for all peoples.

Aruri was 81 and the author of nine books.

Abdeen Jabara, who will eulogize his friend on Saturday, said this of him to Mondo:

I loved Naseer, he was the essence of kindness. When I first met him, he had such a gentle demeanor and a thoughtful attitude, and a total commitment to the question of Palestine.

He was of the generation– there were the superstars, Edward Said and Ibrahim Abu Lughod, and they were hard driving forces who got a lot of attention. Then there were the quieter types, and Naseer was that spirit. He was the third president of the Association of Arab American University Graduates (AAUG), which began in 1967. You must understand, at that time, we were circling the wagons, and we were the Indians, in a very hostile environment. This was the period following the June 67 war through the 70s, and we represented a wave of optimism and activism and hope that came about after the destruction of the Arab armies in ’67 and the rise of the popular resistance. It was a time of enormous energy. But the AAUG was not a lobbying group. We never wrote one letter to the administration. Because we said the American government was guided by an imperialist policy. But we had to reach out to the American people. That was the rationale of the creation of the AAUG. Let’s try and educate the American people, and we did, we laid the foundation inside the academy.

We brought incredible speakers from all over the Middle East and the Third World. We brought Andreas Papandreou, William Sloane Coffin, Krishna Menon among others. We invited Tariq Ali and the US wouldn’t give him a visa because he had burned an American flag. Eqbal Ahmad spoke in his place and he brought down the house. Naseer later wrote about that speech. He was a Pakistani firebrand and he began by saying, “I am speaking to a banquet but I am not a banquet speaker. I am here because Tariq couldn’t come because they said he burned the flag. This is a damn lie, he did not burn the flag, he cremated it.”

This was a heady time. We were part of an anticolonial, third world movement. And we made a real impact in academia. Today’s there’s journals on Arab American studies, literature, all this stuff. Not a single iota of that existed when we were starting this up….

Naseer was a very principled man. I remember after Iraq invaded Iran, we had a convention in Massachusetts and I was on the resolutions committee with him and we prepared a resolution that condemned Iraq. All hell broke loose because Baathists came and they wanted to disrupt things, but Naseer stuck to his guns. He thought this was a horrible thing that Iraq had invaded Iran.

Here is more of his story from the University of Massachusetts:

Born in Jerusalem, Palestine on January 7, 1934, Professor Aruri’s father was a high school principal in Jerusalem and he and his family split their time between Jerusalem and the West Bank village of Burham, where the family home still stands. He immigrated to the United States in 1954 in order to pursue a college education and arrived in Springfield where his brother, Said, was already a student at the American International College (AIC). He received his B.A. in History from AIC and his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

While a student at AIC, he was adopted by the sizeable Lebanese community of Springfield and later married Joyce Thomas, a Lebanese-American, to whom he was married for 54 years. Besides his wife, he is survived by four children — Faris, Karen Leila Carnes (who teaches at UMass Dartmouth), Jamal and Jay — as well as 13 grandchildren, two sisters, a brother, a niece and nephew.

Here is information on Saturday’s memorial service. We are informed that among others, Jabara and Hani Faris will speak at the event. You are asked to RSVP at that link.

A MEMORIAL CELEBRATING THE LIFE OF
CHANCELLOR PROFESSOR NASEER ARURI

Sunday, April 12, 2015

11 a.m.

Woodland Commons

University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

285 Old Westport Rd.

Dartmouth, MA 02747

—–
Dr. Naseer Aruri was Chancellor Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth from 1965 to 1998, including eight years as chair of the department. Dr. Aruri passed away on February 10.

Dr. Aruri was an internationally recognized scholar-activist and expert on Middle East politics, U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and human rights. He is the author of numerous books and publications in this field. He served three consecutive terms as a member of the Board of Directors of Amnesty International, USA (1984-1990) and was a member of the Board of Directors of the New York-based Human Rights Watch/Middle East from 1990-1992. He was a Founding Member of the Arab Organization for Human Rights (AOHR) in 1982 and a member of the editorial board of Third World Quarterly (London). He was a key participant in the drafting of the Arab Covenant of Human Rights under the auspices of the International Institute of Higher Studies in Criminal Justice in Italy in December, 1986. He was a member of the Independent Palestinian Commission for the Protection of Citizen’s Rights (Ramallah) and a member of the Advisory Board of Directors of the International Institute for Criminal Investigations in The Hague. He has testified as an expert witness in U.S. Federal and Canadian Courts in cases dealing with political asylum and deportation.

The memorial celebration will include remarks from family members, colleagues and friends, as well as a video tribute on his life. A reception will follow.

Source: mondoweiss.net