ISB offers to suspend lawsuit vs. Israel group
By Ted Siefer
The Jewish Advocate
Jewish leaders say dialogue can resume only after litigation ends
The Islamic Society of Boston offered last week to halt its defamation lawsuit against the David Project and others it claims conspired to derail its large Roxbury mosque project if the defendants agree to enter closed-door mediation.
In a statement released to the media and in letters sent to several major Jewish organizations and synagogues, ISB Chairman Yousef Abou-Allaban wrote: "We are far more interested in living in peace and harmony than in winning a lawsuit."
At the same time, the ISB vowed to press ahead with its lawsuit should the defendants not take up its offer. Its lawyers filed reams of documents in Suffolk Superior Court on Mar. 3, the deadline for the ISB to respond to the defendants' motions to dismiss the suit.
In December 2005, the David Project and other defendants filed special motions to dismiss the suit, which, if granted, would make the ISB liable for their legal expenses.
ISB lawyer Howard Cooper told the Advocate that the overture to go to mediation should not be interpreted as backing away from the lawsuit, which was originally filed in the spring of 2005 against the Boston Herald and Fox 25 News over news stories that alleged connections between ISB leaders and Islamic fundamentalist groups. The suit was expanded in October to include pro-Israel group the David Project and Citizens for Peace and Tolerance, an interfaith group that formed to raise concerns about the ISB Roxbury mosque project.
Cooper said: "People should make no mistake that our lawsuit is very serious and we are prepared to see this through to its successful conclusion."
Asked what mediation would entail or who would be involved in the talks, Cooper said that would be a matter for the different parties to work out. "So far, no one has gotten back to me," he said.
Among the organizations that received letters from the ISB were the Anti-Defamation League, Combined Jewish Philanthropies, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston and Temple Israel of Boston.
Responding to the ISB's letter, JCRC Executive Director Nancy Kaufman said: "We had dialogue before the lawsuit and I look forward to having dialogue once the suit [goes away]."
Larry Lowenthal, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, another recipient of the letter, said: "The very idea of dialogue between Muslims and Jews is high on our agenda, but this suit has to be resolved one way or another before comfortable dialogue can proceed with the ISB."
Kaufman said that leaders from the Jewish organizations are drafting a response to the ISB's letter.
David Project lawyer Jeffrey Robbins said that he doubted the ISB's offer to stay the suit arose from a desire to boost interfaith relations.
"Obviously, whoever is directing this lawsuit, nationally or internationally, has reached the conclusion that this was an extremely bad idea, and their effort to bully and intimidate private citizens has boomeranged," he said, noting that new documents have surfaced that raise questions about the propriety of the land deal between the ISB and the Boston Redevelopment Authority.
The BRA had acknowledged conveying the land to the ISB for less than half of its assessed value in exchange for a range of services to be provided by the ISB, but new documents indicate that the estimated value of the land was not $400,000, as originally disclosed by the BRA, but $2 million. The documents also point to the role of a senior BRA official in facilitating the discount and in fundraising for the project, which included a trip to the Middle East paid for by the ISB.
A court hearing was held this week on a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the BRA-ISB deal, the Policastro suit, which members of the David Project played a role in bringing about in the fall of 2004.
In its letter, the ISB said that dropping the Policastro suit was a condition for staying its suit.
Robbins also pointed out that in its filing last week, the ISB had further amended its complaint, removing the trustees of the ISB as plaintiffs and adding Muslim scholar Ahmed Mansour as a defendant.
Mansour, a political refugee from Egypt, claims to have encountered anti-American literature at the ISB mosque in Cambridge, and he later joined the group Citizens for Peace and Tolerance in its campaign to raise concerns about the mosque project.
"One doesn't know what is more outrageous here, the mendacity or the penchant for intimidation on the part of the ISB," said David Project director Charles Jacobs, noting that Mansour was granted asylum because he had been persecuted in Egypt for his calls for political and religious reform.
