Islamic group offers stay in defamation suit
By Jay Lindsay
Boston Globe
BOSTON --An Islamic society that sued for defamation after local news outlets linked it and its stalled mosque project to anti-Semitic extremists offered Friday to stop litigation in exchange for private mediation.
The Islamic Society of Boston made the offer to the defendants' attorneys on the same day it filed a lengthy response to a motion to dismiss the suit.
The society also sent a letter to leaders in the Jewish and Christian community, as well as local politicians, informing them of the court filing, but also a desire to settle their differences out of court.
"We are far more interested in peace and harmony than in winning a lawsuit," said the letter from Yousef Abou-Allaban, chairman of the ISB's board of directors.
The Islamic Society's lawsuit, filed in October, claimed the Boston Herald and others conspired to smear the society and stop the mosque project.
The suit later named several residents and citizen groups who questioned the society's ties, a move decried by their attorneys as a bullying attempt to stop them from asking legitimate questions.
Nancy Kaufman, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, said the Islamic Society's offer of a stay was "interesting," but as long as the suit was pending, dialogue between the Jewish community and the ISB was impossible.
"We'd been having a dialogue before the lawsuit, we'd be willing to have one after" said Kaufman. "This lawsuit needs to be dismissed."
Elizabeth Ritvo, who represents the Boston Herald, and attorneys for some other defendants, said they were reviewing the offer.
"There would be a lot of concern that people who have used this tactic of intimidation ... then go to the media and say, 'Look how magnanimous we are. Look how dialogue-prone we are,'" said Jeffrey Robbins, an attorney for some of the individuals and citizens groups sued.
Robbins added the offer shows the society is looking for a way out after realizing the suit was "a terrible thing" that's backfired because of poor community reaction and lack of evidence.
ISB attorney Howard Cooper said, to the contrary, the filing Friday included thousands of pages of evidence against the defendants.
"My client's offer of dialogue is genuine, but so is their determination to hold the defendants accountable for their campaign of intolerance and hatred," he said.
Cooper also said the Islamic Society isn't bullying anybody by suing them -- it's holding them accountable for repeated false statements about ISB.
"We have lawsuits precisely to hold people who are engaging in discrimination accountable," he said.
City officials and local Muslim leaders broke ground for the mosque in November 2002. Muslims welcomed the project as relief from overcrowding at area mosques and also for the support and unity local officials pledged so soon after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks
In 2003, the Boston Herald reported that several former and current mosque officials had ties to extremists and had made anti-Semitic statements. For instance, former Islamic Society board member Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi, a prominent Egyptian cleric whom the society used to promote the mosque project, has issued religious fatwas to kill unborn Jews because they'd grow up to join the Israeli army, and to kill all American civilians working in Iraq.
Critics said the Islamic Society hadn't sufficiently distanced itself from such statements. The society said it had clearly condemned anti-Semitism and that it has no ties to terrorist groups.
Construction has since nearly ceased on a 70,000 square-foot mosque in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood, with society officials saying the controversy has dried up funding in the middle of the $14 million first stage of the project.
In his letter Friday, Cooper referred to the ongoing global conflict between Eastern and Western cultures, and said pursuing mediation could have positive broader affects.
"My clients firmly believe that how communities here in Boston are able to deal with, understand and respect each other in this country can be an example to others," he wrote. "It is in that spirit that they again extend their hand."
