Abstract

This article examines the US government's targeting of Arab Americans for surveillance and harassment in the wake of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and the Palestinian terrorist group Black September's murder of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972. In the late 1960s, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) included Arabs as targets of its COINTELPRO surveillance program, and in 1972 the Nixon administration created the Cabinet Committee to Combat Terrorism and the visa check system Operation Boulder to monitor Arab residents and Arab Americans. The federal government overstepped its constitutional boundaries and used its powers to repress Arab American activism on behalf of Palestine. The article explores Arab Americans' responses and resistance to government violations of their civil liberties. Ironically, the government's attempt to divide and intimidate Arab Americans actually served to heighten their unity and advance their activism.

Highlights

  • This article examines the US government’s targeting of Arab Americans for surveillance and harassment in the wake of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and the Palestinian terrorist group Black September’s murder of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972

  • Most Americans do not realize that President Richard Nixon and the US national security state reacted to that act of terrorism abroad by initiating a surveillance and investigation program in the United States

  • In 1972, he sued the federal government for violating his rights when he learned that his Detroit bank, without a warrant, had turned over his account information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

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Summary

Introduction

This article examines the US government’s targeting of Arab Americans for surveillance and harassment in the wake of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and the Palestinian terrorist group Black September’s murder of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972.

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