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ATFP EXPRESSES FULL SUPPORT FOR
COLUMBIA PROFESSOR RASHID KHALIDI
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Rafi Dajani
Phone: 202-887-0177
Washington, DC, July 26 - The American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP) today
expressed full support for Dr. Rashid Khalidi against recent charges of
plagiarism. Professor Khalidi is Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at
Columbia University's Middle East Institute. Professor Khalidi served as
president of the board of directors of the American Committee on Jerusalem
(ACJ) until 2003, when ACJ was dissolved and ATFP was created in its place,
at which time he served as vice-president for one year.
Professor Khalidi has recently been the target of accusations of plagiarism
for an article that appeared on the now discontinued ACJ website, the byline
of which had mistakenly been attributed to Professor Khalidi by an ACJ staff
member. ATFP had received a number of calls from the media asking for
clarification on the issue. In response, ATFP executive director Rafi Dajani
responded with the following statement: "The byline to the 'Jerusalem, A
Concise History' article was changed from 'By Rashid Khalidi' to 'Compiled
by ACJ from a variety of sources' for the simple reason that at the time of
its 2001 posting, an ACJ staffer had mistakenly attributed the article to
Dr. Khalidi. Dr. Khalidi had only contributed to the article at the time and
was mistakenly given full accreditation for it. Even though Dr. Khalidi was
president of the board of directors of the ACJ at the time, he was not
involved in any way in posting articles on, or making changes to the ACJ
website, nor in supervising day-to-day activities of the ACJ. The mistake
escaped unnoticed until it was brought to our attention in May 2005 as a
result of the plagiarism contention. That was when the byline change was
made to correct the error."
Commenting on the issue, ATFP president Dr. Ziad Asali said: "Professor
Khalidi is an outstanding historian and scholar who has made invaluable
contributions to our country's understanding of the Middle East, and ATFP is
fully confident in Professor Khalidi's integrity. To assume that Professor
Khalidi, the author of numerous books, articles and opinions would resort to
plagiarism for a website article is categorically rejected. As far as we are
concerned, this matter is closed."
The ATFP is a not-for-profit corporation that aims to
educate the American people about the national security interests of
the United States in establishing a Palestinian state. Specifically,
ATFP seeks to promote the awareness of the far-reaching benefits that
Palestinian statehood will have for the United States in the following
areas: (1) enhancing national security, (2) proliferation of American
values of freedom and democracy, and (3) expansion of economic
opportunities throughout the Arab and Islamic worlds.
American Task Force on Palestine
815 Connecticut Avenue, Suite 200
Washington, DC 20006
www.americantaskforce.org
Phone (202)887-0177 Fax (202)887-1920
Email: atfp@atfp.net |