Folks might remember the controversy over the Khalil Gibran International Academy, a public school in New York with an Arab-education component. These ventures were standard in New York: There were already Chinese, French, Haitian-Creole, and Spanish schools. But the Khalil Gibran International Academy attracted rather more opposition. Protests formed demanding that the government "stop the madrassa!" Daniel Pipes opined that "learning Arabic in of itself promotes an Islamic outlook." The New York Sun put the school under full court press. Debbie Almontaser, the principal, was forced to resign after she said the "Intifada NYC" shirts some girls wore used "intifada" in its traditional meaning, as "struggle." Demands to close the school mounted. Almontaser was replaced by Danielle Salzberg, a Jewish educator who does not speak Arabic. It was a mess. This week, in New York City, the state charter committee voted 8-1 to approve the creation of Hebrew Language Academy Chart School. The school is funded, as Dana Goldstein points out, by Michael Steinhardt, one of the primary funders of Birthright Israel, whose "foundation says its vision is to fight the secularization of American Jewry, including intermarriage." There has not, so far as I know, been any serious opposition. Nor should there be. But the differences in reception are not the sort of thing missed by America's Arabs, or the world's. America likes to imagine itself an honest broker, able to command respect and even sympathy in the Arab world. But this stuff, like the composition of its Middle East negotiating team, matters. Our actions say more than our words. Its hard to be credible brokers abroad when we can't muster equal treatment at home.
