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Abdeen Jabara: Targeting Palestinian Activists

Abdeen Jabara has been publicizing the Palestinian-Arab side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the 1960s, when he was a young attorney in Detroit. In the early 1970s, he discovered that he'd been the target of an intensive FBI investigation under President Nixon's secretive Operation Boulder. This anti-terrorism program was created after the militant Palestinian group Black September killed 11 Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics. Jabara won a lawsuit that accused the U.S. government of violating his civil liberties by tapping his telephone, intercepting his mail, and monitoring his writings and speeches.

My Story

Banking Surveillance. I went to a bank where our firm had done its banking and an employee ... (1:24)
Targeting Arab-Americans. The Operation Boulder was announced by the Nixon Administration ... (1:39)
Facing the Might of the Government. I was born and raised in northern Michigan and we took ... (1:38)

Themes

Facing the Government. Realizing that the surveillance and targeting they had experienced was an infringement on their rights under the Constitution, Fred Korematsu, Vincent Hallinan, Abdeen Jabara, John Fife and George Christian challenged the United States Government. In doing so they incurred the government's wrath and power to intimidate.