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Lebanon stone-throwing incident

On 3 July 2000, whilst touring the Middle East with his son, Wadie, Said was photographed throwing a stone across the Blue Line Lebanese–Israel border, which image elicited much political criticism about his action demonstrating an inherent, personal sympathy with terrorism; and, in Commentary magazine, the journalist Edward Alexander labelled Said as "The Professor of Terror", for aggression against Israel. Said explained the stone-throwing as a two-fold action, personal and political; a man-to-man contest-of-skill, between a father and his son, and an Arab man's gesture of joy at the end of the Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon (1985–2000): "It was a pebble; there was nobody there. The guardhouse was at least half a mile away."

Said described the incident as trivial and said that he "threw the stone as a symbolic act" into "an empty place". The Beirut newspaper As-Safir (The Ambassador) interviewed a Lebanese local resident who said that Said was less than ten metres (ca. 30 ft.) from the Israel Defense Force (IDF) soldiers manning the two-storey guardhouse, when he threw the stone, which hit the barbed wire fence in front of the guardhouse. In the U.S., Said's action was criticised by some students at Columbia University and the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith International (Sons of the Covenant). The university provost published a five-page letter stating that Said's action was protected under academic freedom: "To my knowledge, the stone was directed at no-one; no law was broken; no indictment was made; no criminal or civil action has been taken against Professor Saïd."

In February 2001, the Freud Society in Austria cancelled a lecture by Said due to the stone-throwing incident. The President of the Freud Society said "he majority decided to cancel the Freud lecture to avoid an internal clash. I deeply regret that this has been done to Professor Said".