Eight years have passed since that fateful day in 2001 when foreign terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in New York, causing the deaths of almost 3000 innocent Americans.

Daily we remember that horrific event. Daily we pray for all those families touched so tragically by those reprehensible attacks. Daily we search for ever more ways to ensure such an event does not recur.

Members of the Arab American and American Muslim communities know well how hard it is to lose family members to circumstances seemingly beyond their control. Families in Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine, Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan lose members every day. Our hearts go out to the husbands and wives, the children and grandchildren, the mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers of all those who perished on 9/11. May God grant them peace.

The Arab American News is committed to helping ensure the enmity that caused those attacks ceases to be. We are committed to increasing American understanding of the Middle East, of Arab culture, of the religion of Islam, as well as increasing Arab and Muslim understanding of America and its values of freedom and democracy.

Arab Americans and American Muslims did not escape the tragedy. The assault on civil liberties that followed those attacks targeted almost exclusively these two communities. The public perception of Arabs and Muslims, indeed of the faith of Islam itself, plummeted to unbelievable depths. We are still climbing out of that abyss.

We are committed to America’s security and to restoring our nation’s rightful place as the moral leader of the free world. We are committed to assisting in any and every way to protect our country from further attack. We are also committed to protecting against the erosion of America’s civil liberties.

And we are committed to this: We will never forget.