The Arab American News
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Video: Creative expression in the Arab World
Arabesque, is a current, very popular Kennedy Center showcase of theater and dance, sounds and tastes from over 20 Arab countries. With events taking place over the course of weeks, it is widely seen as a landmark for the representation of Arab culture in the United States. The festival has spawned a flurry of related events. With so...One more farcical tour of the Middle East
It was almost dreamlike, watching Secretary of State Hillary Clinton make her visit to Israel, one that can be called the first of many trips pretending to encourage peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. It's a dream I've had several times over; one needs only to simply fill in the names of the various U.S. secretaries of...
Community briefs: Three locals charged with mortgage fraud
March 14th, 20090 Belly dance show at DSO Miles Copeland, former manager of the groundbreaking '80s rock trio The Police, began putting together a troupe of American bellydancers in 2002 with the intention of doing for the Middle East what "Riverdance" did for Ireland. The Bellydance...
Finkelstein to keynote ASU banquet
March 14th, 20090 DEARBORN — An energetic group of college students hopes to add an extra spark to their efforts as Arab American youth activists when they bring Norman Finkelstein — a well-known scholar on Israeli-Palestinian conflict who causes a stir every time he speaks in the Detroit area — to keynote their annual "Empowering the Youth" dinner...
Oakland International Academy garners award
March 14th, 20090 When it comes to handing out funds to local schools, scores on the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) tests are an important factor. Oakland Superintendent Ahmed Saber (left), and faculty members Conrad Koch, Adnan Aabed, and Eraqi Eraqi. Photo courtesy of Conrad Koch But doesn't mean that they are always fair....
Group celebrates Saadeh birthday, legacy
March 14th, 20090 SOUTHFIELD — Syria's ambassador to the U.S. Imad Mustapha spoke at the Silver Garden Theater on March 7 during a commemoration of the birthday of Antun Saadeh, founder of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party. Syria's ambassador to the U.S. Imad Mustapha speaks at the Silver Garden Theater in Southfield on March 7 during a...
CAAO delegation to visit Qatar, meet emir
March 14th, 20090 A delegation of local Arab Americans organized by the Congress of Arab American Organizations (CAAO) is to depart Saturday for Doha, Qatar, where the group is scheduled to meet with the Gulf nation's leader Emir Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani on Sunday. A plaque to be presented to the emir of Qatar by a delegation of Arab Americans...
Attorney relates horror of Gaza
March 14th, 20090 A member of a delegation of lawyers that traveled to Gaza in February spoke to a group of Palestinian rights activists in Dearborn on Tuesday about the fact-finding mission. Linda Mansour, one of nine National Lawyers Guild delegates who traveled to Gaza in February on a fact-finding mission, speaks to representatives of the...
GM warns it may not survive
March 7th, 20090 DETROIT — General Motors Corp on Thursday said its auditors had raised "substantial doubt" about its ability to survive outside bankruptcy if it fails to stem its losses and stop burning cash. A flock of birds sits on a covered General Motors sign at an abandoned auto dealership in Warren, Michigan, in this December 18, 2008...
Video: Arab culture celebrated in nation’s capital
March 7th, 20090 Last Friday, the "Weekend" section of the Washington Post featured a cover story on "Arabesque: Art of the Arab World," the Kennedy Center's three-week-long festival of Arab arts and culture. There is no better way to begin a reflection on the program, than to quote the opening lines of the marvelous "Weekend" review by Ellen McCarthy....Did Clinton sabotage a Palestinian reconciliation?
An end to the schism between the resistance and the elected but internationally-boycotted Hamas government on the one hand, and the Western-backed Fatah faction on the other, seemed within reach. But the good feeling came to a sudden end after what looked like a coordinated assault by United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,...
International tribunal begins work
March 7th, 20090 BEIRUT — A potentially explosive murder investigation which has gripped the Middle East for four years moved from Lebanon to the Netherlands this week with the launch of a landmark international tribunal. Supporters of Rafik Hariri, the former prime minister of Lebanon, visit his grave in Beirut. The tribunal, established...Activists oppose state-funded Israeli dance company tour
An image of dancing shoes imposed over a photo of destruction in Gaza used on flyers publicizing a protest of Israel's touring Batsheva Dance Company. Palestine solidarity activists are in the midst of protesting an Israeli dance company's tour. They are urging people to boycott their shows and protest them since the...Divestment from the Israeli occupation of Palestine
A coalition of Columbia University students released a series of demands this week that clearly and forcefully lay the groundwork for the divestment of the University's endowment funds from those corporations currently profiting from the illegal occupation of Palestine. This step is long overdue. The recent assault on the...
Sadr Foundation: Raising hope from despair
March 7th, 20090 DEARBORN — Hiam and Ibtisam Bazzi were seven and four years old when their mother died in 1977. Their father, unable to care for them alone in impoverished south Lebanon, placed them under the care of the Sadr Foundation, a network of orphanages, schools and clinics based in Tyre that has served tens of thousands of Lebanese over the......
Kerry urges moves toward peace
March 7th, 20090 WASHINGTON (JTA) — Call it a three-legged stalking horse: rapid progress toward a two-state solution, penalties for settlement expansion and engagement with Syria even as it remains in Iran's sphere. U.S. Sen. John Kerry: "There is a window of opportunity that we must seize by showing, with actions more than words, that it...
Justifying censorship at Edsel Ford High
March 7th, 20090 When Deanna Suleiman, copy editor of Edsel Ford High's school newspaper, The Bolt, used her free speech right to express dissatisfaction with American and Israeli policies toward the Palestinians, she had no idea what trouble she was about to cause. Deanna and her colleagues at The Bolt had excitedly prepared and posted the......
In response to censorship at Edsel Ford
To the editor: I am writing in response to your paper picking up the story regarding Edsel Ford High School and their pulling of Deanna Suleiman's OP-ED piece regarding the Israel/Palestine conflict from the school's website. Regardless of whether or not people liked the content of the article — the paper, the school, and the author...The golden age of Arab music
The period from the 1920s to the 1950s is considered the "golden age" of Egyptian cinema, but it was also a golden age of song in many parts of the Arab world — in particular, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria. Composer and multi-instrumentalist Simon Shaheen Many of these countries' greatest singers and composers reached...
“The Big Read” to encourage literacy and celebrate late Egyptian Nobel winner
March 7th, 20090 DEARBORN — The Arab American National Museum in Dearborn is hosting a month-long celebration of the life and works of Naguib Mahfouz, the first Arab writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988, with free books available all month. Called "The Big Read" and made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts...
ACC program tackles mental health
March 7th, 20090 Severe mental health issues are almost never at the forefront of conversation, but discussion in the Arab community is even more rare according to ACT Team Leader Amy Rahhall. Amy Rahhall The Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) program, which is run through the Arab American and Chaldean Council through funding from the......
CIA holds appreciation dinner
March 7th, 20090 The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) held an appreciation dinner for leaders of the Arab American and Chaldean community on Wednesday at the Westin Hotel in Southfield. CIA Associate Deputy Director Scott White Members of the Congress of Arab American Organizations (CAAO), the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee...Community news briefs: Huge crowd expected for ACCESS job fair
DEARBORN — With the job market as tough as it's been in decades, the first ACCESS (Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services) job fair of 2009 is expected to be as packed and competitive as ever. The spring job fair, one of three held during the year at ACCESS, will take place on Wednesday, March 18, 2009 at the Dearborn......
Video: Largest ever Arab arts festival in U.S. opens
March 3rd, 20090 The largest ever Arab arts festival in the U.S., "Arabesque: Arts of the Arab World," opened at the Kennedy Center in Washington last week. The first in a series of PBS reports on the three-week festival, which aired on Feb. 23, sets the scene with interviews of the aritists, Kennedy Center President Michael Kaiser and Alicia Adams,...Ethnic cleansing goes on in Jerusalem
JERUSALEM — Israel plans to demolish 88 homes in Silwan, a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem, to make way for a new archaeological park, adding new fuel to the slow-burning dispute over Jerusalem. Palestinian boys play soccer in the Arab neighbourhood of Silwan in east Jerusalem February 24, 2009 REUTERS/Ammar Awad A......
