Statement of Michigan Arab Americans regarding Gov. Whitmer’s trip to Israel
November 21st, 20192 DEARBORN — Governor Whitmer is currently visiting Israel. We Arab Americans became aware of this trip, like most Michiganders, from media reports this past Sunday, November 17, the same day she departed. Michigan is home to the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the United States, boasting several hundred thousand residents...
How Western media bias allows Israel to get away with murder in Gaza
November 20th, 20190 An Israeli attack on Gaza was imminent and not because of any provocations by Palestinian groups in the besieged, impoverished Gaza Strip. The Israeli military escalation was foreseeable because it factors neatly in Israel’s contentious political scene. The war was not a question of “if”, but “when.” The answer came on...
U.S. angers Palestinians, violates international law with reversal on Israeli settlements
November 19th, 20190 WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Trump administration changed the U.S. position on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank on Monday, reversing four decades of American policy and further undermining the effort to gain Palestinian statehood. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the U.S. is repudiating the 1978 State Department...
Governor Whitmer trip to Israel angers Palestinians and Arab Americans
November 19th, 20191 LANSING - Governor Whitmer decision to travel to Israel from November 17th to November 23rd, angers Palestinians and Arab Americans in Michigan. The governor will visit Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem to meet with government, business, and nonprofit leaders. Whitmer traveling to Israel while the Israeli army is bombing Gaza...
Tenuous truce in Gaza as Islamic Jihad, Israel differ on terms
November 17th, 20190 GAZA/OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — The Palestinian Islamic Jihad group and Israel declared a halt to hostilities across the Gaza Strip border on Thursday, but a lasting ceasefire appeared tenuous as they differed on terms. Islamic Jihad said an Egyptian-mediated truce went into effect at 0330 GMT, about 48 hours after Israel triggered the...
A lesson for the Palestinian leadership: Real reasons behind Israel’s arrest and release of Labadi, Mi’ri
November 13th, 20190 The release on November 6 of two Jordanian nationals, Heba al-Labadi and Abdul Rahman Mi’ri, from Israeli prisons was a bittersweet moment. The pair were finally reunited with their families after harrowing experiences in Israel. Sadly, thousands of Palestinian prisoners are still denied their freedom, still subjected to all sorts of...
Haley Stevens should focus on serving her constituents in Michigan, not Israel
November 8th, 20191 This week, four members of the United States House of Representatives sent a letter to the United Nations Secretary-General expressing their "concern about the continuing, serious violations of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 and the resulting threat our ally Israel faces on its northern border." Resolution 1701 led to...
Microsoft should not fund Israeli spying on Palestinians
November 6th, 20190 The act of Palestinian activists covering their faces during anti-Israeli occupation rallies is an old practice that spans decades. The masking of the face, often by Kufyias — traditional Palestinian scarves that grew to symbolize Palestinian resistance — is far from being a fashion statement. Instead, it is a survival technique,...
She deserves our support: Betty McCollum wants the U.S. to stop subsidizing torture of Palestinian children
October 23rd, 20190 In December 2018, a 17-year-old Palestinian teen, Ayham Sabah, was sentenced by an Israeli military court to 35 years in prison for his alleged role in a stabbing attack targeting an Israeli soldier in an illegal Jewish settlement in the West Bank. Sabah was only 14-years-old when the alleged attack took place. Another alleged...
The last lifeline: The real reason behind Abbas’ call for elections
October 16th, 20190 The call by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for elections in the occupied territories is a political ploy. There will be no true, democratic elections under Abbas’ leadership. The real question is: Why did he make the call in the first place? On September 26, Abbas took on the world’s most important political...
Israeli parties vie for Arab vote in bid to oust Netanyahu
September 13th, 20190 TIRA - Challengers to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in next Tuesday’s election have courted Israel’s Arab voters, hoping that a strong turnout from this unlikely source could tip the scales in their favor. The centrist Blue and White party headed by former armed forces chief Benny Gantz has plastered Arab towns with...
Israeli TV host calls Arabs ‘savages’ on air, apologizes later
September 13th, 20190 TEL AVIV — A veteran Israeli television personality apologized on Tuesday for saying on the air that “Arabs are savages.” Yaron London, 79, had made the remarks a day earlier during his show “London and Geula” on Channel 11, the Kan public broadcaster. They came during a discussion of the HBO series “Our Boys”, centering...
Netanyahu’s ban on Omar, Tlaib backfires, plays right into the hands of BDS movement
August 31st, 20191 A group of more than 70 Republican and Democratic members of Congress traveled to Israel on a delegation sponsored by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) earlier this month, but the annual trip was far more noteworthy for those who didn't make it; namely U.S. Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Detroit) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN). The...
2020 presidential candidate Cory Booker says he went to Senate to defend Israel
August 17th, 20190 WASHINGTON, D.C. — In response to a recent question inquiring whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is racist, New Jersey Senator and presidential candidate Cory Booker said he entered the Senate to stand up for the state of Israel. Booker was asked about Netanyahu at the Iowa State Fair on August 10 by Jewish...
First major legal win for BDS activists achieved at Fordham University after two-year battle
August 17th, 20190 NEW YORK CITY — A landmark victory has been won by a group of students at Fordham University here, who won the right to establish a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) club on campus after two years of legal battles. The student government's approval of SJP was originally vetoed by the school in December 2016, but in April......
Saudi Arabia blocks Palestinians fleeing Syria’s war from Hajj
August 10th, 20190 BEIRUT - On top of being refugees who have been displaced twice, Palestinian refugees who previously resided in Syria and fled the war to Lebanon have been rejected entry visas to visit Mecca for the holy pilgrimage. Tens of Palestinian refugees with "stateless" passports from Syria have been denied the chance to perform Hajj by Saudi...
The war on innocence: Palestinian children in Israeli military court
August 10th, 20191 On July 29, 4-year-old Muhammad Rabi’ Elayyan was reportedly summoned for interrogation by the Israeli police in occupied Jerusalem. The news, originally reported by the Palestinian News Agency (WAFA), was later denied by the Israeli police, likely to lessen the impact of the PR disaster that followed. The Israelis are not......
Israeli house demolitions are the true crime — not BDS
August 3rd, 20190 Israel is at it again. It remains consistent in engaging in one of its favorite activities: Stealing Palestinian land and tormenting Palestinians. On Monday, Israeli bulldozers, escorted by hundreds of Israeli soldiers, demolished no less than 16 residential buildings containing around 100 apartments in the village of Sur Baher, which...
Netanyahu could deny Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib entrance into Israel
July 20th, 20190 TEL AVIV - Since condemning freedom of expression with regard to the BDS (Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions) movement has been prevalent in the U.S., and with President Trump's recent unapologetic racist remarks about Democratic congresswomen of color (a remark that included U.S. Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Detroit)),...
Jared Kushner’s ‘deal of the century’ fails in Bahrain
July 3rd, 20190 MANAMA - The so called "deal of the century" proposed by President Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, which sought to deal with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, was met with minimal interest from the attending crowd. With the Palestinians absent from the conference table, in addition to the refusal of many Arab...
National Palestinian organization denounces Trump’s Middle East peace plan
June 30th, 20190 WESTLAND — The American Federation of Ramallah, Palestine (AFRP) recently issued a statement saying that it stands united with the Palestinian National Authority in rejecting the pointless "Palestinian Investment Conference" directed by Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law and Middle East envoy: This conference, which excludes......
Lebanon opposes U.S. plan for Mideast, not attending Bahrain conference
June 30th, 20190 BEIRUT — The Lebanese government and parliament both oppose a U.S. plan for settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri said on Wednesday, the National News Agency reported. The first phase of President Trump’s plan to revive the peace process is being discussed at an economic workshop in Bahrain and...
Palestinians reject Kushner ‘economy first’ approach to Middle East peace plan
June 22nd, 20190 GAZA - Palestinian officials on Saturday dismissed proposals unveiled by President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner for big money projects to form the first economic portion of the Trump administration’s long-awaited Middle East peace plan. Senior Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) official Hanan Ashrawi said Kushner’s......
‘World Refugee Day’: Palestinians keep their right of return alive through hope, resistance
June 22nd, 20190 The United Nations’ World Refugee Day, observed annually on June 20, should not merely represent a reminder of “the courage, strength and determination of women, men and children who are forced to flee their homeland under threat of persecution, conflict and violence.” It should also be an opportunity for the international...
Netanyahu thanks Indian prime minister for vote against Palestinian group
June 14th, 20190 TEL AVIV — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has thanked Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for voting in favor of a decision introduced by the Jewish state that objected to granting consultative status to a Palestinian group at the U.N.'s Economic and Social Council. In its first pro-Israel move, India voted on Tuesday......
