Michigan House Bill 4769 discriminatory
Michigan House Bill 4769, "The Restriction of the Application of Foreign Laws," was recently introduced by a number of Republican state representatives, led by State Representative Dave Agema. Even though the word shari'a is omitted, the language of this bill is a replica of other anti-shari'a bills that have been introduced and in...We welcome the AAJA
It is with respect and excitement that The Arab American News welcomes the Asian American Journalists Association to Detroit for their annual convention this week. We welcome as well the more than 500 national and international journalists who are coming to experience the convention and to see for themselves what is going on in the heart...DOJ right on Alabama’s anti-immigrant law
On Monday, the Department of Justice filed suit against the state of Alabama to block the implementation of HB 56, which is set to take effect September 1. HB 56 is similar to but far more punitive than Arizona's SB 1070. The law includes provisions that require local school districts to check and report on the immigration status of all...
Ramadan Mubarak to all
August 5th, 20110 Once again it is time to wish our readers a blessed Ramadan. The ninth month of the Muslim lunar calendar, Ramadan is the month during which the Prophet Muhammad received the revelations from Allah which became the Qur'an. Ramadan is a time to fast from dawn to sundown, as well as to refrain from smoking, sexual relations, immoral...
A time to mourn, a time to ask why
July 16th, 20110 Hassan Mustafa Zeidan. Dead this week at 23 years of age. Not of illness, or natural disaster, or accidental injury.He died, instead, from what looks to be an intentionally inflicted gunshot wound from a fellow basketball player, ostensibly over an argument of some sort. What courtside disagreement could have been so important that...A framework for lasting immigration reform
This week Senators Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Harry Reid (D-NV), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Richard Durbin (D-IL), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY) and John Kerry (D-MA) introduced the "Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2011," a bill that seeks to fix a system that has been broken for...
Can Obama walk the walk?
May 20th, 20110 President Obama's historic speech this week at the State Department on the political changes sweeping through the Middle East and North Africa made it very clear that facilitating the Arab World's transition to freedom and democracy is a priority concern for the United States. Saying so, and simultaneously releasing...
DREAM Act should become law in 2011
May 13th, 20110 This week, Senators Richard Durbin, Harry Reid, and Robert Menendez re-introduced the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act. Last fall, the DREAM Act passed the House of Representatives, and garnered the support of a majority in the Senate, but was ultimately defeated when...
Dearborn rejects extremism, nation should follow lead
April 22nd, 20110 History was truly made here in Metropolitan Detroit this week. As "Pastor" Terry Jones flew into town from Gainesville, Florida to demonstrate in front of the Islamic Center of America, an unprecedented show of interfaith unity and solidarity closed in around the Muslim community. The various interfaith events held to...
Looming storm threatens ‘Arab Spring’
April 18th, 20110 A very dangerous situation is developing in the Arab World. It behooves everyone who is truly concerned with the future of the Middle East to look past the 'Arab Spring' or the 'Arab revolution' and understand the mighty storm gathering in the region. Fears of the regional Persian giant Iran are guiding U.S. foreign policy much...
Protecting the civil rights of American Muslims
April 2nd, 20110 @font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 10pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } The United States Senate Committee of the Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human...
A Mediterranean Alcatraz?
April 1st, 20110 @font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 10pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } Israel is seriously considering building a man-made island off the coast of Gaza to provide Palestinians an...Terry Jones visit to Dearborn an opportunity
@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 10pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } Florida Pastor Terry Jones, who is widely known for threatening to burn the Qur'an last year on the anniversary of 9/11,...
Proud to be an Arab
February 4th, 20110 We are at one with the people of the Arab world who are now standing up for their individual and collective rights. The Tunisians, the Egyptians, the Palestinians, the Jordanians, the Yemenis, the Lebanese - all of them and the others in the Arab world fighting for democracy and human rights have our full support as they attempt to break...As Arab regimes are shaken, allies and foes ponder the future
Palm Beach Gardens — The Arab political coma is over. The spirit of Tunisia is in the Arab psyche. The knees of Arab despots are shaking in North Africa, West Asia and the Gulf states. A woman walks near a wall with graffiti which reads "Long live for Freedom" in Tunis February 1, 2011. Tunisia's security forces must be......
Special Tribunal for Lebanon recipe for failure
American democracy has often perplexed me, because it has a number of times trampled on democracy. Richard Nixon spied on his adversaries. Ronald Reagan sold arms to the Iranians and George W. Bush invented the Patriot Act. And now the Obama administration expects the Special Tribunal for Lebanon indictment to be unrelenting because it...
Praise for passing Amer Act
December 18th, 20100 Last week the Michigan legislature passed the so-called "Relative Placement Bill," House Bill 4118, which requires DHS to place foster children with relatives before strangers, as long as the best interests of the child are not harmed by doing so. The law grew out of the nightmare experienced by Ahmed and Rehab Amer, who had three of......
WSU should reverse decision to pull Thomas diversity award
December 10th, 20100 We strongly disagree with Wayne State Univeristy's decision last week to pull its Helen Thomas Spirit of Diversity in the Media Award following comments she made at a diversity conference in Dearborn. Thomas, an Arab American, is perhaps the best-known alumna of WSU, having covered every President of the United States from the last...Pass the DREAM Act
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) this week released a report that paints a misleading financial portrait of the DREAM Act, federal legislation that would grant legal immigration status to certain undocumented immigrants who meet "good citizenship" requirements, like attending institutions of higher learning and serving in...Michigan’s children deserve more
This was the last week that the so-called "Relative Placement Bill," House Bill 4118, could be put to a vote in the Michigan Senate, making it into law. The bill would require DHS to place foster children with relatives before strangers, as long as the best interests of the child are not harmed by doing so. The bill grew out of the...
Wikileaks saga: While Western hubris exposed, Arab leaders most despicable
December 4th, 20100 The leaked diplomatic cables that have caused such consternation among heads of state should cause much greater concern in the general public. What the cables reveal is a vastly misguided foreign policy in the Middle East, the continued implementation of which is the greatest danger on earth to America. How much of this policy is......
IRS should revoke AIPAC’s tax exemption status
November 27th, 20100 This week the Internal Revenue Service received a 1,389 page filing demanding that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's (AIPAC's) tax exempt status be retroactively revoked. The filing, submitted by the IRmep Center for Policy and Law Enforcement, spans nearly 60 years, from the moment AIPAC's founder left the employment...Arab poet: Empowered women build nations
When the Egyptian poet Hafiz Ibrahim declared that "the mother is a school; empowering her is nation building," she expressed a dream: if women were offered the social and economic opportunities they deserve, they would build strong nations. Do poets today provoke the conscience of society as they did in the past? For several......
Religious harmony existed before Iraq invasion
One day before we went to press this week, a spate of early morning bomb and mortar attacks on homes of Christians in Baghdad left at least three people dead and 26 wounded, according to an interior ministry official. The day before that, three homes in the Mansur district of western Baghdad belonging to Christians were firebombed...Let’s build on our success
A decade after 9/11, the situation in America for Arabs and Muslims is perhaps the worst it has ever been. There are community civil rights and political activism groups everywhere struggling to find a way to make it better, yet little improvement is seen. If anything, we're regressing. The far right political and media......