On “conflict”, “peace” and “genocide”: Time for new language on Palestine and Israel
June 20th, 20211 On May 25, famous American actor Mark Ruffalo tweeted an apology for suggesting that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza. “I have reflected and wanted to apologize for posts during the recent Israel/Hamas fighting that suggested Israel is committing ‘genocide,’” Ruffalo wrote, adding, “It’s not accurate, it’s...
Don’t send them money
June 18th, 20210 Instead of telling you a ghost story around a summer campfire, we have an all-too familiar tale to share: Myra’s grandson, Jon, is in Mexico for the summer. They video chat every week. One day, Myra gets a call from someone who says he’s Max, a friend of Jon’s: “He was arrested last night and needs $500 for bail.” Max says the...
On Trumpism and Netanyahu-ism: How Benjamin Netanyahu won America and lost Israel
June 18th, 20210 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is as much American as he is Israeli. While other Israeli leaders have made their strong relationship with Washington a cornerstone in their politics, Netanyahu’s political style was essentially American from the start. Netanyahu spent many of his formative years in the U.S. He lived in...
On the politics of victory and defeat: How Gaza dethroned the king of Israel
June 12th, 20210 How did Benjamin Netanyahu manage to serve as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister? With a total of 15 years in office, Netanyahu surpassed the 12-year leadership of Israel's founding father, David Ben Gurion. The answer to this question will become particularly critical for future Israeli leaders who hope to emulate Netanyahu’s...
Fun summer programs at Hamtramck Public Schools combat learning loss
June 9th, 20210 The global pandemic caused significant disruptions in education across the country over the past two years. As a result, Hamtramck Public Schools is offering a robust summer education program to reduce learning loss in advance of the new school year in September. This modern summer program incorporates fun and innovative ways to support...
“Mowing the grass” no more: How Palestinian resistance altered the equation
June 5th, 20210 The ceasefire on May 21 has, for now, brought the Israeli war on Gaza to an end. However, this ceasefire is not permanent and constant Israeli provocations anywhere in Palestine could reignite the bloody cycle all over again. Moreover, the Israeli siege on Gaza remains in place, as well as the Israeli military occupation and the rooted...
The fumbling king of Palestine: Palestinians are defeating the Oslo culture
June 3rd, 20210 The political discourse of Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, is similar to that of an ineffectual king who has been isolated in his palace for far too long. The king speaks of prosperity and peace, and tirelessly counts his innumerable achievements, while his people are dying of starvation outside and...
Redistricting: What is it and why it matters
May 29th, 20210 By Hayg Oshagan What is it? Every 10 years, every state redraws all of its district election maps. For Michigan, that’s 110 House district maps, 38 Senate district maps and 13 U.S. Congressional district maps. Once these are drawn, you elect your Michigan House, Michigan Senate and U.S. Congressional representatives based on...
Palestine’s moment: Despite massive losses, Palestinians have altered the course of history
May 29th, 20210 The “Palestinian Revolt of 2021” will go down in history as one of the most influential events that irreversibly shaped collective thinking in and around Palestine. Only two other events can be compared with what has just transpired in Palestine: The revolt of 1936 and the First Intifada of 1987. The general strike and rebellion...
Abdul El-Sayed: American taxpayers are subsidizing Gaza’s destruction
May 21st, 20211 — This essay, penned by Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, originally appeared in his newsletter The Incision on Thursday under the title "Gaza." It has been edited for style. In 2004, a couple childhood friends and I decided, like many 20-somethings, to spend the summer abroad. We headed to the Middle East, land of our forefathers. Our goals were...
The evolution of apartheid: Why Israel is becoming a pariah state
May 20th, 20210 On April 27, one of the world’s largest and most credible rights groups, Human Rights Watch (HRW), concluded, in a comprehensive 213-pages report, that Israel is an apartheid state. “Across these areas and in most aspects of life, Israeli authorities methodically privilege Jewish Israelis and discriminate against Palestinians....
Never-ending destruction of historical sites in Mecca and Medina, cradle of Islam
May 15th, 20210 Saudi Arabia, in which Wahhabism is the state form of Islam, has a long history of vandalizing and demolishing historical monuments. Cultural devastation of Islamic heritage sites is not a new phenomenon to the Bedouin kingdom of Saudi Arabia. After the conquest of Mecca and Medina in the mid-1920s Saudis went on an orgy of...
Muna is Palestine, Yakub is Israel: The untold story of Sheikh Jarrah
May 12th, 20211 There are two separate Sheikh Jarrah stories. One is read about and watched on the news, the other receives little media coverage or due analysis. The obvious story is that of the nightly raids and violence meted out by Israeli police and Jewish extremists against Palestinians in the devastated East Jerusalem neighborhood. For...
A Palestinian prayer for Ramadan: May the voices of the oppressed be heard
April 26th, 20210 Palestinians COVID-19 cases, especially in Gaza, have reached record highs, largely due to the arrival of a greatly contagious coronavirus variant, which was first identified in Britain. Gaza has always been vulnerable to the deadly pandemic. Under a hermetic Israeli blockade since 2006, the densely populated Gaza Strip lacks basic...
Recognition of Palestine is “symbolic”, but also critical: The Australian case
April 15th, 20210 Australia’s Labor Party’s recognition of Palestine as a state on March 30 is a welcomed position, though it comes with many caveats. Pro-Palestinian activists are justified to question the sincerity of the ALP’s stance and whether Australia’s Labor is genuinely prepared to fully adopt this position should they form a......
Israel rejects ICC investigation: What are the possible future scenarios?
April 14th, 20210 The Israeli government’s position regarding an impending investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of alleged war crimes committed in occupied Palestine has been finally declared by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “It will be made clear that Israel is a country with rule of law that knows how to...
From his solitary confinement, Marwan Barghouti holds the key to Fatah’s Future
April 8th, 20210 If imprisoned Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti becomes the president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), the status quo will change substantially. For Israel, as well as for the current PA president, Mahmoud Abbas, such a scenario is more dangerous than another strong Hamas showing in the upcoming Palestinian parliamentary......
Kafkaesque politics: The missing lessons from Israel’s latest elections
April 3rd, 20210 A “major setback” was the recurring term in many news headlines reporting on the outcome of Israel’s general elections of March 23. While this depiction specifically referred to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s failure to secure a decisive victory in the country’s fourth elections in two years, this is only part of...
A house divided against itself cannot stand: Addressing Anti-Yemeni Discrimination in the Arab American Community
April 3rd, 20211 It started at childhood. “Yemeni, Yemeni, shower is my enemy.” At 9-years-old, these unforgettable words, among others, were often muttered by my fellow Arab classmates. I painfully recall standing there, frozen stiff as tears of shame and confusion threatened to spill over. As a young Yemeniya, I could not comprehend why I was...
The Nakba of Sheikh Jarrah: How Israel uses “the law” to ethnically cleanse East Jerusalem
March 24th, 20210 A Palestinian man, Atef Yousef Hanaysha, was killed by Israeli occupation forces on March 19 during a weekly protest against illegal Israeli settlement expansion in Beit Dajan, near Nablus, in the northern West Bank. Although tragic, the above news reads like a routine item from occupied Palestine, where shooting and killing unarmed...
Biden’s China policy likely to be doomed from the start
March 21st, 20210 A much anticipated American foreign policy move under the Biden administration on how to counter China’s unhindered economic growth and political ambitions came in the form of a virtual summit on March 12, linking, aside from the United States, India, Australia and Japan. Although the so-called “Quad” revealed nothing new in......
Ready to work with Netanyahu: Mansour Abbas splinters Arab vote in Israel
March 15th, 20210 At a glance, it may appear that the split of Arab political parties in Israel is consistent with a typical pattern of political and ideological divisions which have afflicted the Arab body politic for many years. This time, however, the reasons behind the split are quite different. As Israel readies for its fourth general elections...
“Is this who we are?”: Gitmo is America’s enduring shame
March 10th, 20210 “That’s certainly our goal and our intention.” This was the non-committal answer given by White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki when, on February 12, she was asked by a reporter whether the new Joe Biden administration intends to shut down the notorious Guantánamo Bay Prison by the end of the president’s first term in......
Biden is on the verge of making the same dangerous mistakes as his predecessors
March 7th, 20210 By Frank Giustra and Andrew Bacevich If the escalating tensions between the United States and China aren't causing you concern yet, you've not been paying attention. Any conflict between the two superpowers would result in unimaginable devastation — if not physical, at least economic. And don't forget: Both China and the United...
Biden’s foreign policy: No joy in Mudville
March 3rd, 20210 By Thomas L. Knapp Well, at least he hasn't started any NEW wars! For four years, that was the excuse I got from anti-war Donald Trump supporters every time he escalated one of the several wars he inherited from George W. Bush and Barack Obama. I expect to start hearing it from anti-war Joseph Biden supporters soon. Trump was......
