Gazan Gandhis: Gaza bleeds alone as ‘liberals’ and ‘progressives’ go mute
May 4th, 20180 Three more Palestinians were killed and 611 wounded last Friday, when tens of thousands of Gazans continued their largely non-violent protests at the Gaza-Israel border. Yet as the casualty count keeps climbing — nearly 45 dead and more than 5,500 wounded — the deafening silence also continues. Tellingly, many of those who long...
We’re all in this together
May 1st, 20180 Our republic is under stress. So much so, in fact, that if you’re not worried about its future, you probably haven’t been paying attention. What makes me say this? Our public discourse has become uncivil and shrill. Corruption and unethical actions by prominent politicians headline the daily news. Too many politicians make their...
Comparative geopolitical analysis: Yemen and the U.S.
April 30th, 20180 By Dr. Rais Attamimi and Dr. Ali Alghail Recently, some comparative analysis has been in the mainstream media about the way in which, to take one example, American citizens led by the teenagers protested the dangerous availability of assault weapons on the one hand, and citizens of the Middle East, Yemen in particular, when,...
Seeing is humanizing: 22 years after the first Qana carnage
April 30th, 20180 The wars America fights and funds often happen in far-away places. To make killing less easy, we need to learn to dwell on the visual evidence that follows war, to humanize and individualize “collateral damage.” Until Wednesday, I had never seen pictures of the kids in Qana. Those from the first massacre. Qana was attacked twice,...
English language learning in the Arab context: Practice makes perfect
April 13th, 20180 By Dr. Rais Attamimi There is a common perception that exists among most parents and students, as well as some teachers, that there is an automatic preference for a given learner who is studying a second language to be accorded the chance to visit, and live within, human communities that speak that language and live that culture. ...
Want to help the world? Resolve conflicts
April 13th, 20180 By Lee H. Hamilton In a world riven by tension, there's one skill that stands above all others: The ability to resolve conflict. It is the paramount challenge of our time. There are so many divisions that fracture our communities, states and nations, that the ability to create common ground — to bring people together, rather than...
The bizarre coverage of U.S. mainstream media on Gaza — How biased is the news?
April 13th, 20181 By Farah Harb The Arab American News While the U.S. media is focused on the coverage of President Trump’s “blurry” tweets bashing Syria and other fellow politicians along with the news about Khloe Kardashian’s cheating boyfriend, major events in Gaza, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon have gone almost...
Rim Banna and the cultural war that Palestinians must win
April 6th, 20180 Music unites Palestinians when politicians fail. In fact, while for years the collective calls for "Palestinian unity" has gone unheeded, Palestinian music has continued to bring Palestinians closer. Rim Banna passed away at the age of 51. Her death on March 24, after a decade-long battle with cancer, brought grief to...
After the Gaza killings, it’s time to crack down on Israel
April 6th, 20180 By Diana Buttu Israel's killing of 18 Palestinian protesters in Gaza last Friday was entirely predictable. It was also entirely avoidable. The victims were taking part in the annual Land Day march commemorating the 1976 killing of six Palestinians who were protesting Israel's confiscation of thousands of acres of their...
America is no melting pot; it is a mosaic
March 30th, 20180 By Sundus Mahdi Al-Ameen America was established as a land of hope and promise. In the turn of the 20th century, immigrants flocked from countries all over Europe, ready to join the great melting pot. They faced hardships, but quickly managed to immerse themselves into an ideology they called the American Dream. Decades...
Expanding the ‘our’ in the march for our lives
March 30th, 20180 By Mary Turfah On March 24, hundreds of thousands of Americans took to the streets of Washington D.C., New York, Detroit and elsewhere to protest gun violence—or at least part of it. The Parkland school shooting victims — around whose misfortune these protests arose— have demonstrated their readiness to use their...
The last ‘peace process’ warrior: Abbas hanging by a thread
March 30th, 20180 The "deal of the century" is a farce. We suspected that, of course, but, upon his return from Washington, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed in more detail why the long-anticipated plan of the administration of President Trump has no basis in reality. Netanyahu told his cabinet that there are "no concrete details" to...
The indispensable craft of the politician
March 30th, 20180 For the most part, we Americans value expertise. We want our physicians to possess knowledge and experience. We want our lawyers to know the law inside out. We want our clergymen, our engineers, our farmers to bring the kind of proficiency and skill to their work that comes only with familiarity and practice. So here's a...
Who wants to kill Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah?
March 23rd, 20180 On March 13, while on the way to the besieged Gaza Strip, the convoy of Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah was targeted by two 33-pounds bombs. Hamdallah was visiting Gaza, through the Israeli border checkpoint, Erez, to open a large sewage treatment plant that— if allowed to operate regularly— will make life...
Bush’s war destabilized the Middle East, any Trump war would destabilize the entire world
March 16th, 20180 By Melvin A. Goodman As we approach the fifteenth anniversary of the unwarranted invasion of Iraq, which we are still paying for in so many ways, it is important to remember the misuse of intelligence that provided a false justification for war. It is particularly important to do so at this time because President Donald Trump has......
Will Israeli policies change if Netanyahu leaves office?
March 16th, 20180 If scandal-plagued Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu exits his country’s political scene today, who is likely to replace him? And what does this mean as far as Israel's occupation of Palestine is concerned? Netanyahu, who is currently being charged with multiple cases of corruption, misuse of government funds and public...
Local public health effort aims to de-stigmatize sexual health
March 16th, 20180 By Maliha Ahmed DEARBORN — There is a need for culturally-competent and accurate information on sexual health and healthy relationships in the Arab and Muslim communities. The preventative nature of this education can have long-lasting impact on individuals, their health-seeking practices and overall population health. However, if......
We must be prudent about Dearborn’s police CVE program
March 16th, 20180 On Monday evening, I sat next to two women who are social workers in Dearborn schools and mothers to college students. We were at a community workshop held by the Dearborn Police Department, titled “Defending Against Hate Crimes and Domestic Terror Acts, and Law Enforcement and Mental Health Intervention.” Part of a Department of...
Ahed’s generation: Why the youth in Palestine must break free from dual oppression
March 9th, 20180 As global voices continue to demand the freedom of a 17-year-old teenage Palestinian girl, Ahed Tamimi, Israeli authorities have arrested nine additional members of her family. Those who were detained on February 26 include Ahed's 15-year-old cousin, Mohammed Tamimi. Israeli troops had shot Mohammed in the head last December,...
Where to start? Fix the budget process
March 2nd, 20180 You could choose any number of marquee dilemmas to illustrate how broken Congressional politics has become. Guns, Russian interference, climate change — Americans want progress on all of them and get little from Capitol Hill. But to my mind, nothing illustrates the dire state of our politics better than how we act on the federal...
Netanyahu’s corruption: How Israeli journalists project Israel’s crimes on to Palestinians
March 2nd, 20180 What is not normal, and should never be normalized, is that Israel is the only country in the world that continues to practice Apartheid, many years after it was disbanded in South Africa. In an article published in Al-Monitor without a single verifiable citation, Israeli journalist Shlomi Eldar went to unprecedented lengths to divert......
Democrats should have debated U.S. invasion of Iraq 15 years ago
March 2nd, 20180 Fifteen years ago this week, while the Bush Administration was busy beating the drums for an invasion of Iraq, I submitted a resolution calling on the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to oppose this rush to war. The resolution, which was also endorsed by then Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., who served with me on the DNC, warned that...
From Kent State to Parkland: Will America ever learn?
February 23rd, 20180 By Laurel Krause My sister Allison was shot and killed in a domestic U.S. military massacre during a lunch time antiwar protest at Kent State University on May 4, 1970. Allison was 19-years old when she was targeted for assassination. Her spirit reminds us the most heinous of all massacres is when those killed are defenseless......
More than a fight over couscous: Why the Palestinian narrative must be embraced
February 23rd, 20180 As soon as Virgin Atlantic Airlines introduced a couscous-style salad "inspired by the flavors of Palestine", a controversy ensued. Israel's supporters ignited a social media storm and sent many complaints to the company, obliging the airline to remove the reference to Palestine. In the Zionist narrative, Palestine does not exist —...
U.S. invasion of Iraq: Fifteen years later
February 23rd, 20180 Over the next few weeks, I want to take a look back to February and March of 2003, to those fateful days leading up to the Bush administration's disastrous invasion and occupation of Iraq. I remember all too well the lies that were told, the hysteria that was created, the bullying tactics that were used to silence debate and the mass......
