Less symbolism, more action: Towards meaningful solidarity with Palestine
December 2nd, 20160 The Palestine Solidarity Campaign has designated the week, November 25 to December 3, as the 'biggest-ever campaign' aimed at boycotting Israeli products and those of companies that contribute to the Israeli military occupation of Palestine. In a recently issued press release, the civil society-led group highlighted "99 actions...
What should Palestinians expect – can Trump be any worse?
November 24th, 20160 Fear and trepidation are slowly building up, as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is fortifying his transitional team with people capable of bringing about a nightmare scenario, not only for Americans but for the rest of the world as well. For Palestinians, however, the signs are even more ominous. From former New York Mayor,...
This Thanksgiving, let us unite around our shared values
November 24th, 20160 As Americans gather around the table this Thanksgiving holiday to share a meal and be thankful for what they have, they won't just be discussing turkey, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie. Most likely, politics and the presidential election will be a divisive and bitter topic. We are a divided nation like never before and it...
The American spirit didn’t die on Nov. 8
November 18th, 20160 Eeman Abbasi speaks during a protest on the University of Connecticut campus against the election of Donald Trump. Photograph: Pat Eaton-Robb/APArab and Muslim Americans have many good reasons to be fearful of the Trump presidency. Donald Trump made fear and xenophobia a central part of his campaign. This was a valid reason for Muslim...
Praying for Freedom: Why is Israel silencing the call for prayer in Jerusalem?
November 18th, 20160 As I was growing up, I was always reassured by the sound of the "Muadhin" making the call for prayer in our refugee camp's main mosque in Gaza. Whenever I heard the call very early in the morning, announcing in a melodic voice that the time for the "Fajr" (dawn) prayer was upon us, I knew it was safe to go to sleep. Of course, the...
America’s liberals unleashed the Trump monster
November 11th, 20160 The Earth has been shifting under our feet for a while, but all liberals want to do is desperately cling to the status quo like a life-raft. Middle-class Britons are still hyperventilating about Brexit, and now middle-class America is trembling at the prospect of Donald Trump in the White House. And, of course, middle-class Americans...
We accept the democratic process and prepare to push back
November 11th, 20160 The unthinkable happened. Donald Trump was elected against the odds. The man who suggested placing Muslim Americans in a database and proposed banning Muslims from entering the country will be the next president. And all Americans must live with it and bow to the democratic process. There is no doubt...Looking past identity politics: Dearborn Court’s Judge-elect Gene Hunt
Vote for Susan Dabaja, because she's an Arab." This is what my mother repeatedly exclaimed to me throughout the 2016 election cycle, where Gene Hunt, a longtime resident and lawyer from Dearborn, squeezed a victory over a young attorney and city council president, Susan Dabaja to secure his new role as 19th District Court Judge. I...
In contested elections, your vote is decisive
November 4th, 20160 Michigan has long been a safe Democratic state in the presidential elections for the past 24 years, but the unpredictability of this cycle puts everything in doubt. A Fox 2 poll showed GOP candidate Donald Trump is less than 3.3 percentage points behind Democrat Hillary Clinton — within the margin of...
Public servants or corporate security? An open letter to law enforcement in North Dakota
November 3rd, 20160 A protester against the building of a pipeline on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation near Cannonball, North Dakota, Nov. 2So you joined law enforcement or the National Guard because you wanted to uphold the law, protect innocent civilians against the bad guys, and help your community in times of need. Instead, they're having you...
Muslims have a critical role in this election
October 28th, 20160 We are just days away from one of the most important presidential elections in American history – a contest that is important for all the wrong reasons. On Nov. 8, we are faced with two simple choices; a candidate who offers us all inclusion, and a candidate who offers us isolation. How we vote on Election Day will have wide...
Denouncing Trump is not enough to challenge rising Islamophobia
October 21st, 20160 This week, an Arabic billboard with a deep message denouncing Trump appeared on I-94.Donald Trump, “can’t read this, but he is afraid of it,” the large ad says. It is a nice gesture that grabbed headlines around the world. However, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiments run deeper than the Republican...
The battle for Mosul: Relocating terrorists to Raqqa is a dangerous game
October 21st, 20160 American calculations surround the battle for Mosul and its ramifications on the Middle East — the first aim is geopolitical and the second is electoral. Mosul, considered the Iraqi capital of ISIS, is Iraq's second largest city. The first goal is connected to the war in Syria and the international showdown between Moscow and...
How Israel convinces the world it is under constant ‘existentialist threat’
October 14th, 20160 The Israeli official narrative regarding its conflict with the Palestinians is deliberately confounded because a muddled up discourse is a convenient one. It allows the narrator to pick and choose half-truths at will, in order to create a falsified version of reality. For instance, this is what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin...
Remembering the words of our friends
October 14th, 20160 Religious and racial intolerance are reaching alarming levels. Populist politicians have taken advantage of the spread of violence across the world to scapegoat Arab and Muslim Americans. The bigotry is manifesting itself institutionally, through unfair government programs and policy proposals, but also in society as evidenced by......
A sobering look beyond the election
October 7th, 20160 This campaign year has been full of twists and turns. We don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, let alone on November 8. So talking about what comes afterward seems premature. But it’s been on my mind a lot, because I’m worried. This is not about who wins the presidency. I’m concerned about the aftermath of this...
The war in Yemen must end, as famine spreads
October 7th, 20160 Yemen is on the verge of famine, according to media reports and humanitarian organizations. The country's social, economic and political fabric is being disseminated by the ongoing, apparently endless war. For months, the warring parties met in Kuwait, agreeing and disagreeing every other day, until the negotiations collapsed......
Peres was a man of war
September 30th, 20160 Carnage after the Qana massacre.Shimon Peres has died. The butcher of Qana, who introduced nuclear weapons to the Middle East, is being bewilderingly hailed as a man of peace by U.S. media and politicians. Peres was a nationalistic war criminal, whose atrocities against the Palestinian people predate the state of Israel. Peres...
Cliché and banality at the debates: Trump and Clinton on the Middle East
September 30th, 20160 Watching them both yacking on about the Middle East as a pink dawn glowed from behind the Lebanese mountains above Beirut, I found the Trump-Clinton show a grimly instructive experience. In the few hundred miles east and north of Lebanon, hundreds are dying every week – in Syria, in Yemen, in Iraq – and yet there were the...
Funding Israel does not help the U.S.-desired two-state solution
September 23rd, 20160 At his final U.N. General Assembly appearance, President Obama warned Israel that it cannot permanently occupy Palestinian land. He also urged Palestinians to recognize the legitimacy of Israel. This would sound like a balanced statement if Obama had not signed a $38 billion military aid package to Israel, which would ensure the long...
Honoring Aylan Kurdi by ending the war in Syria
September 23rd, 20160 "A photograph, no matter how emotionally wrenching, can only do so much," wrote Paul Slovic and Nicole Smith Dahmen in QZ.com. The photograph referenced in their comment was that of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi, whose body was washed ashore on some Turkish beach in September 2015. It has been over a year since that tragic photograph of......
Dearborn Police moving in the right direction
September 16th, 20160 Newly recruited ordinance officer Amal Chammout.Three Arab American cops and two ordinance officers, including a woman who wears the hijab, were sworn into the Dearborn Police Department last month. It is a step in the right direction for the embattled force, which has been facing a series of controversies for almost a year. In...
African Americans are not Democrats’ ‘captured group’
September 16th, 20160 Are black voters so loyal to Democrats that their issues are ignored? Donald Trump suggests as much, arguing that blacks had "nothing to lose" by voting for him. Now a column by Farai Chideya at FiveThirtyEight cites academics who make a similar argument. In recent elections, about 90 percent of the black vote has gone to Democrats.......
The Native American, the Palestinian: A spirited fight for justice
September 16th, 20160 Protesters stand on heavy machinery near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation - Photo by ReutersThousands of Native Americans resurrected the fighting spirit of their forefathers as they stood in unprecedented unity to contest an oil company's desecration of their sacred land in North Dakota. Considering its burdened historical context,...
Raqqa for Aleppo: The U.S.-Russian agreement hinges on the details
September 9th, 20160 Internal affairs in Russia and the United States are changing the balance of power and the shape of a future solution in Syria. In the United States, the presidential campaign is witnessing vicious attacks between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, with ISIS (and by extension the Syrian crisis) as one of the most important issues to......
