Standing together against U.S. government witch hunt
The following editorial appeared in The Electronic Intifada this week. As The Electronic Intifada reported in November, international solidarity and anti-war activists are facing a new wave of repression in the United States. Since September 24, two dozen activists in Minneapolis, Chicago and other cities across the country...No slack for anti-Zionism
Ruminating on the backlash against Helen Thomas' comment at the December 2, 2010 "Images and Perceptions of Arab Americans" conference that "Congress, the White House and Hollywood, Wall Street are owned by Zionists," I cross my fingers and hope that I'll be judged by what I've done with my life, rather than by one or two of my many dumb...
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...
Helen Thomas is a Semite herself
December 10th, 20100 Helen Thomas is far more than a renowned author, celebrated civil rights leader, and award-winning journalist. She is also a Semite. While many Americans are unaware of her ancestry, the Lebanese American leader traces her ancestry back to the very roots of those of her staunchest rivals, who have recently branded her "ant-Semitic"...
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...Use your taxes to help Palestine
It is difficult to come home from a hard day of work to hear the news from Palestine. A new Israeli settlement is built, another Palestinian family is left without a home in Jerusalem, and a Palestinian mother dies in an ambulance stuck at a checkpoint en route to the hospital. For those of us living here in the United States, this news...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...From Balfour to Obama
On November 2, 1917, Lord Arthur Balfour, the then British foreign secretary, promised to create a homeland for the Jews in Palestine. Known as the Balfour Declaration, the document became the first stepping stone towards the 1948 establishment of the state of Israel. Palestine was still under Ottoman rule when it was written. But...GOP and the deepening divide
The partisan divide on issues related to Arabs and Muslims has become disturbingly wide. For example, when, in a recent poll, we asked American voters whether they had favorable or unfavorable attitudes toward Arabs and Muslims, the results were shocking. Attitudes towards Arabs: Democrats - 57% favorable, 30% unfavorable; Republicans -...The politics of proud ignorance have mushroomed
We Americans define ourselves in very unique ways – from "Don't tread on me" to the rise of the new Tea Party Movement, which is running on a platform of willful ignorance in next week's midterm elections. Christine O'Donnell, who is the most obviously ill-advised member of the Tea Party, is simply the purest inclusion of the politics......
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...The international community’s final test
Palestinian school children stand in front of a school that was vandalised in the West Bank village of Sawiya south of Nablus October 20, 2010. Local Palestinians said that Jewish settlers from the area set fire and vandalised the school on Wednesday. REUTERS/Ammar AwadNegotiations between two unequal parties cannot succeed. Success......
Religious leaders needed in peacemaking
Mutual distrust leads many Palestinians and Israelis to think of peace as a mirage. Since religion plays a significant role in justifying the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, politicians need the help of religious leaders in their search for a solution. The problem is that often the patriarchal figures of the three faiths are too focused...We need to learn more, not less, about Islam and the Arab World
When the Texas Board of Education passed a resolution late last month decrying the "pro-Islamic/anti-Christian bias has tainted... Texas Social Studies textbooks," indicating that they would "look to reject prejudicial textbooks" in the future, they were basing their criticism on a biased anti-Arab review. In doing so, they took a...A plea to the FDA
In June 2006, my mom was diagnosed with early stage two breast cancer. Avastin, a cutting-edge cancer medicine, saved her life. But in December, the FDA is expected to withdraw its approval of the drug. (The decision was initially scheduled for September, but was recently postponed until Dec. 17.) When my mother was diagnosed with...Halal lunches an option if DPS budget allows
To the editor: I was recently contacted by a Muslim friend who was concerned about my views on halal lunches in our schools after reading an article in your paper. Apparently, she thought I was in favor of ending the halal lunch program in our schools due to the cost involved. I must be clear, that is absolutely not the......
Waiting 25 years for justice for Alex Odeh
October 11, 2010, marks the 25th anniversary of the murder of Alex Odeh. Alex was killed on October 11, 1985, when a powerful pipe bomb exploded as he unlocked and opened the door of the American-Arab anti-Discrimination Committee office in Santa Ana, California. In addition to killing Alex Odeh, the bomb injured several...Oath of loyalty to Israel will destroy talks, peace
Right-wing politicians have welcomed plans to introduce an oath of loyalty to Israel as a "Jewish" state for anyone wanting to become a citizen, a move likely to further jeopardize direct peace talks with the Palestinians. The controversial move would amend the current citizenship law to include the phrase: "I swear to respect the laws......
The Arabs and Iran
Regardless of Arab public opinion, governments in the Arab world remain largely authoritarian, with a demonstrated capacity to go against their public sentiment on critical issues, such as war. To be sure, there are always consequences for ignoring public opinion – and these may be growing – but when push comes to shove, governments...The Ground Zero synagogue in Lebanon
"There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over." – Newt Gingrich Lebanon rebuilt that Ground Zero Synagogue because its......
