Hamtramck: Building community at the Family Fun Fair
August 18th, 20220 — Liz Alpert, Hamtramck Public Schools school and community facilitator, contributed this article. It has been edited for style. The best part about heading back to school is getting to see friends, neighbors, teachers and staff after a long summer away. For me, catching up on what everyone has been up to is always a highlight. I...
Without Palestine, there is no Arab unity: Why normalization with Israel will fail
August 14th, 20220 It seemed all but a done deal: Israel is finally managing to bend the Arabs to its will, and Palestine is becoming a marginal issue that no longer defines Israel’s relations with Arab countries. Indeed, normalization with Israel is afoot, and the Arabs, so it seems, have been finally tamed. Not so fast. Many events continue to...
A unique pathway to success: Recognizing Amal Al-Sabahi’s experience
August 8th, 20220 — This article, contributed by Nuo Ivesaj, principal of Horizon High School at Hamtramck Public Schools, has been lightly edited for style Among the many excellent students attending Hamtramck Public Schools (HPS), Amal Al-Sabahi, a recent Horizon High School graduate, has combined interest and opportunity to create success for...
Why resistance matters: Palestinians are challenging Israel’s unilateralism, dominance
August 5th, 20220 Until recently, Israeli politics did not matter to Palestinians. Though the Palestinian people maintained their political agency under the most demoralizing conditions, their collective action rarely influenced outcomes in Israel, partly due to the massive discrepancy of power between the two sides. Now that Israelis are embarking on...
Why voting matters
August 1st, 20220 By Wayne County Executive Warren C. Evans For the past two years, the concept of free and fair elections has come under serious attack. The January 6 insurrection provided Americans with a first-hand look into the efforts to dismantle the Constitution and make it harder for some Americans to vote and have their ballots counted. The...
Our endorsements for the August 2 primaries
July 31st, 20220 As a rule, primary elections do not enjoy the same attention that voters give to general elections, but party qualifiers are — in some races — so decisive that the general elections seem to be a foregone conclusion, and this applies to the fullest extent to the primary elections on Tuesday, August 2. It is a fact that the...
Anti-boycott laws are an affront to free speech. They also don’t address anti-Semitism
July 29th, 20220 — This article by Hamzah Khan, legal intern at the the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ New Jersey Chapter, was first published by the New Jersey Record and USA TODAY Network. It has been edited for style In a world where there are hundreds of companies manufacturing and selling the same product, the freedom to choose a...
Washington is the problem, not the solution: Why Mahmoud Abbas is seeking new “powerful” sponsors
July 28th, 20220 To judge U.S. President Biden’s recent visit to Israel and Palestine as a “failure” in terms of activating the dormant “peace process” is simply a misnomer. For this statement to be accurate, Washington would have had to indicate even a nominal desire to push for negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian...
The pox on our house
July 27th, 20220 — This article by Abdul El-Sayed originally appeared in the newsletter The Incision. It has been edited for style. Subscribe to The Incision here: incision.substack.com Over the weekend, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared monkeypox a “Public Health Emergency of International...
The shameful U.N. “List of Shame”: Equating between the Israeli perpetrator and the Palestinian victim
July 23rd, 20220 By Ramzy Baroud “We regret we failed to protect you.” This was part of a statement issued by U.N. human rights experts on July 14, urging the Israeli government to release Palestinian prisoner Ahmad Manasra. Only 14-years-old at the time of his arrest and torture by Israeli forces, Manasra is now 20-years-old. His case is a...
Op-ed: Andy Levin is the right choice for a more united and understanding future
July 15th, 20220 — Rex Nazarko is a staffer with the Emgage Michigan team This past June, our team at Emgage and our allies came together in a celebratory event on Capitol Hill to honor and inspire Muslim American civic engagement. As our event was about to begin, we encountered heightened security measures on the Hill, which brought about...
The new age of learning is here to stay: Hamtramck Public Schools Virtual Learning Institute
July 12th, 20220 —This article was contributed by Dr. Adnan Aabed, the director of Hamtramck Public Schools Virtual Learning Institute. It has been edited for style. COVID-19 brought many changes to the education landscape and now we realize that some of those changes are here to stay. To produce the best learning environments for students across...
The Hajj is back and Saudi Arabia is hoping to cash in
July 9th, 20220 — This article by Abbas Al Lawati originally appeared in CNN Business. It has been edited for style. Oil has added trillions of dollars to Saudi Arabia’s coffers over the decades, but it’s a resource that will someday run out or lose value as the world turns to alternative energy. Despite current high oil prices, the kingdom...
Something to remember as we celebrate July 4
July 2nd, 20220 By Wayne County Executive Warren C. Evans The July Fourth holiday is when most of us celebrate American independence and the freedoms we are all accustomed to taking for granted. Yet the ongoing January 6 Commission hearings serve as a painful reminder of how those freedoms — indeed our entire democracy — are coming under...
A teacher asked students their thoughts about the Middle East. The answers were stunning.
June 20th, 20220 By Ahlam Yassin Tell me the first words that come to mind when you think of the Middle East. My usually talkative class was quiet. I, their visibly Muslim, Arab American teacher looked around the classroom during a dramatic pause and in the moment I realized how strange this may have seemed to them. After a minute or so, a brave soul......
Palestinians “are bound to win”: Why Israelis are prophesying the end of their state
June 19th, 20220 While it is true that Zionism is a modern political ideology that has exploited religion to achieve specific colonial objectives in Palestine, prophecies continue to be a critical component of Israel’s perception of itself, and of the state’s relationship to other groups, especially Christian messianic groups in the United States and...
Detroit’s care center the first of its kind in the heart of the city
June 15th, 20220 Bringing behavioral health needs to the community DETROIT - The Detroit Wayne Integrated Health Network (DWIHN) will hold a groundbreaking ceremony on Wednesday, June 22 at 11 a.m. at its 707 West Milwaukee headquarters to break ground for the city of Detroit’s first Clinical Care Center. “We are pleased to transform this building......
American “Aid” to Ukraine may hurt more than help
June 14th, 20220 — This article by retired Lieutenant Colonel William J. Astore originally appeared in Bracing War. It has been edited for style. “Follow the money” is sage advice in an America that prides itself on unfettered capitalism where everything is a commodity. A huge chunk of money, namely $54 billion, has already been dedicated...
Abortion access: A matter of life and death
June 8th, 20220 By Dr. Yahya Mossa Basha Although 60 years have passed since I last saw my mother alive, the memory of her bleeding profusely as she was rushed to the hospital while in labor remains hauntingly vivid. Making the pain of her loss even harder to bear is the fact her death could have easily been prevented. She died because she could...
Long marginalized, the “Right of Return” is once more a Palestinian priority
May 30th, 20220 The Nakba is back on the Palestinian agenda. For nearly three decades, Palestinians were told that the Nakba — or Catastrophe — is a thing of the past. That real peace requires compromises and sacrifices, therefore, the original sin that has led to the destruction of their historic homeland should be entirely removed from any...
People in the U.S. don’t support the Gaza blockade. Why won’t congress take action?
May 20th, 20220 By Michael Merryman-Lotze, Truthout Jamea Shalout’s home in Rafah, Gaza consists of two rooms built of cinder blocks and cement. In the room where I met her in late 2019, the only personal belongings visible were the sleeping mats that the family lays out at night and a pile of blankets. Across a dirt courtyard, there is a small......
Stand for Palestine and Shireen Abu Akleh
May 14th, 20220 - Amer Zahr is a law professor at the University of Detroit Mercy and president of New Generation for Palestine On Wednesday morning, in the occupied Palestinian city of Jenin, Israeli occupation forces assassinated Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. Since 1997, Shireen has been the face of Palestine for Al-Jazeera, the...
Shireen Abu Akleh: A trailblazer who gave voice to Palestinians
May 13th, 20220 This report was originally published by members of Al Jazeera's staff, whose colleague Shireen Abu Akleh was killed last Wednesday by Israeli occupation forces while she was covering a raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. It has been edited for style Shireen Abu Akleh, the Palestinian Al Jazeera journalist killed......
By redefining UNRWA, Washington destroys the foundation for a just peace in Palestine
May 7th, 20220 Palestinians are justifiably worried that the mandate granted to the United Nations Agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, might be coming to an end. UNRWA’s mission, which has been in effect since 1949, has done more than provide urgent aid and support to millions of refugees. It was also a political platform that protected and...
Bennett must tread carefully: The “Sword of Jerusalem” could be unleashed again
May 1st, 20220 Starting on April 15, the Israeli occupation army and police raided the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Occupied East Jerusalem on a daily basis. Under the pretense of providing protection to provocative “visits” by thousands of illegal Israeli Jewish settlers and right-wing fanatics, the Israeli army has wounded hundreds of Palestinians,......
