The Arab American News
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Obama urged to quickly engage Iran, Syria
WASHINGTON (IPS) — The incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama should move quickly to engage Iran without preconditions and to promote an Israeli-Syrian peace accord, according to two veteran Middle East experts whose views are likely to have influence over Obama's just-announced foreign policy team. U.S....Al Haq lawyers tour in Canada
The National Council on Canada-Arab Relations is sponsoring a Canadian tour by two lawyers with Al Haq, a Ramallah-based human rights organization that monitors and defends human rights in the Occupied Territories. On Oct. 22, they spoke at Ottawa's Carleton University. Their appearance, publicized by a co-sponsoring campus group...
Arabic calligraphy explained
December 6th, 20080 Quebec, Canada – Syrian calligrapher Khaled al-Saa’i discussed Arabic calligraphy at a lecture held Nov. 11 at the Galérie Montcalm in Gatineau, Quebec. The same poetic verse ("wounding a dead man does not torment") written in the eight basic types of Arabic calligraphy by Khaled al-Saa'i. From top to bottom: Riq'a,...Will Palestinians hit Hillary’s glass ceiling?
It is difficult to recall a U.S. secretary of state who embodied the ideals of the position: the promotion of dialogue and privileging of diplomacy. Unfortunately, U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's nominee, Hillary Clinton, is not likely to restore these ideals to the office. U.S. President-elect Barack Obama (L) announces...JFK episode suggests Obama’s Iraq plan at risk
WASHINGTON (IPS) — The decision by President-elect Barack Obama to keep Robert M. Gates on as defense secretary has touched off a debate over whether Obama can pursue his commitment to rapid withdrawal from Iraq even though Gates has defended George W. Bush's surge policy and opposed Obama's 16-month timetable for...Novella serves as historical record of ‘Naqba’
Khirbet Khizeh, by S. Yizhar, Ibis Editions, 1949,translated from Hebrew by Nicholas de Lange and Yaacob Dweck. While Israel, as a collective entity, continues to wander the corridors of the retirement home of history as an old man with Alzheimer's, there are those who forever remain young and alert. One of those was S. Yizhar,...“Museum of Tolerance” to be built over Muslim cemetery
On Oct. 29, two years after mediation began in Israeli courts, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s "Museum of Tolerance" could build on a Muslim cemetery, called Mamilla, in Jerusalem. A rendering of the Simon Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance. The Mufti of Jerusalem Sheikh Mohammad Hussein called...ADC releases hate crimes report, highlights recent military case
WASHINGTON — The day before releasing their latest hate crimes report, The American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) received a message telling the group to go back to where they came from. ADC Executive Director Kareem Shora read the message in full to an audience of journalists and the public Thursday. The e-mail...
In dire financial straits, ADC prepares for annual fundraising gala
December 5th, 20080 The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC)-Michigan is finalizing plans for its Annual Fundraising Gala on Dec. 12, amid increasingly difficult financial challenges. "LA-8" Attorney David Cole is to keynote ADC-Michigan's annual fundraising gala. The gala, to be held at the Hyatt Regency, 600 Town Center Drive in...
Three Arab Americans named Rhodes Scholars
December 5th, 20080 Abdulrahman El-Sayed has been busy. Rhodes Scholarship recipient Abdulrahman El-Sayed delivering a commencement address at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor as a top graduate in Spring 2007. PHOTO: University of Michigan News Service At 24 years old, the Ann Arbor student has already acquired a joint bachelor’s degree in...
CAAO rejects latest Wygonik statement, insists on apology for “maligning Arabs”
December 5th, 20080 DEARBORN — After having his first three official statements rejected by the Congress of Arab American Organizations (CAAO), 19th District Court Judge Richard Wygonik released what he called his final statement on alleged insensitive comments he made about Arabs in July. Representatives of the Congress of Arab American...
Mumbai attacks strain Indian-Pakistani relations
December 5th, 20080 The Mumbai attacks have brought old suspicions to the fore. Indians suspect militants from Pakistan. Pakistanis reject what they call a typical blame game. NEW DELHI, INDIA AND KARACHI, PAKISTAN — Akash Maheshwari has no doubts about what will happen in the standoff between India and Pakistan. The Indian businessman said his country...
No election violations found by committee
December 5th, 20080 DEARBORN — After a complaint that there were stacks of campaign literature inside polling places on Election Day at two different sites, a meeting was called by the city's Election Commission to discuss the matter with local leaders and witnesses. Abed Hammoud, of the Arab American Political Action Commitee (L) and Dearborn...
My Palestinian wife
December 5th, 20080 Every now and then, the rumor arises that I have a Palestinian wife. Some of my kin were highly amused by a debate on that subject that was being conducted by letters to the editor in their local paper recently. Apparently, it does not occur to anyone simply to ask me. As a matter of fact, I don't have a wife. I'm a widower, and the...
U.S. charity found guilty
November 29th, 20080 Zolfa Elaydi, center, with her children Fidaa, left, and Jihad, reacting to news that the leaders of a Muslim charity had been convicted on Monday in Dallas. PHOTO: Dallas Morning News DALLAS — A U.S. court has convicted a Muslim charity and five of its former leaders on 108 charges in the largest "terrorism" financing trial in......
Lebanese waiting for death penalty verdict
BEIRUT (IPS) — The Lebanese government will use television to gain maximum attention for its plan to abolish the death penalty, giving one station the first right to question Justice Minister Ibrahim Najjar about the details of an abolition bill which will be eventually presented to parliament. Lebanese peacefully protest the...Dems owe Carter an apology
Carter's controversial views on Israel cost him a place on the podium at the Democratic Party convention Jimmy CarterNow that the season of electoral expediency is over, Barack Obama owes Jimmy Carter an apology. At the Democratic National Convention in Denver, the Party denied Jimmy Carter the traditional invitation to...Mosque and synagogue together
When Sheykh Zahir Bacchus of Lote Tree Foundation in Brampton (a city near Toronto) and Rabbi Yossi Sapirman of Beth Torah in Toronto met at a seminar on serving the sick and dying, they became friends. And last year, the two were among a group of 13 rabbis and imams invited to a meeting in New York sponsored by the Foundation for Ethnic...End counterproductive racial profiling
Racial or ethnic profiling is nothing new. In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Arabs and Muslims in America are often the targets of ethnic profiling, despite the argument that racial and ethnic profiling runs contrary to American values. Counterterrorism strategists argue that targeting particular ethnicities or......
It’s time to end the Fed
The wild fires raging in California no doubt have the finger prints of arson, as did the wildfires that preceded them. A person who is facing foreclosure figures instead of burning his own house and risk being convicted of insurance fraud, he lights up a nearby dry brush, and nature does the rest. The same scenario is taking place in...
Fakhouri accompanies Gov. Granholm, business delegation to Jordan
November 29th, 20080 Arab American and Chaldean Council board member Eliya Boji (L), ACC President Haifa Fakhouri, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, Jordanian King Abdullah II and Chief of the Jordanian Royal Court Nasser al Louzi at the King's Palace in Amman on Nov. 19. During a four-day trip to the Middle East last week, Michigan Governor......
Fighting for women’s rights in Yemen through film
November 29th, 20080 Khadija Al-Salami, considered Yemen's first female filmmaker, has made more than 20 documentaries for TV stations in France and Yemen. Her latest documentary is "Amina," which was screened during the Arab Film Festival in October in the San Francisco Bay Area. A film still from the movie "Amina." The film's center is Amina...The Struggle For Palestine: Hamas vs. Fatah
I'm not sure where to start with this volume — other than to say it is a history so out of context and so biased in its language that it is essentially meaningless. If a scientist were to isolate human blood cells and study them under a microscope — and only blood cells under a microscope — they could learn and report about all......
