Author Archives: Arab America

The Wu-Tang Clan was once described as “the most innovative force in hip-hop” by The New York Times. But it wasn’t only the gritty and dark soundscape created by the group that was original. Less well-known is that Method Man, one of the combo’s rappers, may have been the first exponent of his genre to express solidarity with the Palestinians.

The bass-heavy track “PLO Style” appeared on Tical, Method Man’s 1994 debut solo album. Declaring that “the street life is the only life I know,” its lyrics appear to be more of a commentary on the Meth’s direct experiences of Staten Island’s housing projects than on Middle Eastern politics. But when I interviewed him recently, Meth made clear that the PLO referred to in the title is the Palestine Liberation Organization (watch the interview at the top of this page).

Source: electronicintifada.net

The Palestinians who have managed to remain in the Masafer Yatta area of the South Hebron Hills face imminent forcible transfer by the Israeli government.

The residents of these rural communities have lived in this part of the West Bank for decades, many of them since before the Israeli military occupation began in 1967 and long before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. Many families have documents proving ownership of the land.

In the 1980s, the Israeli army declared most of the area as a closed military zone for training — a designation imposed on approximately 18 percent of the West Bank. Approximately 5,000 Palestinians, mostly herders, live in those areas. The land of Masafer Yatta was subsequently leased to the World Zionist Organization for the development of Israel’s settlements, which are illegal under international law.

A pending case regarding the Masafer Yatta communities has remained before Israel’s high court since 2000. But a few years ago the Israeli authorities confirmed their intention to evacuate eight of the twelve villages, “exposing 1,000 people to the imminent threat of forcible transfer, which amounts to a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions and a war crime,” according to the human rights group Al-Haq.

Conditions in the villages are hard. They are not connected to water and electricity networks.

Children study far away from home because Israel forbids the building of public service infrastructure like schools and health clinics. Residents are frequently harassed by Israelis from the surrounding settlements encroaching on the villages’ lands.

Source: electronicintifada.net

BEIRUT: A veteran Al-Jazeera correspondent has been arrested in Amman, Jordan, for refusing to give up custody of her 5-year-old daughter.

Eight hours ago, Rula Amin, posted the news of her arrest with the following tweet: “#rula amin being arrested by police in amman demanding I give up my 5 year old daughter.” There has been no further correspondence from Amin.

Speaking to The Daily Star, a colleague and close friend of Amin, Mysa Khalaf, said Amin was being held in a woman’s detention center in Amman but had not yet been charged.

According to Khalaf, Amin was informed Sunday that Jordan’s Shariah Court had overturned an earlier ruling placing her daughter in her custody.

“She was notified yesterday that she had seven days to give her [the daughter] back to the father, today she was arrested. So the seven days haven’t even gone by,” Khalaf said.

Source: www.dailystar.com.lb

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday there would be no Palestinian state if he were reelected, in a last-ditch effort to woo rightwing voters on the eve of a general election. Polling stations are to open at 0500 GMT on Tuesday for Israel’s second snap general election in three years in a ballot experts agree is likely to be a referendum on the Netanyahu years. With his rightwing Likud trailing the centre-left Zionist Union in the latest opinion polls, Netanyahu said that if his

Source: news.yahoo.com

Politics plays an important role in fanning the flames of extremism, but widespread poverty, high unemployment rates, and a lack of equal educational opportunities for girls are also important factors.

Many of the educational systems in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia follow a pattern of patriarchal and archaic educational systems that teach blind obedience to religion, hold tight to gender norms that devalue the role of women and minorities in society, and do not reflect social justice.

Educational systems need to ensure that all students – girls and boys – are learning “modern” skills that teach independent thinking, critical analysis, problem solving, rational behavior, questioning, discovery approaches, respect for minorities, and appreciation of social justice.

Source: www.csmonitor.com

Today, the twelfth anniversary of our daughter and sister Rachel’s stand and death in Gaza, we find ourselves back where our journey for accountability in her case began – in Washington DC.  We have come for meetings at the Department of State and in Congress and, also, to join our colleagues in pursuit of a just peace in Israel/Palestine at the national meeting of Jewish Voice for Peace.

Rachel was crushed to death March 16, 2003, by an Israeli military, US-funded, Caterpillar D9R bulldozer in Rafah, Gaza, while nonviolently protesting the impending demolition of the home of a Palestinian family.  This was one of thousands of homes eventually destroyed in Gaza in clearing demolitions, described in the 2004 Human Rights Watch Report, Razing Rafah.

The U.S. Department of State reported that on March 17, 2003, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon promised President Bush that the Israeli Government would undertake a “thorough, credible, and transparent” investigation into Rachel’s killing and report the results to the United States.  On March 19, 2003, in a U.S. Department of State press briefing, Richard Boucher said in reference to Rachel, “When we have the death of an American citizen, we want to see it fully investigated.  That is one of our key responsibilities overseas, is to look after the welfare of American citizens and to find out what happened in situations like these.”

Through tenures of both the Bush and Obama administrations, high level Department of State officials have continued to call for Israeli investigation in Rachel’s case.  During our twelve year journey for accountability, we met with Lawrence B. Wilkerson (Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell), William Burns (then Under Secretary of State) and Antony Blinken (then Deputy Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor to Vice President Biden) – all who have acknowledged lack of an adequate response from the Israeli Government in Rachel’s case.

In a letter to our family in 2008, Michelle Bernier-Toth, U.S. Department of State’s Managing Director of Overseas Citizens Services, wrote, “We have consistently requested that the Government of Israel conduct a full and transparent investigation into Rachel’s death. Our requests have gone unanswered or ignored.”

Source: rachelcorriefoundation.org

At the 2015 Jewish Voice for Peace Conference in Baltimore, TRNN speaks to Jewish and Palestinian students, academics and attorneys who are demanding that college campuses stop suppressing dissent

Source: therealnews.com

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad dismissed on Monday remarks made by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that Assad should be included in negotiations to reach a political transition, saying “declarations from outside do not concern us”.

In a Sunday CBS interview, Kerry did not repeat the standard U.S. line that Assad had lost all legitimacy over the shattering civil war in Syria and so had to go. “We have to negotiate in the end,” Kerry said when asked whether the United States would be willing to negotiate with the Syrian leader.

Source: www.reuters.com

  MARCH 19-22, 2015 Opening night for the fourth annual Ann Arbor Palestine Film Festival is this Thursday March 19th at 7:30 at the Michigan Theater. Opening night will feature the short film, “ISMAIL” directed by Nora Alsharif, followed by the feature film “MARS AT SUNRISE”, directed by Jessica Habie. This year’s festival also includes … Continued

Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s nationalist foreign minister, stared coolly at the Arab politician sitting at the opposite end of a glass table during a televised election debate.

“Why did you come to this studio, why not to Gaza, or Ramallah? Why are you even here?” asked Mr. Lieberman, who frequently calls Israel’s Arab citizens traitors and suggests that their towns be transferred to Palestinian control. “You are not wanted here; you are a Palestinian citizen.”

The politician, Ayman Odeh, the leader of an alliance of Arab parties formed to contest Israeli elections on Tuesday, appeared unruffled.

“I am very welcome in my homeland,” he said, a subtle dig at Mr. Lieberman, an immigrant from the former Soviet republic of Moldova. “I am part of the nature, the surroundings, the landscape,” he said in Arabic-accented Hebrew.

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The clash in late February on Israel’s popular Channel 2, during the only debate of the election season, was a sideshow to the larger electoral struggle unfolding between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his chief challenger, Isaac Herzog. Neither Mr. Netanyahu nor Mr. Herzog appeared at the debate. But it was a breakthrough moment for Mr. Odeh, 40, a little-known lawyer from Haifa who has never served in Parliament yet is suddenly poised to be a power broker in the formation of Israel’s next government.

Source: www.nytimes.com

srael goes to the polls tomorrow. Earlier this month, the current Prime Minister of the only nuclear weapons state in the Middle East warned the US Congress that Israel faces an existential threat if Iran too gets the bomb.
Britain, the US and our partners are negotiating with Iran to prevent that from happening. As Roger Cohen commented in The New York Times, “One word did not appear in Netanyahu’s speech: Palestine. The statelessness of the Palestinians is the real long-term threat to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. Iran has often been a cleverly manipulated distraction from this fact”.
Israelis should not vote in another coalition which supports the illegal Israeli settler enterprise in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. How Israelis vote, and how we vote on 7 May, will define the prospects for two states living side by side in peace in the Holy Land.
How Israelis vote matters deeply to them, to the Palestinians, and to us. I was in Jerusalem for Israel’s last election in January 2013. The Israel/Palestine conflict was low down voters’ list of concerns. They elected the most pro-settler coalition that Israel has seen — one that prolonged the blockade of Gaza (now in its 8th year) and accelerated illegal settlement expansion, including Givat Hamatos, which will cut off Arab East Jerusalem from Bethlehem.

Source: www.map-uk.org

Source: www.rachelcorrie.org