Author Archives: Arab America

A leaked document has revealed that Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas approved a plan prepared by his intelligence services to cause chaos in the Gaza Strip. The document in question is a letter sent by intelligence chief Majed Faraj to Abbas briefing him about the plan, which was based on his coordination with intelligence officers in Gaza.

The letter was dated November last year and is written on a PA letterhead. One of the signatories is Faraj with what is believed to be Azzam Al-Ahmad’s signature; he is the Fatah official responsible for reconciliation with Hamas.

According to the Palestinian news agency Safa, which was the first news outlet to publish the document, Faraj briefed Abbas on the details of his plan, telling him that it would be a “snowballing, precise” operation. His intelligence officials would form security cells to set fire to cars in order to convey a message of insecurity in Gaza. These cells would also target Hamas, other factions and civil institutions to “embarrass” the Islamic movement. They would also target leaders affiliated to the dismissed Fatah official Mohammed Dahlan, as well houses belonging to Fatah officials loyal to Abbas.

The second measure would use social media to publish inflammatory statements bearing names of different groups adopting such activities. The mass media loyal to Abbas would exaggerate the issue when they report the chaos in Gaza, blaming Hamas for what is going on.

Source: www.middleeastmonitor.com

Rasmea Odeh, a 67-year-old Chicago woman and Palestinian activist, was convicted of unlawful procurement of naturalization in November and sentenced to 18 months in prison last week.

U.S. attorneys, who recommended a sentence of at least five years, are also seeking to have Odeh deported upon completion of her sentence.

Odeh is accused of lying on immigration paperwork when she came to the U.S. in 1995 to live with her then-ailing father in a Detroit suburb.

Source: www.mlive.com

What does it mean for a religion to be woven into American history?

The presence of Muslims in the early United States is well known to scholars — historians have put their population in the tens of thousands — yet when President Obama noted last month that “Islam has been woven into the fabric of our country since its founding,” he was greeted with incredulous outrage.

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

Amal Clooney is to teach at Columbia University this spring, the New York City school announced on Friday.

The international human rights lawyer and former adviser to the former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan will serve as a visiting lecturer and a senior fellow with the law school’s Human Rights Institute.

“It is an honor to be invited as a visiting professor at Columbia Law School alongside such a distinguished faculty and talented student pool,” Clooney said in a statement. “I look forward to getting to know the next generation of human rights advocates studying here.”

Clooney is based in London, where she lives with her husband, the actor George Clooney. He will be filming a movie, Money Monster, in New York in the spring.

Last month, Amal Clooney joined a legal team working to censure the UK over the treatment of 11 prisoners, known as the “hooded men”, who say they were tortured by the British army in Northern Ireland.

She has also represented the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Yulia Tymoshenko, a former prime minister of Ukraine.

The co-director of Columbia’s Human Rights Institute, Professor Sarah Cleveland, said Clooney’s “extensive experience” would enrich Columbia’s students.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Protests by international solidarity activists against Israel’s military occupation continue 12 years after the killing of Rachel Corrie. The young woman was crushed by an Israel Defence Forces armoured bulldozer in 2003 as she tried to prevent the demolition of Palestinian homes. Speaking to Anadolu, a number of solidarity activists stressed that they look upon the young American as a hero; a great example of someone dedicated to the struggle for Palestinian rights.

Protests by international solidarity activists against Israel’s military occupation continue 12 years after the killing of Rachel Corrie. The young woman was crushed by an Israel Defence Forces armoured bulldozer in 2003 as she tried to prevent the demolition of Palestinian homes. Speaking to Anadolu, a number of solidarity activists stressed that they look upon the young American as a hero; a great example of someone dedicated to the struggle for Palestinian rights.

According to one 24-year-old Frenchwoman taking part in the weekly anti-Israel protest in the village of Al-Nabi Saleh, it is “unnatural” to be there. “But being here is important as I am taking part in the Palestinians’ lives and writing notes about a detained nation here.”

Source: www.middleeastmonitor.com

Guest speaker William Cook, who has won several awards for his travel writing, will give a talk on his experiences of travelling in and around this exotic Arabian country. Learn all about Qatar and the city of Doha, a place where traditional souqs of the past meet the hotel and developments of the future.
You’ll learn that holidays in Qatar offer plenty to do. World-class golf, shopping in spotless malls, cycling through the desert or dune-bashing in the Inland Sea in a 4×4 vehicle are all popular pursuits.
You can also take road-trips to immaculate white-sand beaches – the country is surrounded by the sea so water sports such as kite-surfing and jet-skiing are a must. What’s more, the capital Doha is a multicultural city and food options are seemingly endless.
Event: 6:30-8pm, at The Telegraph, April 1

Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

In a trial that Judge Drain declared was “not political,” Rasmea Odeh was sentenced yesterday to 18 months in prison, a $1,000 fine, immediate revocation of her citizenship, and deportation to Jordan after serving jail time. Odeh was released on bond pending appeal. As Odeh said in her statement at the hearing, “every time I try to build my life up, something comes along that puts me back to zero.”

The hearing’s beginning did not bode well for Odeh’s case as Judge Drain approved two motions by the prosecution for “obstruction of justice” that added time to the sentencing guidelines. This involved Odeh ignoring the Judge’s instructions to not bring up her experiences in Israel including her military trial and torture which he had ruled inadmissible. Odeh would later say in her statement that she respected the court, but also felt compelled to tell her full story of what had happened to her. But even after this inauspicious start, Judge Drain made a point of saying he had read most of the seventy-two letters for leniency attached to the defense pleading and had gotten in addition a “ton of letters from people of all walks of life from all over the country” testifying to Odeh’s character. This would be the first sign that the over 200 supporters filling the courtroom and the overflow room at the hearing and the outpouring of support expressed in well over 70 letters would have a major impact on how Judge Drain would rule. It would also clearly undermine the constant prosecution contention that Odeh was a lying terrorist who flouted the justice of the court and continued to “pal around with terrorists.”

Source: chicagomonitor.com

Seven years ago, sitting in the office of a well-respected Israeli human rights group, a friend confided in me that he often wished his organization failed more often. “That way,” he argued, “we might be closer to Mao’s principle that suffering of the people will hasten the revolution.”

I was shocked — two white, Western-educated and privileged men sitting in an office quoting a brutal dictator in the cause of wishing more suffering on the Palestinian people was a deeply uncomfortable position. I’m sure that if you asked any of those suffering they would deem themselves as having endured more than enough injustice to hasten a multiplicity of revolutions. And they are correct.

But there is an essential truth in my friend’s reference to Mao: human beings respond only to crisis. Crisis forces us into action.

Anyone who has visited the occupied West Bank or Gaza Strip has seen the daily crisis for Palestinians. But for politicians who shift the status quo only under duress, the alarm bells have to be ringing loudly before they will act.

Source: electronicintifada.net

he candidacy of belly dancer Sama El Masry for the upcoming parliamentary elections has stirred controversy in Egypt. Some deem her entry into the race as the natural right of all Egyptian citizens, while others reject the candidacy of a belly dancer known for her “immoral” video clips. Masry has previously made some shocking statements, saying in July 2013 that some viewers use her videos as a substitute for pornographic movies.

Source: www.al-monitor.com

Israel imported its first fruit and vegetables from the Gaza Strip in almost eight years on Thursday, in a partial easing of an economic blockade maintained since the Islamist group Hamas seized control of the Palestinian territory.

Twenty-seven metric tons of tomatoes and five tons of eggplants were trucked across the border under an Israeli plan to bring in around 1,200 tons of produce a month. The Palestinians welcomed the move, though the scale fell short of the some 3,300 tons they said they had previously exported to Israel each month.

Israel has faced international calls to ease the blockade since a war with Hamas last year, the second in six years, that caused heavy devastation in the Gaza Strip and left more than 100,000 of its population of 1.8 million homeless.

Source: www.haaretz.com

When “Mahmoud” won a scholarship to get his Ph.D. from a US university, he was ambivalent. After all, he had always been politically opposed to the Americans because of their foreign policy even though he was impressed by their democracy. In fact, Mahmoud, a lecturer on media ethics who asked to use a pseudonym because of the sensitivity of the subject, is not a big fan of the Palestinian president, and US ally, Mahmoud Abbas. Despite Mahmoud’s father having been a Fatah leader, he has generally voted for Hamas candidates in student council elections and did so as well in the decisive 2006 parliamentary elections, which Hamas swept, winning 74 of the 132 Palestinian Legislative Council seats.

Source: www.al-monitor.com

Today’s long look at the Israeli Jewish colonies in occupied West Bank Palestine, complete with huge photos and detailed maps, has room for quotations from 11 different people, ranging from Benjamin Netanyahu to Nitza Farkash, an employee at the Eli settlement.

But not one Palestinian is asked for his or her reaction. Not one.

The reporters, Jodi Rudoren and Jeremy Ashkenas, did at least briefly notice the people who live under Israeli military occupation and whose land is being seized.  One solitary sentence said that “. . . a  Palestinian man grazed a few cows and sheep on a grassy hillside, and scores of teenagers in white Islamic head scarfs walked home from school.” But the reporters did not stop to ask them any questions.

(This short description is a masterpiece of Orientalist haiku.  The Palestinians are only backward shepherds and young women in “Islamic head scarfs,” contrasted with the nearby “boomtown” Jewish settlement.)

Source: mondoweiss.net