Author Archives: Arab America

Damascus, Syria, Mar 12, 2015 / 04:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- As the fourth anniversary of the beginning of the Syrian civil war approaches, the head of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church has called for a world day of prayer and fasting for peace in his country.

“Lent is a way of the cross, and we are in the fifth year of the way of the cross of our Arab countries, especially in Syria, Iraq and Palestine, but also in Lebanon, which is influenced in a dramatic way by the wars that have flared up around it,” wrote Gregorios III, Melkite Greek Patriarch of Antioch and Bishop of Damascus, in a Feb. 24 letter.

Patriarch Gregorios’ letter appealed for a world-wide day of prayer and fasting for peace in Syria, to be observed March 15-16, 2015.

The Syrian conflict first began March 15, 2011, when demonstrations protesting the rule of Bashar al-Assad and his Ba’ath Party sprang up nationwide. In April of that year, the Syrian army began to deploy to put down the uprisings, firing on protesters.

Since then, the violence has morphed into a civil war which has claimed the lives of more than 220,000 people. There are 3.8 million Syrian refugees in nearby countries, most of them in Turkey and Lebanon, and an additional 8 million Syrian people are believed to have been internally displaced by the war.

The patriarch’s prayer initiative is being supported by the international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, which has given $6.6 million in aid since the civil war began.

“With the spread of the conflict into the neighbouring countries, the situation has become still more desperate, the more so since the interest on the part of the international community has clearly dwindled,” Baron Johannes Heereman, executive president of Aid ot the Church in Need, said March 4. “That is why we are providing emergency aid for families in Aleppo, Homs, Damascus and other affected areas. We are helping to supply basic foodstuffs, medicines, primary medical care, financial help with rent for lodgings, heating and electricity. But money can only help to ease the suffering, not end the war.”

Patriarch Gregorios wrote that “Our countries’ Golgotha is very great: the greatest tragedy of the region’s territories and even of the world since the Second World War. As bishops, our role is to be with our people, alongside our people, before our people, behind our people and in the service of our people. We want to wash the feet of those who suffer, as Jesus washed his disciples’ feet. Yet we ask forgiveness from our faithful, because, despite our efforts, we are unable really to meet all their needs which are increasing on a daily basis.”

“We are at a loss before the great pain and great suffering of our people in all its Christian and Muslim communities. This is tragedy and suffering on a global scale, which affects everyone. All have been affected by poverty, hunger, cold, lack of clothing, illness, sufferings and disability. The great majority of our faithful suffer from all that, especially in Syria. All are equal now in this kind of suffering.”

The patriarch lamented the vast numbers of Melkite Catholics leaving Syria, urging “everyone to stay, to be patient, strong, always to hope and to hang on to hope, faith and trust in God’s will … we, as pastors are staying with all those who are staying, and are serving them wholeheartedly and with all our strength. We are making continuous efforts to help everyone, by all means at our disposal.”

He thanked Pope Francis for his prayers for and solidarity with the people of Syria, “and also for his material assistance through the Roman dicasteries and the various organisations related to the Vatican.”

Patriarch Gregorios welcomed the news of the return of some faithful to their homes, including at Ma’loula, Al-Qusayr, and Homs, and at the rebuilding of homes and churches in these towns and in Al-Nabek and Yabrud.

He added, “We are also glad about the compensation given by the State and for the aid of our faithful and we also thank all the international institutions and our friends who are helping us in this direction.”

“From the very depths of our suffering and pain in Syria we cry out with our suffering people, who are walking on the bloody way of the cross, and appeal to the whole world: Enough! Enough! Enough of war on Syria!” he concluded.

“We believe in the power of the prayer and fasting in this Great Lent, and we call for a day of solidarity with Syria, a day of fasting and prayer for hope and peace in Syria.”

Source: www.catholicnewsagency.com

Mohamed Musallam can be seen in a video released Tuesday on his knees wearing the familiar orange jumpsuit of an Islamic State captive. Before he is shot in the head by a boy, he admits under obvious duress that he was “an agent for the Israeli Mossad.”

His family insists that Mr. Musallam, a 20-year-old Palestinian from East Jerusalem, was no spy, a prospect far more embarrassing for his father and brothers than his appearing to have traveled to Syria to wage jihad with the Islamic State.

“It’s not true, it’s not true, it’s not true at all,” said his elder brother, Ahmed, 29, in an interview Wednesday in the cramped bedroom he shared with his brother and two other siblings.

“To hell with those who say he was a spy!” cried his mother, Hind, who clutched a photograph of her son.

In the 13 ½-minute video released by the Islamic State, Mohamed Musallam said that his father and another brother, Ismail, 27, urged him to assist the Israeli intelligence agency. He said he was sent to Syria to join the Islamic State, locate its bases and weaponry and identify other Palestinians fighting for the group.

Source: www.nytimes.com

What rhymes with intifada and is reportedly offensive to Jews?

The answer, of course, is “Dintifada.”

Last Sunday, UC Berkeley student Sumayyah Din announced her candidacy for her campus’s student senate. By the next day, the Muslim-American sophomore was under attack for using an imaginary word that was deemed offensive by one of the campus’s pro-Israel groups.

Din had posted the following candidacy statement on her Facebook wall:

I am honored to have the opportunity to run for ASUC Senate as an independent candidate. I believe it is tremendously important for ALL students at Cal to have a voice in our student government and I want to represent my communities in this space. My vision encompasses a collaborative force on campus that utilizes our collective identities for an inclusive campus climate. I hope to move forward with the utmost transparency, compassion, and vigor. Vote the Independent Voice for an Independent Choice! #DIN4THEWIN #DINASTY #DINTIFADA #DOIT4THEDIN

At the end of her statement, she inserted four made-up hashtags, all of which were riffs on her surname—inserted as puns, near-rhymes, and alliteration. But one hashtag was singled out by the campus pro-Israel crowd as offensive: “#DINTIFADA.”

Source: mondoweiss.net

Rasmea Odeh has dedicated fifty years of her life to serving her community by supporting immigrants and refugees and serving women facing painful life situations. As of this writing, Rasmea faces an extremely dire situation herself as she awaits sentencing by a Federal court on charges of immigration and naturalization fraud.

A prison sentence would most certainly deprive the Chicago community of a devoted and important leader. Though her past has been used to unfairly portray her as dangerous, her actions over many decades in this country tell another story. As Associate Director of Chicago’s Arab-American Action Network Rasmea has transformed the lives of many in our city’s Arab and Muslim community. Indeed, Chicago’s diverse communities rely upon activists like Rasmea – compassionate civic leaders who help new immigrants to find their place and comfort in their new American home.

Source: mondoweiss.net

In May of 2003, the government of then-Likud Chairman Ariel Sharon (in which Netanyahu served as one of the top ministers) decided to adopt the so-called Road Map — a document issued by the office of US President George W. Bush. The document, which Bush subsequently turned into a UN Security Council resolution, states emphatically, “A settlement, negotiated between the parties, will result in the emergence of an independent, democratic and viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel and its other neighbors.”

When Netanyahu and other Likud leaders pledge to expand construction in the settlements of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, they are in contempt of a Cabinet decision that adopted the principles of the 2005 “Unauthorized Outposts Report” commissioned by Sharon from the former senior state prosecutor, attorney Talya Sason.

Source: www.al-monitor.com

Al-Monitor:  Why did you decide to become a journalist?

Salah:  Ever since I was young, I had ambitions of becoming a journalist, simply because I was born in Palestine and it’s one of the most eventful places in the world. I was born around the end of the intifada in 1990, and grew up during the collapse of the Oslo Accord with the Palestinian Authority. I was 10 years old when the intifada began in 2000, and lived through all the heated political events and the Israeli siege, which began when I was 16 years old. In addition, there were the massacres, the invasions and the wars, which were a major reason for making me think of journalism as a future profession, to be able to cover these and other events and convey them to the world with professionalism and credibility.

Al-Monitor:  Did you have female role models to look up to when you were first starting out? Who?

Salah:  I used to watch the news when I was young and I was certain that someday I would become a journalist because I wanted to be the voice of the oppressed. I wanted to cover the events with boldness in a world full of wars and disasters. Palestinian journalists such as France 24 correspondent Leila Auda and Guevara al-Badiri from Al Jazeera were my role models. I used to watch them courageously cover the Israeli army’s invasion of the Palestinian regions and I can still vividly remember them until this day. I was around 14 years old, and Auda, who was reporting for Abu Dhabi Television back then, got hit by Israeli fire while covering an event, and it’s still burned in my memory. She was wounded and still she ran toward the medics. Oprah Winfrey’s success story used to inspire me every time I felt weak and wanted to quit.

Al-Monitor:  It seems that there are more and more women covering the news out of the Middle East. What do you think is contributing to that trend? What changes have you noticed in your career?

Source: www.al-monitor.com

March 11, 2015

Dear senators:

Thank you for your letter of March 9 explaining your system of government. We were unfamiliar with the complexity of your laws. For three years we have been negotiating a nuclear energy agreement with your president. We now realize our mistake. As your letter makes clear, the authority to establish such agreements on behalf of your country rests with your Congress.

We are in your debt for this clarification. Moreover, your letter has prompted us to undertake a broader study of the American political system. What we have learned has opened our eyes. For 35 years, we have treated you as an adversary. Our intelligence agencies told us that your culture and your political system were radically different from ours. We now understand that we were misled. Your country is much like ours. Indeed, your Republican Congress is much like our revolutionary Islamic councils. We are brothers.

Your letter explains that our discussions with your president have been in vain because “anything not approved by Congress is a mere executive agreement,” which can easily be cast aside by a future president or Congress. Under your Constitution, as you point out, “the president may serve only two 4-year terms, whereas senators may serve an unlimited number of 6-year terms.” Therefore, the ultimate authority to make and interpret your country’s policies resides with you, not with your president. As you note, “President Obama will leave office in January 2017, while most of us will remain in office well beyond then—perhaps decades.”

Your Republican Congress is much like our revolutionary Islamic councils.

We were delighted to read this sentence. What you have described—a circle of overseers who work in perpetuity to restrain the president—is very familiar to us. Our president, like yours, is limited to two consecutive four-year terms. His powers are also severely circumscribed. He has a national security council, but he and his council do not establish our nation’s policies.

In our system, true power lies with the chamber that oversees the president. For you, this chamber is the Senate, controlled by your Republican caucus. For us, it is the Council of Guardians. Members of our council, like members of your Senate, serve six-year terms. The council may veto any legislation, which, in its judgment, violates our republic’s guiding body of law. For us, that body of law is Sharia.

Our intelligence agencies told us that in your country, the guiding document is your Constitution. Recently, however, we watched videos from your “Conservative Political Action Conference.” Several of your senators spoke there about the abomination of homosexual marriage and the importance of protecting religion. Our assessment is that your senators interpret your Constitution in accordance with the Christian Bible, just as our council applies our Constitution in the light of the Holy Quran. We particularly enjoyed the speech of your senator from Texas, Ted Cruz, who called on your government to fight for Christians abroad. This is in agreement with our own policy of coming to the aid of faithful Muslims everywhere.

We are in great admiration of Sen. Cruz. In our republic, he would be an Ayatollah Uzma. We appreciate his signature on your letter and his steadfastness in correcting your president. Many of us were dismayed to learn that Sen. Cruz was criticized in your country for withholding the government’s operating funds in order to block the implementation of a health care law. Some Americans even called the senator a hostage taker.

We also very much admire the principal author of your letter, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas. Sen. Cotton, like many of our young militiamen, served in combat in Iraq and believes that he is an instrument of God. Some may consider him too young to assert dominion over your country’s foreign policy, at 37 years of age and with only two years of political experience. But we in Iran appreciate his vigor. He reminds us of the young men who seized your embassy here in 1979, two years after he was born. Those brave young revolutionaries did not wait for guidance from their elders.

In Iran, all educational institutions are governed by our Cultural Revolution Council, which safeguards the faith of the people. We have been unable to locate such a council in your federal government. However, we recently learned that the state board of education in Sen. Cruz’s state, Texas, controls through its purchasing power the content of textbooks throughout your country. The board has used this power to limit the teaching of evolution and promote the celebration of your country as a Christian nation. Our cultural council protects Islam in the same way.

Our system, like yours, has its critics. Some portray our Council of Guardians as unelected ideologues who override the will of the people. The charge is absurd, as your own experience demonstrates. In your country’s three most recent elections, which together produced your Senate’s entire current membership, the other party’s nominees won 5 million more votes than yours did. Nevertheless, you control the chamber. The true will of the people, as you know, is to follow those of us who understand what is best.

Thank you once again for this enlightening exchange. Prompted by your letter, our council has decided to end the talks with your secretary of state and dismiss nuclear inspectors from our country. We look forward to working with you in the future on other matters of common interest, such as prayer, capital punishment, and troops in Iraq.

Sincerely,

Council of Guardians
The Islamic Republic of Iran

Source: www.slate.com

Last year saw the publication of A Bird is Not a Stone, an anthology of contemporary Palestinian poetry translated by two dozen Scottish poets.

I had the honor of helping to edit the book, but the original idea came about on a trip which a smaller group of poets took to Palestine in the summer of 2012.

Well-known writers from Glasgow, supported by the city’s official twinning program with Bethlehem, visited Palestinian groups and communities around the West Bank, learning for themselves about Israel’s occupation and — in one meeting at the House of Poetry in al-Bireh — discussing their work with Palestinian writers.

It was at that meeting that Palestinian poets first suggested the book which became A Bird is Not a Stone.

Now, in addition to the book of translated poems, a film of that trip to Palestine explores the ideas and practices of cultural resistance in Palestine.

Words: Walls is described by its maker, Gregory Metcalfe, as “part road movie, part performance video, part travelogue.” It follows the group of Scottish artists as they witness the realities of life under occupation and find out how Palestinian writers deal with making art under profoundly political conditions.

The film was shown in rough cut at the Solas Festival in Scotland in 2013, but now a finalized version is about to go live. It will be shown at the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow in April. Watch out for future screenings. 

Source: electronicintifada.net

Source: www.reuters.com

Compelling pictures show the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. 

As Syria descended further and further into a bloody civil war, Damascus-born clarinetist Kinan Azmeh found that he was unable to write new music. “Especially for the first year,” Azmeh, who lives in Brooklyn, said, “because there’s something much bigger happening than what I can express through my music.”

Azmeh is featured in a new video created by David Gough and Thomas Maddens, in coordination with the United Nation’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Eventually, he decided that he needed to “keep my voice heard,” and composed a new piece titled “A Sad Morning Every Morning.” The video, premiering exclusively on VF.com, heralds the launch of a new campaign by the United Nations. The effort, organized under the hashtag #WhatDoesItTake, seeks to bring attention back to the crisis.

Source: www.vanityfair.com

Senator Tom Cotton biggest campaign contributions came from far outside his home state of Arkansas. That doesn’t include the nearly one-million-dollar contribution in supportive political advertising made by Bill Kristol’s Emergency Committee for Israel in the closing days of Cotton’s Senate campaign.

Source: www.intifada-palestine.com

A petition calling for charges against Republican senators who sent a letter to Iran’s leaders has collected more than 187,000 signatures in two days.

While the US is attempting to reach an agreement with Iran government, “47 senators saw fit to instead issue a condescending letter to the Iranian government stating that any agreement brokered by our president would not be upheld once the president leaves office,” according to the petition.

It further claims that the senators “committed a treasonous offence when they decided to violate the Logan Act, a 1799 law which forbids unauthorized citizens from negotiating with foreign governments.”

Violation of the Logan Act is a felony, and punishable with imprisonment of up to three years, according to federal law.

A deadline was set for April 8 to collect 100,000 signatures in order to get a response from the White House but organizers have already almost doubled the goal.

The senators sent the letter to Iran on Monday and said any nuclear deal between the US administration, along with world powers, and Tehran, could be reversed and that President Barack Obama will leave office in January 2017, but the Senators will stay in office “well beyond then, perhaps decades.”

According to the Constitution, the president is responsible for international negotiations and finding agreements with foreign leaders and countries.

Congress, however, has to ratify any agreement.

Source: www.middleeastmonitor.com