Author Archives: Arab America

San Jose City Council candidate Paul Fong accepted his campaign manager’s resignation Wednesday after a fundraising e-mail asserting that his opponent’s adviser was a former member of the Palestine Liberation Organization turned out to be untrue. The e-mail, sent out to potential donors Monday, described Charles “Chappie” Jones’ campaign consultant, Victor Ajlouny, as “a top … Continued

King Abdullah II of Jordan asked world leaders on Wednesday to urge Israel and the Palestinian Authority to find lasting peace by relaunching talks based on the Arab Peace Initiative. During his remarks before the UN General Assembly in New Y Ork, the monarch said that the conflict is a strain on the region and … Continued

The status quo in the West Bank and Gaza is “not sustainable,” U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday told the United Nations General Assembly, “not when rockets are fired at innocent Israelis” and not when “the lives of so many Palestinian children are taken from us in Gaza.” “The violence engulfing the region today has … Continued

The Palestinian city of Nablus in the Israeli occupied West Bank has long been a center of Palestinian culture and remains the largest Palestinian city between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Known in the Bible as Shechem, the Romans called it Neapolis and the 7th century Arab conquerors Arabicized it to Nablus. Ask … Continued

Saudi Arabia has offered a royal seal of approval to the US-led fight against the Islamic State group, sending its top pilot prince on bombing runs over Syria. On Wednesday, the Saudi government released photos of Prince Khaled bin Salman smiling shyly from the cockpit of his F15 fighter jet. The prince was said to … Continued

WEST BANK – There are no surprises expected when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas takes to the podium at the United Nations General Assembly on Friday even if different parties come away with vastly different reactions. While many will be looking for an indication that the Palestinian position has softened, following fifty days of warfare … Continued

Lights, Camera, Action! If you’re a budding filmmaker and would like your 15 minutes of fame, then the Arab Film Festival is now accepting submissions for their 18th Annual Festival that is set to be held in the San Francisco Bay Area in October 2014. The AFF annually showcases works by independent Arabic filmmakers that … Continued

She may have not made it through to the live rounds, which begin this weekend, but Nao Koyasu described her short stint on Arab Idol as “an amazing ­experience”. The Japanese singer made waves across the region after stunning the judges at her Dubai audition with a dazzling rendition of the Fairuz classic Aatini Al … Continued

Mansour Mansour’s early-morning shift at a Detroit gas station turned into a life-saving mission when one of his regular customers came racing in for help. Mansour was working Wednesday around 2 a.m. at the Marathon station at Chicago Avenue and Meyers Road when the customer came in and then told Mansour he would be right … Continued

President Obama has put America at the center of a widening war by expanding into Syria airstrikes against the Islamic State, the Sunni extremist group known as ISIS and ISIL. He has done this without allowing the public debate that needs to take place before this nation enters another costly and potentially lengthy conflict in … Continued

US President Barack Obama says he will continue to “take the fight to” the Islamic State as member states suggest there will be no legal backlash to air strikes in Syria and Iraq President Barack Obama has declared a new phase in the military campaign to “degrade and destroy” Islamic State (Isil) after Washington and … Continued

The upheaval of ideological forces and reconfiguration of geostrategic conditions across the Middle East took a dramatic turn on Sunday and Monday, with in three principal developments in and around the Arab world: the combined American-Arab Gulf states airstrikes in Syria; the control of the Yemeni capital by Houthi rebels; and the meeting in New … Continued