Author Archives: Arab America

The U.S. intelligence and security communities grapple on a daily basis with the pressing reality that natural resource scarcity and global climate change pose direct threats to U.S. prosperity and national security.
There is, perhaps, no clearer example than the sustained incursion of Chinese navy ships, fishing fleets, and oil rigs over the past five years into the territorial waters of Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and other countries of the South China Sea.
China’s claim of a “historical right” to those areas was based on the “nine-dash line” issued in 1947 after the fall of the Kuomintang. That map lay dormant for over 65 years until China’s growing domestic needs for fish protein and hydrocarbons prompted the Chinese government to reassert its claim. The ensuing regional conflicts over the Spratly and Paracel islands, along with maritime disputes with seven countries, illustrate the urgency that prompted President Obama to announce a “Pacific pivot” to Asia to protect Washington’s allies and its strategic interests in the region.
Natural resource scarcity poses a far broader challenge to U.S. prosperity and national security than traditional military threats. Consider also the food crisis that precipitated the Arab Spring uprisings or the drought that has sharpened conflict in Syria. Those challenges are detailed in my recent book, In Pursuit of Prosperity, which examines how both proximate and more distant resource constraints shape and influence our economy and security posture.

Source: www.juancole.com

Former President of Lebanon Amine Gemayel (1982 to 1988) visited the Lebanese-American community in Detroit, Michigan on Friday, March 28, 2015.

Source: www.youtube.com

Israeli settlers on Saturday destroyed more than 1,000 olive trees near the village of al-Shuyukh north of Hebron, in the third such attack on the villagers’ livelihood in recent memory.

Local activist Ahmad al-Halayqa told Ma’an that Israelis from the nearby settlement of Asfar, also known as Metzad, attacked the village and destroyed 1,200 trees.

He said that all of the destroyed trees had been recently planted following a similar attack by individuals from the same settlement which had destroyed trees in the area last month.

He said that the trees in the area belonged to local Palestinian farmer, Muhammad Abu Shanab al-Ayaydah as well as the children of Abd al-Qader Abu Shanab al-Ayaydah and Mousa Abu Shanab al-Ayayadah.

Al-Halayqa told Ma’an that the settlement of Asfar is located on land confiscated by Israeli authorities from Palestinian residents of al-Shuyukh, and now they hope to expand the land under their control by taking over the area where the olive trees were targeted.

Attacks on olive trees are a key way that Palestinians are forced out of their homes and their lands confiscated for settlement construction, as the loss of a year’s crop can signal destitution for many.

If attacks are frequent enough that Palestinians can no longer access their trees regularly, meanwhile, settlers can argue that Palestinians have abandoned the properties and thus take possession of them as well.

Since 1967, approximately 800,000 olive trees have been uprooted in the occupied West Bank, according to a joint report by the Palestinian Authority and the Applied Research Institute Jerusalem.

The olive industry supports the livelihoods of roughly 80,000 families in the occupied West Bank.

Settler violence against Palestinians and their property in the occupied West Bank is systematic and ignored by Israeli authorities, who rarely intervene in the violent attacks or prosecute the perpetrators.

The were 324 incidents of settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in 2014, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Source: www.maannews.com

The Abdelaziz sisters live in a world of pretty artifice. Alice, Nadine and Farah answer the door in a flurry of hellos while their fluffball dog Stella barks and tinkles the bells on her tiny collar.

They usually live in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, in a family home, but for the purposes of their new reality show, The Sisters, they reside in this apartment where green hillsides spill down from picture windows to the Mediterranean below.

“The view is amazing here,” says Nadine, the middle sister. “And you see the weather today is sunny.”

The twentysomethings are all tall and thin with big eyes and dark hair. The furniture is in kids-toy colors, the walls are white. A makeup artist is doing Alice’s face – glosses and sparkles spread across the dining table. Vases of Skittles adorn the coffee table.

Source: www.kpbs.org

In swift but careful movements, Ahmed al-Sawaferi, 25, moves around his tiny apartment. The same hand that places a teapot on the fire then maneuvers his wheelchair as he gets his things ready for the day ahead.

It’s time to say goodbye to his children: Jana, 4 and Motasem 10 months – before he leaves for Safad School in Zaytoun, one of the areas next to Shejaiya, east of Gaza City, a neighbourhood hard hit in last summer’s attack by Israel. He drives to the school determined to be as independent as possible and ensure that his own will should decide his future and not his disability. 

As he makes his way around his neighbourhood, he cannot help but remember how drastically his life changed in a split second last year. One minute he was heading home to study for an exam and the next an Israeli missile struck and both his legs and one of his arms were torn from his body, rendering him wheelchair bound.

A few fingers remain on his left hand. They clutch at a piece of chalk as he writes notes on the classroom blackboard for his young students.

“Today’s lesson is about Islamic values and respecting the rights of your neighbours and all people,” he says to his students as he begins the class.

His voice is much stronger than those of the other teachers who share his corridor and his students pay close attention to their Palestinian, student teacher as he sits in his wheelchair, teaching the principles and values of steadfastness and survival; an important lesson given all of the odds stacked against them by virtue of where they live. 

He explains to Middle East Eye that despite his disability, he remains steadfast and focused. “The Israeli occupation may have amputated a huge section of my body but, thanks to God, they could not amputate my determination and willingness to rise, day after day, and continue my Islamic studies and determination to graduate from college.”

“Today, I am living my life to the fullest – nothing can stop me,” says Sawaferi as he rolls his wheelchair out of his classroom at break-time.

“I teach the children that from the dust of destruction we will rise and resist,” he tells MEE.

Sawaferi is due to take a BA in Islamic studies after finishing his final university semester in June. He is more determined than ever to focus not on his disabilities but on his abilities to successfully teach a new generation. That will be his victory and his legacy, he says.

“It is a strange feeling, to sit in the same classroom where I was once a student. Now I am the teacher and colleague to my previous teachers.”

Sawaferi makes his way over to a bench where his students are sitting, and explains how he sat in the same spot, 17 years ago, dreaming of becoming a teacher.

“I never thought that I would be a teacher with challenged abilities. Nonetheless, my dream came true and nothing can stop me. Nothing should stop us because the occupation will end,” he says, as he moves himself to the soccer field, where he plays football with the students – using his only remaining hand.

With his wide, bright smile and neatly trimmed beard, he draws the attention of all the students on the field, who come to greet him.

Sawaferi, is full of fond memories of his school, recalling the days when he was a student, playing soccer with his friends. Now, he still plays soccer – with friends and with his own children.

Eight-year-old Amjad Tafesh stands in front of his teacher and whispers shyly, “I am very proud of you, and I look up to you Mr. Ahmed.” He boasts proudly to MEE that his teacher is still strong despite his pain and difficulties.

For this wheelchair-bound teacher, his profession brings him unfettered pride and joy. His key message to each of his children is to love, respect and value their education and their nation more and more each day.  

Sawaferi is aware that teaching in school doesn’t give him a reliable income – thousands of other teachers also are paid sporadically by the government in Gaza – but he struggles on because the message of values and principles is most important, he says.

Sawaferi is one of thousands of Palestinians who have incurred physical injuries and now have challenged abilities as a result of the ongoing conflict with Israel. In most cases, they receive insufficient rehabilitation due to the Israeli imposed siege on the Gaza strip, but Sawaferi says this should not be the end.

“My message to all disabled people is not to forget life and give in to despair. There is no life with despair, and there should be no despair in life.” 

Sawaferi continues to bounce the soccer ball while chasing his students, proving that the will is as strong as muscle and bone, if not stronger.

It is the will of a brain that is ready to challenge that counts –  life doesn’t end in a wheelchair for Ahmed al-Sawaferi. He lives on the principle that for each end there is always a new beginning. From the look of admiration in his students eyes, it’s obvious that his message of hope and strength is not being lost on the next generation, and that he is a source of hope and pride for his fellow Gazans.

Source: www.middleeasteye.net

Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country will support efforts to build a Palestinian state with a capital in East Jerusalem.

Putin pledged his support Saturday during a meeting of the Arab League in Sharm el-Sheik.

“Palestinians have the right to establish an independent and habitable state with a capital in east Jerusalem,” Putin reportedly told the leaders of 22 Arab states, according to media reports.

He added: “Russia will continue to contribute to achieving this goal through bilateral and multilateral channels.”

Putin reportedly also called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to congratulate him on his reelection and to discuss the talks on Iran’s nuclear program, to which Russia is a party as part of the P5+1 world powers.

Source: www.haaretz.com

The last days of the campaign sounded an awful lot like the Jim Crow South, when African-Americans had officially won the right to vote but still faced massive discrimination.

On election morning, a powerful white official running for re-election urged his followers to get out and vote, warning that minority voters were turning out in large numbers—and those trouble-making civil rights agitators, he complained, were busing them to the polls.

But this wasn’t Mississippi or Alabama circa 1965. It was Israel in 2015.

And the candidate wasn’t some protégé of Bull Connor or George Wallace shouting into a bullhorn. It was Israel’s prime minister writing on his Facebook page.

Naked Racism

The leader of Washington’s closest Middle East ally—the storied “only democracy in the Middle East”—was pushing his right-wing supporters to get out and vote. “The right-wing government is in danger,” he warned, because—in his words—“Arab voters are coming out in droves to the polls. Left-wing organizations are busing them out.”

The naked racism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s last-minute electioneering was repellent. But more horrifying was the fact that it worked.

The language aimed to frighten right-wing Israeli Jewish voters with the specter of a large turnout among the Palestinians, who make up 20 percent of Israeli citizens. The gambit brought back to Netanyahu’s Likud Party the far-right voters who otherwise might have voted for one of the even more extreme right-wing parties.

It worked. Likud trumped its challengers from the right as well as the left, and Netanyahu swept to victory.

Of course, there were other ploys to reach extreme-right voters as well. Netanyahu’s last-minute promise that he would oppose the creation of a Palestinian state—seemingly reversing a position he’d laid out several years earlier—may have been shocking to many in the United States. But it was actually consistent with the prime minister’s longstanding behavior.

As far back as 2001, Netanyahu bragged that he “actually stopped the Oslo Accord,” the diplomatic framework that was supposed to give rise to a Palestinian state. For the past six years, with one brief and ineffectual freeze, Netanyahu has led successive Israeli governments in building new settlements in the West Bank, “Judaizing” occupied Arab East Jerusalem and attacking Gaza with brutal and illegal force—all with the intended effect of derailing any possibility of even a rump Palestinian state, let alone one that would be independent, viable and contiguous.

Netanyahu attempted to dial back his reversal after the election. But given the prime minister’s consistent opposition to ending the occupation, President Obama should reject that lie.

Source: www.thenation.com

In light of recent flyering campaigns done by Aryeh: Columbia Students Association for Israel (formerly known as LionPAC), in which they use the image and words of Martin Luther King, Jr. in favor of their Zionist views, we as the Columbia University Black Students’ Organization, write to condemn their co-optation of Black liberation struggle for the purposes of genocide and oppression and we re-proclaim our unequivocal support of Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace – Columbia/Barnard Chapter, and the people of Palestine in their fight for freedom from Israeli apartheid.

Numerous Black scholars and activists, both contemporary and otherwise, have already connected the Palestinian struggle for liberation with the struggle for Black liberation. The chant “From Ferguson to Gaza” echoed this year is not hyperbole, but a unifying idea against oppressive systems that subjugate Black people and people of color globally and act as a reminder of our tradition of solidarity and support. While we as an organization also acknowledge that Black and Jewish people also share a history of oppression, we understand that zionism has no place in our solidarity and, thus, we cannot and will not excuse the actions of the Israeli state and their acts of discrimination, segregation, and genocide. This is NOT what Black liberation activists stood for. This is not what we will stand for.

Source: bayareaintifada.wordpress.com

Israeli authorities have decided to demolish a Palestinian village in southern West Bank and expel its residents under the pretext it was built without a permit, a Palestinian activist said.

An Israeli court has issued an order to demolish Susya and relocate its residents under the claim that the village was built illegally on a land that is under Israeli control, activist Rateb al-Jabour told the Anadolu Agency.

Al-Jabour asserted that the village was built even before the Israeli occupation of the West Bank in 1967.

The village is populated by 350 Palestinians, mostly depending on farming and livestock for livelihood, he said.

The activist added that the demolition order came with the aim of expanding Jewish settlements in the area.

Al-Jabour’s claims are yet to be independently verified, as Israeli authorities did not comment on the assertions.

Susya falls within “Area C,” which covers nearly two thirds of the West Bank and remains under full Israeli civil and security control, as stipulated by the Oslo II Accord (signed in 1995 between Israel and the Palestinian Authority).

International law considers the West Bank and East Jerusalem occupied territories captured by Israel in 1967, deeming all construction of Jewish settlements on the land illegal.

Palestinian negotiators have insisted that the establishment of Israeli settlements had to end for stalled peace talks with Israel to resume.

Source: www.middleeastmonitor.com

My body rejected this land, this history, from the moment we stepped off the plane. My cousins had hyped this trip up so much, I half expected to touch down on a warm beach overlooking the Mediterranean, clinking glasses with a triumphant, “Mazeltov!”

Instead, I was suffocated by heavy airport questioning, watching barrels of guns sit on Israeli Defense Force soldiers’ waistbands, staring children in the face. “Don’t worry, young Jewish-Americans are not who Israeli soldiers are after,” my tour guide tells us, as if that makes it any more just.

I am told this land is my birthright.  “To be Jewish is to be Israeli,” my tour guide beams. I am told we are a tribe of refugees, a landless people finally come home. This land that Aseel’s family has been harvesting for generations, a land she cannot leave nor enter – not for hospital visits nor college classes.

Yet, I am told, I have a birthright.

Source: mondoweiss.net

Under the theme “Right to Movement,” about 3,200 participants from all over Palestine—and more than 50 countries around the world—joined the third annual Palestine International Marathon on Friday, which took place in the West Bank city of Bethlehem.

The marathon aimed to highlight the restriction of Palestinian movement under Israeli military occupation. The route also included Aida refugee camp, where hundreds of Palestinians have lived since the Nakba, the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland, before, during and after the 1948 war.

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Palestinians and internationals of all ages competed in either 10K, half marathon or full marathon versions of the race. Like every year, runners had to complete two laps of the same route, since organizers were unable to find a single course of 42 uninterrupted kilometers under Palestinian Authority control in the city, which is surrounded by the separation wall, checkpoints and Israeli settlements.

Ali Sami, a Palestinian participant, said: “I am happy to see people from around the world here in solidarity with Palestine. It is unique to see this number of internationals at such a local event.”

“It’s good to run for Palestine,” said one Spanish participant. “Every time I see the wall I feel trouble, but I am amazed today to see hope in the Palestinians’ eyes while running around their city.”

Source: 972mag.com

It wasn’t the soaring arches or the elegant windows, with their curved caps. It wasn’t that the first room of the house was built in 1808. It wasn’t the jasmine that, like a woman letting down her hair, released its heavy perfume at night. It wasn’t the olive, loquat, lemon, almond, and apricot trees that filled the garden. Nor was it that the fruit from that garden seemed sweeter here in Bethlehem than it was in Jerusalem.

The apartment’s biggest selling point, in my landlady’s opinion?

The well.

She showed it to me the first time I saw the place, before I’d decided to rent the apartment. The well was hidden behind a curtain in the kitchen. She pushed the fabric back, revealing a deep recess in the wall. Inside the nook stood a pump and, on the floor, a large stone with a wrought iron handle. My landlady, who was in her seventies, gave the handle a tug. The rock lifted. There was a clunk as she placed it on the kitchen floor.

My landlady got on her knees and peered into the hole, a spot of night surrounded by chiseled white.

“See?” she tapped my calf, signaling that I should get on the floor, too. I obliged her.

I peered into the well. I didn’t see anything. But I could smell the collected rainwater below us.

My landlady put her hands on my back and pushed herself up. As she brushed the dirt off her knees, she explained to me that, if I were to take the apartment, we would share the well. And while our neighbors’ taps would run dry—as they always do here, eventually—we would never go without.

Source: 972mag.com