Author Archives: Arab America

In a suit against the administration of the University of Illinois seeking his reinstatement as a professor at the school, scholar Steven Salaita also sued unnamed “John Doe donors” of the university for “injecting” themselves into the university hiring process and threatening “future donations” unless he was fired last summer because of the outspoken tweets he published during the Israeli onslaught in Gaza. Salaita was fired a week before classes were to begin.

The suit, filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights and a Chicago law firm, does not name the donors because the university has refused to release the names of donors who complained to the administration last summer after Salaita, 39, who was about to start at the school as a professor of American Indian Studies, tweeted his outrage over Israel’s onslaught. “Folks who shared their views” with the administration are not the target of the suit, explained Anand Swaminathan of the law firm of Loevy and Loevy.

“This claim is focused on people who, based on their wealth or connections to the university, injected themselves into the hiring process,” he said, threatening to withdraw gifts unless Salaita was fired. The suit mentions one donor, Steven Miller of Chicago. Miller met with Wise August 1, the same day she wrote to Salaita, terminating his appointment.

Source: mondoweiss.net

Seven-year-old East Jerusalem schoolboy Mousa Zallum, who survived a kidnapping attempt in July 2014, and his 8-year-old brother Yahya on Wednesday identified the alleged Jewish extremists who attempted to kidnap Mousa.

The two recognized by the Zallum boys are accused of kidnapping and murdering 16-year-old Muhammad Abu Khdeir from the same neighborhood only a day after they failed to kidnap Zallum while he was walking next to his mother Dina Zallum.

“I heard the sound of a car braking as it entered Shufat. Then I heard the voice of Mousa shouting for help and calling out to me,” Dina told the Israeli human rights group Btselem on July 7. With the help of his mother and his screams, which alerted passersby, Zallum escaped and the attackers fled the scene.

The defense attorney asked the boys several questions focusing on small details in an attempt to find discrepancies in their testimonies, family members who attended the hearing told Ma’an. They said that in most of the details the boys gave similar information.

They both confirmed that the suspect assaulted Mousa and grabbed him by the throat before he tried to throw him into the car. Their mother then intervened by attacking the settler in the head and pulled Mousa back, the boys told the court.

Source: www.maannews.net

The Islamic State group militant glares at Baghdad residents with bulging eyes and bared teeth, but neither kidnapping nor death are imminent, because this jihadist is made from a shoe.

A black, treaded sole with the toe broken off serves as his face and nose, while old shoelaces evoke both black headscarf and long hair.

For teeth, zippers dangle into a mouth formed by the space between the heel and toe, and round metal pieces stand in for bulging eyes.

The jihadist is the creation of Iraqi artist Akeel Khreef, who takes worn-out shoes and transforms them into faces representing the “ugliness” of the Islamic State (IS) group, which has committed a slew of atrocities in his country.

“I wanted to portray the extent of the criminality and ugliness and ugly acts of the organisation’s members,” says Khreef, a 35-year-old architectural engineering professor who is working on a mural of two dozen shoe faces.

IS has done much to provoke the anger of Iraqis, leading a June offensive that swept down from the city of Mosul and overran large parts of the country’s Sunni Arab heartland, sowing fear and displacing hundreds of thousands of people.

It has killed thousands of people in areas it controls in Iraq and neighbouring Syria, targeted religious and ethnic minorities, sold women and children as sex slaves and destroyed historical sites.

Source: www.aquila-style.com

Israeli forces suppressed weekly protests near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on Friday, injuring a child, a Ma’an reporter said.

In Nabi Saleh, a 15-year-old Palestinian boy was injured in the thigh with a live bullet fired by Israeli soldiers.

The boy, Muhammad Bilal al-Tamimi, was taken to the Palestine Medical Center in Ramallah.

This week’s march in Nabi Saleh was a protest of Israeli violations against Palestinian children. Protesters held signs against the Israeli occupation and demanding protection for Palestinian minors.

Demonstrators also carried pictures of Malak al-Khatib, a 14-year-old girl currently being held in Israeli custody.

Source: www.maannews.net

It has been called the “golden age of Arab cinema” – that period from the late 1940s to 1960s, when Arab actors from across the Middle East headed to the stardom capital of Cairo.

The women were unfailingly glamorous, elegant and poised, while the men, handsome and chivalrous, embodied what a real star should look and act like.

With the death of Faten Hamama this month, one of that era’s leading ladies, and of Mariam Fakhr Eddine last November, it’s time to remember Cairo’s cinematic legacy.

“Egypt is where the entire Arab world went to become a star and make a name for themselves,” says Osama Asal, an Egyptian film critic and writer. “For the actresses and actors, they all became Egyptian in the sense they learnt and adopted the dialect. Some even became citizens.

“When a film was a success in Egypt, it was a success across the Arab world and beyond.”

Big names were often compared to Hollywood stars: Hind Rostom became the Marilyn Monroe of Arabia; Roushdi Abaza, the Arab Clark Gable; Anwar Wagdi, the Arabian Robert Taylor. Then there were the stars with their own titles: Farid Shawqi, known as “Wahesh” (monster or ultimate villain) and also Malek El Terso (king of the poor); Soad Hosny, the Cinderella of Egyptian cinema; and, Shadia, so beloved by her public that she is known as “Maabouda al Jamaheer”, roughly translated as fan’s idol.

It was also a time of singing legends such as the crooner Abdel Halim Hafez, dubbed “Al Andaleeb al Asmar” (the tan nightingale) and “the Queen of Arabs”, Umm Kulthum, who worked with Mohammed Abdel Wahab, the singer and legendary “composer for the stars”.

Source: www.thenational.ae

When Ayman Karim fell in love last summer, he wanted others to experience his joy. Iraq was reeling from an escalating war with Islamist extremists, and men from his home city of Basra were dying by the dozens.

“We were living in the dark,” said the 26-year-old. “We needed a point of light to make people happy. I was happy, and I wanted to share my love with everyone.”

His idea: to bring the tradition of the “love lock” to Iraq by encouraging sweethearts to affix padlocks to a bridge in this southern city in an affirmation of their love.

The young engineer took inspiration from Europe, where the custom has burgeoned, most famously at the Pont des Arts in Paris. One of the French bridge’s railings collapsed last year under the weight of the tokens of affection.

But the course of true love never did run smooth, and in Basra, a city with a strong presence of religiously conservative Shiite militias, such a public display of affection inevitably risked a backlash.

Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Many Iraqis recite folk poetry, which is written in colloquial Arabic, stating support for the Popular Mobilization Units and for the fight against the Islamic State. These poems can be found on satellite TV channels, social networking sites and Iraqi radio stations. The widespread phenomenon in Iraqi society has outweighed other forms of creativity and arts such as poetry in classical Arabic and drawing.

Arabic teacher Kazim Hasan told Al-Monitor, “Politicized folk poems have overridden classical poetry that does not stand a chance against the sweeping wave of colloquial poems.”

Folk poems have always reflected social and political events in Iraq. Many poets excelled in this type of poetry and have been known for their expressive recital.

However, folk poetry today, according to writer and critic Ali Hassan al-Fawaz, “has become a phenomenon blown out of proportion, but it is not something new. The regime of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, which was ousted in 2003, had used this kind of poetry to spread the culture of war.”

He said, “There is lack of editing and reviewing of texts as well as technical standards to write poems, which has a significant history in popular culture through important poets such as Al-Haj Zayer and Mullah Abboud al-Karkhi.”

Fawaz said, “Poetry today serves as some sort of political and cultural tool, which undermines its artistic value and its message to develop popular consciousness that would enhance the aesthetic and intellectual vision in the face of malice, apostasy and terrorism.”

Social and folklore researcher Rahim Ghaleb told Al-Monitor, “Many of those who support and recite this kind of poetry are illiterate or have limited cultural knowledge, which is reflected in their poetry output.”

“Unemployment and the lack of willingness to be educated are the main aspects of ignorance in society,” Ghaleb said. “The number of folk poets has exponentially increased since 2003. The unemployed who have failed in school turned to this kind of poetry as a career to earn fame and money. This is the case of most folk poets. However, this does not mean that there are no university graduates or employees engaged in this type of poetry, but again they are few.”

Source: www.al-monitor.com

“Imagine a singer with the virtuosity of Joan Sutherland or Ella Fitzgerald, the public persona of Eleanor Roosevelt, and the audience of Elvis, and you have Umm Kulthum, the most accomplished singer of her century in the Arab world,” writes Musicologist Virginia Danielson and present Interim Library Director of NYU Abu Dhabi. She is also the author of “The voice of Egypt: Umm Kulthum, Arabic Song and Egyptian Society in the Twentieth Century”.

Umm Kulthum was the Arab diva of the 20th Century. Renowned opera soprano Maria Callas described her voice as “incomparable”. French President Charles de Gaulle referred to her as “The Lady”, and it’s said that Bob Dylan was quoted once as saying, “She’s great. She really is. Really great.”

“In order not to risk exposing a young Umm to public disapproval, her father dressed her as a boy in a coat and Bedouin head-covering while she sang.” – Ghada Alatrash, Special to Weekend Review
Umm Kulthum was a voice born in Egypt but one that transcended geographical and political boundaries and found its way into the hearts of all Arabs across the Arab world whether rich or poor, religious or non, white-collars or blue. She is an exceptional phenomenon who continues to be loved and celebrated today, 40 years after her death.

Her performances

Umm Kulthum recorded about 300 songs over the course of a career that spanned over 50 years, from about 1910 when she began singing with her father at weddings and until her illness in 1973. For almost 40 years, her monthly concerts were broadcast via live radio on the first Thursday night of each month reaching millions of listeners in Egypt and across the Arab world.

Umm Kulthum typically devoted two or three songs to an evening of her concerts, with each song lasting between 30 and 60 minutes and divided up by lengthy breaks. The durations of her performances varied and were dependent on her interactions with her audience. She repeated a single line or stance over and over by altering her emotional emphasis and exploring different musical maqams (modal scales).

Her audience’s appeals for repetitions of different stanzas fluctuated the length of the same song from 45 to 90 minutes, offering a different and unique experience for the same song. She was able to spontaneously produce multiple versions of the same line, and according to some, over 50 times in a row. It is said that she never sang a line the same way twice.

There was always a personal relationship between Umm Kulthum and her audience during her performances. She would repeat lines again and again until her audience was satisfied. Her performances were more like spiritual encounters, romantic dialogues and amorous conversations with euphoric crowds cheering, whistling and shouting long-stretched “Allah” in praise and admiration.

Source: www.albawaba.com

NCUSAR Founding President and CEO Dr. John Duke Anthony on President Obama’s January 2015 visit to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and dynamics of the U.S.-Saudi Arabia relationship.

Source: ncusar.org

The U.S. criticized Israel’s publication of tenders for 450 new settlement units on Friday, with State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki saying the move was deeply concerning and would further isolate Israel.   

Israel published the tenders on Friday. They included units in a new neighborhood known as East Migron. The move ends an extended period when there was a quiet freeze on new construction over the Green Line.

Speaking at a daily press briefing, Psaki said that although many of the tenders announced Friday are old, the Obama Administration believes this will “inflame tensions, further isolate Israel internationally and will not help Israel’s security.”  

The tenders include 102 units in the Hebron suburb of Kiryat Arba, 78 single-family homes in Alfei Menashe and 156 units in Elkana. The plans also call for 114 units in East Migron, a new neighborhood born out of an agreement by which settlers would evacuate an outpost built on private Palestinian land and move to a new residential area east of the settlement of Adam. Residents violated the deal, and in the end were given an area closer to Migron.

Source: www.haaretz.com

The US Defence Department has said it is holding talks with Yemen’s Houthi group following the resignation of President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi on 22 January.Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said on Tuesday during a press conference in Washington that it

Source: www.middleeastmonitor.com

One can’t help but laugh at the way in which our loathsome leaders try to pull the wool over our eyes time and again.

 These cowards in high places have resorted to fantastical lies and clownish frauds to keep us complacent and ignorant.

 This latest chicanery should make you grin.

 Just hours after Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made an “anti-terrorism” pact with Israel and pledged $200 million towards the anti-ISIS coalition led by the United States, ISIS released a video threatening to kill two Japanese hostages.

 The infamous British-accented Islamic State fighter, who allegedly beheaded a string of hostages over recent months including American photojournalist James Foley, appears in a new video demanding a ransom of $200 million in exchange for the release of the two Japanese captives.

 “[Israeli PM] Netanyahu warned [Japanese PM] Abe that Japan could become a target of terrorism,” writes Dr. Patrick Slattery in an article on David Duke’s website, “and almost on cue, within a matter of hours ISIS released a video featuring two Japanese hostages in orange jumpsuits and a knife-wielding masked man who announced in British English that the Japanese [captives] would be killed if a $200 million ransom is not paid in 72 hours.”

 What timing! What convenience!

 ISIS seems to have ready-made beheading videos designed to whip up a furor in every country on god’s green earth. Americans, Frenchmen, Brits and now Japanese – it’s like they have a repository of prisoners from around the world, at-the-ready to be used as bait for further incitement.

Source: www.intifada-palestine.com