Author Archives: Arab America

Controversial professor Steven Salaita , whose job offer at the University of Illinois was withdrawn last year after he made anti-Israel comments on social media, has filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging breach of contract and violation of his free speech rights.

Source: www.chicagotribune.com

Warner Bros. released a statement denouncing anti-Muslim rhetoric on Tuesday.

Source: www.usatoday.com

First Lady Michelle Obama made a lot of headlines Tuesday when she arrived in Saudi Arabia without wearing the headscarf normally required of Saudi women.

The scarf-less appearance has garnered praise from unexpected places. Staunchly conservative Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) tweeted his “kudos” to Obama for “standing up for women” by “refusing to wear Sharia-mandated head-scarf.”

But Arab American Association of New York director Linda Sarsour thinks that it would be unfair to characterize the First Lady’s appearance as a statement of feminism. Speaking with MSNBC’s Ronan Farrow on Wednesday afternoon, she made that point quite clear:

As you can see, I wear hijab. It is a choice for me to wear and cover my hair for religious observation; and I consider myself to be a feminist and someone who supports the upholding of all rights, specifically of women. So this conversation we’re having needs to be more about not obsessing over Michelle Obama wearing a headscarf or not wearing a headscarf — which she is not mandated to do or required in a place like Saudi Arabia, specifically in Jeddah. Also, she is wearing modest clothing, but she was not at a mosque, so she wasn’t required to wear it. But this conversation about, oh, she was standing up for women for not wearing hijab, what about women who do wear hijab, and who choose to wear hijab? I’m very proud of my religion, and my faith, and I’m very proud of the hijab that I wear.

Source: www.mediaite.com

In a powerful new op-ed for the New York Times, the 39-year-old actress and special envoy of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees recounted the heart-wrenching trip she took just several days ago.
“I have visited Iraq five times since 2007, and I have seen nothing like the suffering I’m witnessing now,” the Oscar winner writes. “I came to visit the camps and informal settlements where displaced Iraqis and Syrian refugees are desperately seeking shelter from the fighting that has convulsed their region. In almost four years of war, nearly half of Syria’s population of 23 million people has been uprooted. Within Iraq itself, more than two million people have fled conflict and the terror unleashed by extremist groups. These refugees and displaced people have witnessed unspeakable brutality. Their children are out of school, they are struggling to survive, and they are surrounded on all sides by violence.”

Source: www.eonline.com

“He who wishes to fly must first learn to walk,” said Nietzsche, and I say: before teaming up with Palestinians, an Israeli Lorde fan must find Israeli partners. Yaron surprised me with snobbery, and rejected many names we discussed. Only with one did he seem truly confident. Fortunately, she is my personal friend: the super talented Shira Z. Carmel.

Shira is an impossibly diverse artist. Over the years that I have known her, she formed and headed no less than four separate outfits: an offbeat jazz quartet, an accordion duo that only performs Yiddish poetry from the Russian province of Birobidjan, a post-doo-wop trio named “The Hazelnuts,” and an avant-garde brass band. Most interesting to me are her experiments with Israeli songs in the Mizrahi style, which she turns into French Chansons and hip-hop tunes.

A few years ago, when the city of Jerusalem chose Shira to curate an event for an art festival, she decided to pull together a tribute to a pop goddess of her own liking: the inimitable Ms. Beyoncé Knowles. I was invited to participate, and did “Irreplaceable” with a cellist and my angry ex-girlfriend Osnat, who hadn’t spoken to me much since the break up.

Source: 972mag.com

Palestinian intelligence services arrested a media student yesterday morning for “insulting a public official”.

Bara Al-Qadi, 22, posted a status on Facebook mocking Jibril Rajoub, also known as Abu Rami, who leads the Palestinian Football Federation, after the Palestinian team lost 5-1 to Jordan in the Asian cup.

He wrote on Facebook: “Jibril Rajoub, Abu Rami, should be removed from his position after the humiliating performance of our national team and its 5-1 loss to Jordan. The position should be given instead to a character with greater experience in the sports field such as Captain Maged for example,” referring to the popular Arabic cartoon character.

Source: www.middleeastmonitor.com

An Israeli human rights group said Israel’s attacks on residential buildings in Gaza during the 50-day war against Hamas last summer appeared in at least some instances to violate the provisions of international law and raised grave legal concerns in others, according to a report to be published on Wednesday.

The group, B’Tselem, which is identified with the Israeli left and focuses on human rights issues in Gaza and in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, said it had investigated 70 cases in which more than 600 Palestinians were killed inside homes, a majority of them — children, women and men over the age of 60 — considered unlikely to have been involved in the fighting.

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The study was at least the third by a human rights organization on the Gaza conflict, coming after reports by Amnesty International and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, but as the first major one written by an Israeli group, it could have more resonance here than the others. It was published as prosecutors at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, at the urging of Palestinian leaders, have been conducting a preliminary inquiry into possible war crimes in Palestinian territories.

Source: www.nytimes.com

In today’s New York Times, reporter Isabel Kershner devotes a substantial article to a new report from B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization, saying that Israel likely committed war crimes in its attack on Gaza last summer.

An Israeli human rights group said Israel’s attacks on residential buildings in Gaza during the 50-day war against Hamas last summer appeared in at least some instances to violate the provisions of international law and raised grave legal concerns in others, according to a report to be published on Wednesday…

[B’Tselem] investigated 70 cases in which more than 600 Palestinians were killed inside homes, a majority of them — children, women and men over the age of 60 — considered unlikely to have been involved in the fighting.

Simple as that. How much clearer can you be?  A few paragraphs down, we get the denial from Israeli authorities. But then it goes back to the charges. The bulk of the story is what B’Tselem says in its 49-page report, which is titled “Black Flag: The legal and moral implications of the policy of attacking residential buildings in the Gaza Strip, summer 2014.” There’s even an interview with B’Tselem director Hagai El-Ad. And a paragraph that begins, “The B’Tselem report contains wrenching testimonies from the survivors of 13 houses that were hit.”

Of course the Times should have been doing this all along. As I reported last summer, the Times’s failure to quote B’Tselem’s reports has been a serious omission in its coverage.

In the past two years, B’Tselem has been mentioned only 20 times — and 9 of those appearances were in “The Lede,” a blog by Robert Mackey that is not part of the printed newspaper.
But better late than never. I feel like I’m reading a normal report in a normal newspaper. We salute Kershner.

Source: mondoweiss.net

Recall the U.S. ambassador from Sana’a and close the embassy there, or keep going as if the storm is about to pass? This isn’t a cliffhanger plot from the show “Madam Secretary” but an actual debate now raging in Washington in the wake of the fall of Yemen’s capital to the Houthi rebels. The American ambassador, Matthew Tueller, decided to stay, but the embassy was closed “until further notice.” When the Houthis, who took Sana’a in September, are shouting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel,” best watch out.

But Yemen’s new rulers, who receive direct aid from Iran — as Ali Shirazi, a representative of the Qods Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards pointed out — are also America’s “natural partner” in its war against Al-Qaida. This week, for the first time this year, the Americans launched a drone that struck a group of Al-Qaida militants in the south of the country, and there was no response from the Houthis. This is the bizarre paradox now facing the U.S. administration, which had enjoyed the full cooperation of the previous Yemeni regime and its president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who resigned last week.

Now the administration could end up embracing the Houthi regime, with whom it sees eye to eye in the war on Al-Qaida. But this paradox is growing increasingly knotty. America’s ally, Saudi Arabia, which is also struggling against radical terrorist organizations, views the Houthis as an agent of Iran, which it fears aims to establish a Lebanon-like state on its border.

As President Obama performs a delicate tango with Saudi Arabia’s new monarch, King Salman, the critical question facing Washington is this: Does the United States stand with the Houthis against Al-Qaida, i.e., on the side of Iran and against Saudi Arabia? And, if that is the case, how can Washington expect Saudi Arabia’s cooperation in its war against Islamic State (also known as ISIS and ISIL)? A partial answer to this question came from Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers, who said there is intelligence cooperation with the Houthis against Al-Qaida and that the war against terror in Yemen will go on as planned.

Source: www.haaretz.com

Georgetown University in Qatar (GU-Q) recently hosted Victor Assouad (pictured), a Syrian Christian whose family migrated to Lebanon and who has lived and worked throughout the region, to give a keynote address titled “Jesuit Education in the Arab…

Source: www.qatarisbooming.com

Government Opportunities (GO) is the essential intelligence hub for all involved in buying for and supplying to the public sector.

Source: www.govopps.co.uk

Saudi Arabia’s Imam Issa Assiri becomes the second public figure to make the bizarre claim that Muslims were already present in what is now known as America before Christopher Columbus ever sailed there.

Source: www.ibtimes.co.in