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Author Archives: Arab America

Settlers uproot 450 olive trees in Salfit

SALFIT (Ma’an) — Israeli settlers from the Immanuel settlement uprooted some 450 olive trees and saplings from lands in Deir Istiya, northern Salfit, on Tuesday.
Mayor of Deir Istiya Amal Qouqash told Ma’an that farmers were surprised that the trees had been uprooted as they went to farm their lands near the illegal settlement.
The Immanuel settlement was built on lands belonging to residents of Deir Istiya, according to researcher Khalid Maal.
Maali told Ma’an that “the settlement is near the Wadi Qana area which settlers aim to have complete control over.”
Wadi Qana is located inside an Israeli settlement bloc and located in an area within the “seam zone,” cut off from all other Palestinian villages in the region.
Surrounded on all sides by Jewish-only settlements, Israeli authorities have long designated Wadi Qana a natural reserve. Such designation prevents Palestinian farming in the area as well as construction, while providing legitimization for Israeli forces to legally uproot Palestinian-owned olive trees.
Israeli forces uprooted 120 olive trees in Wadi Qana earlier this month, having delivered orders to the farmers to evacuate their lands more than three weeks prior, farmers told Ma’an at the time.
Since 1967, approximately 800,000 olive trees have been uprooted by Israeli forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank, according to a joint report by the Palestinian Authority and the Applied Research Institute Jerusalem.

Source: www.maannews.com

Lindsay Lohan Instagrams Arabic Message With Unintentional Message: ‘You’re A Donkey!’

Lindsay Lohan posted an Arabic message on Instagram, which she thought translated to “You’re beautiful” but literally meant “You’re a donkey.” Meanwhile, back at the village idiot ranch, Lohan conveniently forgot how to use Google Translate. According to Us Weekly, “Lohan posted the photo without a caption, but tweeted a link to the Instagram page with the word ‘Habibi,’ an Arabic term of endearment.”
She was either drunk, stoned, or high on sadness when she posted the pic. Within seconds, Twitter and Instagram lit up like a Christmas tree at Octomom’s house; fans and followers lost their bladders at Walmart; and an oblivious Lohan said “Wha-a-a-a-t?” Dumb-de-Dumb-Thumbs wanted “exotic” and “funny” and “oh-so-sentimental”, but it turned out that her moment of inspirational glory was nothing more than an exceptionally embarrassing faux pas.
In the words of a Twitter user, “Next time @lindsaylohan, let me check b4 u post 🙂 Arabic words don’t mean ‘U are beautiful’ but ‘u are a donkey.’ [sic]”
Oh. Awkward. So. So. Awkward.
The age old adage of “I’m only human” comes into play here. We all make mistakes from time to time – Taylor Swift’s entire music career is a prime example. But we don’t have seven gazillion followers on Instagram and Twitter. When (not if) we make a mistake, we can just delete the pic and move on with our lives. The same cannot be said for celebrities such as Loopy Lohan. No, they’re burned at the Translation Stake for the rest of their lives.
There are 6000 spoken languages in the world today. That’s 6000 versions of “I love you”, 6000 ways to say “Hello”, and 6000 to say “You’re beautiful”. We’re bound to get lost in translation eventually. Foreign languages can be tricky little bitches, even more so when we can’t pronounce the words. Certain dim-witted people – ahem, Lindsay Lohan – get lost in translation at the most inopportune times.
Don’t drink and Instagram. Don’t be Lindsay Lohan.
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Image credit to FameFlynet

Source: www.celebdirtylaundry.com

NYC judge lets through anti-Palestinian ‘killing Jews’ ad as ‘freedom of speech’

Dozens of buses and trains emblazoned with anti-Hamas slogans will travel through New York City, after a judge overturned a ban from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).

John G. Koeltl, of United States District Court, said the MTA “underestimate the tolerant quality of New Yorkers and overestimate the potential impact of these fleeting advertisements.”

“Moreover, there is no evidence that seeing one of these advertisements on the back of a bus would be sufficient to trigger a violent reaction. Therefore, these ads — offensive as they may be — are still entitled to First Amendment protection.”

Source: rt.com

Jadal: Transforming the Barren Desert Into a Musical Jungle

The Arab musical landscape often seems as barren as the deserts that make up the majority of their land mass. Finding a new sound in this dehydrating, sandy emptiness creates the same sense of elation as stumbling upon a nourishing oasis. Providing me with that sensation here in Egypt was none other than Jordan’s beloved Jadal, who totally owned their set at the 3alganoob Festival. Taking the time to tell me how Jadal became to be and how their unique sounds have travelled far beyond their Jordanian borders is leading front man Mahmoud Radaideh.

Source: www.cairoscene.com

Here’s how to make your own hummus

With the national recall of classic Sabra Hummus because of listeria, you might be missing your hummus fix.

Grab a couple of cans of chickpeas and tahini and get your food processor ready. It’s easy to make your own and it can be varied in several ways.

Chickpeas and tahini are the two key ingredients that make up hummus. Tahini is made up of ground sesame seeds and sometimes oil — it looks almost like peanut butter. Look for tahini in the ethnic aisle at most grocery stores. A common brand is Ziyad. A 16-ounce jar is about $5.

Chickpeas also are called garbanzo beans and ceci beans. If you use canned, no-salt added if possible, chickpeas, it’s more convenient. But you can use dry beans if you like. Dry beans should be soaked at least eight hours or overnight and then cooked.

Here’s a basic recipe for hummus and one for a roasted red pepper version.

Basic Hummus

Makes: About 3 cups / Preparation time: 10 minutes / Total time: 10 minutes

Although the canned chickpeas are already cooked, they are softened even more in boiling water so they are ultra-tender.

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Ingredients

1 cup water

2 cans (15 ounces each) chickpeas, drained and rinsed

4 cloves garlic, peeled, pressed

1 teaspoon salt

4 tablespoons tahini

¼ cup olive oil (plus more for drizzling) or plain Greek-style yogurt

¼ cup fresh lemon juice

Pinch of cumin if desired

Chopped parsley

In a large pot, bring 1 cup of water to a boil. Add the chickpeas and cook about 10 minutes, until very tender. Drain and reserve the cooking liquid. Set chickpeas aside. Place the chickpeas in a food processor and pulse a few times, adding some cooking liquid if needed until almost smooth. In a separate bowl, mix together the garlic, salt, tahini, olive oil or yogurt, lemon juice and, if desired, cumin. Add to the chickpeas. Mix well to get a creamy consistency. Garnish with a sprinkling of cumin, a drizzle of olive oil and chopped parsley.

From and tested by Susan Selasky for the Free Press Test Kitchen.

Roasted Red Pepper Hummus

Makes: 10 servings (about 3 tablespoons per serving) / Preparation time: 25 minutes

Total time: 25 minutes

This dip tastes even better the second day.

Ingredients

2 large red bell peppers

1 can (15.5 ounces) chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained and rinsed

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

2 cloves garlic, peeled, minced

½ teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons tahini

1 tablespoon olive oil

Fresh vegetables (baby carrots, bell pepper strips, pea pods)

To roast peppers in the oven, place a cooling rack on a baking sheet with sides. Place clean, whole, fresh peppers on cooling rack and broil under medium heat, turning frequently until the entire pepper skin has turned black and blistery. Remove peppers from oven and place in a large glass bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and allow peppers to rest 10 to 15 minutes.

Remove the peppers from the bowl and peel off all the charred skin. Cut peppers in half, core and remove seeds. Cut a few strips to dice 1 tablespoon for garnish and place the remaining peppers in a food processor. Add chickpeas and lemon juice to the food processor and puree 30 to 60 seconds. In a small bowl, combine garlic and salt; blend in tahini. Add tahini mixture to chickpea mixture and blend until smooth. Allow hummus to chill at least 2 hours before serving. To serve, place hummus in a small bowl, garnish with reserved diced roasted red pepper and drizzle with olive oil. Serve with fresh vegetables.

Created by Katherine Kloss, Henry Ford Hospital dietetic intern, and tested by Susan Selasky for the Free Press Test Kitchen.

Source: www.expressnews.com

Mecca May Soon Have Its First ‘Halal’ Sex Shop

An entrepreneur says he hopes to open the first “halal” sex shop in the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

In comments reported by Arabic news channel Alyaoum24, Abdelaziz Aouragh explained the store will not stock sex toys or pornographic DVDs but those which “increase feelings of sensuality and to improve the atmosphere between the couple.”

Aouragh, who founded online Arabic sex shop El Asira, hopes the store will challenge the stereotype of women in Islam.

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

How to Use Spearmint: An Aromatic, Medicinal Herb

“As for the garden of mint, the very smell of it alone recovers and refreshes our spirits, as the taste stirs up our appetite for meat.”—Pliny the Elder
Whether you are vegan or carnivorous, aromatic spearmint adds fresh, nourishing flavor and brightness to innumerable foods, while filling your kitchen with its fragrance by its mere presence. Beyond being a throw-away garnish, a color accent, or a minor player, spearmint can be a star in the kitchen.

See Slides Below: Cooking With Spearmint and Other Greens

Native to the Mediterranean, mint leaves have long been utilized in medicinal and culinary ways. In Spanish, spearmint is called yerba buena, meaning the good herb, a nod to its overall usefulness and nobility. On a visit to Guanajuato, Mexico, a vegetarian burger I ordered in a little cafe pleasantly surprised me with spearmint mellowing out the fresh minced jalapeño peppers. Those are the only ingredients I remember and inspire my homemade vegan burgers. 

When mint is mentioned in culinary speak—unless specified otherwise like peppermint—spearmint is the herb called for. Simple to grow—in fact difficult to hold back—it is best planted near the kitchen in the a contained bed rather than a pot, for easy snipping. Another advantage to growing it easily from a slip, if you live out of the urban center, it’s immune to our hungry suburban deer population who abhor aromatics. So it’s safe to plant along with rosemary, lavender, and other fragrant herbs. My Moroccan mint (a varietal sister to spearmint) is almost two feet high—time to harvest and dry for tea and winter salads. Cutting it back prevents it from flowering and seeding, allowing it to produce fresh mint leaves throughout the summer and fall.

For me, the aroma of spearmint stirs my appetite for salads! Notorious Middle Eastern salads created with mint as a star include our basic salad dressed with lemon, garlic, and olive oil, tabbouli, fattoush, yogurt and cucumber salad, my father’s tomato and garlic salad, and the Lebanese cabbage and coleslaw featured in my Italian parsley article two weeks ago. It is part of the filling in stuffed chard rolls, summer grape leaves, Lebanese summer squash, and in vegan spinach pies. My favorite falafel sandwich in Beirut was packed with fresh spearmint and Italian parsley, along with tomatoes, liffit (pickled turnips), and tahini sauce. The fantastic yalangi (a Turkish word for vegetarian grape leaves) I tasted in Beirut were made of eggplants whose filling included spearmint, and served cold at restaurant Ta Marbouta in Hamra.

In Arabic, the word for spearmint is na’na’. Lebanese omelets, ijhee, are made with Italian parsley, mint, and green onions—a noble culinary trio. A reference to spearmint in a research paper I found was written 10 years ago about Lebanese in New England with a quote framing the essential relationship of na’na with the Lebanese by a Lebanese couple who were house hunting: “…that was when I first noticed the mint growing everywhere. It was running through the flowerbeds and even through the cracks in the foundation of the house, through the concrete! We knew immediately this must have been a Lebanese house at some point. Who else would have large plots of mint around here? We laughed at the hearty nature of the herb—it is so resilient! It will keep on growing despite having no Lebanese owners tending it.” These words are a cautionary note to planting it! Yet, It is easy to pull up and you can give the rooted starts to your friends, even if they’re not Lebanese!

My old friend, Gus Haddad, who opened Portland’s Al-Amir restaurant in the 1980s and is from my family village of Douma, Lebanon, served the best baba ghannouj, seasoned with the secret addition of dried mint. I adapted my mother’s baba ghannouj recipe in Alice’s Kitchen adding just a bit of dried mint. It is superb.

Other typical Eastern Mediterranean uses are in sweet tea, such as Moroccan mint tea; my summer favorite Lebanese beverage is fresh squeezed, homemade lemonade with a sprig of fresh mint truly adding an unmistakably refreshing flavor and festive (think nonalcoholic mojito).

Mojitos, mint julep (from the Arabic beverage jallab), and creme de menthe are alcoholic mint beverages that can be digestifs, made with spearmint. With summer approaching, I will try my hand at mojitos! 

Bring on the menthe spicata for vegans and carnivores alike! Plant it in your kitchen garden and use it in your kitchen now!

—Linda Dalal Sawaya is an artist, cook, Master Gardener, and author of Alice’s Kitchen: Traditional Lebanese Cooking.
Remember, as my mother Alice said, “If you make it with love, it will be delicious!”

Source: www.golocalworcester.com

Can American Muslims Become a Cohesive Political Force in the 2016 Election?

The Presidential election campaigns in the U.S. have begun. Major candidates like former secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Senator Ted Cruz from Texas have thrown their hats into the fray. Once again we confront the challenge, what role can American Muslims play in American politics?

American Muslims: Bridging Faith and Freedom

The growth of Islam in America, driven by migration and conversions, has created a diverse and multicultural Muslim community. While it is difficult to state with great confidence how many Muslims there are in the United States, most estimates vary between 3-6 million. In democracies anyway it is not just numbers that matters, but the number of people who are politically engaged and willing to participate with their activism and their resources that counts.

Composed of people from all races, and from nearly every country on the planet, American Muslims have rapidly become a microcosm of the global Muslim community. The politics of identity and identity formation that are shaping the American Muslim community cannot be fully understood until the internal diversity within the community itself is fully appreciated.

The two issue areas that have the greatest impact on the development and politics of the American Muslim community are religious development and political goals. The community has been very successful in building Islamic institutions like mosques and Islamic centers, Islamic schools, and Islamic societies for Dawah (religious outreach) and religious development of the community. In these endeavors they have succeeded to a great extent. It is very easy for Muslims from diverse backgrounds to unite and share resources to build a mosque, which is essential for all and can serve everyone equally to fulfill their religious obligations.

Preserving Islamic Identity

Islamic movements like the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) are well developed and are serving their purpose amicably. Today there are nearly 2,500 Islamic centers and hundreds of Islamic schools that are all toiling to defend against the erosion of Islamic identity, as well as doing Dawah to sustain one of the fastest growing religions in the West.

But in the arena of American politics, American Muslims have yet to make an impact proportionate to their size and potential. In spite of the growth of the Islamic organizations designed for political mobilization and education, Muslims have yet to enjoy the fruits of political victories. All Muslim political organizations are consumed with combating Islamophobia and trying to build relations with local and federal government and their agencies. The impact on policy and politics is limited despite increased engagement by organizations like MPAC and CAIR.

Like its markets, America’s political environment has very high entry barriers. These entry barriers are both external and internal in nature.

The external barriers are formidable and well-known. In the post-9/11 America, Islamophobia has gone mainstream and is marginalizing Muslims. There are powerful lobbies in the United States that seek to ensure that American Muslims do not gain a foothold in American politics. They use their existent influence to further undermine Muslim organizations. In the past few elections, Islam and American Muslims have become the favorite whipping boy of the Republican party. With every election comes new accusations and demonization of Islam and Muslims as politicians without integrity try to build their careers on the backs of Muslims.

Besides these well-known external barriers, there are certain characteristics of the American Muslim community itself, which have erected internal barriers to political cohesiveness and effective mobilization. The single most important barrier to political cohesion is the inability of the community to prioritize its political goals and evolve a widely accepted short list of political goals. American Muslims come from many parts of the Muslim world, and with the growth of the community many subgroups have emerged. The two biggest groups represent Muslims from the Arab world and from South Asia.

Each subgroup is attempting to organize itself to pursue parochial rather than the overall goals of the community. The Pakistani-Americans are the best-organized subgroup. They have as many political action committees as all the rest of the American Muslim community. While on purely Islamic issues, such as building mosques or Islamic schools, Pakistanis remain an integral part of the general American Muslim community, on political issues they have charted their own separate territory. One can understand that the political challenges that the Pakistan homeland faces affect Pakistanis more than other Islamic sub-communities. And clearly they have concluded they cannot afford to wait for American Muslims to become sufficiently powerful to deal with all political issues in which its subgroups are interested.

Given the turmoil in the Arab world, devastated by wars and civil wars, it will be difficult to bring all the Arabs and Muslims under one political banner. What are the common political goals of Yemeni and Egyptian Arabs today in the U.S.? How do we unite Pakistanis and Arabs while the leaders of their nations are hurling insults at each other?

If all subgroups pursue their own goals separately, they will not only weaken the American Muslim community as a whole by redirecting meager resources, but they will also prevent the emergence of a cohesive American Muslim community. The challenge facing American Muslims is the classic dilemma of collective action often exemplified by the game of stag-hunt. If they hunt together in a coordinated way they could snag a stag that would satisfy all their hunger. If they run after hares on their own, they may not catch it and even if they do it will barely satisfy the splinter group. If all subgroups cooperate in building strong political institutions of a unified American Islamic community, these institutions will serve as a public good that will serve all their interests.

A Hold on Parochialism

A well-established and well-funded American Muslim community can have a greater influence on issues than can its smaller constituent communities on their own. But in order to create this powerful community, each subgroup must put a hold on its immediate parochial ambitions in the interest of strengthening the American Muslim community.

At present, many subgroups are reaching a critical mass that can enable them to have some rudimentary forms of separate institutions. The temptation to break away from the mainstream on political issues while cooperating on religious issues must be resisted in the interest of the larger community. If American Muslim leaders fail to prevent emerging subgroups from breaking away, they will become a community of communities rather than a single multiethnic and multiracial community.

The task of achieving political unity is difficult since there are many interests, sometimes even competing interests, within the community as a whole. It is going to be very difficult to get all Muslims to agree upon the same political goals. If during the coming presidential elections Muslim groups unite, they can not only combat Islamophobia together but also possibly have an impact on politics. But if they act separately, they will gain less and spend more.

In the long run, cohesive politics is not possible until all Muslims in America have the same identity — American Muslim. As long as many of them continue to think of themselves as Arab-American, African-American, Pakistani-American and so on, the community will remain divided. However, it is possible for enlightened leaders to at least agree on one unified goal — to strengthen the American Muslim community. A new organization, U. S. Council of Muslim Organizations, is seeking to achieve this goal. As and when we succeed in this, everything else will slowly fall into place as we wait for the next generation of American Muslims to grow up with a more unified and more homogenous outlook.

Coming to our original question, what role can American Muslims play? First they need to get their act together before they can play ball. Unite and then engage.

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

Census Bureau to test Arab American category

The U.S. Census Bureau is moving forward with a pilot program to test whether to include a new category in the 2020 Census for people of Middle East and North Africa descent.

While the Census Bureau estimates the number of Arab Americans in the United States at 1.8 million, the Arab American Institute estimates the population is closer to 3.7 million. In Michigan, the Census Bureau estimates the population is at 191,600, while the Arab American Institute estimates more than 500,000.

Census Bureau director John H. Thompson told Sen. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township, at a Senate hearing Monday that the test is on schedule for this fall. He said the department is in talks with members of the Arab-American community.

“We are looking forward to having an expert meeting of various Middle Eastern and North African scholars this spring so that we can really come up with a definition, if you will, of Middle Eastern and North African that everyone agrees to. … We’re on track.”

“Excluding the (Middle Eastern/North African) category has serious ramifications for members of these communities, many of whom live in the State of Michigan,” wrote Peters, Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, and Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Dearborn, in a February letter to the Census Bureau. “We all want to improve the accuracy of the Census, and it is our belief that including a broad MENA category would help us achieve this shared goal.”

Source: www.detroitnews.com

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