Author Archives: Arab America

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A very enthusiastic audience filled the University of the District of Columbia’s Theatre of the Arts on Feb. 26 for a lively event co-hosted with Arab America, “From Ferguson to Chapel Hill: Together We Stand for Justice.”

Arab America president Warren David said his organization wanted to celebrate Black History Month because many Arab countries are in Africa and many Arab Americans and African Americans share the Muslim faith. Sadly, both communities are “denigrated for their ethnicity,” David said. “Last week’s horrific shooting of three Arab Americans was racially motivated because of religion and ethnicity,” he stated, and called for both groups to work for “justice and equality for all.”

Source: www.wrmea.org

Students filled a lecture hall for a lecture via Skype by Palestinian leftist parliamentarian Khalida Jarrar at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Free University of Brussels, VUB) on Wednesday evening, March 4, after student organizers defeated an attempt by Israel’s ambassador to Belgium to cancel Israeli Apartheid Week at the Dutch-speaking university in the Belgian capital.

A small media firestorm erupted at the university after news reports that Israel’s ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg, Jacques Revah, had complained to the VUB’s Rector, Paul De Knop, about the organizing of Israeli Apartheid Week on the campus. In particular, Revah, following earlier complaints by a Zionist lobby organization, the Belgian League Against Antisemitism, complained about Jarrar’s presentation as well as a planned talk by former Israeli fighter pilot Yonatan Shapira. Joel Rubinstein of the BLAA had earlier threatened legal action against the university for allowing Jarrar, a leader in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a leftist Palestinian political party listed as a “terrorist organization” by the European Union, to speak.

Even more troubling, De Knop stated that the IAW events would be cancelled, or, in the alternative, be permitted to continue, but only with the inclusion of a speaker from the Israeli embassy or another pro-Zionist voice. IAW at VUB was organized by COMAC, the youth movement of the Workers’ Party of Belgium, along with Palestinian groups and other student organizations, all of whom immediately rejected this proposal.

Source: mondoweiss.net

ANERA’s early childhood development (ECD) program involves a child’s holistic growth, including cognitive, social, emotional and physical. The earliest months and years of life are considered the most important developmental phase in the human lifespan. A key to building a vibrant, generous society is providing children the tools for critical thinking, tolerance and understanding.

Creating stimulating and safe learning environments is an important part of ANERA’s ECD work across Palestine. Palestinian preschools often are overcrowded, dilapidated, and lack facilities such as playgrounds, reading corners, and educational books that encourage positive learning experiences. Classrooms are poorly lit, lack proper ventilation, and do not meet safety and health standards. While many preschools have play areas, playground equipment is in short supply and safety levels are poor.

Source: www.anera.org

As part of the 11th annual Israeli Apartheid Week, taking place on campuses around the globe, we held awareness-raising stalls on campus and did two film-scr…

Source: www.youtube.com

In March 2005, the Arab Students’ Collective, a campus organisation at the University of Toronto, held a series of local events to support Palestinians and protest Israeli policies. Hoping to broaden debate at the end of the second Intifada and on the eve of Israel’s redeployment of ground forces and settlers from the Gaza Strip, originally called “the separation plan,” they called their proceedings Israeli Apartheid Week.

A decade on, their creation has become an annual and globally-recognised event. This year, it will feature cultural and educational events, as well as public protests in more than 200 cities on six continents.

Activists say the campaign’s growth indicates the rising appeal of its message.

“In the wake of Israel’s massacre of Palestinians in Gaza, this year’s IAW takes on even greater significance,” Michael Deas, a London-based member of the IAW international coordination committee, told Middle East Eye.

Source: www.middleeasteye.net

“You are dead. We are going to kill you.”

“The North Carolina shootings were just the beginning.”

“You are not Americans, don’t fly our flag.”

These are just some of the despicable comments directed at American Muslims in the Dallas-Forth Worth area in the last two months.  The first two statements were shared with me by Alia Salem, the executive Director of the Dallas-Fort Worth chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations.  The death threat “You are dead…”  was chillingly made to her on the phone just a few weeks ago. The second remark was directed at another in the community, referencing the recent killing of three Muslim American college students in North Carolina.

The third comment was yelled at Muslim Americans attending a local conference in mid January that ironically had been organized by the local Muslim community to counter extremism and hate. 

I don’t mention these comments in the hope of eliciting sympathy. I mention them to give you a sense of the anti-Muslim climate down there so that you understand why the local Muslim community believes that the murder of a Muslim man in Dallas on March 5, 2015 was a hate crime.

Source: www.thedailybeast.com

Palestinian citizens of Israel (PCIs) are primed to play a larger than usual role in Israel’s March 17 parliamentary election. The implications of their changing role could have a big impact on coalition formation as well, for reasons that may not be obvious. Until now, most attention, in Israel and internationally, has focused on the tight race between Israel’s two largest parties: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud and Isaac Herzog’s Zionist Union. But PCIs offer a particularly useful window into the potential effects of the elevated threshold in new electoral rules, the structure of the electorate and potential changes in voter turnout.

Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Rima Karaki’s put-down of Sheikh Hani Al-Siba’i has gone viral – proof that creepy western stereotypes about Muslim women are dismayingly hard to shift

Source: www.theguardian.com

Noam Chomsky may be 86, but he doesn’t pull his punches.

In a recent interview with Ezra Levant, the famed U.S. linguist and social justice activist took the Canadian commentator to task over freedom of speech.

Levant interviewed Chomsky in a video chat for his new website, The Rebel, and free speech was at the top of the agenda. Levant wasted no time in asking why the left doesn’t care as much about freedom of speech now as it did in the 1960s.

Source: www.huffingtonpost.ca

One day after CNN announced its Kevin Spacey-led campaign docu-series, the cable channel announced two more original series, part of a network reorientation away from breaking news coverage and commentary.

The two new shows will be headed by religious scholar Reza Aslan and stand-up comic W. Kamau Bell, and are set to debut in 2016.

Aslan will host a series tentatively called Believer. “In each episode, Aslan will immerse himself into one of the world’s most fascinating faith-based groups to experience life as a true believer,” CNN said in a statement Tuesday. “The series will feature Aslan participating in endurance worship, spellbinding rituals, and unusual rites of passage to learn about rarefied worlds that have been molded by faith and tradition.”

Source: www.mediaite.com

Images of tortured, bloodied and bruised bodies go on display in the glittering halls of the UN in New York for the next 10 days, to remind staff “not to look away” from the humanitarian crisis in Syria.

The graphic exhibition of 30 photographs has been sponsored by 15 UN member states. Caesar Photos: Inside Syrian Authorities’ Prisons, which depicts torture and atrocities committed by the regime of Bashar al-Assad during the civil war, will be displayed in a busy corner of the UN building in New York..

Though some details are blurred, the photographs show death in stark reality: women and children – though mostly men – tortured, starved, dead.

Though warning signs are posted next to the photographs, the shock registered by some passers-by would perhaps lead to suggestions that they were too graphic for the august UN setting. However, the setting was precisely what several of the sponsors were hoping for.

Source: www.theguardian.com