Author Archives: Arab America

Eleven-year-old Firas al-Shirafi has experienced three major offensives against Gaza during his short life. Last summer, he was confined to his home in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City as it was too dangerous to venture outside. As Israel bombed and shelled buildings and infrastructure across the Strip, Firas did his best to replace the sounds of destruction with life-affirming tunes.

“The only shelter for me was my music,” said Firas, who plays the qanun, a traditional string instrument.

Firas has been studying at the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music since he was five. “We immediately realized that this boy would have a promising musical future,” Ibrahim al-Najjar, director of the conservatory’s Gaza branch, told The Electronic Intifada. “His father and grandfather were musicians.”

The conservatory, which also operates at several locations in the occupied West Bank, took over Gaza’s previous music school (which was affilated with the not-for-profit A.M. Qattan Foundation) in April 2012.

The theater used by the foundation to teach students and a large number of its instruments suffered serious damage during Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s three-week assault on Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009.

Firas cites the Egyptian qanun player and composer Saber Abdelsattar as a major influence. He also enjoys playing tunes made popular by the Lebanese singer Fairouz and the late Egyptian singer Um Kulthoum.

Source: electronicintifada.net

The scenario I’m about to describe has happened to me more times than I can count, in more cities than I can remember, mostly in Western cities here in the U.S. and Europe.

I walk into a store. There’s a woman shopping in the store that I can clearly identify as Muslim. In some scenarios she’s standing behind the cash register tallying up totals and returning change to customers. She’s wearing a headscarf. It’s tightly fastened under her face where her head meets her neck. Arms covered to the wrists. Ankles modestly hidden behind loose fitting pants or a long, flowy dress. She’s Muslim. I know it. Everyone around her knows it. I stare at her briefly and think to myself, “She can’t tell if I’m staring at her because I think she is a spectacle or because I recognize something we share.”

I realize this must make her uncomfortable, so I look away. I want to say something, something that indicates I’m not staring because I’m not familiar with how she chooses to cover herself. Something that indicates that my mother dresses like her. That I grew up in an Arab state touching the Persian Gulf where the majority dresses like her. That I also face East and recite Quran when I pray.

“Should I greet her with A’salamu alaikum?” I ask myself. Then I look at what I picked out to wear on this day. A pair of distressed denim short shorts, a button-down Oxford shirt, and sandals. My hair is a big, curly entity on top of my head; still air-drying after my morning shower. Then I remember my two nose rings, one hugging my right nostril, the other snugly hanging around my septum. The rings have become a part of my face. I don’t notice them until I have to blow my nose or until I meet someone not accustomed to face piercings.

I decide not to say anything to her. I pretend that we have nothing in common and that I don’t understand her native tongue or the language in which she prays. The reason I don’t connect with her is that I’m not prepared for a possibly judgmental glance up and down my body. I don’t want to read her mind as she hesitantly responds, “Wa’alaikum a’salam.”

Source: truestories.gawker.com

Federal prosecutors are recommending that Rasmea Odeh be sentenced to up to seven years in prison before proceedings begin to deport her from the Unites States.

The sentence prosecutors are calling for against the Chicago-based Palestinian American community leader is much tougher than those contained in federal guidelines for those convicted of immigration offenses.

Last November, a federal jury in Michigan found Odeh guilty of immigration and naturalization fraud for failing to disclose her conviction by an Israeli military court in 1969 for helping to organize a series of bombings in Jerusalem.

Odeh has maintained the the 1969 convictions were the result of a false confession extracted through weeks of prolonged torture and sexual assault by Israeli interrogators

Source: electronicintifada.net

The staff of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) gets very nervous whenever news breaks that a large archaeological treasure has been found. That is what happened Feb. 17, when amateur divers discovered a treasure trove of rare, ancient coins near the ancient port town of Caesarea. “We know that the discovery of a treasure of this size, and the publicity that such a find receives in the media causes people to think that they can find treasures just about anywhere,” Eitan Klein, deputy director of the Unit to Prevent Antiquities Theft at the IAA, told Al-Monitor.

Source: www.al-monitor.com

A photographic history of the Palestinians, 1876-1948, by Walid Khalidi.

Source: btd.palestine-studies.org

Islamic State extremists used sledgehammers and power drills to smash ancient artifacts to pieces at a museum in Mosul, in the north of Iraq. Islamic State e…

Source: www.youtube.com

The US supreme court will hear an hour-long oral argument on Wednesday in a case that has pulled off the rare feat of uniting Christian, Muslim, Jewish and other religious organizations.

Retailer Abercrombie & Fitch is fighting a religious bias lawsuit brought by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and backed by 16 religious groups, that argues the retailer should be held liable for rejecting a Muslim job applicant because she was wearing a traditional head covering, known as a hijab.

Samantha Elauf’s headscarf should have been granted a religious exemptions, insists the EEOC. The company insists that it wasn’t told the headscarf was worn for religious reasons and so the company isn’t liable for not accommodating it.

Source: www.theguardian.com

The publication by Al Jazeera and The Guardian this week of a cache of cables leaked from the files of the South African intelligence services has been enlightening.

Some of the stories that have come out so far only confirm things that were already known. However, these are still valuable for the extra detail they provide and the way they verify certain stories with independent sourcing.

For example, it was already well-known that the Palestinian Authority led an extensive diplomatic campaign against the promotion and adoption of the Goldstone report in international forums like the UN Human Rights Council.

Although the PA publicly claimed to support it, the Palestine Papers in 2011 revealed that behind the scenes they buckled to American and Israeli pressure to ensure the report’s recommendations were never implemented.

The report ultimately accused Israel and Hamas of war crimes during Israel’s devastating and bloody assault on the Gaza Strip in 2008-09. Hamas, for its part, fully cooperated with the South African judge’s report, although it disagreed with the part of the conclusions that accused its armed wing of war crimes.

The new revelations in the Spy Cables confirm the story that Palestine Papers tell. One cable shows how Mossad chief Meir Dagan personally called the head of South Africa’s State Security Agency on his mobile phone. The number had not been given out: the agents expressed concern, and launched an internal investigation into how the number was obtained by Israeli spies.

Once Dagan’s identity had been confirmed, the South Africans promised to pass his message onto the political echelon, warning they would have little influence there. Dagan sent the message that the Goldstone report should be effectively scrapped, and claimed that PA leader Mahmoud Abbas agreed with him.

Dagan could have been lying or exaggerating about that, but the anti-Goldstone record of the PA is clear enough to suggest he was probably telling the truth in this case.

Another one of the leaked cables recounts a meeting between South African and CIA officers in east Jerusalem in 2012. The South African says that the CIA was “desperate” to make contact with Hamas in Gaza. For what purposes we do not know for sure, as the cables is not clear.

While Hamas spokesperson Ghazi Hamad denied to Al Jazeera yesterday that any such official contact had been made between the US and Hamas, it’s not impossible that the US has sought to establish some sort of back-channel negotiations with the Islamic resistance movement.

After all, even Israel had to create such a line of communication in order to negotiate (via third parties) for the release of prisoner of war Gilad Shalit in 2011, in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners (may of whom it has since outrageously re-captured).

If the South African spy’s account is accurate, it only goes to show the hypocritical nature of American policy on Hamas. Although in public the US states its refusal to negotiate with Hamas, the reality on the ground may force them to do so in secret. Hamas is a part of Palestinian society, runs many charitable and social programmes and was voted into power in landslide PA elections in 2006.

America sought to establish communication with Hamas on one hand, while persecuting via massive court cases entirely peaceful activists and charity workers in the United States who were accused of supporting charitable organizations that had never been listed by the US as banned groups.

The “Holy Land Five” case is one of the most outrageous miscarriages of justice in US history, even by the hysterical standards of the post-9/11 Wester world. Ghassan Elashi is serving a 65-year prison sentence related to his charitable work in Palestine, despite the fact that US governmental agencies also provided funding to the same organisations in Palestine without investigation.

But the case brought by the US Attorney’s office relied on Israeli claims that the charitable organisations were somehow tied to Hamas.

What these cables show, once again, is that is is one rule for American spies and another for American citizens.

An associate editor with The Electronic Intifada, Asa Winstanley is an investigative journalist who lives in London.

Source: www.middleeastmonitor.com

After teasing us with a single shot on Instagram earlier this morning (GMT time), Banksy finally revealed the location of the first piece which is Gaza in Palestine. Inspired by “The Thinker” by Rodin the first piece is entitled “Bomb Damage” and obviously with Banksy, the placement is just on point.
On top of that, the elusive British street artist took the opportunity to reveal four new pieces which you will be able to find around Gaza.
Two quotes were enclosed with the images of the new stenciled pieces:

Gaza is often described as ‘the world’s largest open air prison’ because no-one is allowed to enter or leave. But that seems a bit unfair to prisons – they don’t have their electricity and drinking water cut off randomly almost everyday.  — Banksy

A local man came up and said ‘Please – what does this mean?’ I explained I wanted to highlight the destruction in Gaza by posting photos on my website – but on the internet people only look at pictures of kittens. — Banksy

Just like in New York City back in 2013, one of the new piece is text based and reads: “If We Wash Our Hands Of The Conflict Between The Powerful And The Powerless We Side With The Powerful – We Don’t Remain Neutral”.
Finally, Banksy drops a strong statement with a 2 minute long video which document his recent trip to Palestine.
Hit the jump to discover more images on these powerful artworks plus the video and as usual keep your eyes peeled on StreetArtNews for the latest Banksy updates.

Source: bayareaintifada.wordpress.com

Israel has not granted a single Sudanese asylum seeker refugee status, in spite of a wave of migrants fleeing violence, according to official state statistics, submitted to the High Court of Justice on February 16. In all, the government has granted refugee status to only 0.07% of the 5,573 Sudanese and Eritreans who have applied for asylum in the country—a mere four individuals.

Haaretz published the statistics. The following is a summary of the findings:

Sudanese Refugees

3,165 Sudanese refugees submitted asylum requests from July 2009 to 2015.
1% (45) of these applications was answered by Israel. 99% (3120) were ignored.
89% (40) of the 45 requests the government answered were rejected. The remaining 5 were granted temporary residence (not refugee status).
0 of the 3,165 asylum seekers were granted refugee status.
31% (976) of the Sudanese asylum seekers who applied left Israel. 69% (2,184) of the Sudanese refugees who applied remain in Israel.
Worldwide, 56% of Sudanese asylum seekers received refugee status or extended protection in the first half of 2014, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Eritrean Refugees

2,408 Eritrean refugees submitted asylum requests in the same period.
45% (1073) of these applications were answered by Israel. 55% (1,335) were ignored.
93% (997) of the requests the government answered were rejected.
0.16% (4) of the Eritrean asylum seekers were granted refugee status.
3% (72) of the Eritrean asylum seekers who applied left Israel. 97% (2332) of the Eritrean refugees who applied remain in Israel.
Worldwide, 84% of Eritrean asylum seekers received refugee status or extended protection in the first half of 2014, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Overall

17,778 refugees, from a variety of countries, applied for asylum in Israel from mid-2009 to 2015.
69% (12,220) of these applications were answered by Israel. 31% (5,558) were ignored.
99.6% (12,175) of the requests the government answered were either rejected or withdrawn.
0.25% (45) of the total asylum seekers were granted refugee status.
Holot Detention Center

1,940 refugees are being held in the Holot detention center.
76% (1,476) are Sudanese.
24% (464) are Eritrean.
45% (865) have been detained for over 9 months.
62% (1,198) migrated to Israel at least six years ago.
22% (1,258) of the 5,803 Sudanese and Eritrean refugees who left Israel in 2014 were held in Holot or Saharonim prison.
These applications only constitute a fraction of the African refugees in Israel. Government data estimates that, as of 2014, there were approximately 8,800 Sudanese and 34,000 Eritreans refugees in the country. The actual percentage of documented refugees is thus many times lower.

Haaretz reported that almost 1/4 (22%) of the positions budgeted for Israel’s Population, Immigration and Border Authority’s Refugee Status Determination Unit are not currently staffed. Israel says it is in the process of filling this spots. Amnon Ben Ami, director of the Population, Immigration and Border Authority, claimed the 3,519 Sudanese and Eritrean asylum seekers whose applications have been ignored will get a response within the next year.

The attorney representing Israel, Yochi Gnessin, said one of the reasons the country sends refugees to the Holot detention center is to encourage their “voluntary exit.” Gnessin has come under fire in the past for, in the words of Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch, claiming “that all of the IDF conversions [to Judaism] are invalid” when she represented the state in the High Court of Justice in 2010.

Anti-Black Racism in Israel
The majority of the Sudanese and Eritrean refugees in Israel are there because they have fled violence. Yet they find themselves in a deeply racist society—one not just violently racist against Palestinians, but against Africans as well. As I detailed in a Mondoweiss article about the relationship between Zionism and anti-black racism:

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin has gone on record calling his country, in the words of the Jerusalem Post, “a sick society that needs treatment.” Haaretz, the “Israeli New York Times,” has also shown that racism is getting even worse among younger generations, that Israeli teenagers are “Racist and proud of it.”

This racism manifests itself politically in the form of apartheid. In 2007, David A. Kirshbaum, of the Israel Law Resource Center, published a piece titled “Israeli Apartheid — A Basic Legal Perspective,” meticulously detailing the myriad ways in which Israel is an apartheid state, under its very own laws. Once again, Israel’s most-read newspaper has published pieces confirming this fact, admitting that “Israeli Arabs have never been equal before the law.”

And yet, as the aforementioned incident evinces, this racism is not only directed at Palestinians. David Sheen has been “carefully chronicling the racist attacks against non-Jewish African asylum-seekers in Israel for several years,” documenting “social media stories about the recent violence, footage from four years of anti-African rallies, and extended one-on-one interviews about opposition to the presence of Africans in Israel.” He writes:

In January 2012, an organization in Israel that aids African asylum-seekers, the African Refugee Development Center, asked me to author on their behalf a report to the United Nations Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). After receiving the report in text and video form, the UN committee urged the Israeli government to prevent racist attacks against Africans in Israel. The Israeli government ignored the UN’s call, and the following month, Israelis firebombed a kindergarten for African children in Tel Aviv, igniting a wave of violence against non-Jewish African people in Israel that is still ongoing.

Blumenthal and Sheen released a brief documentary titled “Israel’s New Racism: The Persecution of African Migrants in the Holy Land.” In it, they show video footage of prominent politicians, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Member of Knesset Michael Ben-Ari, calling African refugees “infiltrators” and “cancer,” and openly using the n-word; of Israeli citizens harassing fellow Israelis for engaging in interracial relationships; and of some politicians even going so far as to propose the creation of concentration camps in which to hold African refugees.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has also drawn attention to the vitriolic strain of anti-black racism in Israeli society. In its September 2014 report “Make Their Lives Miserable”: Israel’s Coercion of Eritrean and Sudanese Asylum Seekers to Leave Israel details how “Israeli authorities have labelled Eritreans and Sudanese a ‘threat,’ branded them ‘infiltrators,’ denied them access to fair and efficient asylum procedures, and used the resulting insecure legal status as a pretext to unlawfully detain or threaten to detain them indefinitely, coercing thousands into leaving.”

HRW writes that “Israel’s policies are well summed up in the words of former Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai who said that as long as Israel cannot deport them to their home countries, it should ‘lock them up to make their lives miserable.’”

In the time since Blumenthal and Sheen’s documentary was made (mid 2013), Israel has in fact created what are effectively internment camps for African refugees. Israeli journalist Lia Tarachansky, reporting for the Real News, has documented these horrific practices.

Tarachansky notes that African refugees are imprisoned en masse in open-air prison camps in the middle of nowhere. They are told they are not prisoners, but they must sign in three times per day, and the prison camp is so far from any neighboring city that it is impossible to leave on foot. Moreover, when African refugees collectively decide to leave in protest of the concentration camp conditions in which they are involuntarily held, the army violently stops them. In response, African refugees are now going on hunger strike.

Israel’s modus operandi for dealing with this supposed refugee “problem” has been to trade African asylum-seekers with other countries in exchange for weapons. It goes without saying that such a decision bears striking and grotesque resemblances to slavery. (It might also, significantly, be herein noted that the US is complicit in this neo-slavery process, as the weapons Israel is exchanging for human beings may very well have been bought with the US’ over $100 billion of military aid.)

Even African Jews are not immune from this intense, unmitigated racism. Israel has admitted to forcibly sterilizing Ethiopian Jews, in an action that some argue constitutes the legal definition of genocide. Magen David Adom, the “Israeli Red Cross,” has refused to take blood donations from one of its own country’s Members of Knesset, Pnina Tamano-Shata, referring to it as “the special kind of Jewish-Ethiopian blood” they avoid.

Scholar Hanan Chehata has thoroughly detailed Israel’s “overt racism” against and segregation of African Jews, calling the ethnocracy the “promised land for Jews … as long as they’re not black.” The chief rabbi of Petach Tikvah (a “sister city” of Chicago) went to so far as to refuse to wed Ethiopian Jews, because he doubted that they were truly Jewish. Clearly, Israel’s white supremacist Zionism leads to its own despicable form of anti-Semitism.

Source: mondoweiss.net

Despite the rise of Islamic State, President Barack Obama said that the U.S. still believes Syrian President Bashar al-Assad should step down.

Mr. Obama, in an Oval Office meeting with the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, described the situation in Syria as an “extraordinary challenge,” saying they agreed that Mr. Assad has lost legitimacy and should relinquish power.

“We both are deeply concerned about the situation in Syria. We’ll continue to support the moderate opposition there and continue to believe that it will not be possible to fully stabilize that country until Mr. Assad, who has lost legitimacy in the country, is transitioned out,” Mr. Obama said.

Source: www.wsj.com

The billion-dollar, five-year gamble to build a new middle-class Palestinian city on a West Bank mountaintop was just about to welcome its first residents when the Israeli government decided this month to withhold a basic necessity: running water.

Before granting water access to the planned city of Rawabi, Israel — which controls the area that the water pipe would run through — wants Palestinian Authority officials to return to an Israeli-Palestinian Joint Water Committee. The Palestinians abandoned the group in 2010 because they don’t want to approve water projects to Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, which are built on land that Palestinians want for a future state — and which still get plenty of water.

Source: www.washingtonpost.com