WHY?
Nov. 26, 2004
By Ray Hanania
My local newspaper ran almost four pages of small photos of soldiers, captioned with the names, ranks, ages, hometowns, and dates that each were killed in Iraq.
It's a common thing to publish the faces of fallen soldiers, especially around holidays. Not so common is to publish the list of seriously wounded.
The dead are so much easier to handle. They die and are forgotten to the public. The wounded remain in our faces -- demanding things like hospitalization, disability benefits and costs that go on long after wars end.
More than 1,200 Americans have been killed in Iraq, the Vietnam-like war that no one wants to compare to Vietnam.
But I have one simple question.
Why?
Why did they die? Patriotism? Terrorism? Politics? Profits? Racism? The answer depends on your politics, I guess.
Maybe it was to defend America from another terrorist attack.
Or maybe it was to distract the public from the fact that many of the people who did business with certain politically connected firms were friends and relatives of Osama bin Laden.
I recall that during the Vietnam War, the patriotism was heavy and questions like "Why?" were frowned upon. We were told we were winning the war, but we weren't and didn't find out until it was too late, and our soldiers had to flee as the insurgents of ragtag guerrillas converged on our embassy.
Like the Viet Cong, the Iraqi insurgents who are defending their country do not have the technologically superior weapons systems that our American forces brought with them when we launched the unprovoked attack on March 19, 2003.
And like the Viet Cong, the Iraqi insurgents are proving to be formidable opponents. The drive to defeat the occupiers and achieve independence is a powerful force, even more so than concepts like "democracy."
Oh yes. They have their terrorists, although we didn't use the phrase terrorism during the Vietnam War as easily as we use it today.
But the fact is that not all of the Iraqi insurgents are terrorists, even if the biased American news establishment calls them such in their one-sided, self-censored coverage.
For every atrocity broadcast on American TV where an Iraqi has butchered an American, there are probably just as many atrocities being committed by American forces against innocent Iraqis.
We know that many of the insurgents we capture have been murdered in cold blood by people hailed in this country as "heroes." Imagine that a person who viciously murders a prisoner, a civilian or an unknown potential suspect is held up as a symbol of what we stand for as a nation. To much of the American media, those who report these crimes are worse than the criminals, just as Americans who ask "Why?" are denounced as anti-American and unpatriotic.
Personally, I think how you win a war is more important than simply winning a war.
It was a lesson we learned -- and forgot -- during the Vietnam War.
More importantly, I guess, is that it is easy to throw the faces of the dead at the public. It feeds public emotion and prevents war criticism from gaining in popularity.
As long as it's not your kid, I guess we can fight to the last son or daughter. Not your son or daughter. Someone else's son or daughter.
As long as the faces of the dead in the newspaper are strangers, we can afford to feel patriotic sympathy.
I know that regardless of whether they support or oppose the war, the sons and daughters forced to fight have no choice, unlike the children of privilege who have not been nor ever will be called to active duty service in Iraq. The issue really isn't even the public's attitude. America continued to fight the Vietnam War long after it was clear most Americans no longer supported it, or at least had begun to seriously question it.
But when the names under the photos of the dead in American newspapers include the names of clout like Bush, Hastert, Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Frist, Santorum and Ridge, you can bet the war in Iraq would stop on a proverbial dime.
Throw in a few more surnames like Hannity, Limbaugh, Krauthammer, Hume and Coulter, and ending the war would suddenly become patriotism. But that won't happen.
So right around the holidays like Memorial Day, Labor Day, Veterans Day and the Fourth of July, newspapers around the country will continue to fill their pages with the names and faces of the most recent to die. And if you ask "Why?" you'll be denounced, vilified and attacked as anti-American and unpatriotic. As long as it isn't your son or daughter, why should you care?
Why?
To find out more about Ray Hanania, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2004 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC
Originally Published on Friday November 26, 2004
Friday, November 26, 2004
Thursday, November 25, 2004
American merry-go-round hypocrisy regarding Ukraine, 11-25-04
American merry-go-round over Ukrainian elections
Arab American Media Services 11-25-04
By Ray Hanania
Was anyone else surprised when Secretary of State Colin Powell announced that the United States does not accept the results of the elections in the Ukraine this past week?
Election officials in Kiev announced that the Russian-backed prime minister, Victor Yanukovych, had defeated a former prime minister, Viktor Yushchenko, in Sunday's election in the Ukraine.
Powell said there would be consequences for U.S.-Ukraine relations if the government there did not act "immediately and responsibly" to find a solution that respected the will of its people.
"We cannot accept this result as legitimate because it does not meet international standards and because there has not been an investigation of the numerous and credible reports of fraud and abuse," Powell said in a statement released by the State Department.
Powell called for a full review of the election and basically demanded a recount, which is how I define the phrase "the tabulation of election results."
Haven't the Ukrainians heard of the Supreme Court? Just shut Powell and BUsh up by having one of the Ukranian Supreme Court justices declare Yanukovych the winner. It worked for President Bush in January 2001.
Maybe the Ukrainians offended Bush by expressing dismay over how poorly the American elections were conducted back in November 2000? ANd that has provoked Powell to enforce a standard on others that we, Americans, don't impose on ourselves.
Suddenly, the Bush administration is talking about "popular will" as they not only block a recount in Ohio where voter fraud appears rampant, but they also have used their clout in the Congress to undermine the reforms proposed by the 9/11 Commission.
(Notice how Bush waited until after his re-election to trash the 9/11 Commission report?)
I guess the issue is not the rule of law, justice or a single standard of democracy, otherwise where would Powell and Bush get off lecturing another nation about their election process when the one we have right here stinks and is clearly corrupted by special interest power politics.
But most of the world already recognizes that the United States isn't really a land of "opportunity." It's more or less like the land of hypocrisy.
How else do you describe this double standard? I understand the simplistic equation "You are either with us or against us," as Bush has carefully enunciated.
But now I realize that also means that if you are "us," you have one standard of justice and if you are not "us" you have another standard of justice. Be it in elections. Be it in investigations of criminal terrorist acts that may find themselves nipping at your own heals (Bush's cozy friendship and business ties to Osama Bin Laden's relatives, for example).
Or be it the capricious manner in which the United States claims it is not subject to the 4th Geneva Conventions which guide the civilized conduct of warfare, although I am sure we will demand 4th Geneva Convention protections for our soldiers and our friends when it suits our purposes.
Does the rest of the world see this hypocrisy as clearly as I do? Or is it simply that they have known something for a long time that I have only recently come to realize.
America speaks from both sides of its mouth. Justice for "us" is different from justice for "you."
I am all for justice and fair elections, democracy and freedoms. But I am also a big believer in "practice what you preach."
Clearly that's a phrase that most Americans don't want to hear.
end
Arab American Media Services 11-25-04
By Ray Hanania
Was anyone else surprised when Secretary of State Colin Powell announced that the United States does not accept the results of the elections in the Ukraine this past week?
Election officials in Kiev announced that the Russian-backed prime minister, Victor Yanukovych, had defeated a former prime minister, Viktor Yushchenko, in Sunday's election in the Ukraine.
Powell said there would be consequences for U.S.-Ukraine relations if the government there did not act "immediately and responsibly" to find a solution that respected the will of its people.
"We cannot accept this result as legitimate because it does not meet international standards and because there has not been an investigation of the numerous and credible reports of fraud and abuse," Powell said in a statement released by the State Department.
Powell called for a full review of the election and basically demanded a recount, which is how I define the phrase "the tabulation of election results."
Haven't the Ukrainians heard of the Supreme Court? Just shut Powell and BUsh up by having one of the Ukranian Supreme Court justices declare Yanukovych the winner. It worked for President Bush in January 2001.
Maybe the Ukrainians offended Bush by expressing dismay over how poorly the American elections were conducted back in November 2000? ANd that has provoked Powell to enforce a standard on others that we, Americans, don't impose on ourselves.
Suddenly, the Bush administration is talking about "popular will" as they not only block a recount in Ohio where voter fraud appears rampant, but they also have used their clout in the Congress to undermine the reforms proposed by the 9/11 Commission.
(Notice how Bush waited until after his re-election to trash the 9/11 Commission report?)
I guess the issue is not the rule of law, justice or a single standard of democracy, otherwise where would Powell and Bush get off lecturing another nation about their election process when the one we have right here stinks and is clearly corrupted by special interest power politics.
But most of the world already recognizes that the United States isn't really a land of "opportunity." It's more or less like the land of hypocrisy.
How else do you describe this double standard? I understand the simplistic equation "You are either with us or against us," as Bush has carefully enunciated.
But now I realize that also means that if you are "us," you have one standard of justice and if you are not "us" you have another standard of justice. Be it in elections. Be it in investigations of criminal terrorist acts that may find themselves nipping at your own heals (Bush's cozy friendship and business ties to Osama Bin Laden's relatives, for example).
Or be it the capricious manner in which the United States claims it is not subject to the 4th Geneva Conventions which guide the civilized conduct of warfare, although I am sure we will demand 4th Geneva Convention protections for our soldiers and our friends when it suits our purposes.
Does the rest of the world see this hypocrisy as clearly as I do? Or is it simply that they have known something for a long time that I have only recently come to realize.
America speaks from both sides of its mouth. Justice for "us" is different from justice for "you."
I am all for justice and fair elections, democracy and freedoms. But I am also a big believer in "practice what you preach."
Clearly that's a phrase that most Americans don't want to hear.
end
Saturday, November 20, 2004
The bonfire of the American morality Nov. 20, 2004
The bonfire of the American morality
11-20-04 Arab American Media Services
Permission granted to republish
By Ray Hanania
America is a nation that is in transformation. Once the pillar of America’s greatness, the righteous values of justice are slowly being consumed by a national rage based on lies, racism and hate.
Many Americans would rather embrace the lie so they don’t have to come to terms with their own ugliness or hate. Ugliness becomes relative. It is acceptable when you can make the person you hate seem even uglier.
Today’s Americans are cultivating principles based on "New Speak." Atrocity becomes justified with the clever use of labels. The killer is acceptable as long as the victim is someone designated as a the unacceptable, or today’s "terrorist."
"Horrors of war are unavoidable," Americans scream as they dance around the flames of hate. As long as victims are "the other people."
Even the meaning of the word "terrorist" is redefined in the "New Speak." It is no longer about humanity, morality or righteous principles of justice. It is a mob-like hate-vision.
We see evidence of this in America everyday as we divide the world not in terms of right and wrong, but "us" versus "them."
An American soldier kills a wounded Iraqi in cold-blood, clearly the tip of an iceberg of atrocities unreported by the media. Rather than disgust, many Americans want to punish the people who made this atrocity public.
In stark contrast, there is no limit to their moral outrage against Islamic terrorists who have committed similar acts of butchery by beheading hostages. There are no limits to the atrocities and injustice that can be wiped clean in the new American equation of "us" versus "them."
We are at the bonfire of American morality. Nothing burns brighter in this hate than justice, righteousness, morality and principles that define human dignity.
Atrocity is judged by the races and politics of the victims and the victimizer. When the victim is one of "us," Americans are outraged. When the victim is one of "them," the atrocity is justified.
The sickness becomes the norm especially when the media surrenders to the mob and embraces rather than challenges the lies.
The American news media is in a voluntary bondage and worse, in widespread denial. The absence of ethics becomes promiscuous. Professional journalism is replaced by entertainment news that is based on viciousness and cruelty. Emotional fantasies replace hard facts.
From there, it is a mere half-step to a future when the mob will demand even more in Roman-like glee.
At some point, they won’t even pretend. The "guilty" will be fed to the lions of our hatred.
Justice will be replaced by public entertainment. The new judges will stand behind the microphones fanning the bonfires of American morality, cheering on the viciousness. Gleefully dancing around the bonfires of a corrupt morality. Spewing hate-talk and fomenting greater racism as New Speak. Listeners will scream mental chants of "Death! Death! Death!"
The evidence is there everyday. The icons of the new media allow people to foment hate. On one recent show, Palestinians are described as "filthy animals" encouraged by the talk show host who declares to the coliseum that it is acceptable to dehumanize those with whom we hate.
But you can never satiate the hunger of the mob bonfire. Just calling someone a "filthy animal" will not be enough. If you can dehumanize a human being, you can then obliterate that human life. And then sit with your family and bounce a child on your knee and even speak of greatness and a great world free of fear and violence. Once you have destroyed all of "them."
The first casualty becomes the obliteration of the line between right and wrong. Morality is redefined based on but on the racial and religious origins of the dehumanized victim.
It’s in the nature of racism and hatred.
America is a nation fast becoming a coliseum of uniformed minds. The New Speak is spreading. We wave our American Flag with an emotion that is weighed both by love and hate until hate becomes equal and even surpasses what is right.
The glow of the bonfire of American morality is a crematoria of hatred where the slaughtered vanish in smoke.
And when the smoke is gone from the skies, we can pretend it never happened.
Unless a new Moses comes down from the mountaintop and destroys the idol of the calf fashioned from the charred remains of a once golden morality.
END
11-20-04 Arab American Media Services
Permission granted to republish
By Ray Hanania
America is a nation that is in transformation. Once the pillar of America’s greatness, the righteous values of justice are slowly being consumed by a national rage based on lies, racism and hate.
Many Americans would rather embrace the lie so they don’t have to come to terms with their own ugliness or hate. Ugliness becomes relative. It is acceptable when you can make the person you hate seem even uglier.
Today’s Americans are cultivating principles based on "New Speak." Atrocity becomes justified with the clever use of labels. The killer is acceptable as long as the victim is someone designated as a the unacceptable, or today’s "terrorist."
"Horrors of war are unavoidable," Americans scream as they dance around the flames of hate. As long as victims are "the other people."
Even the meaning of the word "terrorist" is redefined in the "New Speak." It is no longer about humanity, morality or righteous principles of justice. It is a mob-like hate-vision.
We see evidence of this in America everyday as we divide the world not in terms of right and wrong, but "us" versus "them."
An American soldier kills a wounded Iraqi in cold-blood, clearly the tip of an iceberg of atrocities unreported by the media. Rather than disgust, many Americans want to punish the people who made this atrocity public.
In stark contrast, there is no limit to their moral outrage against Islamic terrorists who have committed similar acts of butchery by beheading hostages. There are no limits to the atrocities and injustice that can be wiped clean in the new American equation of "us" versus "them."
We are at the bonfire of American morality. Nothing burns brighter in this hate than justice, righteousness, morality and principles that define human dignity.
Atrocity is judged by the races and politics of the victims and the victimizer. When the victim is one of "us," Americans are outraged. When the victim is one of "them," the atrocity is justified.
The sickness becomes the norm especially when the media surrenders to the mob and embraces rather than challenges the lies.
The American news media is in a voluntary bondage and worse, in widespread denial. The absence of ethics becomes promiscuous. Professional journalism is replaced by entertainment news that is based on viciousness and cruelty. Emotional fantasies replace hard facts.
From there, it is a mere half-step to a future when the mob will demand even more in Roman-like glee.
At some point, they won’t even pretend. The "guilty" will be fed to the lions of our hatred.
Justice will be replaced by public entertainment. The new judges will stand behind the microphones fanning the bonfires of American morality, cheering on the viciousness. Gleefully dancing around the bonfires of a corrupt morality. Spewing hate-talk and fomenting greater racism as New Speak. Listeners will scream mental chants of "Death! Death! Death!"
The evidence is there everyday. The icons of the new media allow people to foment hate. On one recent show, Palestinians are described as "filthy animals" encouraged by the talk show host who declares to the coliseum that it is acceptable to dehumanize those with whom we hate.
But you can never satiate the hunger of the mob bonfire. Just calling someone a "filthy animal" will not be enough. If you can dehumanize a human being, you can then obliterate that human life. And then sit with your family and bounce a child on your knee and even speak of greatness and a great world free of fear and violence. Once you have destroyed all of "them."
The first casualty becomes the obliteration of the line between right and wrong. Morality is redefined based on but on the racial and religious origins of the dehumanized victim.
It’s in the nature of racism and hatred.
America is a nation fast becoming a coliseum of uniformed minds. The New Speak is spreading. We wave our American Flag with an emotion that is weighed both by love and hate until hate becomes equal and even surpasses what is right.
The glow of the bonfire of American morality is a crematoria of hatred where the slaughtered vanish in smoke.
And when the smoke is gone from the skies, we can pretend it never happened.
Unless a new Moses comes down from the mountaintop and destroys the idol of the calf fashioned from the charred remains of a once golden morality.
END
Friday, November 19, 2004
President Bush at the MidEast Crossroads, Nov. 19, 2004
President Bush at the MidEast Crossroads
Creators Syndicate Friday Nov. 19, 2004
By Ray Hanania
It took President Bush a terrorist attack awakening and four years to recognize the importance of resolving the Palestine-Israel conflict.
Better late than never.
Although the conflict has been supercharged with violence for more than a century, his decision to turn his back on the conflict following his election in 2000, rather than carry-on the failed legacy of his predecessor President Clinton, contributed to worsen the conflict.
Without an American president providing reason and guidance, newly elected Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon did what he vowed to do all his life, undermining the peace process, provoking violence and engaging in a clear strategy to annex all of the occupied lands rather than exchange them for peace.
Although everyone blames Palestinian President Yasser Arafat for the escalation in violence that took place after the collapse of the Clinton-initiated peace process, the real responsibility rests solidly on Sharon’s shoulders.
Rather than pursue new peace initiatives, Sharon rolled-back all of the peace advances, declared his intent to not only keep Jerusalem as an exclusively Jewish rather than open city, but he also reflected his settler ways in declaring that he would expand rather than remove longstanding illegal Israeli settlements.
The reality is that Sharon was merely expanding on an Israeli policy of the so-called moderates and the extremists. The moderates, led by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Yitzhak Rabin did not eliminate any illegal settlements during the entire peace process. Instead, they expanded existing settlements and reinforced their illegal claim to land circling the East side of Jerusalem on confiscated Arab-owned land.
Rather than push for the dismantling of settlements to promote peace, Rabin, who was assassinated by a Sharon political loyalist in 1995, and Barak sought to solidify their hold on settlements, always believing that despite promises they could retain the land they grabbed after 1967.
Sharon was probably the most honest of the land thieves. He never pretended to support dismantling settlements and believes in not only annexing more land, but insuring that whatever land is returned to Palestinian control in any peace agreement will be insufficient to serve as a basis for a viable independent Palestinian State.
During his first term, driven by anti-Arab advisers like Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (who at one time helped support Iraq’s Saddam Hussein) and Vice President Dick Cheney (who has a blind trust benefit in the multi-billion no-bid contracts awarded to his interests in Halliburton), Bush turned his back on peace and allowed Sharon to advance his veiled aggression.
While claiming to be a man of peace, Sharon is clearly the most vicious warmongering leader Israel has ever elected.
President Bush, who claims to want to resolve the conflict, must come to grips with the real Sharon. He no longer must pander to influential pro-Israel American lobbying interests, especially since most pro-Israel votes went to his challenger, John Kerry, in this past election.
If Bush wishes to be remembered for anything besides launching the New Vietnam war in Iraq, he has a real opportunity to make headway in the Palestine-Israel conflict, which is the heart of most violence in the Middle East.
Resolving the Palestine-Israel conflict in a way that guarantees Israel’s right to exist and that combats violence and terrorism from the small but influential rejectionists who oppose peace, and that also grants justice and fairness to the Palestinians is a monumental task that affords an historic achievement of unprecedented proportions.
All it requires is being fair and just. It requires reinvigorating the vision of the failed Rabin-Arafat peace process which called for respect, justice and fairness for both sides.
It means that a secure Jewish Israel must be partnered with a viable Palestinian State that has enough land and honor through the sharing of the Holy City of Jerusalem, which has been closed to most Christian and Muslim Arabs since its occupation in 1967.
It means looking past the clever pro-Israel propaganda that drives America’s ignorance of the Palestine-Israel conflict and see it for what it really is, a conflict between two people who both have legitimate claims to the same land and enforcing a compromise that can work.
Bush cannot wait for the Israelis to replace Sharon with a leader with a genuine passion for Israel’s security that is based on a just peace that embraces his post-election vow to resolve the conflict fairly.
Let’s see if Bush, who is now an experienced foreign affairs leader, can lead. I hope he does.
# # #
Creators Syndicate Friday Nov. 19, 2004
By Ray Hanania
It took President Bush a terrorist attack awakening and four years to recognize the importance of resolving the Palestine-Israel conflict.
Better late than never.
Although the conflict has been supercharged with violence for more than a century, his decision to turn his back on the conflict following his election in 2000, rather than carry-on the failed legacy of his predecessor President Clinton, contributed to worsen the conflict.
Without an American president providing reason and guidance, newly elected Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon did what he vowed to do all his life, undermining the peace process, provoking violence and engaging in a clear strategy to annex all of the occupied lands rather than exchange them for peace.
Although everyone blames Palestinian President Yasser Arafat for the escalation in violence that took place after the collapse of the Clinton-initiated peace process, the real responsibility rests solidly on Sharon’s shoulders.
Rather than pursue new peace initiatives, Sharon rolled-back all of the peace advances, declared his intent to not only keep Jerusalem as an exclusively Jewish rather than open city, but he also reflected his settler ways in declaring that he would expand rather than remove longstanding illegal Israeli settlements.
The reality is that Sharon was merely expanding on an Israeli policy of the so-called moderates and the extremists. The moderates, led by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Yitzhak Rabin did not eliminate any illegal settlements during the entire peace process. Instead, they expanded existing settlements and reinforced their illegal claim to land circling the East side of Jerusalem on confiscated Arab-owned land.
Rather than push for the dismantling of settlements to promote peace, Rabin, who was assassinated by a Sharon political loyalist in 1995, and Barak sought to solidify their hold on settlements, always believing that despite promises they could retain the land they grabbed after 1967.
Sharon was probably the most honest of the land thieves. He never pretended to support dismantling settlements and believes in not only annexing more land, but insuring that whatever land is returned to Palestinian control in any peace agreement will be insufficient to serve as a basis for a viable independent Palestinian State.
During his first term, driven by anti-Arab advisers like Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (who at one time helped support Iraq’s Saddam Hussein) and Vice President Dick Cheney (who has a blind trust benefit in the multi-billion no-bid contracts awarded to his interests in Halliburton), Bush turned his back on peace and allowed Sharon to advance his veiled aggression.
While claiming to be a man of peace, Sharon is clearly the most vicious warmongering leader Israel has ever elected.
President Bush, who claims to want to resolve the conflict, must come to grips with the real Sharon. He no longer must pander to influential pro-Israel American lobbying interests, especially since most pro-Israel votes went to his challenger, John Kerry, in this past election.
If Bush wishes to be remembered for anything besides launching the New Vietnam war in Iraq, he has a real opportunity to make headway in the Palestine-Israel conflict, which is the heart of most violence in the Middle East.
Resolving the Palestine-Israel conflict in a way that guarantees Israel’s right to exist and that combats violence and terrorism from the small but influential rejectionists who oppose peace, and that also grants justice and fairness to the Palestinians is a monumental task that affords an historic achievement of unprecedented proportions.
All it requires is being fair and just. It requires reinvigorating the vision of the failed Rabin-Arafat peace process which called for respect, justice and fairness for both sides.
It means that a secure Jewish Israel must be partnered with a viable Palestinian State that has enough land and honor through the sharing of the Holy City of Jerusalem, which has been closed to most Christian and Muslim Arabs since its occupation in 1967.
It means looking past the clever pro-Israel propaganda that drives America’s ignorance of the Palestine-Israel conflict and see it for what it really is, a conflict between two people who both have legitimate claims to the same land and enforcing a compromise that can work.
Bush cannot wait for the Israelis to replace Sharon with a leader with a genuine passion for Israel’s security that is based on a just peace that embraces his post-election vow to resolve the conflict fairly.
Let’s see if Bush, who is now an experienced foreign affairs leader, can lead. I hope he does.
# # #
Monday, November 15, 2004
Rumors of AIDS and poisoning eroding chances for peace, 11-15-04
Rumors of Arafat AIDS and poisoning erode hopes for peace
Arab American Media Syndicate, Monday Nov. 15, 2004
(Permission granted to reprint)
By Ray Hanania
Normally when there is a discussion about Gays and the issue of AIDS, Jewish American leaders are among the first to stand up and decry the disease and defend the rights of Gays.
In fact, I have always admired the Jewish American community for their righteous stand on civil rights, and their sensitivity on the issue sof AIDS.
Of course, when the attention is on an enemy who stood in the way of the proclaimed Zionist dream to build a Jewish homeland in all of Palestine, many Jewish Americans and pro-Israel advocates are quick to set aside their humility and transform into racists with no end to their hate.
How else do you explain the sudden pre-occupation in the causes of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's death?
When he was alive, many Jewish leaders bit their tongues when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon threatened to murder him.
Murder is so unbecoming of any race, you would think that Jewish American leaders who drawn a line in the sand when it comes to hatred of Palestinians. Surely, it is a violation of the high moral principles that are reflected in Judaism. Although while Jewish Americans are quick to point out Arafat's crimes, they seem blind to the crimes of their own people, likeSharon, Yitzhak Shamir and Menachem Begin.
So you can imagine my shock when I read the comments of many Jewish American leaders and pro-Israel columnists who claimed President Arafat died of AIDS.
Suddenly they are concerned with his health?
More likely, it's a reflection of their own moralbankruptcy. They seem to be enjoying the death of another human being just a little too much. In fact, the enjoyment reflected among Jewish American leaders is so disgusting, it makes me sick to think that some of those expressing this kind of hatred were once considered friends.
Former White House speechwriter David Frum, one of the new anti-Semites leading the American racism against Arabs and Muslims,
Frum wrote, "Speaking of media bias, here's a question you won't hear in our big papers or on network TV: Does Yasser Arafat have AIDS?"
He continued, "We know he has a blood disease that is depressing his immune system. We know that he has suddenly dropped considerable weight -- possibly as much as one-third of all his body weight. We know that he is suffering intermittent mental dysfunction. What does this sound like?"
Keep in mind, Frum is the man responsible for coining the ridiculous phrase, "Axis of Evil," when we know that evil permeates every nation, religion and race.
But he's not alone. The king of Arab hate-mongering is Daniel Pipes, the person President Bush appointed to the "Institute for Peace," writes that rumors that Arafat had AIDS are "plausible."
And his hate-web site has an open forum where his readers are encouraged to celebrate in the viciousness.
President Arafat was 75 years old when he died. Do you have to have a cause? Could it be that Arafat died an early death in part because of the inhumane conditions he was forced to live in at the Muqata, the Palestinian headquarters which was rubbled in an Israeli attack led by Ariel Sharon that was intended to destroy the peace process?
And imagine how Jewish Americans act when the shoe is on the other foot.
I have read in many Arab media that Arafat was -- gasp! - poisoned by the Israelis.
And how are the pro-Israeli crowd handling that?
Frum has reportedly called the poison rumor, "anti-Semitism."
Pipes writes, "Of course, some Palestinians have hatched a conspiracy theory about Israel poisoning Arafat."
Oh. But the AIDS rumor is not a "conspiracy theory." It's "plausible?"
Much like the Israeli hypocrisy on the issue of terrorism - only Palestinians are terrorists, they assert - their silence on the ridiculous rumor that Arafat had AIDS screams the word "shame!"
I think it is all shameful on both sides. Do you think there are some responsible Jewish and Palestinian leaders who might stand up and put an end to this disgraceful pandering to ugliness on both sides?
END
Arab American Media Syndicate, Monday Nov. 15, 2004
(Permission granted to reprint)
By Ray Hanania
Normally when there is a discussion about Gays and the issue of AIDS, Jewish American leaders are among the first to stand up and decry the disease and defend the rights of Gays.
In fact, I have always admired the Jewish American community for their righteous stand on civil rights, and their sensitivity on the issue sof AIDS.
Of course, when the attention is on an enemy who stood in the way of the proclaimed Zionist dream to build a Jewish homeland in all of Palestine, many Jewish Americans and pro-Israel advocates are quick to set aside their humility and transform into racists with no end to their hate.
How else do you explain the sudden pre-occupation in the causes of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's death?
When he was alive, many Jewish leaders bit their tongues when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon threatened to murder him.
Murder is so unbecoming of any race, you would think that Jewish American leaders who drawn a line in the sand when it comes to hatred of Palestinians. Surely, it is a violation of the high moral principles that are reflected in Judaism. Although while Jewish Americans are quick to point out Arafat's crimes, they seem blind to the crimes of their own people, likeSharon, Yitzhak Shamir and Menachem Begin.
So you can imagine my shock when I read the comments of many Jewish American leaders and pro-Israel columnists who claimed President Arafat died of AIDS.
Suddenly they are concerned with his health?
More likely, it's a reflection of their own moralbankruptcy. They seem to be enjoying the death of another human being just a little too much. In fact, the enjoyment reflected among Jewish American leaders is so disgusting, it makes me sick to think that some of those expressing this kind of hatred were once considered friends.
Former White House speechwriter David Frum, one of the new anti-Semites leading the American racism against Arabs and Muslims,
Frum wrote, "Speaking of media bias, here's a question you won't hear in our big papers or on network TV: Does Yasser Arafat have AIDS?"
He continued, "We know he has a blood disease that is depressing his immune system. We know that he has suddenly dropped considerable weight -- possibly as much as one-third of all his body weight. We know that he is suffering intermittent mental dysfunction. What does this sound like?"
Keep in mind, Frum is the man responsible for coining the ridiculous phrase, "Axis of Evil," when we know that evil permeates every nation, religion and race.
But he's not alone. The king of Arab hate-mongering is Daniel Pipes, the person President Bush appointed to the "Institute for Peace," writes that rumors that Arafat had AIDS are "plausible."
And his hate-web site has an open forum where his readers are encouraged to celebrate in the viciousness.
President Arafat was 75 years old when he died. Do you have to have a cause? Could it be that Arafat died an early death in part because of the inhumane conditions he was forced to live in at the Muqata, the Palestinian headquarters which was rubbled in an Israeli attack led by Ariel Sharon that was intended to destroy the peace process?
And imagine how Jewish Americans act when the shoe is on the other foot.
I have read in many Arab media that Arafat was -- gasp! - poisoned by the Israelis.
And how are the pro-Israeli crowd handling that?
Frum has reportedly called the poison rumor, "anti-Semitism."
Pipes writes, "Of course, some Palestinians have hatched a conspiracy theory about Israel poisoning Arafat."
Oh. But the AIDS rumor is not a "conspiracy theory." It's "plausible?"
Much like the Israeli hypocrisy on the issue of terrorism - only Palestinians are terrorists, they assert - their silence on the ridiculous rumor that Arafat had AIDS screams the word "shame!"
I think it is all shameful on both sides. Do you think there are some responsible Jewish and Palestinian leaders who might stand up and put an end to this disgraceful pandering to ugliness on both sides?
END
Rabin-Arafat doctrine must be embraced, 11-15-04
Rabin-Arafat doctrine must be embraced
Arlington Heights Daily Herald
Posted Monday, November 15, 2004
By Ray Hanania
When Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin shook hands at the White House to launch the unprecedented peace process in 1993, the message they conveyed was one of attitude change.
Palestinians and Israelis had to change how they looked at each other to embrace real peace. Instead of looking back at the horrors of the past, Palestinians and Israelis had to look forward, toward the promise of a future of peace.
It was revolutionary.
For many Palestinians, Rabin, then Israeli prime minister, was a terrorist. A murderer. A vicious killer. Rabin inflicted untold horrors on the Palestinian people. Yet in 1995 when he was murdered by an Israeli settler extremist, Palestinians stood up and expressed their condolences, sorrow and grief.
Now that Rabin's partner has died, within one week of the ninth anniversary of Rabin's own assassination, I am appalled at the horrific lack of compassion being shown toward Arafat by many Israelis and Jewish-American leaders.
They seem to celebrate in his death. That is exactly the kind of attitude that encourages violence and discourages peace.
If Israel's government really wanted to support the peace process, they would have allowed Arafat to be buried in Jerusalem, which is as much a Palestinian city as it is a Jewish city.
Instead, Israel's hard-line government rejected Jerusalem as a site for Arafat's burial. But Palestinians have said that Arafat's Ramallah tomb will be only a temporary plot, holding out hope that one day his final resting place will be in Jerusalem, where it belongs.
Israelis brush off Arafat as a "terrorist" and blame him for the collapse of the peace process, as if Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has not played a hand in destroying and undermining peace.
The fact is both Palestinians and Israelis have engaged in violence, terrorism and horrendous atrocities against each other. Sharon's predecessors Yitzhak Shamir and Menachem Begin were both branded as terrorists during the Palestine Mandate years in the 1940s. They committed unspeakable acts of brutality and murder and terrorism, and they were declared terrorists.
But attitude is what drove Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to reach across that divide of hatred and seek to achieve peace, even with a man like Begin who was one of the worst terrorists in Palestinian and Arab eyes.
Arafat was a great revolutionary and a great freedom fighter. He single-handedly led the Palestinians out of the oblivion imposed by Israelis who declared that the Palestinians never existed and had no rights to nationhood.
Arafat was the first Palestinian leader of substance to officially recognize Israel, and to embrace and promote the two-state solution. Though that peace process has collapsed, peace talks can and should be resumed. Arafat remained steadfast in his insistence that Palestinians everywhere, including in America, support the peace process despite its many difficulties.
It is time for Palestinians and Israelis in the Middle East and in the United States to re-embrace the Rabin-Arafat doctrine, change their attitudes and reopen the contacts that have been abandoned for the past four years.
What Palestinians and Israelis need today is that attitude change to make peace possible.
Burying Arafat in Jerusalem, a city that must be shared by both peoples, is a strong first step toward peace.
END
Arlington Heights Daily Herald
Posted Monday, November 15, 2004
By Ray Hanania
When Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin shook hands at the White House to launch the unprecedented peace process in 1993, the message they conveyed was one of attitude change.
Palestinians and Israelis had to change how they looked at each other to embrace real peace. Instead of looking back at the horrors of the past, Palestinians and Israelis had to look forward, toward the promise of a future of peace.
It was revolutionary.
For many Palestinians, Rabin, then Israeli prime minister, was a terrorist. A murderer. A vicious killer. Rabin inflicted untold horrors on the Palestinian people. Yet in 1995 when he was murdered by an Israeli settler extremist, Palestinians stood up and expressed their condolences, sorrow and grief.
Now that Rabin's partner has died, within one week of the ninth anniversary of Rabin's own assassination, I am appalled at the horrific lack of compassion being shown toward Arafat by many Israelis and Jewish-American leaders.
They seem to celebrate in his death. That is exactly the kind of attitude that encourages violence and discourages peace.
If Israel's government really wanted to support the peace process, they would have allowed Arafat to be buried in Jerusalem, which is as much a Palestinian city as it is a Jewish city.
Instead, Israel's hard-line government rejected Jerusalem as a site for Arafat's burial. But Palestinians have said that Arafat's Ramallah tomb will be only a temporary plot, holding out hope that one day his final resting place will be in Jerusalem, where it belongs.
Israelis brush off Arafat as a "terrorist" and blame him for the collapse of the peace process, as if Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has not played a hand in destroying and undermining peace.
The fact is both Palestinians and Israelis have engaged in violence, terrorism and horrendous atrocities against each other. Sharon's predecessors Yitzhak Shamir and Menachem Begin were both branded as terrorists during the Palestine Mandate years in the 1940s. They committed unspeakable acts of brutality and murder and terrorism, and they were declared terrorists.
But attitude is what drove Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to reach across that divide of hatred and seek to achieve peace, even with a man like Begin who was one of the worst terrorists in Palestinian and Arab eyes.
Arafat was a great revolutionary and a great freedom fighter. He single-handedly led the Palestinians out of the oblivion imposed by Israelis who declared that the Palestinians never existed and had no rights to nationhood.
Arafat was the first Palestinian leader of substance to officially recognize Israel, and to embrace and promote the two-state solution. Though that peace process has collapsed, peace talks can and should be resumed. Arafat remained steadfast in his insistence that Palestinians everywhere, including in America, support the peace process despite its many difficulties.
It is time for Palestinians and Israelis in the Middle East and in the United States to re-embrace the Rabin-Arafat doctrine, change their attitudes and reopen the contacts that have been abandoned for the past four years.
What Palestinians and Israelis need today is that attitude change to make peace possible.
Burying Arafat in Jerusalem, a city that must be shared by both peoples, is a strong first step toward peace.
END
Saturday, November 13, 2004
Rising anti-Arab rhetoric parallels anti-Semitism; NY assemblyman's attacks violate Hate Crimes Laws, 11-13-04
Rising anti-Arab rhetoric parallels anti-Semitism
Saturday Nov. 13, 2004
By Ray Hanania
Ryan Karben isn’t burning a cross or championing the Ku Klux Klan, but he might as well be. Today’s racists and bigots, like Karben, don’t have to cover their faces with a pointed white hood when they assault the freedoms and rights of Americans with whom they disagree.
Karben is a New York Assemblyman. He has launched a vicious, racist, and anti-Semitic-like assault on a group of Christian and Muslim Palestinians who have organized a cultural display in his district.
The "Made in Palestine Art Exhibit" is being organized by Palestinian and Arab Americans in his district to showcase arts, music and poetry that includes some exhibit pieces critical of a foreign country, Israel.
That is what Karben seems most concerned about. In many places, Americans are allowed to criticize foreign countries, except when that foreign country is Israel.
Karben’s attack is racist and veiled in disgusting but common form of demagoguery based on a vicious hatred of Christians and Muslims who have political differences with Israel.
His attack against the art exhibit is a clear violation of the existing Hate Crimes laws and he should be prosecuted. But this is the "new America" where racists and bigots can express themselves freely if they hide behind popular political views and distort issues using the deplorable tactic of "the big lie."
Karben is much like Daniel Pipes, the David Duke of the anti-Arab community who uses his position as a member of the U.S. Peace Institute to bully Christian and Muslims because they support justice and fairness in Palestine.
Karben also exploits his publicly held government position paid for by taxpayers and as a representative of the people of his district to bully those with whom he disagrees.
Karben claims are ridiculous. He asserts the Palestinian American exhibit is "anti-Semitic," promotes terrorism and glorifies "Nazism." Yet these are exactly the fundamentals of Karben’s own vicious defamation.
In preparing for the show, the organizers published a statement describing what they hoped to achieve:
"The exhibit will run for four weeks and feature approximately 30 artists of Palestinian origin from well-known artists to emerging new talents. Our aim is to illuminate the face of Palestinian culture from the 1960s to the present day, and to establish a bridge between the Williamsburg and Palestinian communities through the universal language of art. In conjunction with the exhibit, we plan to host a series of lectures and cultural activities, including live music, poetry, calligraphy, Palestinian cuisine, a slide show on Palestinian history and much more."
The exhibit begins Saturday, November 20 from 5-10pm at the Westchester County Center at 198 Central Avenue, White Plains, NY. The $16 tickets are available through Ticketmaster at www.ticketmaster.com.
Karben’s America is an America that glorifies the principles advocated by the Klan, skinheads, neo-Nazis and White Supremicists. In Karben’s facist world, there is no room for cultural expression, let alone freedom.
Karben’s strongest argument is that among their supporters are organizations that have criticized Israel. And he has a right to criticize the critics, but not to impose his racist standards on the public, or to defame Americans who are entitled to American constitutional protections.
Karben’s viciousness is not only insulting to Christian and Muslim Palestinians, but is also insulting to American Jews who advocate for a non-violent end to the Middle East conflict.
If Americans really believe in principles of equal protection under the law and are truly dedicated to the eradication of hate, then people like Karben who promote hate and who disguise their embrace of violence with repugnant rhetoric should be prosecuted rather than elected to office.
American Jews who support peace and an end to the Middle East conflict, who oppose violence and who are shocked at anti-Semitism should join in denouncing Karben’s detestable actions.
In the true America, we can disagree without being disagreeable. But there can be no room for anti-Semites, facists and haters like Ryan Karben. They need to be identified and evicted from their places of leadership.
As long as Karben is allowed a platform to spew his hateful rhetoric, the forces of anti-Semitism, racism, prejudice, bigotry and discrimination will find comfort and strength to hate even more.
In that world, the freedoms of Christians, Muslims and Jews, Palestinians, Israelis and other Americans will constantly be threatened.
It’s a world of freedom, liberty, respect and non-violence is the world that Ryan Karben most threatens.
Americans who fail to speak out against Karben’s racist excesses undermine the very noble principles that make this nation so great.
end
Saturday Nov. 13, 2004
By Ray Hanania
Ryan Karben isn’t burning a cross or championing the Ku Klux Klan, but he might as well be. Today’s racists and bigots, like Karben, don’t have to cover their faces with a pointed white hood when they assault the freedoms and rights of Americans with whom they disagree.
Karben is a New York Assemblyman. He has launched a vicious, racist, and anti-Semitic-like assault on a group of Christian and Muslim Palestinians who have organized a cultural display in his district.
The "Made in Palestine Art Exhibit" is being organized by Palestinian and Arab Americans in his district to showcase arts, music and poetry that includes some exhibit pieces critical of a foreign country, Israel.
That is what Karben seems most concerned about. In many places, Americans are allowed to criticize foreign countries, except when that foreign country is Israel.
Karben’s attack is racist and veiled in disgusting but common form of demagoguery based on a vicious hatred of Christians and Muslims who have political differences with Israel.
His attack against the art exhibit is a clear violation of the existing Hate Crimes laws and he should be prosecuted. But this is the "new America" where racists and bigots can express themselves freely if they hide behind popular political views and distort issues using the deplorable tactic of "the big lie."
Karben is much like Daniel Pipes, the David Duke of the anti-Arab community who uses his position as a member of the U.S. Peace Institute to bully Christian and Muslims because they support justice and fairness in Palestine.
Karben also exploits his publicly held government position paid for by taxpayers and as a representative of the people of his district to bully those with whom he disagrees.
Karben claims are ridiculous. He asserts the Palestinian American exhibit is "anti-Semitic," promotes terrorism and glorifies "Nazism." Yet these are exactly the fundamentals of Karben’s own vicious defamation.
In preparing for the show, the organizers published a statement describing what they hoped to achieve:
"The exhibit will run for four weeks and feature approximately 30 artists of Palestinian origin from well-known artists to emerging new talents. Our aim is to illuminate the face of Palestinian culture from the 1960s to the present day, and to establish a bridge between the Williamsburg and Palestinian communities through the universal language of art. In conjunction with the exhibit, we plan to host a series of lectures and cultural activities, including live music, poetry, calligraphy, Palestinian cuisine, a slide show on Palestinian history and much more."
The exhibit begins Saturday, November 20 from 5-10pm at the Westchester County Center at 198 Central Avenue, White Plains, NY. The $16 tickets are available through Ticketmaster at www.ticketmaster.com.
Karben’s America is an America that glorifies the principles advocated by the Klan, skinheads, neo-Nazis and White Supremicists. In Karben’s facist world, there is no room for cultural expression, let alone freedom.
Karben’s strongest argument is that among their supporters are organizations that have criticized Israel. And he has a right to criticize the critics, but not to impose his racist standards on the public, or to defame Americans who are entitled to American constitutional protections.
Karben’s viciousness is not only insulting to Christian and Muslim Palestinians, but is also insulting to American Jews who advocate for a non-violent end to the Middle East conflict.
If Americans really believe in principles of equal protection under the law and are truly dedicated to the eradication of hate, then people like Karben who promote hate and who disguise their embrace of violence with repugnant rhetoric should be prosecuted rather than elected to office.
American Jews who support peace and an end to the Middle East conflict, who oppose violence and who are shocked at anti-Semitism should join in denouncing Karben’s detestable actions.
In the true America, we can disagree without being disagreeable. But there can be no room for anti-Semites, facists and haters like Ryan Karben. They need to be identified and evicted from their places of leadership.
As long as Karben is allowed a platform to spew his hateful rhetoric, the forces of anti-Semitism, racism, prejudice, bigotry and discrimination will find comfort and strength to hate even more.
In that world, the freedoms of Christians, Muslims and Jews, Palestinians, Israelis and other Americans will constantly be threatened.
It’s a world of freedom, liberty, respect and non-violence is the world that Ryan Karben most threatens.
Americans who fail to speak out against Karben’s racist excesses undermine the very noble principles that make this nation so great.
end
Friday, November 12, 2004
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE News interview 11-12-04
U.S. National - AFP
Palestinians in US recall Arafat as a unifier, symbol of nationhood
Thu Nov 11, 7:40 PM ET
CHICAGO (AFP) - For many Palestinians living in the United States the late Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) was an indefatigable crusader who kept the cause of Palestinian nationhood alive for decades.
AFP Photo
Palestinians in communities across the United States -- from New Jersey to Texas, Florida, Illinois and California -- prepared to mark Arafat's death with services and memorials.
In Washington, the Palestinian Mission set out a condolence book.
Palestinian-American Ray Hanania recalled how he and his family gathered in front of their television set to watch Arafat address the United Nations (news - web sites) general assembly in 1974.
"We were second-class citizens. He forced everybody to respect us," said Hanania, whose parents were Palestinian refugees.
"He took the Palestinians out of oblivion and shoved them in everybody's face," he said.
Rima Nashashibi saw the process first hand.
"Palestinians were invisible in 1968," recalled Nashashibi, who was born in Jerusalem and bounced between Israel and the United States before settling in Orange County, California.
Arafat "put them back on the map. He kept the struggle alive, and generated world-wide support for the Palestinian cause."
The guerrilla leader-turned-statesman was a powerful symbol to generations of Palestinians overseas, even if some were critical of some of the policies and the leadership style he favoured in his later years.
Arafat "was the dominant image, the dominant name for young Palestinians," said Nihad Awad, the executive-director of a prominent US Islamic advocacy organisation, the Washington, D.C.-based Council on Islamic-American Relations.
"He was the Nelson Mandela of the Palestinians," he said.
As a young man Awad was struck by Arafat's dedication to the project of Palestinian self-determination.
"You never saw him out of uniform. He gave his personal life for the cause," Awad said.
For Taleb Salhab, director of an Arab American center in Orlando, Florida-based Arab American Community Center, Arafat's passing is the "end of an era. He's the only leader we have ever known."
The row over Arafat's final resting place left some in the US community with a bad taste, another unwelcome reminder of their statelessness.
Arafat "cannot even have a funeral in his own country," said Ali Abunimah, a Chicago-based activist with the Arab American Action Network, an immigrant advocacy group, referring to Israel's refusal to let Palestinians bury Arafat in Jerusalem.
"It's emblematic of the conflict. They're denying this great Palestinian symbol the right to be buried in his own country," he said.
END
Palestinians in US recall Arafat as a unifier, symbol of nationhood
Thu Nov 11, 7:40 PM ET
CHICAGO (AFP) - For many Palestinians living in the United States the late Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) was an indefatigable crusader who kept the cause of Palestinian nationhood alive for decades.
AFP Photo
Palestinians in communities across the United States -- from New Jersey to Texas, Florida, Illinois and California -- prepared to mark Arafat's death with services and memorials.
In Washington, the Palestinian Mission set out a condolence book.
Palestinian-American Ray Hanania recalled how he and his family gathered in front of their television set to watch Arafat address the United Nations (news - web sites) general assembly in 1974.
"We were second-class citizens. He forced everybody to respect us," said Hanania, whose parents were Palestinian refugees.
"He took the Palestinians out of oblivion and shoved them in everybody's face," he said.
Rima Nashashibi saw the process first hand.
"Palestinians were invisible in 1968," recalled Nashashibi, who was born in Jerusalem and bounced between Israel and the United States before settling in Orange County, California.
Arafat "put them back on the map. He kept the struggle alive, and generated world-wide support for the Palestinian cause."
The guerrilla leader-turned-statesman was a powerful symbol to generations of Palestinians overseas, even if some were critical of some of the policies and the leadership style he favoured in his later years.
Arafat "was the dominant image, the dominant name for young Palestinians," said Nihad Awad, the executive-director of a prominent US Islamic advocacy organisation, the Washington, D.C.-based Council on Islamic-American Relations.
"He was the Nelson Mandela of the Palestinians," he said.
As a young man Awad was struck by Arafat's dedication to the project of Palestinian self-determination.
"You never saw him out of uniform. He gave his personal life for the cause," Awad said.
For Taleb Salhab, director of an Arab American center in Orlando, Florida-based Arab American Community Center, Arafat's passing is the "end of an era. He's the only leader we have ever known."
The row over Arafat's final resting place left some in the US community with a bad taste, another unwelcome reminder of their statelessness.
Arafat "cannot even have a funeral in his own country," said Ali Abunimah, a Chicago-based activist with the Arab American Action Network, an immigrant advocacy group, referring to Israel's refusal to let Palestinians bury Arafat in Jerusalem.
"It's emblematic of the conflict. They're denying this great Palestinian symbol the right to be buried in his own country," he said.
END
NEWSDAY: Arafat's legacy 11-12-04
NEWSDAY, New York
A HERO TO PALESTINIANS
Revolutionary leader's legacy will endure
BY RAY HANANIA
Ray Hanania is former national president of the Palestinian American Congress and a syndicated columnist based in Chicago.
November 12, 2004
As he survived ruthless assaults against his life over the years, Yasser Arafat's legacy will survive the blistering attacks from his harsh critics.
Arafat was a great revolutionary, a freedom fighter and, to the Palestinians, a hero. If Arafat can be faulted for anything, it was that he was never a good negotiator, nor was he a great government leader either.
But what revolutionaries ever are? Arafat faced an even greater, more insurmountable challenge of trying to transform from a revolutionary to the leader of a government constantly undermined by Israel's refusal to go far enough in making land concessions for peace.
Arafat's genius is undeniable. He took the Palestinian people out of an oblivious desert. And, in the face of the greatest hate-inspired propaganda campaign directed against any people on this Earth, he prevailed - exposing a canard instilled by Israeli extremism that "the Palestinians, they don't exist."
Arafat was the first real Palestinian leader who could and did recognize Israel's right to exist, even without demanding a quid pro quo from the Israelis. He accepted the concept of a two-state solution in spite of a rule of law that prevailed on the side of Palestinian claims.Arafat embraced the concept of a two-state solution that he mistakenly believed was on the up-and-up with Israel.
He did so knowing full well that during that process Israel never once acted on its promise to dismantle its settlements, which are illegal, every single one, in the face of even the most conservative interpretations of international law.
The peace process blamed on Arafat for failing was never on the up-and-up. It was always skewed toward Israel's best interests and advantage. It was managed by a negotiator with a religious conviction towards Israel, and a nation that was more advocate for Israel than a fair arbiter for compromise.
The assertion that Israel's offer to the Palestinians at Camp David was "fair" or "just" is so patently outrageous that it's hard to resume peace negotiations from that point with any seriousness.
There is only one fair solution to the Palestine-Israel conflict, and Arafat supported it. It's the Israelis who do not.
It is a compromise that demands the return of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem, lands occupied in the 1967 War.
It is a compromise that demands Israel dismantle all of its illegal settlements, including those built around East Jerusalem on lands confiscated illegally from their Palestinian owners.Justice and fairness demand that Israel trade, inch-for-inch, land for any that it keeps. I
nstead, Israel's "greatest offer" proposed one inch for every nine inches of occupied land, and not even in writing.Arafat's compromise is a compromise that insists that Israel accept responsibility for creating the Palestinian refugee problem. Dozens of former Israeli leaders have confessed as much in their final writings. It's ridiculous and insulting to even entertain as serious Israel's rejection of responsibility.
Arafat's legacy defines the only compromise that is acceptable and workable. Either the Israelis accept it or they bequeath to the future endless violence and conflict.
Israel will forever be challenged by a people who refuse to surrender, who cannot be defeated and insist on a compromise based on fairness and justice.
As he did in life as a noble leader who deserves everlasting Palestinian gratitude, Arafat continues to elude his adversaries. Arafat survived a week of claims that he had died that began on the ninth anniversary of the assassination of his only real peace partner, Yitzhak Rabin.Many extremists, including Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, believe that now that men like Arafat and Rabin are gone, they can impose a solution that is neither just nor fair.
But Israelis must accept that there can be no peace without justice or fairness. Israelis can no longer continue to hide behind Arafat as the excuse for why peace is unachievable.
It's not Arafat who has been standing in the way of a genuine peace, but the refusal of most Israelis to be fair, just or even honest about history.
It's time for Palestinians and Israelis in the Middle East and in the United States to re-embrace the Rabin-Arafat doctrine and change their attitudes and reopen the contacts that have been abandoned for the past four years. What Palestinians and Israelis need today is that attitude change to make peace possible.
It would have been a tremendous gesture of peace by the Israelis to allow Arafat to be buried in Jerusalem. But they refused that request. Instead, Arafat will be entombed in his old rubbled headquarters, the Muqata in Ramallah. Although Arafat, the man, will be gone, his inspiration to fight for justice and fairness is a legacy that will forever flourish among Palestinians.
Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.
A HERO TO PALESTINIANS
Revolutionary leader's legacy will endure
BY RAY HANANIA
Ray Hanania is former national president of the Palestinian American Congress and a syndicated columnist based in Chicago.
November 12, 2004
As he survived ruthless assaults against his life over the years, Yasser Arafat's legacy will survive the blistering attacks from his harsh critics.
Arafat was a great revolutionary, a freedom fighter and, to the Palestinians, a hero. If Arafat can be faulted for anything, it was that he was never a good negotiator, nor was he a great government leader either.
But what revolutionaries ever are? Arafat faced an even greater, more insurmountable challenge of trying to transform from a revolutionary to the leader of a government constantly undermined by Israel's refusal to go far enough in making land concessions for peace.
Arafat's genius is undeniable. He took the Palestinian people out of an oblivious desert. And, in the face of the greatest hate-inspired propaganda campaign directed against any people on this Earth, he prevailed - exposing a canard instilled by Israeli extremism that "the Palestinians, they don't exist."
Arafat was the first real Palestinian leader who could and did recognize Israel's right to exist, even without demanding a quid pro quo from the Israelis. He accepted the concept of a two-state solution in spite of a rule of law that prevailed on the side of Palestinian claims.Arafat embraced the concept of a two-state solution that he mistakenly believed was on the up-and-up with Israel.
He did so knowing full well that during that process Israel never once acted on its promise to dismantle its settlements, which are illegal, every single one, in the face of even the most conservative interpretations of international law.
The peace process blamed on Arafat for failing was never on the up-and-up. It was always skewed toward Israel's best interests and advantage. It was managed by a negotiator with a religious conviction towards Israel, and a nation that was more advocate for Israel than a fair arbiter for compromise.
The assertion that Israel's offer to the Palestinians at Camp David was "fair" or "just" is so patently outrageous that it's hard to resume peace negotiations from that point with any seriousness.
There is only one fair solution to the Palestine-Israel conflict, and Arafat supported it. It's the Israelis who do not.
It is a compromise that demands the return of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem, lands occupied in the 1967 War.
It is a compromise that demands Israel dismantle all of its illegal settlements, including those built around East Jerusalem on lands confiscated illegally from their Palestinian owners.Justice and fairness demand that Israel trade, inch-for-inch, land for any that it keeps. I
nstead, Israel's "greatest offer" proposed one inch for every nine inches of occupied land, and not even in writing.Arafat's compromise is a compromise that insists that Israel accept responsibility for creating the Palestinian refugee problem. Dozens of former Israeli leaders have confessed as much in their final writings. It's ridiculous and insulting to even entertain as serious Israel's rejection of responsibility.
Arafat's legacy defines the only compromise that is acceptable and workable. Either the Israelis accept it or they bequeath to the future endless violence and conflict.
Israel will forever be challenged by a people who refuse to surrender, who cannot be defeated and insist on a compromise based on fairness and justice.
As he did in life as a noble leader who deserves everlasting Palestinian gratitude, Arafat continues to elude his adversaries. Arafat survived a week of claims that he had died that began on the ninth anniversary of the assassination of his only real peace partner, Yitzhak Rabin.Many extremists, including Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, believe that now that men like Arafat and Rabin are gone, they can impose a solution that is neither just nor fair.
But Israelis must accept that there can be no peace without justice or fairness. Israelis can no longer continue to hide behind Arafat as the excuse for why peace is unachievable.
It's not Arafat who has been standing in the way of a genuine peace, but the refusal of most Israelis to be fair, just or even honest about history.
It's time for Palestinians and Israelis in the Middle East and in the United States to re-embrace the Rabin-Arafat doctrine and change their attitudes and reopen the contacts that have been abandoned for the past four years. What Palestinians and Israelis need today is that attitude change to make peace possible.
It would have been a tremendous gesture of peace by the Israelis to allow Arafat to be buried in Jerusalem. But they refused that request. Instead, Arafat will be entombed in his old rubbled headquarters, the Muqata in Ramallah. Although Arafat, the man, will be gone, his inspiration to fight for justice and fairness is a legacy that will forever flourish among Palestinians.
Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.
Thursday, November 11, 2004
Chicago Tribune Interview/Reaction to Arafat death 11-11-04
LOCAL REACTION
Chicago Tribune
Yasser Arafat 1929 -- 2004
News echoes through areaPalestinians, Jews in Chicago wonder what future holds
By Deborah Horan and Ron Grossman, Tribune staff reporters. Tribune staff reporters Stephen Franklin and Gina Kim contributed to this report
Published November 11, 2004
Although news of Yasser Arafat's death was expected eventually, it still seemed unbelievable to some in the Chicago area when it came Wednesday.
"I think since Nov. 4, I've heard it six times. But apparently, this time it's true," said Ray Hanania, who learned of the death while listening to the radio on his drive home to Orland Park."People had him dead a week and a half ago. To me it symbolized his life. He was able to elude death and his enemies."
To some local Palestinians, Arafat was more than a besieged leader trapped by Israeli tanks inside his West Bank offices. For them, he was a revolutionary who represented a continuing struggle.
"He was, in my mind, George Washington," said Hanania, former national president of the Palestinian American Congress. "He symbolized the Palestinian movement in my eyes forever. Now that he is gone, I am apprehensive about what is going to happen. Is there anyone strong enough to take his place?"
While Arafat's health deteriorated this week, talk up and down Harlem Avenue, where Arabic script competes with English, was all about a world without him.
Palestinians here asked the same questions as those around the world: Would violence break out among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza? What would Israel do? Who among the Palestinians' leaders would step forward?
Many Palestinians interviewed earlier this week doubted that Arafat's departure from the political scene would change the dynamic of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Under siege, Arafat had not ruled effectively for years, they said."
The reality is that for years he has been a sick old man imprisoned in the rubble of his headquarters in Ramallah," said Ali Abu Nimah, an activist with the Arab American Action Network, a Chicago-based community group.
But not all Palestinians were sad to see Arafat go."I didn't like him. He is no good for his people," said Jimmy Ayyash, 54, a Bridgeview restaurant owner who has been in the U.S. for 34 years. "They need a new leader to make peace because the Palestinians are suffering too much."During Arafat's illness, many Chicago-area Jews wondered what would come of the badly tattered hopes for peace between Israel and the Palestinians."
In the Jewish tradition, we are never joyous at the loss of human life," said David Abell, a spokesman for the Chicago Area Friends of Yesha, a group that supports Israel's settlers. "But when that human life represents true evil, as in the case of Mr. Arafat, the father of modern day terrorism ... humanity can breathe a sigh of relief that his evil has been removed from this world."
Steven B. Nasatir, president of the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, spoke of Arafat as a "major impediment to peace," and the hope that "a new leadership emerges that can become the partner that Israel needs to make peace."
But Hatem Abudayyeh, executive director of the Arab American Action Network, sees Arafat's death as just one of thousands."
Arafat was a great man. Yes, Arafat was an icon," he said. "We're saddened by his death, but we don't ignore the fact that this is not an issue of individuals, it's an issue of a people who have been oppressed and occupied for 55 years."
Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
Yasser Arafat 1929 -- 2004
News echoes through areaPalestinians, Jews in Chicago wonder what future holds
By Deborah Horan and Ron Grossman, Tribune staff reporters. Tribune staff reporters Stephen Franklin and Gina Kim contributed to this report
Published November 11, 2004
Although news of Yasser Arafat's death was expected eventually, it still seemed unbelievable to some in the Chicago area when it came Wednesday.
"I think since Nov. 4, I've heard it six times. But apparently, this time it's true," said Ray Hanania, who learned of the death while listening to the radio on his drive home to Orland Park."People had him dead a week and a half ago. To me it symbolized his life. He was able to elude death and his enemies."
To some local Palestinians, Arafat was more than a besieged leader trapped by Israeli tanks inside his West Bank offices. For them, he was a revolutionary who represented a continuing struggle.
"He was, in my mind, George Washington," said Hanania, former national president of the Palestinian American Congress. "He symbolized the Palestinian movement in my eyes forever. Now that he is gone, I am apprehensive about what is going to happen. Is there anyone strong enough to take his place?"
While Arafat's health deteriorated this week, talk up and down Harlem Avenue, where Arabic script competes with English, was all about a world without him.
Palestinians here asked the same questions as those around the world: Would violence break out among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza? What would Israel do? Who among the Palestinians' leaders would step forward?
Many Palestinians interviewed earlier this week doubted that Arafat's departure from the political scene would change the dynamic of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Under siege, Arafat had not ruled effectively for years, they said."
The reality is that for years he has been a sick old man imprisoned in the rubble of his headquarters in Ramallah," said Ali Abu Nimah, an activist with the Arab American Action Network, a Chicago-based community group.
But not all Palestinians were sad to see Arafat go."I didn't like him. He is no good for his people," said Jimmy Ayyash, 54, a Bridgeview restaurant owner who has been in the U.S. for 34 years. "They need a new leader to make peace because the Palestinians are suffering too much."During Arafat's illness, many Chicago-area Jews wondered what would come of the badly tattered hopes for peace between Israel and the Palestinians."
In the Jewish tradition, we are never joyous at the loss of human life," said David Abell, a spokesman for the Chicago Area Friends of Yesha, a group that supports Israel's settlers. "But when that human life represents true evil, as in the case of Mr. Arafat, the father of modern day terrorism ... humanity can breathe a sigh of relief that his evil has been removed from this world."
Steven B. Nasatir, president of the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, spoke of Arafat as a "major impediment to peace," and the hope that "a new leadership emerges that can become the partner that Israel needs to make peace."
But Hatem Abudayyeh, executive director of the Arab American Action Network, sees Arafat's death as just one of thousands."
Arafat was a great man. Yes, Arafat was an icon," he said. "We're saddened by his death, but we don't ignore the fact that this is not an issue of individuals, it's an issue of a people who have been oppressed and occupied for 55 years."
Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune
Monday, November 08, 2004
In defense of Yasser Arafat's legacy, 11-08-04
Yasser Arafat’s legacy remains heroic
Arab American Media Services/permission granted to reprint
Monday Nov. 8, 2004
By Ray Hanania
The New York Times’ self-hating "moderate" columnist, Thomas L. Friedman, always does his best to disguise his religious-based pro-Israel bias. But in the saga of the deteriorating health of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, he can’t seem to restrain a bitter hatred that merely demonstrates his anti-Palestinian bias.
Writes Friedman, Arafat "was a bad man, not simply for the way he introduced a whole new level of terrorism to the world politics, but because of the crimes he committed against his own people. There, history will judge him harshly."
No Mr. Friedman, pro-Israeli religious hypocrites like you will continue to savage the Palestinians while soft-balling criticism of Israel, mainly because you, too, oppose a just and fair peace accord based on a truly balanced scale of land for peace.
As he survived ruthless assaults against his life over the years, Arafat’s legacy will survive the blistering prejudice of Israel’s cunning advocates like Friedman who dominate the Western media and English-speaking history with pro-Israel blather.
Friedman doesn’t have the Chutzpah to advocate for a genuine peace, nor hold his people, the Israelis to the same harsh standards that he constantly inflicts upon Palestinians who, like Arafat, had insisted on a peace that was just and fair.
Arafat was a hero. Plain and simple. He was a revolutionary in the same sense of George Washington. If Arafat can be faulted for anything, it was that he was never a good negotiator, nor was he a great government leader either. But what revolutionaries ever are?
Arafat faced an even greater, more insurmountable challenge of trying to transform from a revolutionary to the leader of a government constantly undermined and influenced by Israel.
But his genius is undeniable.
Arafat took the Palestinian people out of an oblivious desert. And in the face of the greatest ever hate-inspired propaganda campaign directed against any people on this Earth, he prevailed exposing a canard instilled by Israeli extremism (which is more common than Friedman or others would admit) that "the Palestinians, they don’t exist."
Arafat was the only Palestinian leader who could and did recognize Israel’s right to exist, even without demanding a quid pro quo from the Israelis. He accepted the concept of a two-state solution in spite of a rule of law that prevailed on the side of Palestinian claims.
Arafat embraced a negotiated compromise that he mistakenly believed was on the up-and-up with Israel. He did so knowing full well that during that process Israel never once acted on its promise to dismantle its settlements, which are illegal, every single one, in the face of even the most conservative interpretations of international law.
The peace process blamed on Arafat for failing was never on the up-and-up. It was always skewered toward Israel’s best interests and advantage. It was managed by a negotiator with a religious conviction towards Israel, and a nation that was more advocate for Israel than a fair arbiter for compromise.
The assertion that Israel’s offer to the Palestinians at Camp David was "fair" or "just" is so patently outrageous that it’s hard to resume peace negotiations from that point with any seriousness.
It may have been the "best offer," but it was flawed. Never written down. Never affirmed. Always waved like a mirage to draw the Palestinians into conceding more in exchange for what they always get from Israel, nothing.
There is only one fair solution to the Palestine Israel conflict and Arafat supported it. It’s the Israelis who do not. It is a compromise that demands the return of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem, lands occupied in the 1967 War.
It is a compromise that demands that Israel dismantle ALL of its illegal settlements, including those built around East Jerusalem on lands confiscated illegally from their rightful Palestinian owners. Justice and fairness demands that Israel trade, inch-for-inch, land for any that it keeps. Instead, Israel’s "greatest offer" proposed 1 inch for every 9 inches of occupied land, and not even in writing.
Arafat’s compromise is a compromise that insists that Israel accept responsibility for creating the Palestinian refugee problem. Dozens of former Israeli leaders have confessed as much in their final writings. It’s ridiculous and insulting to even entertain as serious Israel’s rejection of responsibility.
Arafat’s legacy defines the only compromise that is acceptable and workable. Either the Israelis accept it or they bequeath to a future endless violence and conflict.
Israel will forever be challenged by a people who refused to surrender, who cannot be defeated and how insist on a compromise based on fairness and justice.
As he did in life as a noble leader who deserves everlasting Palestinian gratitude, Arafat continues to elude his adversaries, including his most recent, the call of God himself.
Arafat will die when he chooses, and not a minute sooner.
I thought it was the ultimate irony that news of Arafat’s "death" began on the very day that many remembered his only real partner in peace, Yitzhak Rabin. Rabin was murdered by an Israeli fanatic on Nov. 4, 1995, demonstrating that Israelis are just as prone to violence in the face of a reasoned outcome that requires true compromise.
Many extremists, including Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, believe that now that men like Arafat and Rabin are gone, they can impose a solution that is neither just nor fair.
But Israelis must accept that there can be no peace without justice or fairness. Israelis can no longer continue to hide behind Arafat as the excuse for why peace is unachievable.
It’s not Arafat who has been standing in the way of a genuine peace, but the refusal of most Israelis to be fair, just or even honest about history.
Although Arafat, the man, will be gone, his inspiration to fight for justice and fairness is a legacy that will forever flourish among Palestinians.
# # #
Arab American Media Services/permission granted to reprint
Monday Nov. 8, 2004
By Ray Hanania
The New York Times’ self-hating "moderate" columnist, Thomas L. Friedman, always does his best to disguise his religious-based pro-Israel bias. But in the saga of the deteriorating health of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, he can’t seem to restrain a bitter hatred that merely demonstrates his anti-Palestinian bias.
Writes Friedman, Arafat "was a bad man, not simply for the way he introduced a whole new level of terrorism to the world politics, but because of the crimes he committed against his own people. There, history will judge him harshly."
No Mr. Friedman, pro-Israeli religious hypocrites like you will continue to savage the Palestinians while soft-balling criticism of Israel, mainly because you, too, oppose a just and fair peace accord based on a truly balanced scale of land for peace.
As he survived ruthless assaults against his life over the years, Arafat’s legacy will survive the blistering prejudice of Israel’s cunning advocates like Friedman who dominate the Western media and English-speaking history with pro-Israel blather.
Friedman doesn’t have the Chutzpah to advocate for a genuine peace, nor hold his people, the Israelis to the same harsh standards that he constantly inflicts upon Palestinians who, like Arafat, had insisted on a peace that was just and fair.
Arafat was a hero. Plain and simple. He was a revolutionary in the same sense of George Washington. If Arafat can be faulted for anything, it was that he was never a good negotiator, nor was he a great government leader either. But what revolutionaries ever are?
Arafat faced an even greater, more insurmountable challenge of trying to transform from a revolutionary to the leader of a government constantly undermined and influenced by Israel.
But his genius is undeniable.
Arafat took the Palestinian people out of an oblivious desert. And in the face of the greatest ever hate-inspired propaganda campaign directed against any people on this Earth, he prevailed exposing a canard instilled by Israeli extremism (which is more common than Friedman or others would admit) that "the Palestinians, they don’t exist."
Arafat was the only Palestinian leader who could and did recognize Israel’s right to exist, even without demanding a quid pro quo from the Israelis. He accepted the concept of a two-state solution in spite of a rule of law that prevailed on the side of Palestinian claims.
Arafat embraced a negotiated compromise that he mistakenly believed was on the up-and-up with Israel. He did so knowing full well that during that process Israel never once acted on its promise to dismantle its settlements, which are illegal, every single one, in the face of even the most conservative interpretations of international law.
The peace process blamed on Arafat for failing was never on the up-and-up. It was always skewered toward Israel’s best interests and advantage. It was managed by a negotiator with a religious conviction towards Israel, and a nation that was more advocate for Israel than a fair arbiter for compromise.
The assertion that Israel’s offer to the Palestinians at Camp David was "fair" or "just" is so patently outrageous that it’s hard to resume peace negotiations from that point with any seriousness.
It may have been the "best offer," but it was flawed. Never written down. Never affirmed. Always waved like a mirage to draw the Palestinians into conceding more in exchange for what they always get from Israel, nothing.
There is only one fair solution to the Palestine Israel conflict and Arafat supported it. It’s the Israelis who do not. It is a compromise that demands the return of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem, lands occupied in the 1967 War.
It is a compromise that demands that Israel dismantle ALL of its illegal settlements, including those built around East Jerusalem on lands confiscated illegally from their rightful Palestinian owners. Justice and fairness demands that Israel trade, inch-for-inch, land for any that it keeps. Instead, Israel’s "greatest offer" proposed 1 inch for every 9 inches of occupied land, and not even in writing.
Arafat’s compromise is a compromise that insists that Israel accept responsibility for creating the Palestinian refugee problem. Dozens of former Israeli leaders have confessed as much in their final writings. It’s ridiculous and insulting to even entertain as serious Israel’s rejection of responsibility.
Arafat’s legacy defines the only compromise that is acceptable and workable. Either the Israelis accept it or they bequeath to a future endless violence and conflict.
Israel will forever be challenged by a people who refused to surrender, who cannot be defeated and how insist on a compromise based on fairness and justice.
As he did in life as a noble leader who deserves everlasting Palestinian gratitude, Arafat continues to elude his adversaries, including his most recent, the call of God himself.
Arafat will die when he chooses, and not a minute sooner.
I thought it was the ultimate irony that news of Arafat’s "death" began on the very day that many remembered his only real partner in peace, Yitzhak Rabin. Rabin was murdered by an Israeli fanatic on Nov. 4, 1995, demonstrating that Israelis are just as prone to violence in the face of a reasoned outcome that requires true compromise.
Many extremists, including Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, believe that now that men like Arafat and Rabin are gone, they can impose a solution that is neither just nor fair.
But Israelis must accept that there can be no peace without justice or fairness. Israelis can no longer continue to hide behind Arafat as the excuse for why peace is unachievable.
It’s not Arafat who has been standing in the way of a genuine peace, but the refusal of most Israelis to be fair, just or even honest about history.
Although Arafat, the man, will be gone, his inspiration to fight for justice and fairness is a legacy that will forever flourish among Palestinians.
# # #
Friday, November 05, 2004
American Muslim strength weakened by incomplete coalition 11-5-04
American Muslim strength weakened by incomplete coalition
Creators Syndicate Friday Nov. 5, 2004
By Ray Hanania
This is the second presidential election where Muslim voters are left to question their impact and the performance of their leaders.
Although John Kerry's loss to President Bush is now confirmed, there is no doubt that the loss of Muslim Americans is decisive.
The blame rests squarely on the failed strategy of the Muslim American leadership. Their performance has not been good.
In the 2000 elections, Muslims claimed that their swing votes in key states gave Bush the edge over Al Gore and "decided the election." In the wake of that assertion and Sept. 11th, the stature of the Muslim voting bloc has risen dubiously.
When it came to resolving conflicts in the Middle East and Muslim World, Bush turned out to be a disaster.
Reacting out of anger and betrayal, Muslims claimed rather incredulously that their 9 million voters would be the key factor in four swing states of Florida, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
So confident were they that they formally declared endorsement for Kerry.
Yet in analyzing the election, many probabilities appear to be certainties:
The so-called Muslim endorsement of Bush in 2000 was driven by all the wrong reasons.
First, the Bush support came mainly from non-Arab Muslims with traditionally close business ties to the Republicans. They knew going in Bush would not resolve the Middle East conflict. It was not their priority.
Second, Arab Muslims voted against Al Gore rather than for Bush. This was driven by Gore's decision to slate Senator Joseph Lieberman, an Orthodox Jew, for vice president.
It also explains why Ralph Nader, an Arab American, did better in 2000 than in 2004.
Though Nader's vote dropped, his support remained high among Arab and Muslim voters -- that despite the effort of some community "leaders" to alter the perception.
Polls by John Zogby, brother of Democratic beneficiary and Arab American activist Jim Zogby, claimed 76 percent of Muslim/Arab voters supported Kerry. In contrast, polls by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) more accurately predicted Nader would draw significant votes and cut Kerry's down to 54 percent in the same group.
In those areas where Muslims and Arabs are most concentrated - a speculative factor never scientifically confirmed - Nader drew strongest support.
There is no question Nader drew his support mainly from "Arabs," who are both Christian and Muslim, while Kerry held on to non-Arab Muslims.
Both Bush and Kerry bought into the fallacy of the so-called Muslim/Arab voting bloc. Kerry worked through Zogby to appoint cronies to key campaign positions while Bush reached out mainly to non-Arab Muslim groups.
The result is that is election has done great harm to the Arab and Muslim American community. In reality, the so-called Muslim vote was not an influential voting bloc at all.
Rather it is a community in total disarray with selfish, politically naïve leaders.
A key reason for this is the decision by many to organize mainly on the basis of religion, as "Muslims" rather than as a more powerful secular voting bloc that embraced Arab Christians.
The Muslim World has more than 40 million Christians: 15 million in Indonesia, 9 million in Egypt, 3 million in Pakistan, and 13 million in 6 non-Arab and 21 remaining Arab countries.
In addition to the 9 million American Muslims (7 million non-Arab and 2 million Arab) there
are about 2 million Christian Arab Americans left out of the wave of "Muslim activism."
Rather than exploiting this natural coalition, Muslim Organizations enjoyed their "special status," nurtured mainly out of post-Sept. 11th misconceptions and the failure of Americans to correctly understand the subtleties of two terms, "Arab" and "Muslim."
The fact is Arab American Christians have higher voter registration. They have a more successful track record in American politics, holding 90 percent of the so-called Arab elective offices.
The Muslim coalitions marginalized Arab American Christians. The Christian factor could have served to off-set the anti-Muslim backlash that continues to fester among many Americans.
When Muslims formally endorsed Kerry, did they really help Kerry or undermine his support among American voters who wrongly view Islam in a negative light.
Success could only be achieved through a Muslim and Arab Christian coalition.
Yet this Christian Arab muscle remains an overlooked resource. Until this resource is recognized, Muslim Americans can never truly attain their peak performance in American elections.
# # #
Creators Syndicate Friday Nov. 5, 2004
By Ray Hanania
This is the second presidential election where Muslim voters are left to question their impact and the performance of their leaders.
Although John Kerry's loss to President Bush is now confirmed, there is no doubt that the loss of Muslim Americans is decisive.
The blame rests squarely on the failed strategy of the Muslim American leadership. Their performance has not been good.
In the 2000 elections, Muslims claimed that their swing votes in key states gave Bush the edge over Al Gore and "decided the election." In the wake of that assertion and Sept. 11th, the stature of the Muslim voting bloc has risen dubiously.
When it came to resolving conflicts in the Middle East and Muslim World, Bush turned out to be a disaster.
Reacting out of anger and betrayal, Muslims claimed rather incredulously that their 9 million voters would be the key factor in four swing states of Florida, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
So confident were they that they formally declared endorsement for Kerry.
Yet in analyzing the election, many probabilities appear to be certainties:
The so-called Muslim endorsement of Bush in 2000 was driven by all the wrong reasons.
First, the Bush support came mainly from non-Arab Muslims with traditionally close business ties to the Republicans. They knew going in Bush would not resolve the Middle East conflict. It was not their priority.
Second, Arab Muslims voted against Al Gore rather than for Bush. This was driven by Gore's decision to slate Senator Joseph Lieberman, an Orthodox Jew, for vice president.
It also explains why Ralph Nader, an Arab American, did better in 2000 than in 2004.
Though Nader's vote dropped, his support remained high among Arab and Muslim voters -- that despite the effort of some community "leaders" to alter the perception.
Polls by John Zogby, brother of Democratic beneficiary and Arab American activist Jim Zogby, claimed 76 percent of Muslim/Arab voters supported Kerry. In contrast, polls by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) more accurately predicted Nader would draw significant votes and cut Kerry's down to 54 percent in the same group.
In those areas where Muslims and Arabs are most concentrated - a speculative factor never scientifically confirmed - Nader drew strongest support.
There is no question Nader drew his support mainly from "Arabs," who are both Christian and Muslim, while Kerry held on to non-Arab Muslims.
Both Bush and Kerry bought into the fallacy of the so-called Muslim/Arab voting bloc. Kerry worked through Zogby to appoint cronies to key campaign positions while Bush reached out mainly to non-Arab Muslim groups.
The result is that is election has done great harm to the Arab and Muslim American community. In reality, the so-called Muslim vote was not an influential voting bloc at all.
Rather it is a community in total disarray with selfish, politically naïve leaders.
A key reason for this is the decision by many to organize mainly on the basis of religion, as "Muslims" rather than as a more powerful secular voting bloc that embraced Arab Christians.
The Muslim World has more than 40 million Christians: 15 million in Indonesia, 9 million in Egypt, 3 million in Pakistan, and 13 million in 6 non-Arab and 21 remaining Arab countries.
In addition to the 9 million American Muslims (7 million non-Arab and 2 million Arab) there
are about 2 million Christian Arab Americans left out of the wave of "Muslim activism."
Rather than exploiting this natural coalition, Muslim Organizations enjoyed their "special status," nurtured mainly out of post-Sept. 11th misconceptions and the failure of Americans to correctly understand the subtleties of two terms, "Arab" and "Muslim."
The fact is Arab American Christians have higher voter registration. They have a more successful track record in American politics, holding 90 percent of the so-called Arab elective offices.
The Muslim coalitions marginalized Arab American Christians. The Christian factor could have served to off-set the anti-Muslim backlash that continues to fester among many Americans.
When Muslims formally endorsed Kerry, did they really help Kerry or undermine his support among American voters who wrongly view Islam in a negative light.
Success could only be achieved through a Muslim and Arab Christian coalition.
Yet this Christian Arab muscle remains an overlooked resource. Until this resource is recognized, Muslim Americans can never truly attain their peak performance in American elections.
# # #
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