Showing posts with label Arab-Israeli ComedyFest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arab-Israeli ComedyFest. Show all posts

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Hatred against Arabs and Muslims answered

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Hatred against Muslims and Arabs answered
By Ray Hanania -- 
Below are two columns you should read both. The first reflects the growing racism and hatred among a growing number of uneducated and uninformed Americans. The second represents the facts, responding to the hatred and bigotry. As an American Arab military veteran from a family of American Arab military veterans, I am proud to present this debate that is the heart of America's misguided conscience today.
MUSLIMS A PART OF OUR HERITAGE.....ALWAYS......I THINK NOT
By Terry L. Sheldon
[President] Obama said, in his Cairo speech: "I know, too,  that Islam has always been a part of America's story.
Dear  Mr. Obama:
Were those Muslims that were in America when the  Pilgrims first landed? Funny, I thought they were Native  American Indians.
Were those Muslims that celebrated the  first Thanksgiving day? Sorry again, those were Pilgrims and  Native American Indians.
Can you show me one Muslim  signature on the United States Constitution? Declaration of  Independence? Bill of Rights? Didn't think so.
Did Muslims  fight for this country's freedom from England? No.
Did  Muslims fight during the Civil War to free the slaves in  America? No, they did not. In fact, Muslims to this day are still  the largest traffickers in human slavery. Your own 'half brother'  a devout Muslim still advocates slavery himself, even though  muslims of Arabic descent refer to black muslims as "pug nosed  slaves." Says a lot of what the Muslim world really thinks of your  family's "rich Islamic heritage" doesn't it Mr.Obama?
Where  were Muslims during the Civil Rights era of this country?  Not present. There are no pictures or media accounts of Muslims  walking side by side with Martin Luther King Jr., or helping to  advance the cause of Civil Rights.
Where were Muslims  during this country's Woman's Suffrage era? Again, not  present. In fact, devout Muslims demand that women are subservient  to men in the Islamic culture. So much so that often they are  beaten for not wearing the 'hajib' or for talking to a man that is  not a direct family member or their husband. Yep, the Muslims are  all for women's rights aren't they?
Where were Muslims  during World War II? They were aligned with Adolf Hitler.  The Muslim grand mufti himself met with Adolf Hitler, reviewed the  troops and accepted support from the Nazi's in killing  Jews.
Finally   Obama, where were Muslims on Sept. 11th, 2001? If  they weren't flying planes into the World Trade Center, the  Pentagon or a field in Pennsylvania killing nearly 3,000 people on  our own soil, they were rejoicing in the middle east. No one can  dispute the pictures shown from all parts of the Muslim world  celebrating on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and other news networks that  day. Strangely, the very "moderate" Muslims who's asses you bent  over backwards to kiss in Cairo, Egypt on June 4th were stone cold  silent post 9-11. To many Americans, their silence has meant  approval for the acts of that day.
And THAT,  Obama,  is the "rich heritage" Muslims have here in America.
And now we can  add November 5, 2009-- the slaughter of American soldiers at Fort  Hood by a muslim major who is a doctor and a psychiatrist who was  supposed to be counselling soldiers returning from battle in Iraq  and Afghanistan.  That,  Obama is "muslim heritage" in  America.
THE RESPONSE WITH FACTS AMERICANS SIMPLE DO NOW KNOW
By Jamaal Badaani
President Association of Patriotic Arab Americans in the Military (www.APAAM.org)
Dear Mr. Sheldon;
I read your impassioned piece below to our President and Commander-in-Chief, President Barack Hussain Obama regarding Muslims in America titled "MUSLIMS A PART OF OUR HERITAGE.....ALWAYS......I THINK NOT"......., and as a Patriotic American who has fought for this country since June 1981 - your characterizations regarding Muslims in your writing needs to have some facts clarified.  I sent you attachments to you personally via email to support my point.
As a Muslim American Marine, I have lead Marines in combat on numerous occasions and since 9/11, I participated in counter-terrorism operations to pursue those terrorist bastards who attacked our country - I didn't wait for my country to call, I asked to be deployed, and waited for six months with home and personal possessions in storage by moving out of my home, and waited by renting a room from a friend, so when my turn was called I would not waste valuable time preparing - I was prepared and deployed at a moments notice.
The terrorists used Islam to justify their horrific and cowardice acts on 9/11.   As Americans, Arabs and Muslims packed their bags, as I did, to get some pay back against the terrorists who struck our country.  The attack on our country was not a Christian thing, it was not a Muslim thing, it was not a Jewish thing, and surely it wasn't a white, black, yellow, or brown thing.
It was terrorists who hated us for a multitude of reasons that struck our country on 9/11 - all which transcended color, race, religion, and nationality.  In doing so, the terrorist killed those who were from over 87 countries in the deaths at the World Trade Center, and my fellow brothers and sisters in Arms lost their lives in the Pentagon.  Muslims were among the dead both in the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.
The first documented Arab American immigrant - Private Nathan Badeen - from Syria died in the revolutionary war on May 26th, 1776, Private Nathan Badeen was with the 18th Continental Army of Massachusets.  He died fighting for a cause of freedom - two months prior to seeing the Declaration of Independence issued to the British.  So yes, there were Arab Americans and Muslim Americans who also died in the revolutionary war, as documented in the attachments - in addition to Private Nathan Badeen.
Over 5,000 Muslim and Arab Americans fought on both sides of the civil war - can you imagine Arab and Muslim Americans who were rebels, and on the other side Arab and Muslim Americans with the Union fighting to end slavery.
Over 15,000 Arab Americans fought in WWII to help rid the world of a Tyrant.
Since 9/11 Muslim and Arab Americans have given their life serving in the US Military in Iraq and Afghanistan - Captain Khan saw the threat of a vehicle in Iraq approaching dangerously towards the check point manned by his fellow Army Soldiers - Captain Khan ran outside of the wire to a safe distance away from harms way to his soldiers and jumped in front of the vehicle so it could detonate before it got to his troops.  Captain Khan was months away from his Doctoral Degree when 9/11 happened, but held off getting his degree so he could join the US Army and serve his country in time of need.
end

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Going to try (again) to organize an Arab-Israeli Comedy Festival in Jerusalem

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You would think Arabs and Israelis hate each other. They must have some kind of issue or something between them. I know. if it were really a big story, the mainstream news media would be writing on it.

I'm going to try AGAIN to organize an Arab-Israeli comedy festival in Jerusalem. When I launched my comedy for peace drive in January 2002, the purpose wasn't to be a professional standup comedian. I'm not. It was to use comedy and humor to break through the animosity between Arabs and Jews, Palestinians and Israelis and get them to see each other as people.

The Comedy for Peace gig did not last long. We tried hard. I worked with a great TV producer and creative mind, David Lewis, who formalized the whole effort as "Comedy for Peace." We traveled to the West Bank and did a lot of interviews. David's mind never stopped working. genius and good guy. But the odds were so far against us. And everyone we encountered wanted to do it their way. By the end of 2006, we were on a difficult slope and it wasn't moving, unfortunately.

Then in November, 2006, I got an email from Charley Warady. Warady, who is Jewish, lived on Chicago's Southeast Side, where I lived. He was a few years younger than me and his friends were the younger brothers and sisters of my friends. He since moved to Israel and is doing standup comedy -- although there were no standup comedy clubs in Israel except one that didn't seem to have many shows in Tel Aviv (The Camel Comedy Club). Warady read an online book I wrote (Midnight Flight: The Story of White Flight from Chicago in the 1960s) which was about our old neighborhood in Chicago. He emailed me and he said he was a comedian. I asked him if he would be interested in doing comedy together and he was the first Israeli standup comedian to say yes.

We decided to bring in more comics. I reached out to Aaron Freeman and he reached out to Yisrael Campbell. I wanted to morph it all into Comedy for Peace but none of these guys new David and they all had their own ideas about how to do things. They ended up pushing to create a new comedy troupe called The Israeli-Palestinian Comedy Tour.

We didn't waste a lot of time planning and we set out to organize as many shows as we could in Israel, first, and then in Palestine. Our first show was in a place called the Syndrome in downtown West Jerusalem at the end of January 2007. We ended up doing a few shows at other locations too. In June, we came back and did more shows and included the Ambassador Hotel in East Jerusalem where we did a sold out crowd of mostly Palestinians. We did even more shows and cities in Israel then too. And we came back in December (this time with comedian Sherif Hedayat replacing Aaron Freeman who could not make the tour) and we did two shows at the Ambassador East and several in Israel.

By then, a comedy club opened in West Jerusalem at the top of Ben Yehuda Street and Sherif and I did some guest shows there too. We went on to do shows around the world including in Dublin and also Toronto where we did our biggest show at Roy Thomson Hall for some 1,800 people in the audience. We did tours of college campuses through MASA and even did Limmud in Los Angeles in 2008. This year, 2009, we did more shows including two in Upstate New York and Long Island, and also recently for an audience in upstate Pennsylvania. Houston was our favorite, although a Palestinian activist in the audience hammered us because she didn't like my two-state solution is the best ideas and because I happen to criticize not only Israelis but Palestinians, too, which is a non-no in the extremist Palestinian circles which dominate American Palestinian activism.

2010, though, will be the year we formalize a series of shows in Jerusalem. Campbell is off preparing to launch his one-man show in New York this November, but Charley and I hope to galvanize a new drive in Jerusalem for all of us and for more comedians who have courage and vision and who believe that humor is the best medicine to help the people -- not the politics -- in the Middle East.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I'll make it happen.

I mean, it's not like peace is going to break out any time soon and undermine the whole premise.

-- Ray Hanania
www.RadioChicagoland.com