Jerusalem Post: Yalla Peace: Act like citizens, not foreigners

Yalla Peace: Act like citizens, not foreigners
By RAY HANANIA
23/03/2010 22:28

Arab citizens of Israel are in a unique position to help their people by being advocates for change, in Israel and in the region.

Israelis always tell me that “all citizens of Israel” are treated equally. They insist that although Israel is a “Jewish state,” non-Jews are treated with respect and equality.

Of course, that isn’t true. But it sounds good on paper. When it comes to how Israel mistreats its non-Jewish citizens, most Jews have their heads buried in the sand, with a finger on the trigger.

The reality is that non-Jewish citizens are discriminated against routinely.

It bothers me that Israeli citizenship cards have special codes to separate Jews from non-Jews. That violates the whole principle of “citizenship,” although the reason is clear, to make it easier to discriminate.

The Mossawa Center, an Arab Israeli group that monitors Arab citizen rights (and whose Arabic name means “equality”), recently released another scathing report showing that non-Jews in Israel are discriminated against.

It cites the increase of racist bills introduced in the Knesset attacking “free speech,” mainly that of “Arab citizens.”

• If a citizen denies the existence of Israel, he can be imprisoned for one year.

• If a citizen violates “loyalty to Israel,” he can have his citizenship revoked. I guess in conjunction with the first bill, he would be imprisoned for a year and then kicked out of the country.

• Government money would be denied to citizen groups that act in a way that express views like the “Nakba,” the Arabic word for “catastrophe” that refers to 1948 when Israel was created and more than 400 Arab villages were erased.

With a few other examples that are purely included because of the conflict, the report makes things sound really bad.

A BIG part of the problem, though, is that Arabs and Jews are not really different. We often do not agree, but we’re in the middle of a conflict and tensions are a fact of life.

So how much responsibility do the Arab citizens of Israel share in letting this disparity in free speech and democracy take place?

A big part of the problem is the Arab citizens themselves. They don’t help matters much. Arabs claim to want to be citizens, but they act like foreigners.

More often than not, extremist Arab activists in the West and Arab world urge Arab citizens in Israel to boycott Israeli elections and not vote.

So who is to blame when extremist Jews take control? The Jewish extremists or the misguided Arab citizens who listen to the loser activists in the Arab world?

“Denial” is the reality of Palestinian life. If we just pretend something isn’t there, it might go away. What we want to go away is the fact that over the past century, Arab policy toward Palestine has been characterized by one word. Losers! Arab culture has embraced the phenomena of its own failure by blaming someone else. Being a louder victim is a better choice in these circumstances for Palestinians than to work harder to participate in Israeli society and bring about change.

The Arabs are not doing their best. They embrace stupid policies like “normalization” – a hateful code-word used by Palestinians to describe any Arab who dares treat an Israeli like a “normal person.” It’s racist, too, because it suggests that all Jews are bad.

Many Arabs criticize my moderate views, not by engaging in the facts and issues I raise, but by pointing to the fact that my wife and son are Jews.

Many Arab comedians won’t participate with me because I perform with Israelis, not just Jews. Many Arab activists exclude me because I advocate two states rather than one.

Oh. Did I forget to mention that I write for a “Zionist newspaper” like The Jerusalem Post?

I HAVE learned to ignore these moronic critics in the Palestinian and Arab world because although they dominate the “vocal landscape,” they are the demographic minority. The problem is that most Arabs fear challenging the extremist minority. It’s easier to be silent than to stand up for what is right.

What should Arabs in Israel do? Stop acting like the rest of the Arab world.

Stop listening to the failed Palestinian activists who live in Europe and the United States. Those activists live in luxury, yet are the first to tell Palestinian refugees it is better to live in squalor by rejecting compromise based on two states than to live in their own state where they can focus on improving their lives. If the conflict were ever resolved, most Palestinian rejectionists would be unemployed. So continuing the conflict is in their best interests.

If Arab citizens of Israel want their rights, they should recognize reality. Stop boycotting elections. Stop spreading hatred against Jews as an answer to Jewish discrimination against Arabs. Stop placing all the blame on a handful of Jewish racists in the Knesset. And stop exaggerating racism by including examples that are purely political, like Israelis declaring that Jerusalem is their eternal capital.

You can always find an example of hatred, if you ignore the more frequent examples of common sense.

Arab citizens of Israel are in a unique position to help their people, not by embracing the failed policies of the Arab world and the Palestinian rejectionists, but by being advocates for change, change in Israel and change in the Arab world.

Stand up and tell the activists you support compromise, two states and the sharing of Jerusalem.

The Palestinians under occupation are under siege, and not just by Israel’s military. The extremist Islamists like Hamas are growing in power. Their goal isn’t just to destroy Israel, but to also to destroy Palestinian and Arab secular life.

Start protesting on the streets, not just against the bigotry and racism that surrounds your lives in Israel. Oppose the extremism that dominates the Arab world and the fatalistic policies of the Palestinian rejectionists, who are doing everything they can to block peace.

If the Arabs of Israel stood up as one, engaged the system fully and started to think and speak for themselves, not only would they have more rights in Israel, we might also have peace.

Named Best Ethnic Columnist in America by New America Media, the writer is a Palestinian-American columnist and peace activist. He can be reached at www.YallaPeace.com

American Arabs should resist the Census and demand their rights

American Arab rights jeopardized in Census 2010

By Ray Hanania

There is a big push by the US Census targeting the American Arab community to participate, but it’s not new.

They have been saying the same thing now for 30 years: if American Arabs would just fill out the Census form and “right in” the word “Arab” in the “Other” category at the bottom of the form, American Arabs will benefit immensely.

And every decade, the same thing happens. American Arabs participate and they get absolutely no benefits. No benefits, that is, except the American Arab organizations and activists hired and paid by the census to treat the American Arab community like mindless lemmings.

American Arabs are so disrespected that the Census isn’t evenly shameful about the exploitation, insisting against the facts that American Arabs will benefit.

Benefit? How? Will we get jobs for American Arabs? No. The only jobs that come from the Census go to the muscle minority communities like the African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans and the others that make up the 29 racial and ethnic groups identified by name on the Census form.

Will be get local municipal, regional, state or federal contracts? No. The contracts will go to the 29 ethnic and racial groups named on the Census forms.

The fact is not one of the American Arab activists can identify one specific benefit that American Arabs have received since we first began supporting the Census campaigns back in the 1980s.

Yes, the 1980s. I was there writing for a community newspaper when the government reached out to American Arabs and I did my part, writing columns and essays urging American Arabs to participate.

In 1990, again, the government came to the American Arab community and hired members of our community and bought advertising and even awarded grants to groups that promoted the Census. I did my part then too, never asking for a penny, believing the BS that somehow things would change and American Arabs would benefit from being “counted.”

In 2000, we did the same thing. We participated. I wrote more columns. We lobbied the community and urged them to participate.

And you know what? Nothing happened. Even though American Arabs participated, we were excluded from major contract awards, employment and more importantly in political empowerment.

It’s no secret that the majority of American Arabs in Chicagoland live on the Southwest Suburbs in District 230, the high school district that includes three high schools. No one from the state suggested that a legislative district be drawn to encompass the Arab community and “empower” us by consolidating our voter strength.

Sound implausible. It’s not. The State of Illinois has done that very thing to create Hispanic Districts and Black Districts. They’ve given jobs to Hispanics, Blacks and Asians.

They’ve awarded contracts to those communities and awarded huge grants to fund arts and culture.

But not for American Arabs.

And you know why?

Because for the past 30 years, American Arabs have been taken for granted. Instead of fighting for what is ours – we pay taxes like everyone else in this country – we just went along trying to be “good citizens,” filling out the forms and writing in our names.

Now suddenly a group of high-profile selfish American Arab leaders who are paid by the Census – the only people getting jobs in our community – are telling us if we don’t fill out the Census forms “the American Arab community will lose.”

Lose what?

Lose jobs? We’re not getting even a sliver of what we deserve. There are 38,000 employees in the City of Chicago and we account for 250,000 of the city’s 3 million residents. That means we should get 7.5 percent of the 38,000 jobs.  That would be almost 2,400 jobs. We have barely 300 total jobs, or 2,100 jobs short of what we should get but don’t.

And it’s worse at the state level were $19 million are disbursed every year to fund cultural and arts projects for various ethnic and racial community groups. The American Arabs get about $200,000 and half of that goes to non-Arab groups identified as “Middle Eastern” including Iranians and Israelis and Jews, the latter group also get even more from the state of Illinois.

This pattern is repeated in nearly every state in the union. We’re 4.5 million American Arabs and what do we have to show for it? Harassment, neglect, abuse, denial and one of the highest job loss rates in the country.

We have a handful of teachers in Chicago, and even less in the suburbs. We have a handful of elected officials, and not one district carved out for American Arab empowerment.

Now you can continue to do what we have always done, bent over without as much as a whimper and listen to the paid American activist flaks who are telling us to support the Census – to protect their jobs.

Or, for the first time in 30 years, we can stand up and make a statement against being exploited by a country that routinely abuses and denies our rights while targeting us for terrorist profiling.

We can make a statement in a powerful way or we can allow ourselves to be marginalized by American Arab leaders who benefit from the blood-money they are paid to lead us into national weakness.

Sometimes, it is easier to pick up crumbs than to fight for the cake.

I say, let’s fight for our rights and tell the Census and their mercenaries to “take that Census form and Shove it!”

END

Op-Ed Columnist Ray Hanania tells the U.S. Census to SHOVE IT!

Ray Hanania tells the U.S. Census to SHOVE IT! In this Opinion Commentary on YouTube.





-- Ray Hanania
www.RadioChicagoland.com

Those pimping for the U.S. Census should be honest, its about their money not our community empowerment

The U.S. Government has done a great job hiring Arabs in our community to shill for their cause, to continue to oppress our community. The focus on the effort is the U.S. Census.

I want you to notice something. Everyone one pimping and pushing for the American Arab community to "participate" in the U.S. Census are all PAID by the U.S. Government to tell us to fill out the census form.

They lie that filling out the census form and "writing in our race" Arab in the little line at the bottom of the form is a way for us to be empowered. And when someone questions their lies, they slam and slander Arabs who argue that we have been misled by lazy, do-nothing Arab activists who have taken the short and easy route to money instead of fighting the long term challenge.

What is the long term challenge? Arabs should be listed officially on the census.

Here is who are now listed on the U.S. Census:

The census form asks for your Race, listing Hispanic, Latino or Spanish Origin. And they ask if you are Mexican, Mexican American (I didn’t know there were two categories of Mexicans), or Chicano? What kind of race is “Chicano?” What country do “Chicanos” come from? “Chicano-stan?”

They ask the same question again on the long form: Are you White? Black, African American or Negro? Are you American Indian or Alaskan Native and they even give you a place to write in your tribe name.

That’s not all. The form asks are you Asian Indian? Japanese, Native Hawaiian, Chinese, Korean, Guamanian or Chamorro, Filipino, Vietnamese, Samoan or Other Asian where they give you a space so you can print your “race” like Laotian, Thai, Pakistani, Cambodian “and so on.”

Oh, they don’t stop there. They ask are you “Pacific Islander” and ask you to print your race like Fijian, Tongan “and so on.”

Way at the bottom, in case they missed someone, someone not so important, they have the throw away line, to check here if you are “Some Other Race – Print Race.”

That is where I have to hand-write that I am “Arab.” And proud of it too, by the way.

Read the full original column that has Rashad al-Dabbagh, who works for the census, and some members of the Arab American Institute targeting me because I don't agree with their laid-back lack of activism against this problem. Click here to read the column?

The fact is that while these activists are cashing their checks and telling American Arabs, "Don't worry. You don't have to be listed on the census form, you can write it in so the AAI can complete their list," government agencies across America are discriminating against American Arabs specifically and directly because the U.S. Census DOES NOT list Arabs as "Arab" on the Census form.

The federal government requires police officers who pull people over for traffic stops to list the race of the person being stopped. But, they are required only to list those races AND ethnicities listed on the U.S. Census form.

Why is that important? If the race is listed on statistics, communities can easily see if they are being targeted for discrimination by police officers and then use that as "EMPOWERMENT" to demand that the police department hire American Arabs.

But American Arabs are NOT listed and police are not required to list us at all.

In every instance of EMPOWERMENT, not being listed on the U.S. Census means we are denied the ability to confront and stop discrimination, discrimination that is holding our community back.

And all that the activists who are PAID by the U.S. Census can do is attack me ands my argument and tell us little American Arab Sheep to "write your race on the form."

Well, writing your name on the form does not stop the discrimination and it DOES NOT force government agencies from the top of the Federal Government to the bottom of the local suburban government to recognize the rights of Americans Arabs.

When we ask school districts how many Arabs have they hired, the answer is "We are not required to list employees based on the race 'Arabs' and we only list race and ethnicity based on those identified in the U.S. Census."

I know what the problem is. It's easier for some in our community to take the handout from the government and keep the American Arabs in a stupor than to find the courage to stand up and change a system that needs to be change.

Arabs should and MUST be listed on the U.S. Census form and until we are, we will continue to be discriminated against, denied government grants, denied government jobs and marginalized in our society.

-- Ray Hanania

www.RadioChicagoland.com

The truth about the "Don Imus" Affair: It's not about race but about the unfair of "free speech"

The truth about the "Don Imus Affair"
By Ray Hanania

The Don Imus controversy is not really about the limits of free speech as some are contending, but rather about the discrepancies in how "freedoms" such as free speech are tolerated for some in America but not for others.

These discrepancies are based not on merit but solely on the basis of race, stereotypes and a mainstream society of plagued by the ugliness of America’s unbalanced racial realities.

I enjoyed seeing the Don Imus empire collapse in such utter humiliation. Why? Well, I am Arab American who is most often mistaken for a Muslim.

I disliked Don Imus passionately and am celebrating in his demise. I’d like to see a handful of other American media bigots tumble down along the same ugly path including anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bigots like Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and others like them.

But is the issue curtailing free speech? No. Because free speech is more free for some than it is for others in America.

Those who have enjoyed free speech as unrestrained and as viciously as Imus has, deserve to be judged by a tougher standard of morality.

Those who come from communities who are excluded from the mainstream media, denied equal rights of expression not just in principle but more because of the practice of media exclusion have more flexibility in how they may express themselves.

The freer you have been to disparage people who do not have the same ability to respond to the attacks, the less your right of free speech, in my opinion.

The more you have been a victim of hate speech, the more you have the right of flexibility in what you can say.

Imus and others like him have made sport of Arabs and Muslims, blaming an entire race and religion for the actions of a few fanatics. The horrors of today’s terrorism has been used to rip away the Constitutional protections from a race of people, I believe because they were never popular in this country to begin with.

Most Americans hated Arabs and Muslims long before 19 Saudi Arabian hijackers commandeered four airplanes and crashed them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.

Should Imus have been fired for the three words he uttered. As an Arab American who watched and listened helplessly as Imus ranted, slandered, insulted and defamed Arabs and Muslims relentlessly, never giving us the opportunity to respond.

Am I glad he is fired? Absolutely. Was it fair? No.

But fairness has nothing to do with this not because I say so, but because Imus rose to fame on the basis of an unfair system anyway.

In other words Imus rose in popularity to host one of the nation’s premier syndicated radio shows that was also broadcast on an important and high profile Cable Network because 2.5 million people cheered on his rants against Arabs and a select few others in America, mostly Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Arabs, Muslims and even some Jews.

He rose not because of talent, but because his message of hatred, disguised as "satire," defended wrongly as humor, was popular among a growing class of Americans who look down on other ethnic groups. Imus was not popular because minorities loved him. Imus was popular because Whites in mainstream America loved him.

Therefore, his fall from the pinnacle of that mountain of discrimination is justified to be brought down not on the merits of whether what he said was right or wrong, but because just as 2.5 million people can elevate him to popular radio and TV host status, 10 million mostly minorities, Blacks, Asians and Hispanics, and Arabs, have the right to bring him down.

Defenders of Don Imus offer the ridiculous contention that he is the victim of free speech hypocrisy.

Imus merely said in one moment what some African American hip-hop artists, comedians and other entertainers say all the time, endlessly.

But the difference is that Imus directed his comments against individuals of another race. The African American members of a basketball team.

The Black rappers and hip-hop artists are saying things are that considered distasteful to many Americans, but they are almost always speaking about their own experiences of the environments in which they have lived.

There are whores in this world and the fact is they come in all colors and races and religions. If rap artists of one race, African American or even White, want to write lyrics that address that reality of their lives and experience, they have every right to do so even if someone, a majority of Americans, find their comments distasteful.

They can use the term "hos" because it is about what they see around them. Don Imus was not talking about himself, his experience or even trying to make a social statement about the relevance of "whores" in American society when he described 8 African American basketball players as "nappy haired hos."

He made the comments because that is how White Don Imus viewed eight Black women playing basketball who had tattoos and looked "tough."

There is a difference when you laugh at some one, as racist do, or laugh with someone, as true comedians and satirists do all the time. Black comedians joke about their stereotypes and they have every right to do so.

Don Imus, a White man, has no right to lampoon the stereotypes of Black people.

White people are not under the foot of a new more sophisticated form of racism. Blacks and other minorities are.

At the very bottom of the hatred that is the foundation of some in American, sit Arabs and Muslims. As heavy as the burden is upon our heads, we can find the room to celebrate in the demise of Don Imus, and we will do so with gusto!

(Ray Hanania is an award winning Palestinian American columnist, author and standup comedian. He can be reached at www.hanania.com.)