Israel's government distorts truth in response to War Crimes report

Israel's government distorts truth in response to War Crimes report
By Ray Hanania --Renown South African Jurist Richard Goldstone has completed a comprehensive report on the war crimes committed during the Israeli war started against Hamas in the Gaza Strip on Nov. 4, 2008 and the Israeli response has been to call Goldstone, a Jew who prosecuted war crimes in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia an "anti-Semite" with no basis in international law. While the war crimes in Gaza are a real crime, the outrageous slander that marks Israel's government response to any form of criticism is an even bigger crime. They argue Israel did not start the war, Hamas did. But the facts prove Israel wrong. But does truth matter in today's world? Not when it comes to Israel's government.

I completed an exhaustive study of how the Gaza War started based on Israeli government and university sources that monitored the peace agreement that was in place between Israel and Hamas in 2008 that involved the firing of rockets and Israeli attacks against the Gaza Strip.

The facts show Israel intentionally started the Gaza war mainly fearing that the election of Barack Obama as president -- because he was raised in a Muslim background, has an Arab middle name, Hussein, was friend with many Palestinian activists in Chicago, and has an inherent sympathy for downtrodden people abused by demagogues and government dictatorship.

Here's the link to the report:

www.TheMediaOasis.com/Hamasrockets.htm

What you might also notice if you research anything that has to do with Israeli atrocities and reports of this kind is that the Government of Israel has engaged in a strategic public relations campaign to counter the unveiling of the truth and to protect their lies.

For example, at the bottom of nearly every Google Web site reference to Israel's war crimes in Gaza are ads purchased by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Israel's Government, which leads individuals who red these few online reports to see an alternative propaganda spin.

This debate over Goldstone's war crimes report is being handled differently by Arabs and Israelis.

The Arabs are relying on their worthless, emotional leadership and activist spokespeople to scream and yell and make the Arabs feel good. But the Arab response to the report has been insignificant in terms of educating the world to the veracity of the report.

In contrast, Israel's government has unleashed a sophisticated public relations campaign to counter the truth and make a pre-eminent Jewish legal scholar, Richard Goldstone, into an anti-Semite.

It's the same kind of immoral conduct that Israel and its legion of blind supporters engaged in responding to former President Jimmy Carter who accurately warned that Israel's actions in the West bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip against the occupied civilians there amounted to a form of Apartheid.

Since then, Carter has been vilified and the vilification of Carter continues. Carter's biggest problem is that he continues to associate with the loser leaders and activists in the Palestinian community, especially in the United States, who could argue their way out of a paperbag they are so incompetent.

The fact is Israel is spending hundreds of millions of dollars in public relations and communications dollars to spin the truth into acceptable lies that favor them. But they really don't need to because the Arab response has been pathetic, filled with emotion rather than facts and logic and actually play in to the Israeli defense strategy.

It is a tragic day in this world when the victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity can't even get a chance to defend themselves and face their accusers in an open court. Palestinian victims are much like the women assaulted by male rapists. The rapists main defense is that the women victims "caused" their own rape by inviting it. They use fear and further shame to force the victims of rape to remain silent.

Goldstone's report was meticulous and fair. It not only cites instances of war crimes in the murder of Palestinian civilians by the Israeli Defense Forces, it also condemns Hamas with also committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

But it's the fact that the report is balanced and holds not only Hamas but Israel's government to account that most offends Israel's supporters who would rather lie to defend Israel than to acknowledge the truth in order to achieve a lasting peace.

END

Muslim scholar and journalist Anisa Mehdi discuss Ramadan, Islam and Muslims in America

Anisa Mehdi, a journalist and PBS documentarian, talks about her latest production on Islam in the World and the menaing of Ramadan as it comes to a close this week on Radio Chicagoland's "Mornings with Ray Hanania" On WJJG AM 1520 Radio, Tuesday Sept. 15, 2009, www.RadioChicagoland.com with radio host and America's only Arab American morning radio talk show host Ray Hanania. Mehdi has a new 5-part series online (on YouTube) called American Ramadan.

Click to listen to the podcast?

Americans turning from hatred to education 8 years since Sept. 11 terrorism

Americans turn from hatred to education 8 years since Sept. 11
We are finally seeing some real light through the black fog of American anger and hatred that erupted following the terrorist attacks eight years ago this week on Sept. 11.

American anger against Arabs and Muslims is fast turning into education and enlightenment, in part because of a president who is resetting the nation’s moral character by washing away the demagoguery that symbolized the response of his predecessor.

American Arabs can see the changes take place at almost every level.

Minutes after President Obama finished his speech on health-care reform to a joint session of the Congress, his opposition in the Republican Party selected an American Arab to present their response, Republican Congressman Charles Boustany of Louisiana.

The Obama speech was historic in many ways. It was only the 15th time since 1952 that an American president has brought together both the House and the Senate in one room to address a major problem, usually addressing wartime concerns. But it was the first time that the two speakers at a joint session had Arab names: Boustany and Hussein.

Yet beyond that subtle event below the American radar screen are many more substantive changes taking place in America.

After Sept. 11, 2001, when 19 hijackers, all Arabs, crashed their planes destroying the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, damaging the Pentagon and crashing into a field in Pennsylvania during a battle with heroic passengers, Arabs and Muslims in America found themselves under violent physical and emotional siege.

Nearly 14 people who “looked” Middle Eastern were murdered by suspects who, either directly or indirectly cited the 9/11 as a cause for their actions. The victims included not only Arabs but non-Arab Muslims, Sikhs, Pakistanis, Indians and other people with dark hair and skin.

The number of American Arab newspapers and magazines dramatically dropped from 135 to 75 as a result of anti-Arab backlash. Today, there are 103 American Arab newspapers and publications, according to a recent study by the National Arab American Journalists Association.

More and more American Arabs are returning to high-profile public positions in society, including in the news media. Among them is journalist Hoda Kotb, the Oklahoma journalism student whose first name means “guidance” in Arabic. An Egyptian-American who speaks fluent Arabic and can recite the Qur’an, Kotb is a high-profile anchor and reporter at NBC.

Anthony Shadid, once an intern from a prominent American Arab activism organization, won the Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Iraq War and has published several books. He’s a correspondent for the Washington Post. The nation’s first full-time morning radio show hosted by an American Arab has been launched in Chicago. It addresses mainstream and Middle East-focused topics.

That’s not to say that acts of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim discrimination have stopped. They haven’t. In communities across the country, Arabs and Muslims continue to face harassment and are the victims of racism. Part of the reason for the turnaround is the increasing American pressure against the demagogues who have led the outcries of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hysteria in America. Media hosts like Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Michelle Malkin, Anne Coulter and others are now being confronted more and more by mainstream Americans for their outlandish claims and racist views which have broadened from anti-Arab and anti-Muslim tirade to include the popular President Obama.

It doesn’t mean the battle is over, but it is easier eight years later for American Arabs to raise such sensitive topics, challenging the stereotypes about Arabs and Muslims, silencing the extremists in American society who blame all Arabs and Muslims for terrorism, and questioning in a serious way the failures of the war in Iraq, once touted by President George W. Bush as the frontline against terrorism.

Many Americans today recognize that the Bush war in Iraq was misguided, based on lies and instead of stopping terrorism opened the door in Iraq to increased terrorist activities and violence. American public concern is steadily shifting and rightly with increasing calls for an end to the Iraq War and stepped up focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan, non-Arab countries where Al-Qaeda is based.

And American Arabs can openly and publicly explore the important question regarding the relationship between misguided American foreign policies such as in Israel and the West Bank, and angry responses from the Arab and Muslim world. Are Americans also partly responsible for the terrorism this nation faces today?

With attitudes changing and the American public replacing animosity with education and common sense, eight years after the Al-Qaeda terrorist attacks, the United States may be starting to win the war on terrorism. Finally.


(Ray Hanania is an award winning columnist, author and Chicago radio talk show host. This column first appeared in the Arab News Newspaper in Saudi Arabia.) 

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

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

Why don't we (Palestinians and Israelis) have more colorful leaders?

Published in the Wednesday Sept. 7, 2009 edition of the Jerusalem Post Newspaper

Why don't we (Israelis and Palestinians) have more colorful leaders?

By Ray Hanania

In spite of all the news Palestinians and Israelis produce each day, we really are pretty boring people. I mean, we have nothing on the Japanese.

The big news in Japan last week is that Miyuki Hatoyama, wife of incoming Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, says she traveled to Venus in the 1970s in a UFO. She's talking about the planet, not a 'happy place' or the local beauty spa.

Mrs. Hatoyama detailed the unusual trip in her book called Most Bizarre Things I've Encountered.

I have racked my brain to think of anything that even comes close to that in the many stories about Palestinians and Israelis.

There was a rumor once that during the peace process (remember that?), Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin wagered at the roulette table at the Jericho casino. Arafat offered Rabin double or nothing on "returning" the West Bank.

IN TRUTH, most of the stories about Palestinians and Israelis are about tragedies, missed opportunities, name-calling, the blame game and, sadly, continued violence.

I did read an Israeli press release reporting that a Palestinian prisoner in one of the country's many prisons had been killed by a "nonlethal weapon." I could only imagine what might have happened had the weapon been lethal.

On another occasion, Hamas leaders tried to explain that Martyr Mouse was merely an orphaned cartoon character whose family had been blown up by Israeli cartoon characters during a siege at a cartoon checkpoint near a cartoon settlement. And the mouse suffered from a slight lisp that distorted everything it said.I did read an Israeli press release reporting that a Palestinian prisoner in one of the country's many prisons had been killed by a "nonlethal weapon." I could only imagine what might have happened had the weapon been lethal.

When Martyr Mouse urged kiddies to "do their best to kill the Jews," all it was trying to tell young Palestinians who watch Hamas television was to "do their best to fill the news." It must work, because Hamas does "fill the news."

Still, it would be kind of cool if we could get Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to set aside all the heavy problems and talk about some of his own unusual experiences.

I can see Netanyahu, cold and calculating as only a prime minister could be, playing a wildly romantic character in a Hollywood movie. For all his hard-lining, some Palestinian women have compared him to the late Paul Newman.

The same Palestinian women have told me they think Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas reminds then of Mahatma Gandhi, the fearless and nonviolent leader of India. Of course, there isn't any salt to fight over in Palestine like there is in India. And while Gandhi used to gum his own leather into soft shirts and wraps, Abbas leaves all the cooking to the women.

Still, neither has ever taken a trip to another planet. Nor have they been kidnapped by aliens.

Although come to think of it, I wonder how Palestinians and Israelis might react if a UFO landed atop the wall (fence, barricade, whatever) and declared that the Holy Land belonged to them and they wanted it back.

DO YOU think that might be enough to push Palestinians and Israelis to join together against someone besides each other? Everyone says that if Palestinians and Israelis could just resolve their conflict, they could become the most powerful combined force in the Middle East.

Sadly, Palestinians and Israelis are not as lucky. All we have is run-of-the-mill conflict. Anger. Hatred. Violence.

Nothing unusual, strange or hard to believe, like visiting Venus in a spaceship.

We can only hope, though.

The writer is a columnist, stand-up comedian and Chicago radio talk show host. You can hear his program every afternoon at 16:00pm Israel time on-line at www.RadioChicagoland.com.

end

Understanding Israeli public opinion and President Barack Obama

A recent poll in Israel reports that only 4 percent of Israelis there believe President Barack Obama is "pro-Israel" and that more than 51 percent believe he is "pro-Palestinian." Although the question is a little misleading. It is do you believe Obama is "more" pro-Palestinian or "more" pro-Israeli.

When you ask it like that, the question numbers go in the direction the pollsters want. But then, what does "more" really mean?

In this case, it could mean we finally have a president who looks at the issues rather than the campaign war chest and fundraising and the votes. Maybe Obama really is interested in pushing both the Palestinians and Israelis to reach an agreement.

Why would Israelis think Obama is "more" pro-Palestinian than pro-Israeli?

Well, maybe some thought that he was Israeli since he shares his first name with Israel's foreign minister and former prime minister Ehud Barak. They just assume anyone with that name is going to be "more" pro-Israel.

On the other hand, if you look at the issues, Obama has asked Israel to abide by international law and stop the expansion of the illegal settlements, which is not something that is "too much" to ask, although his insistence on asking Israel to abide by Israeli law is "more" substantive than his weak-minded predecessor George W. Bush who went along with whatever the Israeli lobby put on his tiny plate.

Asking Israel to "compromise" in exchange for peace with the Palestinians does put President Obama in a special place.

Putting the interests of the United States above the interests of Israel or any other foreign country, does make President Obama different from any of his predecessors.

Making fairness a criteria in the Palestine-Israeli peace process does make President Obama "more" special than any of his predecessors, including President Bill Clinton who during negotiations in 2000 between Ehud Barak and the late President Yasir Arafat pretended to be Israeli and pushed his own agenda.

President Obama is not pushing his own agenda. He's not in anyone's back pocket. The Israeli lobby in the United States must be besides itself wondering what the heck is going on.

But if being fair, just and dedicated to genuine peace means that "more" people might think you are not on their side, then maybe that's the price someone in this country should finally pay if the United States is going to continue to insist on being the sole arbiter of the so-far elusive Middle East Peace.

-- Ray Hanania

www.RadioChicagoland.com

Battle between Bikini and Berqa in Arab World is about absence of freedom

Choice between bikini and berqa is about absence of freedom in Arab World

By Ray Hanania

As I always do around this time of year, I pushed aside the Arab-Israeli conflict for a moment to contemplate the more serious conflict between secular Muslims and Christian Arabs and the growing religious extremism in the Middle East.

There are 22 Arab countries, yet only two had the courage (or pride in their women) to field entrants in this year’s Miss Universe Pageant, which was held in the Bahamas, where string bikinis replace car bombs and women are truly free.The only two Arab countries that entered contestants, again, were Egypt and Lebanon.

Now I know Egypt and its president, Hosni Mubarak, get a lot of flack for the alleged oppression of its citizens: The Coptic Christians are screaming; the Muslim Brotherhood is screaming; the religious fanatics are screaming; and Egyptian ex-patriots are screaming.

I wonder if Egyptians are protesting, or they just like to scream? Anyway, this was the 58th Miss Universe Contest and Miss Venezuela Stefanía Fernández was declared the most beautiful woman in the universe.

I have issues with that. The universe is a big place and who are we to define beauty based on our human criteria? What about creatures from other planets? Well, we can deal with that when they come here, occupy our lands and try to kick us off the planet.

I HAPPEN to think Arab women are the most beautiful in the world. And I think that beauty is something we should brag about, not suppress, hide or run from in fear and shame.

I mean, as an Arab, I have to ask this question: Why is it okay to threaten women who make the choice to showcase their bodies in the Arab world and not okay to challenge the oppressed women who wrap themselves in a burka and niqab like sacks of potatoes while their husbands and male family members run around unshaven in dirty Nikes and other “Western” T-shirts?

Why is it that an Arab woman has the “right” to make the “choice” to wear a burka and face veil and erase her physical identity in public, but that same Arab woman does not have the right to wear a bikini? I think the bikini is the symbol of true freedom and the burka is the sign of modern-day oppression of Arab women.

It’s one of the hypocrisies that plagues the Arab world, brought on by the religious fanatics – the lowest common denominator in the Middle East. And instead of standing up to it, secular Muslims and Christian Arabs – let’s just call them “Arabs” – are doing nothing to stop this growing oppression.

ON APRIL 9, 2006, Tamar Goregian, 23, a Christian woman from Iraq, which remains occupied by American forces, withdrew from the Miss Universe Pageant after Islamic extremists called her “the queen of infidels” and threatened to kill her if she participated. The 2006 pageant was held at the Shrine Temple in Los Angeles.

The two runners-up in the Miss Iraq Beauty Pageant, who were Muslim, declined to take Miss Goregian’s place in light of the death threats. The fourth place runner-up, Silva Shahakian, 23, also a Christian, was left to take the title, but apparently she, too, declined as she was not among the 86 pageant beauties who were introduced during the 2006 show’s broadcast.

The religious thought police in the Arab world argue that a woman showing off her body is disgraceful. Blowing yourself up at a crowded bus stop is not disgraceful, though.

They also assert that the “rights of women” are guaranteed in writing in some Arab countries.

When you have to put something in writing, it usually means it is a problem; otherwise why have it written in a constitution? You have to ask yourself, when a religious fanatic says his wife must wear a burka to protect her “purity,” who is he protecting her from? Strangers? Or his own selfish ego, pride and arrogance.

The truth is that in human beings, the fear that sin will be committed usually comes from the person’s own heart. Humans fear what they know they would do. Are we forcing women to wear the veil to protect them from others? Or are we protecting them from ourselves? That’s why many men in the Arab world would kill their daughters based not on the fact but on the rumor of sexual indiscretion, because the Arab men fear the damage to their own pride, not the “damage” to “their” women. Honor killings remain a serious problem in the Arab world and it’s only getting worse.

THE ISSUE of the Miss Universe Pageant may sound trivial to some, but in truth, it is the cornerstone of the problem that plagues the Arab world and continues to threaten its freedom.

With the exception of violence, a society achieves true freedom when it tolerates the intolerable, mainly in speech.

When you cannot tolerate an individual’s right to live his/her life as s/he wishes, that is called tyranny. Tyranny is the cancer that destroys all societies, and will destroy the Arab world.

(Ray Hanania is an award winning columnist, author and Chicago morning radio talk show host. He can be reached at www.RadioChicagoland.com. This column was originally published in the Jerusalem Post August 26, 2009. Permission granted to republish.)

Anger of Lockerbie bomber release driven by revenge not justice

Release of Libyan in Lockerbie bombing puts past behind us
By Ray Hanania

The release this week of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the convicted mastermind of the 1988 bombing of PAN AM Flight 103 over Lockerbie, opens old wounds by also a debate that should have taken place years ago.

It’s understandable that Americans are angry with the decision. Many Americans were on board the flight and lost their lives in the bombing. What has never been understandable is the American indifference to the killing of innocent civilians who are Arab, Muslim or of other races by American terrorists.

The condemnation of al-Megrahi’s release is misguided and driven by selfish-emotion, understandably, but more so by longstanding hypocritical and one-sided American foreign policies that put no value on any lives except their own.

The release of al-Megrahi on humanitarian grounds – he is suffering from cancer -- should put the past in true perspective; Americans must recognize that Lockerbie was not one incident in a vacuum but one of a chain of events that saw injustice, death and destruction on all sides.

On April 15, 1986, then President Ronald Reagan ordered the bombing of the home of Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, killing his young daughter and 36 other Libyan and Arab civilians.

Reagan justified the personal attack using American soldiers and bombs claiming that Libyan was behind an earlier bombing of a disco in Berlin that killed two American soldiers and a Turkish woman and injured 229 others.

The disco bombing was in retaliation for American military attacks against Arab targets in the Middle East and also for the American financing of Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians which one year later exploded in the first Intifada in the occupied West bank and Gaza Strip.

On Dec. 21, 1988, PAN AM Flight 103 exploded in a terrorist bombing while flying over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 passengers and crew including several American passengers. Debris from the plane bombing caused the death of 11 Scottish citizens on the ground.

The 1970s and 1980s represented a dark time for civilians victimized by the political battles between the United States, Israel, the Arab World and even Iran.

Battle lines that we see today were not so clear then. Iran was run by pro-American funded dictator, the Shah Reza Pahlavi, until he was forced to step down by protesters. Iraq was ruled by Saddam Hussein, who was backed and funded by the United States in a war against the Shah’s successor. Osama Bin Laden was a member of the Mujahideen fighting and defeating the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, and backed by the United States.

But the most damning indictment of American hypocrisy when it comes to the double standard of denouncing Arab suspects while remaining silent when the killers are in fact American soldiers is the massacre committed in 1968 by American Lt. William Calley at Mai Lai in Vietnam.

Calley and his unit gunned down more than 500 old men, women and children in cold blood. Three years later, Calley was charged with directly killing 22 women and children. He was sentenced to life in prison, much like al-Megrahi. But he was pardoned after having served only three years under house arrest by then President Richard Nixon.

Calley’s action was unique in that most massacres of civilians by American soldiers go unpunished and those few prosecuted usually end up with the murderers getting released for compassionate reasons.

The world has turned upside down in the past 30 to 40 years but the truth is that no one side has suffered more or less than the other.

In 2001, a Scottish Court, under pressure from the United States, Israel and Britain, forced the arrest and conviction of al-Megrahi, who was accused of the Lockerbie bombing.

No charges were ever brought against Reagan or any American officials or “soldiers” and “pilots” for murdering Gaddafi’s little girl or the many Arab civilians who were killed as a result of American foreign policies.

It was taboo to even discuss the American role in the murders of thousands of Arab civilians and the thought of bringing an American president to justice was ridiculed. But Americans cheered like an angry mob for justice in the death’s of their victims.

Relatives of the Americans killed on the PAN AM Flight over Lockerbie are understandably angry.

But what about the outrage for the innocent lives lost in the Middle East that were a part and parcel of the Lockerbie bombing and a period of American military brutality in the Middle East?

Although the relatives of the victims deserve to grieve and feel anger over the decision, their anger should not be limited to the Scottish decision to release al-Megrahi. It should also be directed at the hypocrisy of American government foreign policy that has placed a value on the life of Americans and no value on the lives of anyone else.

Hopefully, the al-Megrahi release will begin a process of healing and, more importantly, American and Western recognition of the tragedies that people in the Middle East have been forced to accept without any form of justice at all.

Yet maybe those demanding justice in the Lockerbie bombing are not seeking justice at all. After all, justice has apparently never been the real motive behind any of American foreign policies towards the Middle East.

Maybe Lockerbie is just about revenge.

(Ray Hanania is an award winning columnist, author and morning radio show host in Chicago. He can be reached at www.RadioChicagoland.com.)

Release of Libyan in Lockerbie bombing is opportunity to put injustices of the past behind us

It is understandable that many Americans are upset about the decision by the Scottish court to release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi from his 27 year prison sentence after only a few years served.

The accused, al-Megrahi, was convicted in the bombing of PAN AM Flight 103 in 1988. The plane was flying over Lockerbie when it exploded, killing all 259 passengers and crew and 11 civilians on the ground.

But not understandable is the narrow-vision of Americans who always see terrorism as an act of violence by someone else, but never an act of violence that has resulted from terrorism committed by the United States and the West against civilians in the Arab World.

Libyan President Moammar Gaddafi's infant daughter was among the 36 civilians murdered in 1986 when US President Ronald Reagan ordered the bombing of one of Gaddafi's homes.

The attack was not against a Libyan military target but rather against innocent civilians. Reagan alleged that Libya was behind the bombing of a disco many weeks earlier that took the lives of two American soldiers and one Turkish woman, and injuring dozens of others in Berlin.

But Americans screaming about al-Megrahi's release, seem blind and unconcerned when justice is lost involving non-American murdered by American foreign policies.

Thousands of Arabs in the Middle East were killed because of American policies, and those murders often were the motivation between retaliatory violence against Western targets, including the PAN AM Flight and other airline targets.

Terrorism is terrorism, but justice is also justice. The fact is that no one has complained when Reagan was never brought to justice for ordering the killing of Libyan civilians. Or, for that matter, no one in America was ever charged with funding and orchestrating and "masterminding" the murder of civilians in Iran during the pro-American and funded terrorist regime of The Shah of Iran Moahmmed Reza Pahlavi. Pahlavi was one of the worst mass murderers in Middle east history and he was protected by Americans.

Osama Bin laden is well known today as the terrorst mastermind behind the Sept. 11, 2001 attack on the United States, taking some 3,000 lives. But Americans conveniently forget that Bin laden was a member of the Mujahideen trained and funded by the United States in the war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union.

And, we conveniently forget that Iraq's murdered dictator Saddam Hussein was in fact our ally int he war against the Iranian religious Muslim successors to the terrorist Shah of Iran, the Ayatollahs who held so many Americans hostage during the administration of former President Jimmy Carter.

Rather than lament the release of al-Megrahi, Americans should look towards it as an opportunity to close a dark period in our history fromt he 1970s and 1980s when American terrorism was answered with Middle East terrorism.

-- 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

New Book details secrets of overcoming mainstream news media bias

Secrets of New Media Networking; New book released by award winning journalist and author

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Ray Hanania
July 26, 2009 rayhanania@comcast.net

Book details insider tips on using the Internet to
side step the biased Mainstream American News Media

(Chicago) Veteran Journalist and award winning columnist Ray Hanania has been battling bias in the mainstream news media since the day he picked up his first newspaper in the suburbs of Chicago.

An American Arab, Hanania believed that the media was unfairly covering the Middle east conflict and was intentionally portraying American Arabs as terrorists, always ignoring their positive contributions to American society.

That battle has become his lifelong avocation and this week he announced the release of his latest book, a battlefield manual to fight against the inherent bias in the mainstream American news media using Internet networking strategies.

“Too often people in my community blame media bias on another race or religion but this is mistaken stereotyping to excuse away their lack of understanding of how the mainstream news media really works,” says Hanania who entered professional journalism in the early 1970s.

“In the past, the only way to battle mainstream media bias was to enter journalism as a profession and balance the two goals of journalism professionalism against activism. But with the rise of the Internet and the collapsing mainstream news media, you do not need to go to the mainstream news media to reach the public.

“You can do it on your own. ‘Secrets of New Media Networking’ helps you understand not only how to set up an effective Internet Media Network to promote your community, views, activities, opinions and more. But it also walks you through a real understanding of communications in America and the principles that make message compelling.”

Hanania manages a network of four major web sites, 11 blogs, writes for more than two dozen newspapers in print and online, manages several online news organizations, hosts his own morning radio show and weekly cable TV show, and uploads his radio and video broadcasts to the Internet. Merging in social networking strategies and other online assets, his network reaches millions of people every year.

“The mainstream news media is biased and they won’t change. That bias more than any other factor is what is helping to undermine the media and force many mainstream newspapers to close,” Hanania says.

“You can still use the mainstream news media, but you do not need them to get your message out. You can create your own media and my book helps you do it in a professional and effective manner.”

For more information on Secrets of New Media Networking, visit www.TheMediaOasis.com.

Contact Ray Hanania at rayhanania@comcast.net

236 Pages, $34.95. Published by Hanania Enterprises Ltd., and CafePress.com

# # #

Chicago 2016 Olympic bid jeopardized by Mayor Daley's failure to seriously address needs of American Arabs

Commentary on Mayor Daley and the 2016 Olympic Bid

Discrimination against Arabs in Chicago could jeopardize the Chicago bid and Mayor Daley has the ability to change it. But will he?



-- Ray Hanania

www.RadioChicagoland.com

humor column (Jerusalem post) Is Facebook and Israeli plot to take over the world?

Humor: Is Facebook an Israeli Plot to take over the world?
By Ray Hanania

Why would the Israelis want to control the world when they are having a hard enough time trying to control themselves? Still, it's a question worth pondering especially in the age of the Internet and the rise of the Zionist conspiracy called "Facebook." Let's "faceit," Facebook has a very strong Israeli face. Well, that's if you assume all Jews are Israelis and all Israelis are Jews. The evidence suggests a link.

The founder, Mark Zuckerberg, was born on May 14, 1984. Coincidence? (Hint, Israel's birthday!) And 1984 - the subject of George Orwell's book about the battle to control the world! Zuckerberg is from New York, or, little Israel as Osama bin Laden refers to it. He launched Facebook from his dorm room at Harvard, a scholarly institution controlled by, you know who. No! Not Jews. Presbyterians. (Jews think they control the media, the Arabs believe the Jews control the media and the Presbyterians do control the media. And Presbyterians are not sure who they dislike more, Jews or Arabs.)

Palestinians complain they have an extremely difficult time on Facebook. Do they join the Zionist entity and engage in "normalization" or do they go to the Arab alternative, Berqabook?

I HAVE my own tribulations with Facebook. I have been booted from the worldwide entity twice! Coincidence? The first time, I was writing criticism of the Israeli government. The second time, just this past week, I was writing criticism of the Israeli government. (Actually, I always write criticism of the Israeli government, but so what?) Immediately after and without notice, Facebook shut my account and my 1,363 "friends" vanished off my computer "facescreen" like "born again Christians" scooped up in the rapture. (That's where Evangelical Christian supporters of Israel turn on the Jewish state and read the fine print that if Jews don't convert to Christianity, they get punished like the Muslims.)

I am slowly working my way back from "Ground Zero" and no friends to recovery. I now have 124 "friends as of this writing." What I am learning is that I now have 1,363 people who were once "friends" and who are now angry at me, thinking that I "de-friended" them. Oops! (De-friending someone to a Facebook-nick is like anti-Semitism to a Jew.) About 911 of those former "friends" are Arabs, mostly relatives. (Yes, "Hanania is my last name" has a group on Facebook.) It includes the 15 Saudis whom I don't know but who asked to be my "friend" using a library computer at Guantanamo.

But de-friending 896 relatives and Arabs is the quintessential definition of Jeeeehad! I'll never make my "fourth wife" goal at this rate.

SO I HAVE to slowly re-friend people, one-by-one, cursing my Zionist entity nemesis, "Maaaark Zuuckerberg!" Worse in all this is the jolt to my ego. I went from 1,363 "friends" to zero friends, reminding me that no matter where I live, I am little more than a Palestinian refugee in a harsh and insensitive world of YouTube videos, Twitter and podcasting.

There is something nice about not having people to argue with, though. Yes. In making "friends" on Facebook, you are actually setting yourself up for conflict, which is the dark side of the Facebook experience. The worst thing to do on Facebook is to let your heart do the talking. I've gotten into so many mini-Suez Canal wars with Israelis, but into even more "Black September" battles with Arabs.

The Americans are like "duh!" They friend me, read that I am "Arab" and then say good-bye, explaining they thought I was Puerto Rican. Americans are the most educated people in the world but the least educated about the world. They can't tell the difference between a Palestinian and a Pakistani, an Indian and an Iranian. And a good president and a moron. Well, that was before President Obama, who I love! "Yalla habeeby Barack Hussein! Luuu luuuu luuuu luuuu luuuu!" Give me a gun and I can do that celebratory dance Vanessa Redgrave did so salaciously years ago.

Maybe, though, we should use Facebook as a new forum for negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis. And make them post their views using Twitter, which forces each side to limit their disparaging comments about each side to only 140 characters, including spaces, which comes to about 35 words.

Do you know how hard it is for Arabs and Jews to insult each other in only 35 words? We can only hope. Hey Bibi. Do you want to be my friend?

(The writer is a Palestinian American comedian, columnist and Chicago radio talk show host. www.RadioChicagoland.com)

Aljazeera expelled from West Bank exposes issues

Aljazeera Arabic under siege in West Bank
By Ray Hanania

Aljazeera Arabic became the first television station to broadcast balanced news about the Middle East, but over the years its editorial staff has expanded to include several people who are less about journalism and more about partisan political activism, mainly supporting Hamas and the growing Islamic extremist movement.

The biggest complaint has been about its coverage, which critics have called biased and supporters have said does not advocate pro-Palestinian and Islamic views enough.

The station has exposed corruption and government oppression in almost all of the Arab countries, except in its host country Qatar whose royal family launched the station using its huge oil profits, and the station has paid for that journalism.

It has been banned in several of the Arab World countries for challenging and criticizing the host governments, but it remains banned in the United States where pro-Israeli cable companies have refused to include it in its daily lineup, scheduling, instead, Shalom Israel and other pro-Israeli and rightwing programming.

But this week, the satellite TV station was banned in the one country where it has done the most good to expose government injustice, Palestine. For years, Aljazeera has lead the charge in breaking major news stories in Palestine that the biased mainstream American news media has refused to report because of pro-Israel partisanships.

It’s biggest critic has been Israel, which regularly censors the media and imposes bans against media who too harshly criticize the Israeli government. But the ban did not come from Israel, which can afford to tolerate Aljazeera’s tough news reporting. It came from the Palestine National Authority and the besieged and beleaguered government of President Mahmoud Abbas.

Abbas acted to ban Aljazeera after a longtime critic and extremist member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Faruk Kaddoumi, accused Abbas of involvement in the “murder” of a sacred Palestinian icon and national hero, Yasir Arafat. Kaddoumi’s extremist views and his rejection of all compromise with Israel are notorious and are in part responsible for the failure of the Palestinians to have established a country after the 1948 Nakba or “Palestinian catastrophe.”

But instead of ignoring the irrelevant Kaddoumi, Abbas responded by shutting down all of Aljazeera’s West bank operations. It’s a stupid move but typical of the stupid moves the Palestinian leadership has made over the past 62 years since Israel was established.

The truth is Aljazeera does have some elements of bias and activism, editors recruited from pro-Hamas bastions like Chicago who openly use their journalism skills to skewer the truth and promote Hamas, the terrorist organization which has used violence and suicide bombings to undermine the peace process and the achievement of the “two-state solution” between Israel and Palestine.

There is little at Aljazeera Arabic can do to change things. The practice of cutting ones nose off to spite their face is a cornerstone of Arab and Islamic culture. The rejection of solutions has always been the Arab and Islamic response to conflict. The extremists who hold the Arab and Islamic World’s hostage have helped bring Palestine to its knees, giving Israel every benefit to expand their occupation and annexation of civilian lands over the years.

Although Palestinians won’t admit it, because sometimes the truth is too painful to accept, it has been Palestinian extremist practices that have helped to reinforce the Israeli occupation and to enslave refugees in lifetimes of poverty, hopelessness and limbo.

The failure of Palestinians to use reason not emotion to develop strategies to confront the threats of destruction from Israel’s own extremists have undermined Palestinian national aspirations and have emboldened the destructive fanatics whose extremist policies are designed to benefit themselves personally.

Israel was quick to jump on the news of the PNA ban on Aljazeera issuing a statement calling the first Arab TV satellite station to break the barriers of Arab World oppression. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said, "What Al-Jazeera does is not journalism. It is political militancy.”

He’s not far off. But what Aljazeera does is far more professional in terms of true journalism than most Israeli or mainstream American news media who base their coverage of the Arab World on a savage and sometimes hateful anti-Arab, anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim spirit.

Without Aljazeera, and a few other independently professional Arab TV satellite stations like Alarabiya, truth will continue to be the primary victim in the journalism coverage of the Palestinians and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Clearly, both Israel and the Arab governments, including the ineffective Abbas regime, share that same goal.

But while that may be true, Hamas is issuing phony proclamations about how the action has suspended freedom of speech and civil rights. Are you kidding me? Over the past decade, Hamas has been the leader in forcing women to veil, closing down dance and music stores, threatening and beating individuals selling alcohol and engaging in practices teaching children that violence, not reason, is the answer to suffering.

Aljazeera needs to clean its house of the handful of pro-Hamas activists who veil themselves in the phony cloth of journalism to promote their pro-Hamas and pro-Islamicist agendas.

(Ray Hanania is an award winning Palestinian American columnist, author and Chicago radio talk show host. He can be reached at www.RadioChicagoland.com.)

Take your 2010 U.S. Census form and shove it!

Take your 2010 Census Form and Shove it!
By Ray Hanania
The first question I always get from “Americans” is, “Why do you keep calling yourself ‘Arab-American?’ You are American!”

It represents the rock and the hard place where American Arabs have been pushed by the lack of education among most Americans.

It’s aggravated by what I also call the U.S. Government’s split personality when it comes to Americans Arabs. On one hand, they want to know us. On the other, they don’t. Here’s what I mean.

The only time the United States Government wants to know about Americans Arabs is when they are “profiling” us at airport and border security to “protect” the country from “the terrorist threat.”

But when it comes to counting people in the U.S. Census (so they can participate and share in government programs like grant funding awards, defining the borders of election districts like for congress, state legislatures or municipal councils) the U.S. Government pretends American Arabs don’t exist.

That is exactly what’s happening now in the massive 2010 U.S. Census drive.

The Government isn’t completely stupid, nor are they naïve. They are dishing out just enough money to American Arab organizations and PR agencies to do the outreach to the American Arab community.

The Government could do it but they don’t have a positive file on who we are. The Government only has “the negative file,” the one were American Arabs have been historically followed, investigated and probed by FBI agents repeatedly over the past 75 years.

The FBI investigated me over a two year period beginning in August 1975, right after I completed my active duty military service for this country during the Vietnam War. They said I must be a terrorist, because I was Arab; but they concluded the 45 page report by saying in small type, I’m just an American who is concerned about advancing his ethnic community.

During the two years, they talked to banks, employers, neighbors friends and anyone who had anything to do with me. It was all in the report, most of it blacked out with marker. When I finally received a copy in 1979, it pretty much explained the dismissal from jobs, why some neighbors and some friends had stopped talking with me or associating with me, and why several prospective employers had refused to hire me.

Hey, when the U.S. Government puts its attention on American Arabs, it’s usually not for a good reason.

That’s why I am upset -- no angry -- that the Government is pretending that they care for us American Arabs by reaching out and asking us to complete our Federal Census form for 2010.

There are these benefits that we will get from participating. Yea? Like what? What benefits do we as American Arabs actually get from supporting anything this government does?

For example, when I go through an airport, I am immediately identified as an “Arab.” I’m pulled aside and my bags and possessions are thoroughly searched. The friends I am with who are not Arab are made to feel like they are traveling with Osama Bin Laden. And strangers who pass through normal levels of security look at me like I’m going to cut their throats or blow myself up when I get on the plane.

It’s humiliating. But no one really cares. Better to be safe than sorry. If we have to make Arabs go through embarrassing and humiliating procedures that single them out solely because of their “look” or their “profile,” so be it.

Meanwhile, Caucasian murderers and killers walk through security thankful that the government is doing at least part of their job to remove the Arab scourge. More than 95 percent of serial killers are Caucasian. Some of the biggest terrorists in the United States historically have been White supremicists and members of hillbilly militias and Neo-Nazi organizations based in the so-called “American Heartland.”

But if you have Olive skin and look Middle Eastern – a profile that fits more than 200 nationalities and ethnicities mainly from Middle East and Asian countries -- you are the person they have to stop.

This is the “Negative Attention” we get from our government.

Then, this same government that spends a fortune screwing us as American Arabs, spends a fortune trying to convince us that if we participate in the 2010 Census this year, we’re going to benefit?

I ask again, what benefit? There is no benefit. And there is no benefit for a reason. Arabs are NOT included on the Census forms anyway.

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.

Now, the U.S. Government argues “Arabs” are not a race. So they can’t be counted. They consider us “Caucasian,” although the last time I looked it was the Caucasian hate groups in this country like the former Bush Administration that singled out Arabs for special mistreatment, harassment and discrimination.

Arabs are “not” a race, but we are a “people” that must be profiled at airports, security centers, thrown out of buildings in New York City, expelled from seats on Airplanes, and denied jobs and government grants and rejected by voters on election day.

“Not” a race, the Government insists? Really? Wow. Is that why they have taken the other “races” and broken them down into so many miscellaneous categories? It is not enough to know that someone is Asian. They want to know what kind of Asian? What kind of Native American? What kind of Mexican. Is “Chicano” a race? Are “Latino” or “Hispanic” races?

But not “Arabs.”

We’re not a race.

We’re just a bunch of people that ignorant Americans can step all over and use us as punching bags when the times get rough or some nut job we’ve never heard of before decides to declare himself the spokesman for all Arabs and Muslims.

So here’s the bottom line, U.S. Government. You don’t put “Arab” on the form, I don’t fill it out.

Either add the category “Arab” to the form or throw out all of the categories and stop lying to us American Arabs about how much you care.

(Ray Hanania is a Palestinian American Arab columnist, author and Chicago Radio Talk Show host. He can be reached at www.RadioChicagoland.com.)

Biased Peoria judge in Jeff Mazon case should resign

Peoria Judge who rejected Mazon plea deal should resign

By Ray Hanania

I covered both trials of Jeff Mazon, the man accused of allegedly taking a “bribe” in exchange for allegedly increasing a contract payment to a Kuwaiti firm that providing material support for our troops in Iraq.

In both trials, the jury deadlocked on the charges against Mazon. After meticulously weighing the evidence in the case during lengthy trials, neither of the two juries could agree to convict Mazon, who lives in the Southwest Suburbs of Chicago.

Part of the problem is that many of the witnesses were not credible, some convicted felons who pled guilty to contract fraud and mismanagement while working for a spin-off of the controversial firm Halliburton called KBR.

The trial took place when the Justice Department was being run under the policies of former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

The alleged bribe involved a contract let by a Halliburton subsidiary, KBR. Cheney was Halliburton’s CEO. Many believe he will profit from the years of contracts – and mismanagement – associated with Halliburton’s work in Iraq and the Middle East. Many people believed the government was using Mazon as a scapegoat to distract world attention from Halliburton’s history of problems and their association with Cheney.

And I believe the judge in the case did everything he could to protect Cheney, Halliburton and prejudice the jury to convict the defendant.

When prosecutors and the defendant finally decided to compromise with Mazon accepting a plea admitting to a misdemeanor last Spring, the judge in the case, Joe Billy McDade, decided to step in once again and put his own personal feelings above the law rejecting the bid this week and forcing everyone to consider another lengthy and expensive federal trial.

The case is very complicated. Yet despite that, juries in both trials saw through the accusations. The first jury in April 2008 split with half believing Mazon was innocent of the charges. Last October, the second jury was much tighter, thanks in a large part to pressure and biased rulings from Judge McDade.

It is an understatement to say that McDade did not play arbiter. He played prosecutor in the case, restricting Mazon’s ability to defend himself and pushing the jury to convict. McDade ran roughshod over the trial. Despite the judge’s bias, one juror in the second trial refused to surrender to McDade’s pressure. She recognized Mazon was not being treated fairly and that he is innocent.

A Texan, McDade was appointed to the federal court by the first President Bush on, of all dates, Sept. 11, 1991 -- 10 years before the terrorist attack that sent many seemingly intelligent Americans down the road of insanity, prejudice and hatred. Most Americans have since recovered but apparently McDade is not one of those Americans who has gotten beyond the anger that drove to the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The prosecution, led by the capable Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Lange, did a good job of laying out their case against Mazon. The media has reported the charges as if they were fact, too, barely even covering the trial and running the Justice Department’s press release almost verbatim. But the facts just wouldn’t fit together neatly enough for the jurors to accept. There was a lot of reasonable doubt in both trials. And it is fair to assume that in a third trial, that McDade may be causing, the jurors will run into the very same challenges and far more than reasonable doubt.

But it is McDade’s conduct that should be noted now. In the last trial when the one juror held out, McDade openly tried to pressure her to change her mind. He singled her out for criticism and even suggested she might have done something wrong. It almost seemed as if McDade was determined to find Mazon guilty, despite the presumption of innocence this country gives under the U.S. Constitution to every American.

During the second trial, McDade’s voice soured with prejudice. He was never a fair judge in the case at all. And this week only proved what I believe may in fact be the truth in this case. Judge McDade is biased and should not be allowed to continue to sit on the bench. He’s prejudiced against Mazon, and maybe even prejudiced against anyone of Arab heritage from me to the people Mazon contracted with many years ago when the circumstances of this twisted story first surfaced.

This past Thursday (July 9), Mazon and his Orland Park attorney, J. Scott Arthur, traveled to Peoria to seal an agreement that they made with Lange, prosecutors and Judge McDade last Spring.

The agreement was this: The Justice Department would drop the Felony Charge of Major Fraud against the government, a conviction would have brought a jail term of between five and 10 years. In exchange, and to avoid going to trial for a third time, Mazon would plead guilty to one misdemeanor charge, which carries a penalty ranging from supervision and home confinement to a maximum jail sentence of one year.

Mazon had already served 22 days in a federal prison when he was arrested. For the past four years, his life has been a wreck. He can’t get a job while waiting for the case to end. He never got the alleged bribe money from the alleged contract swindle. And, he lives with his parents. He said he accepted the plea agreement to avoid going through hell one more time.

Under the agreement with prosecutors, Mazon would plead guilty and accept one year of supervised release including six months of home confinement. The deal was passed by McDade, lawyers said, last Fall.

Nine months passed. Not a word from McDade. During the same time, the real world changed. There is a new era of hope in America. The Bush-Cheney gang are gone from the White House, replaced by a new sanity and a reasoned president, Barack Obama. Even the Justice Department has changed and everyone is trying to focus on real Middle East crimes, not those that had the flavor of politics.

When Mazon, Arthur and Lange appeared before McDade, the mercurial and unpredictable federal judge threw the agreement out declaring, as if he were sitting on a judicial bench in a Texas outlaw town back in the mid-1800’s, that he didn’t like the agreement reached between the prosecutors and the defendant.

Amazing arrogance. Petulance. Unprofessionalism.

Everyone is now back to square one in this sordid, worthless case that continues to challenge reason and threatens to tax the taxpayers even more.

“We were completely surprised by the judge’s action. He gave no one any warning at all,” Arthur said Thursday by telephone.

“We felt the government thought this out carefully about the disposition of this case and we respect their feelings. But now, our client, Mr. Mazon, is back to square one and his life is back in limbo. It just isn’t fair.”

Lange politely responded, “No reaction. As always, we will proceed in accordance with the court’s ruling.”

So Mazon and the taxpayers are left with only a few options, thanks to McDade the Merciless:

1 - The government can re-prosecute the case and spend another fortune in taxpayer dollars to return all the witnesses.

2 - Mazon and prosecutors can come up with a new plea deal that might include some jail time to pander to Judge McDade’s bias.

3 - Mazon can plead guilty and fall on the “mercy” of the merciless McDade, who without a doubt would send Mazon away to jail despite a plea-bargain and misdemeanor to 12 months hard labor.

4 - Prosecutors could drop the case entirely and remove the controversy from “McDade the Merciless,” and spare Mazon more suffering and punishment. They could save the taxpayers from wasting more money.

There is no reason to believe that after two deadlocked juries, a third, costly trial will not come to the same result.

But Judge McDade’s actions raise another option that must be considered. Maybe it’s time the merciless Texan retire to allow justice to finally prevail in his courtroom.

(Ray Hanania is an award winning columnist, author and Chicago radio talk show host. He can be reached at www.RadioChicagoland.com.)

Watching crisis in Honduras covered live not by Western media but by Aljazeera English

Ousted honduran President Manuel Zelaya is on a plane that will soon land in Honduras, where he was thrown out in his pajamas in a military coup. The "interim" government has engaged in the killing of civilians and undermining Democracy. The Interim Government has threatened to block the landing of Zelaya's plane.

It is fascinating that Aljazeera English is broadcasting the best coverage of the confrontation. I subscribe to Aljazeera English (and a dozen more Arab language Satellite channels) through a cable box system that is linked to the Internet through Talfazat.com of Neulion Video. Very inexpensive and affordable and comprehensive.

I used to subscribe online to watch Aljazeera English and other stations off my computer but as much as I love the computer and the Internet, I prefer to watch the news on my 50 inch TV screen in my family room or in the office where I can concentrate on the news as it happens.

Check it out.

-- Ray Hanania

www.RadioChicagoland.com