Israeli sitcom uses humor to shatter stereotypes of Arab citizens

Arab Labor: A humorous sitcom that turns tragedy into understanding

By Ray Hanania

The life of an Arab citizen is anything but funny. Just ask my relatives who live in several Israeli cities. Non-Jews in a Jewish world caught on the edge of the wall that separates Palestinians from Israelis.

Yet, that’s exactly the premise of a sitcom that was a hit last year and is in its second season on Israeli TV called “Arab Labor.”

The sitcom is the brainchild of Palestinian writer Sayed Kashua and produced by Israeli Danny Paran. Even in our everyday language, you might note, Arab citizens of Israeli are still spoken of as if they are not a part of the larger Israeli society.

A sizable 20 percent of Israel’s population, the Christian and Muslim Palestinians rarely get any real or substantive airtime on Israeli television, outside of the news reports which, like most Western media, portray them purely in a negative light.

“Arab Labor” is a mild translation of the sitcom’s Hebrew name, Avoda Aravit, which is slang for “sloppy workmanship,” a derisive stereotype of the Arabs of Israel.

Yet under all this, Kashua may have achieved one of the most brilliant portrayals of the challenging life Arabs in Israel face every day. And using humor, he may have presented it in the only way most Israelis are willing to see it, one filled with racism, suspicion, distrust and stereotypes that must be brought out into the open if they are ever to be one-day healed. Because healing is something Arabs and Israelis need very badly.

Kashua’s remarkably captivating series focuses on the life of one Arab, Amjad Aliyan (Norman Issa), a journalist working for a Hebrew language Israeli magazine. Around him are his wife (Bushra played by Clara Khoury), daughter (Maya, played by Fatma Yihye), his parents, the rascal-like Ismael (Salim Dau) and cautious Umm Amjad (Salwa Nakra). Dau happens to be the head of the Arab Theater in Haifa.

What is really impressive is how the insignificant in life becomes the symbol of the very significance of the relationship between Arabs and Jews, Palestinians and Israelis.

Each episode of the sitcom focuses on one underlying challenge set in the broader theater of life. The first episode cuts right to the chase when Amjad is driving through the checkpoints – remember, he is a “citizen” of Israel – and he wonders how is it that the Israeli soldiers know how to single him out and pull him aside for constant inspection. He asks his daughter to please make sure not to speak Arabic and greet the soldiers in English. And of course, the daughter, in her best formal and religious Arabic, warmly and effusively greets the soldiers, who immediately check all their papers.

But his Israeli friend explains the reason for his daily harassment isn’t the way he looks, dresses or “smells,” but rather the car he drives.

Amjad drives a Subaru, his friends notes. And Subarus are only driven by the most extreme Israeli settlers who wear a yarmulke on their heads, or by Arabs.

So Amjad determines to buy a new car, through his father, who negotiates a purchase price and sale price and his double-sided commissions.

But in the process of lampooning something as subtle as the car you drive, other idiosyncrasies of Arab-Israeli life emerge. If you wear a seat belt in an Israeli licensed plated car through an Arab village in Israel, you must be an Israeli undercover agent with the Shin Bet.

Amjad engages in an argument about another subtle but serious topic. Why are there more accidents in the Arab communities in Israel than in the Jewish communities? Because of Arab culture of the fact that Arab villages and cities get so little funding their roads and infrastructure are dilapidated and eroded, causing more accidents.

Only a person who lives this life can see these details and expertly turn them into a humorous debate about everyday life.

In another episode, Amjad hears from his father about an Arab shepherd who has on goat who, when the Israeli soldiers pull him over for inspection, uses his snout to pull out the shepherd’s ID card from the shepherd’s pocket. When they try to recreate the scene for the magazine story and photograph, the goat is shy. So they stage it, of course. And once everyone is gone, the goat does precisely what he was acclaimed to do.

And in another episode, Amjad and his wife discuss placing their young but clever daughter in kindergarten, rather than leaving them to learn about life from the wily roguish grandfather.

So, they enroll her at an Arab school which happens to be religious. The daughter doesn’t want to go to the school but decides to go to excess in her religious transformation to shock her father into removing her. He then takes her to an Israeli school, called the Peace School.

That sounds innocent enough until they are told they have never had an Arab enroll at the Israeli school. And yes, while the name is “Peace” they never expected it to mean it might attract Arab children to mix with the Jewish children.

Unheard of, and shocking.

Episode after episode draws the viewer through the maze of conflicts that make of the reality of Arab-Jewish life in Israel.

The sitcom is broadcast in Hebrew with English sub-titles that are easy to read and understand. Words are often mistranslated to disguise the more obvious racism that sometimes exists in dialect and speech patterns and habits.

But the biggest tragedy is that most Arabs will not be able to see “Arab Labor,” because there are no cable or TV systems that are of any real reach that can present this sitcom to the public in the United States or the in the Arab World.

The first season features 10 hilarious episodes from start to finish. You can purchase the DVD online at www.AliveMind.net. 300 minutes on 2 disks, the DVD sells for an bargain price of only $34.98. Or, you can purchase it from its American distributor, “Cinema Purgatorio” atwww.CinemaPurgatorio.com.

I urge you to get it. Not to laugh at the foibles of human tragedy, but rather to understand through the only medium that permits understanding in the emotion-charged Arab-Israeli conflict, humor.

(An award winning Palestinian American columnist, standup comedian and Chicago radio talk show host, Ray Hanania is the 2009 Winner of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He can be reached at www.RadioChicagoland.com.)

PROFILE: Ray Hanania, Arab World needs American Arab journalists to help

Palestinian radio talk show host takes on mainstream and Middle East issues

(Arab American Writers Group Syndicate) – Ray Hanania has always been a fighter. He has no choice. He is American Arab, and he refuses to put his ethnicity in the back of the bus where many Americans today demand Middle Eastern people sit.

Hanania, who has written seven books, authors a syndicated column, and hosts both a radio and TV Show in Chicago, Illinois, believes that the answer to the challenges facing the Arab World is to empower American Arab journalists to help change the false stereotypes and perceptions that undermine justice and feed anti-Arab bias in the West.

“The Arab World is making a critical error by believing that they can change the Western mindset by simply writing about world events and doing so mainly in the Arabic language,” argues Hanania, who is managing editor of Arabisto.com and whose columns often appear in the mainstream American and Arab world media.

“They have failed to take advantage of the one single asset that can empower the Arab voice in the West and especially in America, the American Arab professional journalists.”

Hanania, who is a co-founded of the National Arab American Journalists Association, reports that the voice of American Arabs are shifting from partisan activism to professional journalism.

“We have more than 90 independent American Arab ethnic newspapers and magazines, a dozen radio and cable TV programs hosted by American Arabs, and we have more than 250 journalists in this country, half of whom work full or parttime in mainstream American journalism positions,” Hanania says.

“The failure of the Arab World to support that growing movement has handicapped efforts to correct inaccurate stereotypes among Americans of the Arab World, and has undermined efforts to correct injustices often times driven by misguided American foreign policy. With the new sense of justice of the administration of Barack Obama, the Arab World is poised to change all that. But they must empower American Arab journalists to help lead that change in America.”

The American-born Palestinian quickly rose through the ranks of the Palestinian American community in the early 1970s under the guidance of then Northwestern Political Science Professor Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, who helped Hanania become spokesman for the Arab American Congress for Palestine in 1975.

That year, Hanania also launched an English language newspaper that immediately put him in the sights of the Midwest Office of the FBI – resulting in a two-year long investigation and secret FBI report – and a head-to-head debate on national Public TV with Israel’s Foreign Minister, Abba Eban.

Since then, Hanania entered journalism believing that Arab cultural tradition of directing young children into white collar professions like medicine, engineering, law and even corporate and retail business had to be changed. American Arabs had to enter the field of journalism.

“Communications is the most powerful profession in America and in the world,’ says Hanania, who has since won three Society of Professional Journalism awards for his columns and was named Best Ethnic Columnist in America by the New America Media.

“In America, perception is reality. Americans oftentimes do not care about the facts or the truth. They care more about who is saying the facts and the truth. And if you do not look and sound exactly like them, oftentimes justice falters and injustice rises to a national clamor.”

The view has pushed him into frequent clashes with the leadership of the American Arab community, especially with those who have relied on emotion and tragedy to keep the community in line.

Hanania, whose father is from Jerusalem and mother from Bethlehem, also advocates that Palestinians must reject violence and even resistance, and embrace a compromise with Israel arguing that failing to do so has resulted in giving the Israelis carte blanche not only in the PR field but in the reality of everyday life for Palestinians in Palestine.

“Every day, Israel is erasing the rights and existence of the Palestinian people. They have played a cunning, deceptive and clever game of advocating for peace while increasing illegal settlements, stealing Palestinian owned lands, expelling Palestinians from their homes, and engaging in terrorism themselves through the military and through the terrorist settler movement,” Hanania explains.

“What has been our response as Palestinians and Arabs? To help Israel by responding not with our brains but with our emotions. With our anger. Instead of being strategic, as the Israelis have been, we have been reckless in our leadership. When you argue reason, community leaders who have based their leadership not on skills but manipulating and exploiting the tragedy and emotions of our people have responded by calling you a traitor and worse. We have to stop letting our emotions control our destiny because so far it has not worked.”

Hanania believes that the problem is compounded by the absence of American Arabs in Western mainstream journalism.

“It’s not enough to have Arab journalists in the Middle East covering these events because they are writing primarily in Arabic and they are writing under a system of repression that is oftentimes more harsh for them in Arab countries than under Israeli occupation,” Hanania asserts.

“Arab World journalists are faltering by failing to speak to the Western audiences in the English language. And in those few instances where they try to write and broadcast in English, the Western audiences have resisted and rejected those programs. The answer is to build a new Arab Media not in the Middle East but in the heartland of America. Strengthen the voices of professional American Arab journalists and empower them to engage the American and Western publics in a natural form of English and in a professional form of Journalism.”

Hanania was one of the first Palestinians to enter professional journalism full time in 1976, covering Chicago City Hall and politics for 16 years. He currently is the only American Arab to host a weekday Monday through Friday morning radio show in Chicago (WJJG 1530 AM) which speaks to mainstream American issues with an “Arab flare.”

“We are American like anyone else in this country. We served in the military and are often more patriotic than the so-called patriots who disparage and attack and defame the Arab people in this country,” Hanania says.

“No one can more effectively speak for the Arab cause in America and the West than American Arabs who have integrated themselves into American life while still clinging to their Arab heritage with pride.”

Hanania’s morning show, which covers the Chicagoland region with a more than 6 million audience reach, aggressively asserts its Arab heritage in almost every topic discussion.

“Americans need to know that we Arabs are just like them. We are no different. We can do that better than anyone else,’ Hanania argues.

(For more information on Ray Hanania, visit www.TheMediaOasis.com or his radio web site at www.RadioChicagoland.com. He can be reached at rayhanania@comcast.net.)

Not trusting Israel's government

I got an interesting email from a reader in Cleveland who said he is Jewish and wondered if I could answer some questions. It prompted me to write something which I felt I should share publicly as it reflects the current problems in bringing peace to the Middle East:

I don’t have much confidence in peace any more after the recent Israeli elections. I think we're headed for another painful round of violence and death sand conflict ... I used to think that Israel would really return land for peace and dismantle the settlements but now I know that Israel won't ... they gave up the Gaza because they never wanted it, just like the Sinai. But the West Bank is different and they haven't stopped stealing -- a harsh word but a fact -- stealing land that belongs to Christian and Muslims who are Arab ...

All I have seen is the continued expansion of the settlements throughout, even during the peace process. I always believed that despite this land greed, a peace accord or negotiations would stop it. But deep down, I don't think the Jewish people want to stop the land grab ... there are so few voices pressuring Israel to stop grabbing land and expanding the settlements

So, the only choice left is the one the extremists have been arguing with me on my side about for years ... violence and resistance and conflict is the only way to stop Israel from expanding ... and eventually, the Arabs will win but it will be a scorched Earth scenario that will be terrible for both.

Should it be terrible for only one side, the Arabs, who are argued to turn away from "fighting for what is yours" ... or should it be terrible for both?

I was surprised that Israel would attack the Gaza Strip after Hamas implemented the cease-fire. The facts show Hamas stopped firing rockets in June-Nov. 4, election day in the US. The few rockets fired (15? in the three months) were fired by extremists responding to Israel's killing of their members during that same period in the West Bank.

You know, I don't think most Israelis care to look at facts or really care to see what they are doing. I hate the word apartheid, but I think it may in fact apply to the Israeli policies in the West Bank when it comes to land confiscation, the expulsion of Arabs who are Christian and Muslims from around places like East Jerusalem ... I don't know what else to call it.

And, the Wall, which is built NOT on the Green Line, but rather inside Palestinian lands in the West Bank, surrounded every single water well in the West Bank, is also a part of that land grab, not a means of implementing security. Build it on YOUR land in Israel, on the Green Line. Why won't they? Because deep down Israel is not happy with what they have and compromise is not compromise at all but a stalling mechanism so they can continue to keep the region in "controlled pandemonium" and continue to annex Palestinian lands, expel Christian and Muslim Arabs and do what they have always wanted to do.

Sorry that I can't be more encouraging
Ray Hanania
www.TheMediaOasis.com

Obama names new communications team -- no Arabs

President Obama names new communications team – no Arabs included
By Ray Hanania

It's hard to fight anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias in the mainstream news media, let alone in mainstream society, if no one wants to help.

Being Arab is a double-edged scimitar. Everyone knows you are a problem from all the media coverage given to the Middle East, terrorism, narrow and usually racist stereotypes, but few Americans turn to you to ask for help. So the problems never get resolved. They only are exacerbated by the continuing ignorance and lack of education.

President Barack Obama apparently is no different. This week, he announced a slew of communications appointments to strengthen his outreach to the minority and "new media" community. Most of the appointments were rewards for battles fought during the election. None of them are American Arab or Middle Eastern in heritage.

Click here to read the list.

Well. At least they included us in the press release for distribution.

There are African Americans, Hispanics, Asians. All kinds of folks and backgrounds. I couldn't find one American Arab in the list. That's too bad. There are more than 90 American Arab publications in the United States, according to monitoring we do at the National Arab American Journalists Association (www.NAAJA-US.com). It has been growing since many papers shutdown immediately after the racist backlash that began after Sept. 11, 2001 when crime took on a chiseled-in-rock face.

I think it contradicts the President's claimed message that he made when he appeared on al-Arabiyya Satellite television in the Middle East. The station is one of several Arab and English language news broadcasts that reach not only Arabs in the Middle East but Arabs in America. So we saw and heard his effort to "reach out" to the Middle East and tell them how much he cares. Cares, but not enough to give American Arabs appointments or roles in his government yet. not enough to respect veteran American Arab journalist Helen Thomas at a recent news conference when she asked a very pointed question and he dodged it somewhat embarrassingly for Thomas.

Thomas rightly pushed Obama during his first press conference, after he pulled the wool over al-Arabiyya's eyes and the Arab World, was about the hypocrisy regarding nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Everyone, including Obama, denounces countries like Iran that are working towards nuclear weapons, but mumble and avoid discussing the 200-plus nuclear weapons Israel has which are outside of International scrutiny and monitoring.

She asked Obama about the "so-called" terrorists in Pakistan, making the point that the claim of terrorism is often thrown own recklessly for political reasons rather than reality. And he avoided any reference to her question that raised reporter's eyebrows "Do you know of any countries in the region that have nuclear weapons?"

She may be 80 years old but she is not stupid.

Obama responded with a lot of blah, blah, blah that began "With respect to nuclear weapons, I don't want to speculate ... " But he avoided noting that Israel has nuclear bombs. And when she tried to follow up, he just ignored her, looked at his card which listed "approved" journalists to select at the press conference and moved on back to the mainstream fantasy world understanding of the Middle East.

But that's unusual for Thomas. During the Bush regime, Thomas was often snubbed and openly insulted by the late Tony Snow, who many said carried hateful views of American Arabs and Muslims. When Thomas asked about the the Israel-Lebanon ‘Summer War,’ Snow ignored her questions that focused on hypocrisy in the Bush policies, and once thanked her for her “Hezbollah view.” He then accused her of "hectoring," which I think was more of a slam against the mainstream media that sat there and kissed Bush's ass during many press conference involving the important and ignored Middle East issues than it was of Thomas, who is a true journalist in the spirit of the Watergate Era that drove many like myself into this unfulfilling profession that continues to fail to live up to its great promises of fairness, objectivity and "just the news."

Maybe the Arab World will wise up. Or more likely, maybe it won't.

(Ray Hanania is an award winning columnist and Chicago radio talk show host. He can be reached at www.RadioChicagoland.com and by email at rayhanania@comcast.net.)

Noble mission of Bridges Muslim TV collapses in wake of founder's tragic circumstances

When Bridges TV first launched in 2004, there was great hope that it would do two things: First, open the door to Arab and Muslims to portray themselves accurately through engaging and professional journalism. And, more importantly, address the stereotypes that weigh down objective reporting in the mainstream American media which includes not only the news media but the entertainment media of Hollywood and TV and the communications media which includes organizational PR. But over the years, Bridges TV became a kind of challenge to itself.

Instead of promoting a positive image of the Arabs and Muslims, the Cable TV station fell into the community habit of playing to the divisions in the community, siding with those who fit into its religious perspective and pushing out those who did not fit.

In other words, Bridges TV became just like the mainstream media it hoped to change, discriminating against Arabs and Muslims who were too secular, weighing down the issues facing secular Muslims and secular Arabs, pushing out those whose views challenged the rising religious zealotry and political extremism that continues to plague the community.

And audiences started to see this as programming tended toward political spheres and away from the Cable TV's stated mission, which was (with their emphasis):

"Bridges TV aims to foster a greater understanding among many cultures and
diverse populations. Through our high-quality, informative, 24-7 programming in
English; we seek to become a unifying force that can help people understand our
diverse world through education and entertainment."

On Friday Feb. 13, 2009, their web site was brought down. Not by computer Internet hackers, but by the conflict that apparently not only consumed the bTV's mission, but by internal conflicts involving the personal life of the owner and the individual who championed its creation, Muzzammil Hassan.

Muzzammil Hassan, 44, was charged with Second Degree Murder in the grusome the beheading of his wife, Aasiya Hassan, 37, at the Cable TV studios of Bridges TV in a suburb of Buffalo New York on Friday night. (Read story?) Orchard Park is just south of Buffalo New York which also dominated the headlines on Friday when a Continental plane carrying 49 people crashed just outside of the city's airport (Read story?) on its way from Newark Liberty Airport.

Hassan was such a nice person. I spoke with him often about the challenges he faces. He understood that he was fighting two battles. The first against stereotypes in the mainstream American news media and public that oppress Arabs and Muslims. The second in our own community which is divided by an internal war of political extremism versus moderation, rivalries nurtured by years of a community that has been pushed down to the furthest depths of victimization, and rising religious activism which often dictates what is and is not acceptable these days in the Arab and Muslims community.

No one can navigate through those turbulent community waters -- a common denominator across the board in the Arab and Muslim community from New York to Chicago to Los Angeles -- while also having to face up to the persistent challenges of righting the notions of America towards Arabs and Muslims which is drawn with stereotypes of hatred, suspicion, fear, lack of education, ignorance and politics is impossible.

You can't but help to acknowledge the irony that Muzzammil Hassan's tragedy involves one of the most heinous stereotypes that is constantly used to demean Arabs and Muslims. We don't know all the circumstances outside of the charges filed and the victim's remains. We do know that the stereotype runs even deeper, as his wife, who was listed on the now removed Bridges TV web site as "General Manager," was filing for a divorce.

Over the next few days and weeks, we will see the chatter in the mainstream media shift as it always does when it involves Arabs and Muslims from the facts of the issue and crime to the more prevalent stereotypes fueling the racism and ignorance in this country.

Mr. Hassan is innocent until proven guilty. But the circumstance of the events in this tragedy will reach far beyond logic and the damage this will inflict on Arabs and Muslims in America will not yet be fully felt immediately.

Tragically, it will set back and derail the forward movement of Arab American journalism. And it will separate even more the American public from the understanding of the Arab and Muslim community in this country, serving only to reinforce the extremists in the internal battle with the besieged and abandoned moderates that are the majority but who also have come to accept that the challenge of righting the keel is insurmountable and futile.

This is one of the most disturbing setbacks I think I have seen in years in the battle to change the anti-Arab and anti-Muslim stereotypes in this country. Instead of achieving the noble goals stated in the Bridges TV Mission, this event has served to make that road far longer and more difficult.

-- Ray Hanania
http://www.radiochicagoland.com/

As Israelis fight to claim victory, the peace process takes its final gasps

As Israelis fight to claim victory, the peace process takes its final gasps
By Ray Hanania

Why am I not surprised that both the leader on the left and the leader on the right have claimed victory in Israel’s elections this week?

Tzipi Livni Israeli Foreign Minister and head of the Kadima Party, a more conservative version of the old Labor Party, claimed a mandate from Israeli voters, while her chief rival Benjamin Netanyahu, a frightening extremist, claimed victory, too.

Well these days in Israel, where spin means more than truth, two blurry election victories means one giant peace loss for the Middle East.

Although everyone hoped that Israeli voters would embrace the road to peace, the vote totals show that the road is unpaved, filled with potholes and probably not navigable for anyone hoping to end the violence any time soon.

Livni got what she wanted, proving once again that a woman can “win” but her election victory which gave her one more seat than Netanyahu’s extremist Likud Party in the Israeli Parliament makes her much like George Bush whose first election was marred by serious questions over whether or not he really won.

Netanyahu, whom Israelis insist till their faces turn red supports the two-state solution, is openly hostile to peace and especially to peace with the Palestinians. In fact, he is openly against the formation of a Palestinian State.

In his long bloodied track record in office, Netanyahu has reigned over the repeated failure of the peace process, helping to bring it down in 1996, following the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by one of his admirers, and in 2000 provoking with the help of ultra-extremist colleague Ariel Sharon.

And while Livni appears to have “won” the most votes – let’s just call them “chads” – it’s Netanyahu who has the best chance of taking over the government and providing a real reason for why peace will collapse, again.

If you analyze the elections based on individuals and their parties, Livni is the winner. But in Israel’s twisted Democracy, that’s not good enough to become the leader. The real balance rests between the moderates or the so-called “Left” and the extremists on the increasingly “far right.”

And Netanyahu isn’t even the worst of the worst on the far right that he now heads. In this past election, the far right parties, combined, won a majority of seats. Netanyahu can easily form a government by partnering with Israel’s fast rising star, Avigdor Lieberman, the new face of Israel’s ultra-fanatic populace. A former night club bouncer who could easily play the Hollywood role of a Soviet Mafia leader, has called for the killing of Arabs who sit in Israel’s Parliament, the Knesset, and believes Arabs – Christians and Muslims -- should be forcibly removed from Israel to live someplace else. His political party is called Yisrael Beitenu, or “Israel My Home,” which could also mean in Arabic “Not Yours.”

Lieberman, typical of the Russian Jewish immigrants who are drowning Israel’s pluralistic society, is a hard line nut case. You could compare him to Iran’s Ahmadinejad, but not even Ahmadinejad is as bad as Lieberman.

So what happened to the super hero of the Peace Process, Rabin’s old “Labor Party?”

It has two problems. The first, of course, is the stupidity of the Palestinians in Israel who like their brethren in the brutally occupied West Bank and massacre-strewn Gaza Strip, can’t get a grip on escaping their own emotions, frustrations and hate.

Rather than try to swing the elections to the left, which they could do since they represent a sizable voting population, prefer to boycott the elections because they would prefer to have nothing than a compromise on something. It’s the cultural way of the Arab World. All or nothing. They end up always with nothing.

But then they are helped by their allies, the Israeli “Left.”

The left is led by the Labor Party and that is headed by Ehud Barak, the former assassin who dressed as a woman to murder Palestinian critics of Israel’s government in Lebanon. It was Barak who deserves the collar for destroying not only the peace process but for undermining Labor. Barak, no relation to American President Barack Obama, made a critical choice in 2000 that turned the hopes for peace on its head when he refused to meet face-to-face with Palestinian Leader Yasir Arafat during peace talks, and instead used his friend Dennis Ross, President Clinton’s openly Zionist “liaison” to try to corner Arafat and force the Palestinians to accept a weak agreement.

Barack torpedoed the Camp David peace negotiations and tried to use his intractable refusal to compromise with Arafat as a badge of courage, spinning the lies that provoked the 2nd Intidafa claiming it was Arafat who refused peace to gain Israeli voter sympathy when it fact it was him who refused compromise.

Barak lost the election to Netanyahu’s pal, Sharon, who is as stubborn in death as he was in peace. Netanyahu and Sharon used the victory to carve a head stone for the Palestinian-Israeli Peace Process that is still used as the forum from which Israeli candidates campaign.

In fact, when you look at the history of Israel since Barak destroyed the peace process and started one of the most vicious and violent periods in Palestinian-Israeli relations that continues through today, it has been his Labor Party and the Israeli “Left” that have done the most to destroy peace.

It’s a strange but common belief among the “Left” that the best way to win peace is not through honest negotiations and fair compromise, but rather through intimidation, threats, pretending to be tough, occupation, violence and doubletalk on the confiscation of Palestinian lands and expansion of illegal settlements.

While Labor has been lying through its eroded teeth, Netanyahu and the fanatics have been the only honest ones left in Israel who are willing to say flat out, they reject real compromise with the Palestinians and believe conflict and violence are the only real paths for the future.

And there was nothing in Israel’s recent vote that says the Israeli public disagrees.

(Ray Hanania is a Palestinian American columnist and Chicago Radio Talk Show Host. He can be reached at www.RadioChicagoland.com and by email at rayhanania@comcast.net.)

Future of Middle East peace hangs in Israeli election balance

Violence drives politics in the Middle East, not just in the decisions by the dictators who control the Arab countries, but also in the election booth in Israel's quasi-Democratic parliamentary system.

Tuesday, Israelis go to the polls, and once again they share in this election what has been shared before. The elections follow a major wave of violence and conflict. And, most of the Arab Palestinian citizens in Israel will, once again, cut off the noses of their pride to spite their best interests. They will boycott the elections argiong that there is no difference between the Kadima and Labor Parties on the left, headed by Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak, and with the utltra-extremist parties led by Benjamin Netanyahu.

In the past, elections that have followed long periods of conflict and violence in Israel, have ended up causing israel's electorate to spin out of control to embrace the far right.

In happened in 1996, a year after Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli fanatic who opposed his support of peace with the Palestinians and a growing spat of suicide bombings by the Hamas terrorist organization. Benjamin Netanyahu ousted Shimon Peres as prime minister and drove the nation towards a harsher confrontation with the Palestinians and moved the region further away from peace.

In 2000, the peace process collapsed driven by a lot of factors. Those factors included the inept manipulation of the process by President Bill Clinton and his biased Middle East liaison Dennis Ross; the refusal of Barak, then Israel's prime minister to meet face-to-face with Palestinian President Yasir Arafat; and Arafat's inability to accept the elimination of the Palestinian Right of Return without a major quid pro quo from Israel. The collapse launched the 2nd Intifada, or Palestinian "rebellion" against the Israeli occupation, and another long wave of violence and suicide attacks by Hamas. That violence helped Ariel Sharon, one of Israel's most extreme leaders, to win the election.

Now, as the war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip has raised the level of condemnation of Israel's harsh military assault that included hundreds of civilian fatalities by nation's throughout the world, Netanyahu is perched to once again win. Many believe Netanyahu's rivals, Livni and Barak and Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister who has been accused of wide spread corruption and was forced to step down as a candidate for re-election and th ehead of his party, launched the Gaza War thinking they could undercut Netanyahu's extremism by showing the voters they could flex their muscles.

But the Gaza war failed to achieve any of Israel's goals. Hamas remains not only as a potent force but with growing popularity among frustrated Palestinians convinced Israel will never concede any land or remove core settlements in the West Bank. Israel withdrew after weeks of onslaught, but without destroying Hamas.

The real tragedy is that the Middle East has been leaderless for years. Everyone talks peace, but few leaders, Arab or Israeli, have the courage to fight for peace. it is easier to fight in wars.

Even more tragic is the fact that Arabs and Israelis both know what the final compromise will be: Land for peace. Israeli security. Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. A sharing of Arab East Jerusalem with Israel given control over the city's ancient Jewish areas. Compensation for the refugees, Palestinian and Jewish. And Israel keeps some settlements in the West Bank in exchange for an equal amount of land (inch-for-inch) from the pre-1967 Israel borders.

The peace agreement is out there. It's just waiting for people willing to make it work.

-- Ray Hanania
www.RadioChicagoland.com

Palestinians and Israelis come together on Chicago Radio Show this morning Jan 14 8 am

I have invited two guests on my show this morning, Fadi Zanayed, president of the Chicago Chapter of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, and David Steiner, president of the Chicago Chapter of the American Friends of Peace Now. Zanayed is Palestinian and Steiner is Israeli.

Over the past few weeks, it has been disheartening to watch and listen as some leaders in the Arab community and also in the mainstream Jewish American community, spew hatred and vicious rhetoric blaming others for the unspeakable crimes against women, children and innocent people in the Gaza Strip and in the Israeli towns near Gaza. Instead of leadership, some of these organizations have been denouncing fiercely the crimes committed against their people, but have either remained silent or have justified the carnage and immoral conduct committed against the others.

Both sides are committing crimes, and the worst crime is when the people on either side pretend their side is not committing a crime but scream and cry about the crimes committed only against their people.

That is complicity in the carnage and that needs to stop.

Today on my Radio Chicagoland program (WJJG 1530 AM Radio) I am asking callers, especially Arab and Jewish listeners, to call in and say something nice about the "other side." To show not that the other side is right but that their side has a remaining sense of morality in a conflict filled with a vicious war of words of "moral equivalency."

Innocent people are dying in a conflict that has raged on for more than 100 years. No one incident started anything. The facts so the claims on both sides are untrue. And when people lie or they close their eyes to the truth, they are also participating in the inhumanity that is taking place today.

Our government leaders are failing and are also playing politics on the spilled blood of innocent people. It's up to us, the people, to take the lead and say and do something to force them to do the right thing.

If you are not in the Chicagoland area to hear the show live on the radio this morning between 8 and 9:30 am, you can go to the web site and listen online, including on the live video streaming option,

-- Ray Hanania
http://www.radiochicagoland.com/

Protest President Bush by mailing your shoes to the White House

I just came back from the post office and mailed an old pair of shoes to President Bush at the White House in protest of his policies.

Arab journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi, the Kanye West of the Arab World, has started a trend that I think is great. Let's face it, he didn't go there and blow himself up. That's progress in a region where violencebecomes the protest form of choice.

But al-Zaidi, who was brutalized by guards (one reportedly yelling not to kick him in the face"), is a hero. Instead of violence, he used a cultural form of protest that is popular in the Arab World, and that one many American came to know when American soldiers during the invasion of Iraq, pulled down the statue of Saddam Hussein in front of one of the dictator's palaces in Baghdad, (trying to make it look like the "people" did it) and then those civilians who were brought there by the military started to express their disdain for Saddam Hussein in the way they knew best, by throwing their shoes at the statue.

How ironic that more than five years later, Iraqis are now throwing their shoes at President Bush?

And I want to help, as a fellow Arab American journalist who believes that violence is NEVER the right choice, NEVER a good choice, and NEVER a strategy for success, the symbolic throwing of my shoes at Bush (courtesy of the US Postal Service) is the most powerful expression of free speech today against the Iraq war possible.

I hope you will join me and others.

Here is the information on the White House, where to mail your packages:

The White House
President Bush
1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington DC., 20500

-- Ray Hanania
www.RadioChicagoland.com

Arab Christian comedians organize fundraiser for Arab Christian member of the Israeli Knesset Oct 8 Oak Park, Illinois

I know some of you might be interested in seeing the only Chicago performance of the INFIDELS OF COMEDY Arab Christian Comedy Tour in Oak Park at the Arts Center on Wednesday October 8, 2008 at 6 :30 PM.

Attached is the press release, but it might be the only time you'll see Christian Arab comedians coming together to help a Christian Palestinian woman who is running for re-election in the Israeli Knesset with the Labor Party. This event will also help support Mar Elias Campus which is a branch of the University of Indianapolis in Ibillin in the Galilee. You can get information and tickets online at www.InfidelsofComedy.com.

Please pass it along if you can and I hope you come out to see my comedy and the comedy of two other Christian Arab comedians Nasry Malak and Maria Shehata.

Thanks
Ray hanania
www.TheMediaOasis.com
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PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Ray Hanania
312-933-9855
www.InfidelsofComedy.com
August 3, 2008


Christian Arab Comedians highlight fundraiser for Nadia Hilou Christian Arab member of Israel’s Knesset October 8


Chicago – A unique troupe of Christian Arab standup comedians will be the featured entertainment at a fundraiser to be held for the Honorable Nadia Hilou, a Christian Palestinian Arab member of the Israeli Knesset with the Labor Party on Wednesday October 8, 2008 at the historic Oak Park Arts Center.

The evening will feature an overview of the challenges facing Christian Arabs in the Middle East, support of the peace process and the upcoming elections in Israel this Fall.

The comedy group, called the Infidels of Comedy, was formed by Christian Arab comedians Nasry Malak, Maria Shehata and Ray Hanania. Malak, from New York, and Shehata, originally from Ohio, are Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Christians. Hanania is Antiochian Orthodox Christian raised Lutheran and from Chicago.

The fundraiser will also support the Mar Elias Branch Campus in Ibillin, Galilee in the Holy Land, a branch campus of the University of Indianapolis, Indiana which offers a Christian Arab Education.

“The peace process for me is also very important,” Hilou said, former head of Social Workers for Peace and Justice in Israel.

“We have very good relations with the Palestinians and we work closely with them on joint projects. We cannot close our eyes to the difficulties but we have no other solution. In the end, there must be two states for two people siude by side in peace.”

Hilou was first elected to the Knesset in 2006. She is one of only 17 women in the Knesset, and one of only two Christian members of the Knesset. Hilou is a social worker by profession focused on the development of children, challenges facing women and the protection of the family.

The event will be held on Wednesday, October 8, 2008 at the Arts Center in Oak Park, Illinois, 200 N. Oak Park Ave., (708-366-3981) with doors opening at 6:30 PM. Tickets for the fundraiser, which includes a presentation by Knesset Member Hilou and the Infidels of Comedy American premiere performance, are $40 per person. They can be purchased online at the comedy web site www.InfidelsofComedy.com or through the organizers listed below.

“The Schools are revolutionary, the faculty and student body is Christian, Muslim, and Jewish. It is a place where all religions meet and interact on equal footing, where the value of each human being comes before their form of religion,” said Susan Drinan, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Mar Elias Campus.

“The students learn, play and work together, they learn respect and tolerance instead of hate. The school represents ideas and interests for a better future for all faiths, and offers a chance for Christians to remain in the Holy Land. The Mar Elias Schools are the model, the best example for how lasting peace can be achieved.”

Tickets are $40 each.

For More Information, contact:

Ray Hanania, 312-933-9855 cell, 708-403-1203 home Susan Drinan, 630-653-8309 Order tickets online at www.InfidelsofComedy.com

EVENT INFO

Wednesday Oct. 8, 2008, 6:30 PM – 10 PM

Benefits: Fundraiser for the Honorable Nadia Hilou, member of the Israeli Knesset, Labor Party. Social worker and advocate for peace.

Also, support Mar Elias Branch Campus of the University of Indianapolis, Indiana located in Ibillin in the Galilee in the Holy Land.

Location: Arts Center of Oak Park, 200 N. Oak Park Ave, 708-366-3981

The Arts Center is a magnificent neoclassical building, an architectural gem, inside and out. Large lobby reception area, 700 seat auditorium with spacious dressing rooms and the Ernest Hemingway Museum.

Entertainment: the Christian Arab Comedy Troupe “The Infidels of Comedy” featuring Nasry Malak, Maria Sehata and Ray Hanania.

Tickets are $40 each.
# # #

Don't rule Hillary Clinton out so fast

I want change as much as anyone else, but despite Barack Obama's lead in the Democratic race for the presidential nomination, he's still only in the stretch with a slightly better lead than Hillary Clinton.

Neither candidate has secured the locked delegates to win the nomination, and the popular vote has been frighteningly split almost equally in half. I think the enthusiasm to end this contest contradicts the primary season itself which has dragged on more than six months since Jan. 3 in Iowa.

The Democratic convention is not until August, more than two months away. That's where we will know or not know the real intent of the so-called "Super" delegates. The term "super" delegates is a phrase coined to described the gaggle of insiders who have been given "unpledged" delegate positions. They can change their minds and support any candidate they want, crossing back and forth from one candidate to another as often as they want.

What that means is that Obama does lead in pledged delegates and allegedly in unpledged delegates, but the reality of those unpledged delegates does not become final until the convention.

So why rush it? Why circumvent the very Democratic process we embrace and try to use numbers, and statistics that can be twisted in many ways to come up with many answers? Why not celebrate the power of the Democratic Party having two powerful and charismatic leaders, Obama and Clinton, and allow that leadership now to move towards the convention where the pledged delegates MUST cast their vote for the candidate they have been assigned to by the will of the American voters, and unpledged delegates can still weigh the real challenge: who is the best candidate to win the nomination and defeat Republican John McCain.

McCain is not a real choice for most Democrats who voted in the heated Obama-Clinton fracass. But, Hillary Clinton remains a real choice for nearly 50 percent of the Democrats who voted. Are we that sure that Obama can blow the doors off McCain in November that we can afford to tell those Americans who supported Clinton that their intentions are basically dimpled chads that can discarded, too?

I say slow down. I say take pause. I say build the Democratic Party and don't allow it to be torn down as we move towards the Democratic Convention. This race is still close and if Hillary Clinton does not drop out -- a right she has and has earned through a phenomenal performance that so closely matches Obama's own campaign showing -- we should work with both.

The Dream Ticket of Obama and Clinton is one that would be powerful. In fact, that is what Democratic voters have said very clearly as we turn the corner to the final stretch into the Democratic Convention. Let's not turn Denver into Chicago by ignoring the feelings of so many.

Ray Hananiawww.TheMediaOasis.com

Michelle Malkin reigns as the queen of hate-mongering

Michelle Malkin's vicious attacks against Dunkin Donut and Food TV talk show host Rachael Ray suggest how racism and bigotry are tolerated int his country when the targets are alleged to embrace anything Muslim or Arab, even when they are not.

Malkin accused Ray of sporting "jihadi chic" when she wore a scarf that looked like a kaffiyeh (keffiyeh). It was black and white checkered, and also had paisley flowers, too. Wow. A real terrorist symbol.

We denounce the symbols of terrorist hatred, I suppose in this country, but not the hate-mongers, which explains why America is so vulnerable to attack. When Michelle Malkin's hate-mongering defines who we view the terrorist threat, we know we are in trouble.

Read my column at the HuffingtonPost.com.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ray-hanania/#blogger_bio

CAIR on the racist Islamo-Facism Week of Hatred

‘ISLAMO-FASCISM’ WEEK SPEAKER MEETS WITH EUROPEAN 'NEO-NAZIS' - TOP
Robert Spencer is main speaker for upcoming Islamophobic campus tour

(WASHINGTON, D.C., 10/21/2007) - The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) revealed today that the main speaker for an upcoming series of "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week" lectures at university campuses nationwide recently offered a keynote address at a European gathering that included representatives of racist or "neo-Nazi" political parties.

Author Robert Spencer, who is scheduled to appear beginning next week at universities such as Brown, DePaul and Dartmouth, is regarded by American Muslims as one of the nation's worst Islamophobes. His virulently anti-Islam website promotes the idea that life for Muslims in the West should be made so difficult that they will leave.

Spencer recently spoke at a so-called "Counterjihad Brussels 2007" conference in Belgium attended by those with links to far-right parties such as Filip Dewinter of Vlaams Belang (Belgium) and Ted Ekeroth of Sverigedemokraterna (Sweden). Both parties have been accused of either having a racist platform, a neo-Nazi past or having links to neo-Nazis and other racists.

Vlaams Belang is the successor to the Vlaams Blok party, which was banned in 2004 for being an illegal racist political faction. (Vlaams Belang's founders were Nazi collaborators in World War II.)

Of Sverigedemokraterna, the International Herald Tribune wrote: “Sverigedemokraterna, or the Sweden Democrats, have been part of this country's political landscape for almost 20 years, but they were considered too close to the Nazi-inspired far-right to contend for large numbers of votes.” (7/7/06)

SEE: European Organizations Gather in Brussels to Organize Resistance to Islamization and Shariah


SEE: Court Rules Vlaams Blok is Racist


Robert Spencer's Jihad Watch Board Vice President "Hugh Fitzgerald" wrote on that hate site: "Only one group, only one belief-system, distinguishes itself by appearing incapable of fitting in. And that is Muslims, and Islam ... if one really knew what Islam contained ... then how could any decent person remain a Muslim?"

He also recommended that western nations be "Islam-proofed the way a house is child-proofed," compared Muslims to Nazis and urged that they be boycotted: "[I]t should not be hard to find ways to limit the spread or practice of Islam. And if in addition to whatever local, state and federal government officials do, private parties simply conduct their own boycott of goods and services offered by Muslims, in the same way that they would have refused to buy, in 1938, a German Voigtlander camera..."

Other speakers on the "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week" tour include Ann Coulter, who refers to Muslims as "rag heads," and Daniel Pipes, a supporter of the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II and of the views of French racist Jean-Marie Le Pen.

“All those who value religious tolerance and diversity should be concerned about the growing links between European racists and American Islamophobes,” said CAIR Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper.

Publicity for the tour got off to a bad start when it was revealed that the poster promoting the campus events used a photograph that purportedly showed a Muslim woman being stoned to death, but which was in fact an image from a fictional movie.

CAIR, America's largest Islamic civil liberties group, has 33 offices and chapters nationwide and in Canada. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.

CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-488-8787 or 202-744-7726, E-Mail: ihooper@cair.com; CAIR Communications Coordinator Rabiah Ahmed, 202-488-8787 or 202-439-1441, E-Mail: rahmed@cair.com; CAIR Communications Coordinator Amina Rubin, 202-488-8787 or 202-341-4171, E-Mail: arubin@cair.com

SEE ALSO:

WA: MUSLIMS UPSET BY CAMPUS EVENT - TOP
Janet I. Tu, Seattle Times, 10/20/07


A controversial week of events, billed as Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, launches at the University of Washington and some 100 other colleges next week — drawing condemnations from Muslim groups here and across the country.

The UW College Republicans, organizer of the local events, say the week is intended to foster awareness of the terrorist threat posed by a small number of extremists within Islam.

But some local Muslims say the week fosters Islamophobia and racism and attempts to paint all Muslims as terrorists.

Beginning Monday, the group plans to hand out information sheets describing what the week's activities are all about.

And it's hosting two events open to the public: a showing of "Suicide Killers," a documentary about suicide bombers, at 7 p.m. Wednesday in Smith Hall, and a talk by conservative author and talk-show host Michael Medved at 7 p.m. Thursday in Kane Hall.

Amin Odeh, a board member with the local Arab American Community Coalition, said he agrees that "radical anything is dangerous — radical Muslims, radical Christians, radical Jews. Education is needed."

But Odeh says Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week makes too general a link between extremism and Islam, and that the term "Islamo-fascism" links fascism with an entire religion.

"Unfortunately, when people hear the term they don't think of only a small group of extremists, but of Islam in general," he said.

Hala Dillsi, a member of the UW Muslim Student Association, believes Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week promotes fear and intolerance. She is distributing green armbands and encouraging people to wear T-shirts that are green — traditionally the color associated with Islam — on Wednesday in solidarity with local Arabs and Muslims.

The student group also is organizing a forum Oct. 29 in which professors and local Muslims discuss and answer questions about Islam.

Members of the Muslim Student Association, along with other organizations, also plan to hold protests outside Wednesday and Thursday evening's Awareness Week events.

Assistant Chief Ray Wittmier with the UW Police Department said his department is meeting with student organizers on all sides "to make sure everybody stays safe."

Anti-Semitism from activists who hate Arabs and Muslims

Little Green Footballs is a racist anti-Arab and anti-Muslim site that attacks and slanders anyone who questions Israeli policies or the actions of government agencies that engage in racist and discriminatory behavior. The site is notorious for vicious hate and constantly publishes falsehoods about Arabs, slanders and libels individuals who embrace a moderate voice and who apply one principle to both sides. Little Green Footballs and its author are among the worst haters and vicious namecallers in America today, and an example of the hypocrisy of how Arab anti-Semities are constantly called out and rightly so, but that vicious racists like Little Green Footballs enjoys the support and apathetic endorsement of mainstream Americans and extremists who support Israel's government excesses.

Ray Hanania

Vicious hate letters continue in response to reasoned columns

Here's another letter from the Arlington Heights Dalei Herald in response to my reasoned column on Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Notice the viciousness in the slander against all Arabs and Muslims blaiming them for the Holocaust. It's fanatics like this who are behind the hatred that continues to fuel the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis, Arabs and Jews, and why their strident voices continue to inflame and prevent peace:

LETTER:
I don't know which is more comical: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speeches at the United Nation and Columbia University or Ray Hanania's column "Too busy ripping Ahmadinejad to hear his message" (Oct. 1) praising him.

(Of course I did not "praise" Ahmadinejad, but fanatics rarely report anything accurately)

Ahmadinejad does not accept the Holocaust as fact. That is why he called for it to be scientifically investigated in his speech and why he sponsored a Holocaust Denial conference in Tehran last year. The Holocaust is probably the most documented event in human history and doesn't need further investigation to prove what happened.

(The writer ignores the FACT that in his speeches Ahmadinejad openly acknowledged the Holocaust and the murder of "5 Millions" Jews ... it sounds like Ahmadinejad questions the totla number but that is ridiculous, too, but still contradicts the lies from this writer.)

The Palestinians were active participants in the Holocaust. The leader of the Palestinians, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, organized Muslim death squads in Europe to murder Jews. He had to flee to Berlin and spend the duration of the war as Hitler's personal guest. And Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, wrote his doctoral thesis on Holocaust denial.

(This is an outright lie and slander and represents pure hatred, the kind of hatred that is behind the murderous terrorism ripping apart Israelis and Palestinians.)

Is Hanania admitting that Ahmadinejad did state that Israel must be "destroyed"? That would make him more than the "foe of Israel" Hanania describes him as. In Ahmadinejad's own words, he stated this past June "God willing, in the near future we will see the destruction of the corrupt occupier regime," and in 2005 he made the widely publicized statement "Israel must be wiped off the map of the world."

(Amazingly, this writer accepts what has been written about Ahmadinejad that is critical but rejects Ahmadinejad's own words.)

Iran is a signatory to the U.N. Genocide Convention. It prohibits calling for the annihilation of another member state. Instead of having been given a public forum, Ahmadinejad should have been arrested and indicted for incitement to commit genocide as soon as he landed in New York.

(Of course, the writers may not know much about freedom of speech which he so abuses and yets sets to deny to anyone else who responds to his outrageous falsehoods.)

Hanania's claim that Israel was established on land that was majority Arab is false. The November 1947 U.N. partition plan called for creating a Jewish state in the areas that were majority Jewish populated and an Arab state where the Arabs were the majority.

(The FACTS show that the proposed Jewish State under the Partition was majority non-Jewish and every major Israeli leader acknowledges this. But why have to argue the truth when you can lie so viciously.)

The Jews accepted this even though it would have only given them 10 percent of the land designated for them as a homeland under the 1917 Balfour Declaration.

(This is another outrageous falsehood by a vicious Arab-hater and little more. He is saying that Palestine also included Jordan and other Arab countries which is a pathetic rejection of truth. Under the Partition, the Jews were given half of Mandated Palestine, and the Christian and Muslims were given the other half. Before Israel was delcared on May 14 and the Arab armies attacked, Jewish fighters already occupied 10 major cities in the proposed Arab State and kept them. On the end, Israel included not only the half given to them but the half given to the Arabs and had occupied much of that land prior to the May 14 fighting.)

The Arabs, along with all the other Arab countries, unanimously rejected this and launched a war to wipe out the Jews. Israel survived and Jordan annexed the West Bank and Egypt took over Gaza. The fact that an Arab Palestinian state was not created in 1948 is 100 percent the fault of the Arabs.

Steven Peck
Riverwoods

(Sadly, it is people like Peck who continue to stamp their angry feet and wave their arms in anti-Arab hatred and yell in their vitriolic way who are fueling the conflict. Palestinians and Israelis must both set aside their rejection of peace and accept the reality in order to achieve peace, and they should ignore fanatics like Mr. Peck and instead focus on the hope of the majority that peace can be achieved withut violence.)

-- Ray Hanania

Disturbed by persecution of Azmi Bishara

Azmi Bishara, like all "Arab citizens" of Israel, is the victim of persecution and discrimination. He has the right to criticize, challenge and try to change the government in which he has worked. But the pressure and persecution that has forced him to resign from the Knesset proves that the Israeli Democracy is a failure and that Arab citizens are not citizens at all.

Here's the YnetNews story:

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3390826,00.html

It's tragic because there are extremists in Israel and Bishara's experience proves they exist and are a real threat to peace, just as there are extremists among Palestinians. Regardless of his political views, Bishara has every right to express hiw views without having to fear persecution in Israel.

It's a blow to peace and empowers the fanatics in Israel -- and among the Palestinians -- to push harder to destroy each other.

It makes it harder for those like me who support two-states, believe in the hope that is the foundation of the Palestinians and Israelis, to believe that two-states or any solution besides continued conflict is an option.

Ray Hanania
www.hanania.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.)

Found a new home at MidEastYouth.com Blog site

Blogging at one of the Middle East's top sites Current mood: Couldn't be happier!

I am excited because I have been invited to blog with some of the brightest and best writers in the Middle East at MidEastYouth.com blog and eZine. This site is one of the highest ranked Middle East blogs on the Internet, according to Technorati. Although I am far from young (in my 50s, folks), I have the mind of a five year old. And they make 5 year olds pretty darn smart these days.

Anyway, my generation's 50 is my dad's generation's 20. Let's face it, I doubt that anyone my age when I was a kid had the same kind of sense of humor and positive perpsective on Middle East life. I loved my dad, but I just couldn't remember him having a powerful sense of humor.

He had a powerful sense of justice, fairness, ethics and morality, but humor and comedy was not one of his strong suits.

So, I'm off on a new adventure with some great young writers and I urge you to visit and read their writings. They are fresh, young and not jaded like many Arabs and Israelis and people from the Middle East my age. Their approach to the Middle East is reasoned, moderate and passioned. Whether you agree with them or not is besides the point. Reading their writings -- and hopefully mine also, will only help broaden your own understanding of the tough issues the people of the Middle East face, including our youth.

Here's the link: www.MidEastYouth.com

# # #

FIRE that fat pig of a radio talk show host Don Imus

Imus controversy shows power, not morality, defines racial limits in America
By Ray Hanania

It isn’t enough that Don Imus is the ugliest man to host a TV show.

Imus, the syndicated radio talk show host whose program is broadcast on MSNBC, the NBC Network affiliate, also happens to be one of the nation’s most outrageous racists and bigots.

Imus is always slandering someone, and some how because his show generates profits, and he is popular among mainstream White audiences, he can get away with it.

But Imus may have met his match when he went too far slandering Black people this week.

In referring to the Rutgers woman’s basketball team, Imus called the eight Black women members "nappy-haired hos" who have tattoos.

Immediately, the giants of the African American community, the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, demanded that Imus be fired, that his syndicated radio show be dropped and that NBC cancel his MSNBC TV simulcast.

Of course, none of the demands were met because Imus is White. He speaks with a Southern drawl, is so ugly he could be a legitimate target of criticism himself, and he has a track record of slandering everyone.

Not White people, of course, unless they happen to be Democrats.

Why do we tolerate bigots like Imus?

Today’s America is not the same America that it was in the 1960s when it was fashionable to openly slander Black people and minorities. Whole neighborhoods changed from White to Black all because a Black family moved into the community.

The suburbs were born not just out of post-World War II efforts to help returning veterans buy cheap homes, but to also create a haven that was too expensive for Black people and other people of color to move.

America hasn’t become less racist today. America has just become more sophisticated about its racist tendencies.

You can hate Blacks and other people of color in America, as long as oyu don’t say it publicly.

You can fire people of color from their jobs, as long as you are smart about it and find other reasons to dismiss Black and Hispanic and Arab employees. You can discriminate against women, as long as you are not open about it.

In fact, racism is alive and well in America, just as long as the racists don’t get crazy and express their hatred openly, as Don Imus did on his widely broadcast radio and TV show that is listened to by millions of Americans, almost all of them White.

Maybe Imus and other racists are just too comfortable inn today’s world of sophisticated racist hatred.

Maybe Imus knows that the only color that counts in this country besides White is Green. The holy dollar. Profits decide the line of morality in America, not principle.

MSNBC is making a fortune broadcasting the Don Imus show and it is going to take a lot more than Rev. Sharpton and Rev. Jackson to call for his firing. Why? Because most Black people don’t listen to Imus.

So at the end of the day, MSNBC won’t see a drop in their revenues.

Advertisers will keep buying their ads on the Don Imus show because their market isn’t Black people. It’s White people, the audience that Imus commands every morning.

Don Imus should have been fired years ago. But he hasn’t been fired.

And that fact alone proves that as long as you are White and you make a fortune for oyur sponsors, you can rant and rave against any minority group, any minority religion, any minority ethnic group.

As long as your audiences loves it and doesn’t complain.

And listen to the complaints against Don Imus.

In case you haven’t figured it out, it’s not his audience calling for Imus to be fired. White leaders are not calling press conferences to demand that Imus be fired.

It’s Black leaders. Leaders of color. Columnists like me whose skin color isn’t quite White enough in this country – my skin color is Olive, one of the colors not even favored among the coalition of the minorities in this country.

So Imus will apologize, as he has done, in one of the most arrogant ways I have ever heard someone contritely thumb his nose at the public.

Imus said on his show Monday morning, days after his racist, bigoted and hateful remarks were broadcast to millions of people in America:

"Here's what I've learned: that you can't make fun of everybody, because some people don't deserve it," Imus said.

Is that what you learned, Don Imus? That you can make fun of some, but not everybody because "some people" don’t deserve it and apparently "some people" do.

Don Imus should be fired immediately.

Anything less would be an insult to Americans who do believe that this is a great country of principle, justice and fairness for all.

END

Radicals Taking over Arab World, By Ray Hanania

Radicals taking over
Religious extremism slowly, steadily consuming Palestinian society
By Ray Hanania

03.20.07, YnetNews.com

A few weeks ago, stories that were once only whispered as rumors were being confirmed in isolated media reports.

Islamic extremists who have been battling Israel and secular Palestinian forces have also begun targeting secular Palestinian establishments that engage in what the Arabs refer to as "haram," or "sinful activities."

Most of the oppression has occurred in the Gaza Strip where the Islamic movement Hamas has the Israeli-oppressed population in a tightly controlled religious headlock, although there have been some incidents in the more secular West Bank.

Although the "religiousization" of the Palestinian people began more than a decade ago, it only found its strength in the last few years and reared its ugly head publicly after Hamas took control of the Palestinian government.

No secular establishment is safe. An Internet cafe in the Gaza Strip was firebombed. A cultural center was forced to cancel a program deemed unacceptable to the principles of Islam, and other cultural organizations have been carefully screening programs so as not to "offend" the religious police.

Three Palestinian women, believed to be prostitutes, were murdered, each killed with a bullet to the head and chest, and dumped in a public location.

Clandestine Islamic groups with names like the Swords of Islamic Righteousness, suspected to be associated with Hamas or the Hamas security services, have claimed responsibility.

All or nothing
While I don't condone prostitution, the murder of any person is immoral. Not addressed by the religious zealots in the prostitution killings is the fact that the women are solicited by men who go unpunished. But that's not uncommon in a society where increasingly Palestinian women are being forced to wear a Hijab, or head scarves, as a political statement and to prove their faith.
It's no longer enough to believe in Islam.

The threat of the religious fanatics has been on the secular horizon for years. Increasingly during Ramadan, secular and Christian-owned restaurants in "Christian" towns like Bethlehem and Beit Jala have been forced to close their outdoor patios so as not to "offend" Muslims who are forbidden to eat during the daylong fasting.

What is happening is that the Palestine conflict with Israel, which began as a secular battle over land and national identity, is steadily transforming into a religious conflict driven by religious extremists who see secular Palestinians as enemies equal to the "Zionist entity."

That is troubling. While Israelis complained much about the failings of the secular Palestinian leadership, the reality is those secular Palestinians always viewed the conflict as one of achieving "justice" through violent resistance and also through negotiated compromise.

For the religious zealots, however, the issue is "faith." And for them, there is no compromise on faith. Only their version of "jihad."

It's either all or nothing, and they are willing to die for that nothing. For the past 60 years of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the 40 years since Palestinians took control of their own destiny, the Palestinians have achieved only fragile political gains, but very little substantive gains.

Although it is easy to blame the Palestinians, the truth is Israel has also contributed to the failure of peace by always only offering minimal concessions far short of what is acceptable to Palestinians and fairness.

Harder to deal with religious enemies
Israel's governments have consistently undermined peace through compromise. They have refused to acknowledge Israel's role in creating the Palestinian refugee problem. Their uncompromising and extremist policies have often intentionally provoked Palestinian violence. While claiming to negotiate peace in good faith, they have continued to expand illegal Jewish-only settlements. And, they have unilaterally imposed an unjust pre-condition insisting that Jerusalem will never be shared.

In fact, as the Palestinians fail to achieve peace, so to do the Israelis.Israelis are discovering that it is far more difficult for them to respond to the challenge from enemies driven by religious fervor. Just look at the powerful battle waged against Israel by Hizbullah in Lebanon.

When secular Palestinians become extinct - and that future is on the horizon, Israel's ability to negotiate peace will be extinguished too. While secular Palestinians may battle with a violent fervor, their political drive allows for the possibility of compromise.

There is no possibility of compromise with an individual or a movement that bases its drive on religious ideology.

Faith does not permit compromise, and promises a far more frightening future for Israelis and Palestinians.

Israel should negotiate with secular PA
If the Palestinians are incapable of overcoming the Hamas challenge, then Israel has the responsibility to step up to the plate and separate the religious fanatics from the secular leaders. Israel must continue to negotiate with responsible secular Palestinians.

Palestinian public attitudes are driven by the emotions and suffering of the times. When things are good, they are optimistic. When things are bad, they are inclined to anger and rejectionist sentiments reflected in recent polls.

If the Israelis impose a unilateral compromise on the Palestinians that is genuinely fair, most Palestinians will turn away from the religious fanatics and embrace the compromise as an inevitability of their tragedy.

But to refuse to push for genuine compromise or to negotiate with the Palestinians because of Hamas only plays into the hands of the extremists, in the same way that violence also undermines peace and strengthens the cards of the very perpetrators of that violence.

One day, Israelis will wake up and discover there are no more "Arabs" left in the world to negotiate with.

The Arabs will all have been replaced by a more formidable and impossible enemy to defeat, political Islamicists, who are as unwavering in their cause as they are unwavering in their faith.

Ray Hanania was named Best Ethnic American Columnist for 2006/2007 by the New America Media. He can be reached at www.hanania.com