If I Were An Israeli…

January 6, 2009 – 8:37 pm

About ten years ago, just before Ehud Barak was elected Prime Minister of Israel, he was asked by Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy what he would do had he been born Palestinian. Barak replied frankly: “I would join a terror organization.”

I admired that honest answer as it showed that he may have understood the mentality of many of his Palestinian occupied subjects. He was elected on the basis of going ahead with the peace process and I always thought that if he really understood the Palestinian mentality he would do his utmost to prevent young people like from joining terrorist organizations.

Alas, he didn’t achieve peace back then, nor do his actions now show that he really understood the Palestinian mind. Being myself a Palestinian and knowing how many of my people think, I dare put myself in the shoes of an Israeli citizen and try to reach any new conclusions. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in current affairs, editor's pick, israel, palestine, politics | Comments (0)

Motorcycle Diaries XVII: a Masochistic Love Affair with Jordan

December 1, 2008 – 12:24 pm

Picture courtesy of Lilia Araj.

Why do I love my country? - The question keeps torturing me.

Most pressing of all, apart from what they taught us in first grade and what certain billboards tried to achieve in recent years, do we really have to nurture such an emotion at all? While to some people the uncertainty itself is blasphemous, I am not ashamed to say that my thirst for a rational answer keeps intensifying with time. I just cannot suppress the itching curiosity to understand the roots of this non-severable connection that I’ve developed with earth, concrete, very little water, and a whole load of hairy, grumpy strangers.

I am not interested here in the theories of a social contract, taxation, or the tribal or political attachments to a certain community or nation state. I am intrigued by a totally different aspect of this relationship, the one, for example, that triggered a profound sadness in me as I read that the toll of the recent fire in the Dibbeen forest was a staggering 5,670 trees lost forever, taking the news as if a piece of my own flesh had been charred by the same fire. Why did I feel like that? Read More »

By Zaid Nabulsi | Posted in jordan, palestine, politics | Comments (0)

Letter to Barack Obama from an Arab-American Democrat: On Rahm Emanuel and More

November 13, 2008 – 9:07 am

Congratulations!

The road to the White House has been extremely long and highly entertaining.

Thank you Sarah Palin for showcasing Tina Fey’s comic genius. Thank you Barack Obama for showcasing American meritocracy at work.

You ran an impeccable campaign and I am proud to have a President who knows what the word impeccable means. But most of all thank you for inspiring us to get involved in politics. It has meant the world to me and to many Arab-American democrats.

Let me share with you what I saw:

I saw Arab-Americans young and old volunteer their time. They donated money like many other Americans who responded to your message of hope. They urged their friends and families to become registered voters. Many voted for the first time in their lives.

On election day I saw young kids with loud speakers cheer for Obama on the streets of Paterson, New Jersey. I honked my horn and was happy as a lark. It felt good to be on the winning side for a change. It feels good to be an American. I know this isn’t possible in Europe.

But don’t get me wrong. It hasn’t been all good: Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in current affairs, israel, palestine, politics | Comments (5)

Iraq’s Money and America’s Responsibility

August 13, 2008 – 5:44 pm

$80 billion can buy a lot of things – a tropical island or ten Caecescu palaces jump to mind – but what it can’t buy is infrastructure for a country with a population of almost 28 million people that is emerging from five years of ruinous geo-political and sectarian conflict.

As violence tapers off, oil exports increase, and global crude prices remain high, Iraq’s economy is set to grow by 8 percent in 2008 and will end the year with a predicted $79 billion budget surplus, according to a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

But with the U.S. presidential campaign in full swing the Democrats are lashing out at Iraq for draining American money and American lives. The media machine has been in overdrive, with scathing attacks from both neo-con and liberal commentators scoring points on the same issues: U.S. lives, U.S. money, and the impact on the lives of U.S. consumers.

They demand that Iraq now pay is own way for reconstruction and embrace a potentially tragic cut-and-run strategy that could lead to further internal and regional instability. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in business world, iraq, politics | Comments (3)

Sunnis, Iran, Obama, and New Realities

June 25, 2008 – 4:08 pm

The possibility of a new US president seeking dialogue with Iran, along with the evolving political landscapes in Lebanon and Iraq, makes it high time for the Arab States to deal with the changing realities in the Middle East.

Now that US presidential candidate Barak Obama has officially clinched the Democratic party vote and seems a possible presidential candidate come the November elections, the Arab States must start setting their agenda. Obama has made clear his intention to start a dialogue with Iran- rather than continuing the Bush Administration’s policy of boycott. Where do the Sunni Arabs fit into all of this?

To date, the Sunni Arab States seem unsure of how to deal with Iran. Open dialogue with the intention of integrating the Islamic Republic into the Middle Eastern fold has been impossible. Now that the US might change its modus operandi should a Democrat leader be elected, the Arab States may need to redress their policies vis a vis Iran and the place of Shi’ism in the Arab World in general.

The new reality in Lebanon, with the official inclusion of Hizbulla as a foremost power broker in the country, cannot be ignored. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in current affairs, election 08, politics | Comments (0)

An Appeal to Egyptian-American Integrity

June 9, 2008 – 9:37 am

Today I received two emails from a friend. Together they make for an interesting commentary on the divided psyche of the American-Egyptian community.

The first is a flyer for an event sponsored by The Egyptian American Medical Society, Egyptian American Professional Society, Egyptian American Business Association, Egyptian American Group, and the American Muslim Union.

I laud the efforts made by the community to form organizations that seek to enrich our lives in the United States of America. It makes me proud to be an American-Egyptian. One of the greatest privileges we enjoy in this country is the freedom to participate in civic life without government interference. It is a privilege we should never take for granted and always jealously guard.

Yet my pleasure at seeing such civic engagement was tempered by a factual error in the email. You see the event is intended to honor the Ambassador Sherif el Kholy who happens to be a nice man. The only problem is that as far as I can tell he is not the Ambassador. Nabil Fahmy is the Egyptian Ambassador to the United States.

This minor detail matters immensely. As an American-Egyptian I fret that our propensity to use titles that glorify figures of authority has been carried to our adopted country. Has this mindset, I asked myself, already become entrenched in our civic organizations here in the United States? Didn’t many of us come to the United States and achieve our success as immigrants precisely because we believed in America as a meritocracy?

Why use a title that hasn’t been earned? Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in egypt, immigrants, politics, society | Comments (0)

In Lebanon and Beyond: Could the Arab League be on the Verge of Resurgence?

June 4, 2008 – 3:35 pm

Arab League-bashing is a favorite past time of the Arab masses. There is, at best, a sense of resignation that the Arab League is an institution that has failed miserably in resolving the conflicts engulfing our region.

The last annual summit of Arab Heads of states in Damascus, in March this year, was met with a chorus of apathy on the streets of Amman, Cairo, Casablanca, Gaza and every other corner of the Arab world. The only thing that seems to get people to turn on their TV sets is the perennial (and always entertaining) Gaddafi speech, with the average Arab viewer wondering just how far the Colonel will go in his latest oration.

It is difficult to blame the Arabs for deriding their league. The seeming impotence of the Arab League in the face of adversity is quite legendary. As the situation in Palestine, especially Gaza, deteriorates, as the cruel civil war wages in Iraq (not to mention the illegal invasion that sparked it), as the Darfur situation worsens, the Arab league stands totally powerless. And this is just a snapshot of the current crop of crises in Arabia. The history of the last six decades since the founding of the League in 1945 is deluged with examples of the Arab League’s inefficiency and incapacity to resolve any of the major issues facing the region.

But then, in the midst of all this inaction, we woke up one morning last week to the sight of a truly extraordinary and improbable achievement: a real Arab League success. The Arab League’s success in brokering an agreement between the endlessly feuding Lebanese factions is a major triumph of unprecedented caliber. Of course, particular credit is due to the Qatari Government and the few Arab Foreign Ministers who devoted their time and energy towards the attainment of this goal in the period leading up to the agreement. But it was the institution of the Arab League that made this entire effort possible and, despite all our instincts to disbelieve, we should all recognize that.

The success is particularly laudable in light of the initial inability of the Arab League to put a meeting together quickly enough to respond to the surge of violence in Lebanon that started earlier this month. When the decisions of the Lebanese government to dismantle the telecommunications network of Hezbollah and to remove the security chief of Beirut airport unleashed an unprecedented reaction by Hezbollah on the streets of Beirut, it took the Arab League almost a week to get the Foreign Ministers of its members to meet.

When the Foreign Ministers finally managed to congregate, most Arabs didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Read More »

By Nasser Ali Khasawneh | Posted in current affairs, lebanon, politics | Comments (1)