Email this article | Print this article | Link to this Article
"RIGHT OF RETURN" CONF A "DISASTER" - PART 2
April 3, 2001
ARAB AMERICAN ORGANIZATIONS FRUSTRATE AND DEMORALIZE
"I have now totally given up on Arab
organizations doing anything truly
worthwhile on behalf of the Palestinians."
"The 'Right of Return' conference was
a disaster."
MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington:
The region itself has corrupt and incompetent "client regimes", now including
that of Yasser Arafat. And that explains a great deal why such an important
and rich part of the world with over 200 million people is so regularly humbled
and bleeding.
And in the U.S., the only superpower these days, these same client regimes
have their "client organizations", petty caricatures of themselves...all squabbling,
incompetent, corrupt, scorned, and in a sense "kept women" (as much as we dislike
the sexual stereotype, nevertheless reality oftentimes is hurtful and the phrase
connotes the realities of the situation).
It's somewhat contorted as an analogy, we know, but even so the western powers
set up and maintain the "client regimes" in the region, and then these same regimes
maintain their "client" spokesman and organizations working on their behalf and
speaking for them to the media in the U.S. Quite a cozy little circular arrangement;
and woe to anyone who tries to speak up, as the courageous journalist Robert
Fisk recently found out (read on).
Most importantly, this arrangement prevents the truly independent, knowledgeable,
and principled voices from being heard. Or, if someone with integrity and principle
is given a small platform once and awhile, it is always in a very controlled
and limited way, restricted to "safe" subjects.
The stories about these organizations and their bumbling ways are legend to
insiders. The names Zogby, Maksoud, Sharabi, Jahshan, Al-Amoudi, are all well-known
to those involved with Middle East affairs. These personalities dominate the
small and weak organizations that exist and they seem to hang on forever with
de facto life-time appointments no matter how much they bumble and screw-up.
For the only real criteria that counts it seems is their loyalty to the powers
that be and their continuing to do the bidding of those who take care of them.
Just like back home in the Arab world these organizations are terribly ingrown,
incestuous, and self-congratulating; all staffed by relatives, incompetents,
and "yes-men" (and women) of various types. Hala Maksoud and James Zogby, mentioned
in the article that follows, are among the worst and most despicable; precisely
because they have so much backing from the "client regimes" and their associated
groups and persons.
Indeed, in Arab American affairs these personalities and the various organizations
they in turn control act as energy and resource sponges soaking up the concerns,
monies, and hopes of many well-meaning but all-too-often naive Arab Americans
who have no where else to go and know little of what is really going on. They
come, they join, they become demoralized, they burn-out or give up; the same
pattern repeats itself all the time.
The regimes keep their organizations on short leashes, constantly requiring
them to come and visit to get their regularly allowances; and in turn the organizations
keep those who get involved with them on shorter leashes, cutting them lose if
they should get too energetic or critical, and working overtime to discredit
and frustrate anyone who dares speak up and criticize after finding out how badly
they have been used and abused.
This article, from a very committed American Jewish activist who has repeatedly
proven her determination and commitment for many years, is just the tip of the
proverbial iceberg when it comes to this subject.
TRYING TO WORK WITH ARAB AMERICAN ORGANIZATIONS -- WHAT AN EXPERIENCE!
By Shifra Stern*
In November last year the Israeli "peace" prime minister Ehud Barak
nominated former Brigadier General Amos Yaron for the position of
Director-General of the Defense Ministry.
General Yaron was deeply implicated in the Sabra/Shatila Massacre of
September 1982. Below is a brief summary of the war crimes and crimes
against humanity committed by Yaron:
On September 16, [1982] then Brigadier General Amos Yaron, acting under
orders from the Israeli Ministry of Defense under General Ariel Sharon,
allowed Phalangist troops to enter the refugee camps even though the same
troops had previously engaged in massacres of Palestinians living in Lebanon.
The killing at the refugee camps went on for three days. During nighttime
Phalangist operations, Yaron's troops fired illumination rounds so that
Phalangists could continue their bloody work. Israeli troops, under the
command of Yaron, blocked the exits of the camps to prevent the refugees from
escaping and supplied the Phalangists with at least one bulldozer, which was
used to cover bodies with rubble.
According to the official Israeli Commission of Inquiry into the massacre
(the so-called Kahan Commission), Yaron, who was present on the roof of the
IDF forward command post overlooking the Shatila camp on the evening of
September 16, knew then that women and children were being killed by
Phalangist militiamen who had entered the camps by prior arrangement with the
Israeli military. Not until the morning of September 18 did Yaron move to
end the killings. . . . In his testimony to the Kahan Commission, Yaron said
he was "happy" about the decision to send the Phalangist forces into the
refugee camps because "the fighting serves their purposes as well, so let
them participate and not let the IDF do everything."
I was so incensed that the "peace" Prime Minister Barak would appoint a
war criminal to a post in his government, that I decided to mount a campaign
against this nomination. I've never dealt before with previous Arab
organizations but felt that certainly they would be interested in my
campaign. The first group I contacted was the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee, the ADC. I spoke with a woman (whose name escapes me) for a few
minutes trying to explain to her the reason for my call. She finally
realized that this was quite an important matter so she connected me with
the President herself Mrs. Maksoud. After I repeated to Mrs. Maksoud why
I'm calling, I was stunned by her reaction. She said that while of course she
thought this was an important matter, there was nothing the ADC could do,
adding that the ADC does not tell other governments what to do, and no, the
ADC could not issue a press release regarding the appointment of Yaron, that
the ADC is there to serve Arab Americans who face discrimination, and on and
on. She didn't even care enough to refer me to some other organization. I
found our exchange rather strange. Here I am the Jewess, the expected enemy,
and I'm trying to convince an Arab woman that 2-3 thousand dead Palestinians
and an Israeli war criminal ought to matter.
I then contacted James Zogby's group, the Arab American Institute (AAI).
His assistant told me that Dr. Zogby was attending a conference but that he
would certainly be interested in the material I have on Yaron. I sent Zogby
my extensive file on Yaron and I called back a couple of weeks later to follow
up with his assistant. He assured me that Dr. Zogby was quite impressed with
my material but of course there was nothing he could do. They too would not
even issue a press release -- no help, not even a little encouragement!
Sometime in December I was informed that General Yaron would be in
Washington to discuss US military aid to Israel. In a nutshell: it took me
several hours and many phone calls to Israel to track down who exactly Yaron
was going to be meeting. My intention was to organize a demonstration and
get someone to ask Yaron on camera about his actions during the Sabra/Shatila
massacre. Since I live in NY, I couldn't make the arrangements myself so I
contacted another Arab group, called American Muslims for Jerusalem. We
spent a lot of time making the arrangements and finally all seemed set for
the demonstration. The day of the demonstration I called them just to check
that everything was in order. The President of AMJ apologized and said that
he couldn't find someone with a camera. Apparently, the cameraman he
scheduled decided that he had something better to do. I was flabbergasted.
I told him surely you can find someone else with a camera. The end result
was that there was no demonstration, no camera to interview Yaron, no
questions asked, nothing.
After these encounters I concluded that Arab organizations were simply
inept, indifferent, or both. But to prove that I may be wrong, I decided to
go to "Right of Return Conference" sponsored by still another Arab American
organization and being held in Boston in February. My hope was that there
really is an Arab organization that knows how to get its act together.
At first things seemed organized enough until you entered the lecture
hall which was stifling hot. How I thought could they not think of arranging
for air conditioning in case it would be a warm day, especially since there
were several hundred people in attendance? Plus, after months and months of
telling everybody about the conference it wasn't so surprising that some
hundreds of people came. But instead of getting a larger, better, and more
appropriate place to host such an important event (or at least important
subject), the organizers just didn't seem to care and so others who wanted
to attend either the conference, or the dinner the night before, were told
they were "full".
One of the first speakers was Prof. Edward Said. As part of his lecture
he intended to show some slides. The slides were not only out of order but
the most important one wasn't even there. Said was absolutely exasperated.
He was practically screaming at the guy why he couldn't get things right.
It was a sad scene to watch. Because of his devastating illness it was a
major effort for Said to come in the first place. And then for them to
screw up his slides so badly!
One of the other speakers was British journalist Robert Fisk. He
criticized the Arab organizations and called them lazy. Instead of them
taking this to heart, his comments created a storm and many attacked him.
True, Fisk (I believe unintentionally) ended up attacking all Arabs, and
true, his tone was very self righteous. But I thought he was absolutely
right when he asked the audience (predominantly Arab) whether they didn't
have non-Arabic friends who might be interested in the Palestine/Israel
issues. Why, he wondered out loud, aren't Arabs able to reach beyond their
community. Fisk claimed that whenever he's invited to affairs organized
by Arabs, the audience is always without fail predominantly Arab Americans.
In fact, I turned around to my friend and told her that I thought she and
I were the only Jews there.
There were four panels and after the second panel, almost half of the
audience just walked outside for fresh air. The heat was becoming
unbearable. There were too many speakers for one day. When the lectures
were finally over, they had a dinner/banquet at 6:00. The banquet was held
about a mile and a half from the convention site. You would think they would
have had public transportation to get the people over. There were none.
Some took cabs, and many didn't even know where to go so they just left.
A friend of mine told me he thought the conference was a disaster. I
asked him why he felt that way. Because, he said, "it was done in a vacuum."
It had no connection to anything. I firmly agreed.
I have now totally given up on Arab organizations doing anything truly
worthwhile on behalf of the Palestinians. Between the oppression and
horrible sellout by Yassar Arafat and the PA, and the inept Arab
organizations here in the States, I'm afraid that the plight of the
Palestinians looks bleaker than ever.
* The author, a legal secretary in New York, can be reached
by email at Shifra@MiddleEast.Org |
April 2001
ARAB-AMERICANS - PATHETIC STATE OF AFFAIRS (April 30, 2001) Regular readers of MER won't be all that surprised; though many others will be, especially those who misguidedly and in many cases sincerely give their money, support, and most of all their hopes to these pathetic groups.
THE DARK SIDE OF ISRAELI INDEPENDENCE Day (April 30, 2001) Leave it to the Arab Americans to screw things up all the time. As the iconoclastic Israel writer Israel Shamir said as he prematurely departed American shores a few days ago: "With such Palestinian activists, who needs the Israeli lobby?"
ABDULLAH AND THE CIA - LONG HISTORICAL CONSPIRACY AGAINST PALESTINIANS (April 30, 2001) The Israelis and the Americans are busy using the Mubarak Regime in Egypt and the Hashemite Regime in Jordan in an increasingly desperate attempt to quash Intifada II and create still
more years for the Israelis to consolidate and make permanent their grip on the Palestinians.
WAR MACHINES ON THE MARCH - MER FLASHBACK (April 29, 2001) Before the Second Intifada began, before last year's aborted Camp David fiasco, before this year's sweeping victory of Ariel Sharon and the attempt to then position Ehud Barak as Defense Minister, MER was already writing about what was to come while most of the media was sidetracked with and seduced by "the peace process."
THE "APARTHEID PEACE" REMAINS THE GAME BEING PLAYED (April 28, 2001) They -- the same personalities representing the same countries that created this "Apartheid Peace" and its resultant intensified uprising against it -- are at it again.
THE SLAUGHTER IN ALGERIA (April 28, 2001) This book contains shocking testimony about what is happening inside a
country where, according to reliable estimates, more than 150,000 of its
citizens have been slaughtered during the past decade.
THE ARAB AMERICAN and JEWISH AMERICAN SCENES (April 27, 2001) You gotta love all these scams that so many so tragically so often fall for -- especially the confused and naive Arab Americans.
THE GAZA CONCENTRATION CAMP (April 27, 2001) Over the years the Israelis have essentially turned The Gaza Strip from a Ghetto to a kind of Concentration Camp. In this small area today live more than 1 million Palestinians, a large number of whom have never been able to leave and reenter.
ARAFAT'S ESCAPE PLAN - MER FLASHBACK (April 26, 2001) More than $100 million dollars in a secret bank account set up by the Israelis and designed to make it possible for Arafat and friends to flee a coup and set up a "government in exile"?
SHA'ATH and PERES DESERVE EACH OTHER -- BUT HOW TRAGIC FOR THE PALESTINIANS (April 26, 2001) Sharon is sending Peres to Cairo, and Sha'ath visiting Sweden says there is a "crack in the wall of darkensss."
BERKELEY STUDENTS TAKE THE LEAD (April 25, 2001) With the total failure of the Arab American organizations at the national level, and of course provoked now by an Intifada II that is half a year old and the election of Ariel Sharon as PM in Israel, the grassroots are finally stirring a little, students in the lead as at other times in history.
CASINO FIRST! (April 25, 2001) In the old days of Intifada I Yossi Beilin and Shimon Peres were busy pursuing their "Gaza First" strategy. It was never presented, but always designed, as a kind of trap for the Palestinians; and it was continually rejected by the Palestinian negotiating team that went to Madrid and then Washington, headed by Dr. Haider Abdul-Shafi.
Washington Scene: THE TRAGIC STATE OF ARAB AMERICAN AFFAIRS (April 25, 2001) Three things this week underscored the pathetically tragic state of affairs for the Arab American community which remains, well, politically retarded and as a result miserably weak...not to mention oh so co-opted and manipulated.
ISRAEL & TURKEY - MAJOR MILITARY ALLIANCE (April 25, 2001) While the misnomered "peace process" continues to dominate the news, arms continue to flood into the Middle East region and possible war preparations are underway.
SHIMON PERES - NOW HOLOCAUST DENIER! (April 23, 2001) For the past few years we have mentioned the great importance of the new military axis in the Middle East that adds Turkey's size and power to the U.S.-Israeli alliance that dominates and controls the region.
ARAFAT'S TRAVEL NOW RESTRICTED - MAYBE ON PURPOSE? (April 23, 2001) The front-page Washington Post article over the weekend about what the Israelis are up to helps reveal what the new General in charge of the Israeli Army, Ariel Sharon, is attempting to accomplish.
BLOODY SUNDAY AS SIX BOMBS ROCK ISRAEL, GAZA (April 22, 2001) Two explosions hit Israel over the space of several hours, and four
bombs were detonated in Gaza City which is under Palestinian control.
TERROR IN TEL AVIV TODAY AS US PREPARES FOR BIOLOGICAL ATTACK (April 22, 2001) Like so many things in life, terror is a two-edged sword. No doubt the Israelis will use today's bomb blast in Tel Aviv to still further clamp down on and try to choke the Palestinians into submission.
ISRAEL'S ETHNIC CLEANSING SECRETS (April 21, 2001) Israel's prime minister-elect, in the throes of forming a new
government, is known to be a militant nationalist. Ariel Sharon's view
of history is that the Zionists unequivocally have justice on their
side in the conflict over what is known to Jews as the Land of Israel
and to Palestinians as Palestine.
HISTORIC JEWISH STATEMENT SUPPORTING PALESTINIAN INTIFADA (April 21, 2001) Two months after the first Palestinian Intifada began in December 1987, a group of professionals, all American Jews including many professors and lawyers, joined together to publish as a full page ad in THE NATION Magazine of 13 February 1988 this historic statement: "Time To Dissociate From Israel"
ARAB AMERICANS STILL TERRIBLY WEAK (April 20, 2001) Three things this week underscored the pathetically tragic state of affairs for the Arab American community which remains, well, politically retarded and as a result miserably weak...not to mention oh so co-opted and manipulated.
FROM THE FRONT (April 19, 2001) Attempts by Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister, to crush Palestinian violence by adopting still harsher military tactics came to nought last night, after guerrillas in the Gaza Strip fired more mortars into Israel, and one of the worst battles for months erupted on the edge of Bethlehem.
MUBARAK - MORE FRIGHTENED THAN ANGRY OR CREDIBLE (April 19, 2001) They use to call him the "laughing cow". Anwar Sadat made him Vice-President thinking he'd never really have to worry much about him. And he himself has never made anyone Vice-President fearing any and everyone.
QANA MASSACRE - 5TH ANNIVERSARY (April 18, 2001) It was only four years ago;
but already it has been mostly forgotten -- the terrible Qana Massacre in
southern Lebanon, and the atrocious cover-up by Israel, the U.S. and the
U.N. that followed.
QANA REMEMBERED (April 18, 2001) It was five years ago today that hundreds of civilians under U.N. protection in southern Lebanon were brutally killed or maimed by the Israeli Army. With Shimon Peres then Prime Minister after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the Israelis desperately tried to cover it all up and pretend it was just a mistake of war.
LATEST NEWS FROM THE FRONTS (April 17, 2001) With a heavy rocket barrage, Israel seized
nearly a square mile of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, retaking
Palestinian-controlled territory for the first time since 1994 in retaliation for
a mortar attack on a small Israeli desert town.
ROBERT FISK SPEAKS UP OH SO THOUGHTFULLY AND COURAGEOUSLY (April 17, 2001) The famous American Jewish iconoclastic journalist Izzy Stone (I.F.Stone) once told me over a long
dinner in my apartment that the role of real and serious journalists in our day and age needed to be "to
afflict the comfortable and to comfort the afflicted."
ISRAEL STRIKES STILL HARDER, IMPOTENT ARAB "CLIENT REGIMES" COWER (April 17, 2001) We shouldn't be surprised what the Israelis are doing. Ehud Barak may have hesitated, but after all in the end both he and Shimon Peres publicly gave their endorsements to Ariel Sharon and Sharon has been warning and threatening to do just such things for a very long time.
HASHEMITES CONTINUE TO COLLABORATE (April 16, 2001) Today the Jordanian Foreign Minister goes to Israel even as Israeli bombs kill Syrians, Lebanese and Palestinians and the whole region is being humbled and shaken by the Israeli Generals, accused war criminal Ariel Sharon now in charge.
CIA BUGS ARAFAT AND ALL P.A. LEADERSHIP (April 14, 2001) Arafat has been paid a very great amount of money for the deals he signed in Washington, Cairo, Sharm, Hebron, et. al. He, his family (the Tawils), and top cronies like Nabil Shaath, Abu Mazen, et. al., now have hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign bank accounts as a result.
EPILOGUE TO A DECADE - A SERIOUS ISRAELI ANALYSIS (April 14, 2001) From what would usually be called the far far left in Israel and whose voice is rarely heard these days beyond their own circles -- but which we would term the serious, sophisticated, highly committed and principled Israeli intelligentsia -- there is a magazine published every other month called "Challenge".
EASTER IN THE "HOLY LAND" (April 13, 2001) Two thousand years ago on the ancient streets of Jerusalem it was the Roman army in control, the Jewish people under occupation, and Jesus, a heretical Jewish rabbi, heading to his crucifixation as a result of "official" Jewish and Roman cooperation.
DEATH MY REMOTE CONTROL AS HIT SQUADES RETURN (April 13, 2001) Israel's strategy has always been to overwhelm and suffocate the Palestinians. At various times different tactics have been used ranging from diplomacy to brutality, from talk of "Statehood" to the imposition of neo-Apartheid.
ISRAELI ARMY ON THE RAMPAGE (April 12, 2001) A seven-year-old Palestinian girl was shot in the face by an Israeli rubber bullet while at school in the West Bank village of al-Khader when clashes broke out nearby, medical sources said.
IT'S WAR, MURDER, ASSASSINATIONS AND BEATINGS (April 12, 2001) With Robert Fisk, based out of Beirut and the longest serving Western journalist in the region, and Phil Reeves among the Palestinians and the Israelis, The Independent is usually heads above the English rest in both its coverage and analysis.
ISRAELIS ATTACK EVEN MORE BOLDLY (April 11, 2001) The Israelis won't be returning to "Zone A"; why should they? After all one of the major goals of the Madrid-Oslo "Peace Process" was to get the Palestinians into isolated and controlled "autonomous population centers" and let them fend for themselves.
ISRAEL BEGINS MINI INVASION STRATEGY (April 11, 2001) The Israelis have changed Generals, and the new master General Ariel Sharon is doing things his way. But then nearly everyone else among the Israeli elite has lined up right behind him.
ABDULLAH - KING OF JORDAN, AGENT OF THE ANGLO-AMERICANS (April 11, 2001) Abdullah II, ruler of Jordan, once called TransJordan, once called the East Bank of Palestine, is once again in Washington. The pattern is all too familiar.
ISRAELIS START USING GROUND TO GROUND MISSILES TO ATTACK PALESTINIANS (April 10, 2001) Starting yesterday, and for the first time in the occupied territories against the Palestinians, the Israelies have begun to use surface to surface missiles. In doing so the Israelis are once again throwing down the gauntlet to the entire Arab and Muslim world.
RACISM, MILITARISM, NEO-NAZISM IN THE "JEWISH STATE" (April 10, 2001) Racism, militarism, and a peculiar form of Israeli neo-Nazism thrives in today "Jewish State". Harsh conclusions, true; but buttressed by considerable evidence, both factual and ideological.
"VOICE OF AMERICA" EXPANDING TOWARDS CRUCIAL MIDDLE EAST (April 9, 2001) Just a few years ago, after the original Camp David agreement in 1978, the joke around Cairo was that the "Voice of America" was really all those loud muffler-broken U.S-supplied buses helping choke, or unchoke depending on your perspective, Cairo's teeming streets.
BARAK AND SHARON PLAN NEXT WAR (April 9, 2001) Long before anyone even thought Ariel Sharon might become Israeli Prime Minister...
Long before anyone even thought Shimon Peres would serve as Sharon's Foreign Minister...
While the "Peace Process" and plans for "Camp David II" were riding high...
MER was writing about the coming war being planned by Generals Barak and Sharon in tandem.
DEIR YASSIN REMEMBERED AND "THE QUILT" (April 8, 2001) "It's so unfair... After 50 years the Israelis have nuclear
weapons, the Mossad, Hollywood, a kosher White House,
and their own Assistant Secretary of State; while the
Arabs have corruption, secret-police, pathetic Arab-
American organizations, Arafat, and the 50th
anniversary quilt!"
THE PATHETIC ARAFAT - GIVER AND BEGGAR (April 8, 2001) This guy Arafat, and those who advise him, are truly getting ore pathetic all the time. We now learn that while his people suffer even worse than before as a result of what he and his cronies have done, and not done, Arafat has been busy giving expensive jewelry gifts to the former American President, First Lady, and Secretary of State (and no doubt there is a larger list!).
PASSOVER IN THE TIME OF THE INTIFADA (April 8, 2001) "I have been invited to a neighbor's Seder this year, and in my fantasy I have thought that I would rather sit on a box at home by myself in the dark with my face to the wall for the length of time the Seder lasts, out of a mixture of shame and protest against Israel's denial of freedom to her Palestinian neighbors."
THE LAST PASSOVER (April 7, 2001) "Is this the last Passover that I will celebrate?
My heart is not in the celebration this year.
And it can never be again until freedom for Jews
is also freedom for Palestinians."
THE NEXT EXPULSION OF THE PALESTINIANS? (April 7, 2001) The effect of the four-month-old al-Aqsa intifada has been to
radicalize and polarize all sides and thus the current situation
poses a great danger to the Palestinian people.
ISRAELIS AND U.S. CONGRESS POUND PALESTINIANS (April 6, 2001) What is happening now is the result of all the past years of ineptitude, corruption,
stupidities, and mistakes by the the various Arab "client regimes", Yasser Arafat's
included of course, as well as from the various "client organizations" allied
with them, especially in the US.
ISRAELIS BUILD, AMERICANS DECEIVE, ARABS WINK AND HIDE (April 6, 2001) This little game has gone on quite literally for decades now. The Israelis
twist and turn, delay and obfuscate, but all the while push forward. The Americans
say one thing and do another, and when the going gets hot they provide a little
criticism of Israel for the Arab media but reserve the important things that
really matter for ongoing and escalating cooperation with the Israelis.
"RIGHT OF RETURN" AMERICAN STYLE - PART 4 (April 5, 2001) This time they are going to march down a largely weekend deserted street in New York City, after gathering at a closed Israeli Consulate, to listen to a group of largely unknown speakers familiar only to themselves, with no strategy other than to gather among themselves to listen to themselves and to be able to say for themselves that they are doing something important...
ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT AGAINST TOP THREE ARAFAT PEOPLE? (April 5, 2001) Believing the official Israelis is all but impossible at this point; so one
has to do the best one can to put together the pieces in ways that make sense.
What happened yesterday was probably not an actual assassination attempt --
if that's what the Israelis wanted to do to these three they have the capabilities
to do so and not to miss.
THE JORDANIAN POLICE STATE (April 4, 2001) About five days before the convening of the Arab Summit in Amman,
dozens of masked security men armed to the teeth, along with officers
of the Intelligence service (mukhabarat), stormed the house of Siajj
Said Daraghmeh near Jabri on the Gardens Street in Amman.
"RIGHT OF RETURN" AMERICAN STYLE - PART 3 (April 4, 2001) Saturday a few thousand Arab Americans are planning to make it to Washington
"demanding" the "Right of Return" for Palestinian refugees. What should one
think about this?
"RIGHT OF RETURN" CONF A "DISASTER" - PART 2 (April 3, 2001) The region itself has corrupt and incompetent "client regimes", now including
that of Yasser Arafat. And that explains a great deal why such an important
and rich part of the world with over 200 million people is so regularly humbled
and bleeding.
"RIGHT OF RETURN" AMERICAN STYLE - PART 1 (April 3, 2001) This year the selected slogan for Arab Americans is "the Right of Return". A
couple of years ago at the time of the 50th anniversary of the 1948 war -- the
"nakba", the "disaster" -- the slogan was "the Quilt".
"INVASION" PREPARATIONS AS MUBARAK COMES COLLECTING (April 2, 2001) Hosni Mubarak of Egypt has come to Washington once again. His visits have
become customary to in a sense collect his allowance and meet with his new American
keepers, which are in fact really the old Bush crowd he is very familiar with.
PERES 'MORE AGGRESSIVE' THAN SHARON (April 2, 2001) "Peres is more aggressive than I am, (said Sharon). "Peres responded (to the Cabinet), "Yes, he had to restrain me this time."
PLOT TO KILL ARAFAT'S TOP PEOPLE (April 1, 2001) Yesterday the Senior U.S. Senator from New York, Chuck Shumer, went before
the Washington cameras to denounce Yasser Arafat as a "terrorist" and demand
he comply with U.S./Israeli dictate or else.
ANOTHER ARAB SUMMIT COMES AND GOES (April 1, 2001) If the demonstrators going to the Palestinian Rally in New York next weekend
had any guts, and any smarts, after they gather at the Israeli Consulate they
would move on and conduct their serious shouting where the Arab Ambassadors and
the Arab League hang their sorry hats.
|