Menendez and Risch condemn Syria’s re-admission to Arab League
U.S. Senators Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today released the following statement condemning the Arab League’s decision to re-admit Syria, but Arab American leaders condemn Senators Menendez and Risch for failing to respect the community and refusing to communicate through the Arab American news media, refusing interviews and refusing engagement
U.S. Senators Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today released the following statement condemning the Arab League’s decision to re-admit Syria.
“We condemn the Arab League foreign ministers’ decision to re-admit Syria, the latest in a troubling trend of U.S. partners in the Middle East and North Africa normalizing relations with the Assad regime. More than 12 years of atrocities should be evidence enough to prove the Assad regime is a global pariah. Improving ties with the regime will send the wrong message to its Iranian and Russian enablers as Putin repeats in Ukraine the atrocities he committed in Syria. Arguments that normalization with Assad will somehow eject Iran and Russia from Syria are not compelling, as they are the primary guarantors of Assad’s survival. To top it off, recent overtures to Assad by his neighbors have been met with a flood of Syrian Captagon trafficked over their borders.
“The Assad regime remains uninterested in reaching a just and comprehensive political solution—as mandated by UN Security Council Resolution 2254. These normalization efforts therefore threaten to further freeze conflict and serve as an obstacle to accountability. We urge the Biden administration to make clear its opposition to such efforts ahead of the Arab League Summit scheduled for May 19th, and signal its willingness to impose consequences, including enforcement of Caesar sanctions, on those that undermine accountability for the regime’s atrocities by restoring ties with Assad and his regime.”
Menendez and Risch have been extremely unresponsive to the Arab American community and have ignored repeated attempts to speak with them from Arabs and Muslims.
Arab community leaders have condemned the hypocrisy of selectively addressing issues when it suits their political agenda.
“Senator Menendez and Senator Risch have a habit of ignoring the Arab American and Muslim American community only addressing us when it suits their personal political agendas,” said The Arab Daily News Managing Editor and award winning political columnist and journalist Ray Hanania.
“It’s insulting that they continue to express their opinions about the Middle East and Arab World without ever discussing these issues with the Arab American news media. They can’t be taken seriously until they take our community seriously. This is a message that is also recognized by governments in the Arab World that have recently spoken out against American and U.S. government hypocrisy from the White House, President Joseph Biden, the U.S. State Department, the Senate and the Congress.”
Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.
Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992 at the Daily Southtown and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper (2004-2007).
Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues as Special US Correspondent for the Arab News ArabNews.com, at TheArabDailyNews.com, and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Houston Chronical, and Arlington Heights Daily Herald.
Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.
His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.
Hanania is the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper, covering Middle East and Arab American issues. He writes for the Southwest News newspaper group writing on mainstream American issues.
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