Original news, features, opinions from Chicago to Jerusalem
By Jafar M. Ramini I am in a quandary, torn like no other time before between throwing in the towel and calling it a day or continuing on the same path with no end in sight. What brought this state of confusion and uncertainty in my mind and heart is the wall-to-wall media coverage of…
Read More “Future of Middle East: Between a rock and a hard place” »
By Ray Hanania The decision by Israel’s Arab political parties to create a “joint list” in the upcoming March 17 Israeli Knesset elections has put the spotlight on Israel’s historic contradictions claiming on one hand to be a “Democracy” but in reality embracing racist and discriminatory practices. In the past, the majority of Arab Israeli…
Read More “Arab election unity puts spotlight on Israeli racism & discrimination” »
By Ali Rizk The latest developments in the ongoing conflict between Hezbollah and Israel leave little room for doubt that a full scale war between the two enemies is highly unlikely. As we move ahead the issue to keep an eye on will be the intelligence/assassination war and how recent events may alter Israeli assassination…
Rabbis for Human Rights protests Israel’s collective punishment By Ray Hanania Rabbis for Human Rights, the only rabbinical based human rights organization in Israel, issued a statement this week calling on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the practice of punishing families and relatives of individuals accused of violent crimes by destroying their homes….
Read More “Rabbis for Human Rights protests Israel’s collective punishment” »
By Eileen Fleming On Tuesday Amnesty International emailed this update and action request in support of a free Mordechai Vanunu: Once again, the Israel High Court of Justice (HCJ) has rejected Vanunu’s petition against restrictions on his freedom of movement, association and expression, in their decision dated 25 January 2015. In summary, the judges basically…
Read More “Amnesty International Calls for Action to Free Vanunu” »
The truth is that President Al-Sisi of Egypt can move his nation forward both as a strongman and as a hero of the Arab Spring by learning the lessons of past failures of Democracy in the Middle East and understanding that George Orwell’s book 1984 cast tyranny in the wrong way. By Ray Hanania In the…
Read More “Egypt and the need to overcome Radical Islam, a 1984 re-do” »
By Eileen Fleming John Boehner’s latest boner –meaning a clumsy or stupid mistake- was inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint Session of Congress two weeks before the Israeli elections in March. Boehner’s invite inserted Bibi into the middle of the dispute between the President and Republicans over Iran’s nuclear program which…
Read More “Boehner’s Boner Bibi’s Toast Vanunu’s Freedom Soon or Later” »
By Ray Hanania While the Middle East and issues related to Arab countries dominate the attention of Americans through news media and national security, most Americans are avoiding travel to Middle East countries. A recent study by Hotels.com shows that of the top 50 destinations where Americans are traveling, only one Arab Middle East destination, Dubai in…
Read More “Americans shun Middle East as travel destination” »
By Ray Hanania I used to watch beauty pageants purely for entertainment. But in recent years, they’ve become the focus of a cultural debate between the Arab world, and the rest. The Miss Universe Pageant was held Sunday in Doral, Florida in the United States. It featured 88 female contestants competing in categories involving their…
By Ray Hanania Wars are fought with many armaments. Some of them blow up. Others cause things to blow up. And still more can undermine entire nations simply with a few words. In the Arab-Israeli war, the Arabs are losing. They have been losing for a long time, but they are losing even more, now….
Read More “The war is in English and the Arabs are losing” »
By Ali Rizk In August 2013 Israeli defense minister Moshe Yaalon said the following to visiting US joint chief of staff Martin Dempsey: “We must also be prepared for a long conflict and instability in Syria. We cannot let the Tehran-Damascus-Beirut axis of evil to win this fight”. Over a year has passed since then,…
Read More “Watch for growing Israeli-Iranian & hezbollah tension in Syria” »
By Jafar M. Ramini The late John F. Kennedy, the only President of the United States of America since WW2 with any integrity, once said about justice, “We cannot negotiate with people who say what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is negotiable.” (The White House, July 25, 1961) Let’s try to equate this with…
Read More “The Death of Reason: American bias when it comes to Justice” »
By Ray Hanania U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry delivered opening remarks to attendees at the Journalists’ Security Conference held this week in Washington D.C. Kerry, who has been far more principled than his Bush administration predecessors, reminded the group that a free press ensures that flow of accurate information, but the price has been high in…
By Mohammed Asad Palestine Strawberries from the Gaza Strip are ranked as being among the world’s best. Every year, the Palestine Strawberry industry employs hundreds of farmers to harvest the strawberry crops to pick, package and ship the popular fruit to locations around the world. Despite exporting restrictions imposed by Israel’s military occupation, which controls the flow of…
Read More “Strawberry harvest continues in Gaza Strip, Palestine” »
By Maria C. Khoury, Ed. D. It was simply a most glorious celebration of the Epiphany on the Jordan River today according to the Old Julian calendar. There were hundreds of priests, nuns and thousands of people from all walks of life coming to the precious site where over 2,000 years ago “…the heavens were…
Read More “Celebrating the Baptism of Christ on the Jordan River” »
By Eileen Fleming Ned Rosch, a certified yoga teacher and graduate of The Center for Mind-Body Medicine’s “Healing the Wounds of War,” program said he “was raised in a traditional Zionist Jewish home and torn apart by an internal conflict between my increasingly progressive politics and my Zionist upbringing. Ultimately, I realized I needed to…
Read More “Healing Gaza Palestine Israel with Yoga and Physicians for Social Responsibility” »
Ambassador Riyad H. Mansour, the permanent observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations, will visit Indiana University and speak at its Maurer School of Law on Tuesday, Jan. 20. Mansour will speak on the theme “States of Palestine at the International Arena: A Discussion on Current Events in Palestine,” beginning at 7:30…
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By Ray Hanania The absence of our story as Arab-Americans may explain why so many Americans hate Arabs and Muslims, especially in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo Massacre. Most Americans lump Arabs and Muslims into one category of spite because, to be honest, most Americans are uneducated and ignorant about the facts. I blame…
Read More “I Am Not Charlie Hebdo: I Am Not the Terrorists Either” »