No Negotiations with Apartheid Israel - Let it Self-Destruct!

            Hamas has called upon the Palestinian Authority to boycott talks with Apartheid Israel. I agree.

            I consider myself a moderate, having called for the recognition of Israel as early as 1980 during my college days.  I gave the Apartheid State of Israel every consideration but peace came to the doorsteps but it has never entered the door.

            Apartheid Israel continues to delay any final status talks.  It never wants to discuss the status of Jerusalem, its borders and the right of return.  Why? Apartheid Israel delays peace because its internal politics does not allow it to accept peace.  Israel Is controlled by its minority, by the apartheid settler mentality, by the ultra-orthodox religious right wing fanatics.  The structure of Israel’s structure of government is that no one political party is capable of garnishing a clear majority in the Apartheid Knesset.  Therefore only coalition governments have governed Apartheid Israel, leaving each governing party to be at the mercy of the minority parties within the coalition.  

            With this governmental structure, Apartheid Israel is incapable of wanting peace!  Therefore, negotiations with Apartheid Israel are delusional.

            Apartheid Israel keeps demanding additional conditions upon the Palestinians that it knows the Palestinians will not accept.  After numerous demands upon the Palestinians, Apartheid Israel now wants the Palestinians to recognize it as a “Jewish State.”   Additionally, Apartheid Israel wants to restart negotiations without any preconditions.  It does not want to stop its illegal settlement building, does not want to negotiate the status of Jerusalem and does not want to discuss its borders.  It wants to leave these issues to final status talks that never materialize because it continues to put obstacles to those talks.

            With this mentality, Apartheid Israel is incapable of wanting peace! Therefore, negotiations with Apartheid Israel are delusional.

            Additionally, Apartheid Israel believes it can continue the status quo of its apartheid policies without any consequences.  Apartheid Israel rules two peoples with different discriminatory laws—apartheid.  Apartheid Israel builds by-pass roads for Jews only—apartheid.  Apartheid Israel builds a separation wall—apartheid.  Apartheid Israel has created Palestinian enclaves and ghettos and surrounded them with walls or electronic wired fences—apartheid.  Apartheid Israel cannot sustain these apartheid practices for long.

There are many indications that exposing the Apartheid State of Israel will be effective to change the status quo. The boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement is taking hold.  One good example is the bankruptcy of Agrexco, Apartheid Israel’s leading flower exporter, which was targeted for boycott by more than 20 organizations in Europe in 13 countries.  The Methodist Church had passed an “anti-Israel” motion demanding a boycott of goods from “illegal” settlements. Pension funds are divesting from companies that do business with Apartheid Israeli settlements. Cultural events are in Apartheid Israel are being boycotted.  Many musicians are boycotting Apartheid Israel. [1]

“The international campaign to boycott Ahava beauty products has recently won the support of a Dutch parliamentarian and an Israeli peace group. During the past few months, activists in Canada, the UK, Ireland, Israel, the United States and the Netherlands have campaigned against the sale of Ahava products because of the company’s complicity in the Israeli occupation.”[2]

With the growing BDS movement that will increase month by month, Apartheid Israel will not be able to sustain its apartheid practices.  Therefore, negotiations with Apartheid Israel are not necessary.  Israel will self-destruct.

There are other indications that Apartheid Israel will self-destruct.  The Apartheid Israeli has passed laws that allow Jewish communities to decide who they want to exclude from their community an obvious way to segregate Palestinians from Jews.  Public buses that transport ultra-Orthodox Jews make women sit in the back of the bus.  Apartheid Israel has passed laws that require loyalty oath to the “Jewish and democratic” state pitting the left and right political parties against each other. [3]

Therefore, when Hamas calls upon the Palestinian Authority to boycott negotiations with Apartheid Israel, there are many reasons why this advice should be accepted.   Negotiating with Apartheid Israel is a waste of time.  Let us let time bring Apartheid Israel to abandon the occupation.

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[1] IS BDS Working?  Giulio Meotti  August 31, 20111 http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4115718,00.html

[2] Boycott of Ahava Dead Sea products makes an impact Adri Nieuwhof The Electronic Intifada 

2 December 2009  http://electronicintifada.net/content/boycott-ahava-dead-sea-products-makes-impact/8563

[3] Israel approves loyalty oath, October 10, 2010 http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2010/10/2010101013028364300.html

A Tale of Two Palestinian Ladies

                On Facebook I like to chat with my people in Palestine, both in the West Bank and Gaza, to get a sense of what is happening on the ground. The stories I hear are heartbreaking and this in turn increases my sense of guilt about leaving Palestine at the age of 6½ and migrating to the United States.  I left my people behind and came to the good life. This feeling is reflected in my poem The Other Side of Fleeing (http://poetrybyfadizaanayed.blogspot.com/2011/12/other-side-of-fleeing.html).

                Over the last several days I met a young Palestinian lady whose birthday is on the same month as my daughter, having been born just 17 days apart.  Their stories reflect the guilt in me as I wonder how I would have fared had I been routed in a different direction.  Read my poem A Journey To See Where I Was To Be. (http://poetrybyfadizaanayed.blogspot.com/2011/12/journey-to-see-where-i-was-to-be.html)

                In chatting with her (rather interviewing her for this article) I had a tear in my eyes as I compared Maram’s life in Salfit, Palestine with MaryAnn’s life in Chicago.  Both were born in September, 1988, just months before Yaser Arafat uttered the words recognizing the State of Israel, now known as the Apartheid State of Israel.  

                Expressing that guilt within me, before MaryAnn was born I wrote the poem The Uprising Home and the Stone (http://poetrybyfadizaanayed.blogspot.com/2011/12/uprising-home-and-stone.html).  MaryAnn had a loving home and parents, her own bed and room, she had the toy kitchen and dolls and educated parents who received their degrees from Chicago universities.  Her father, me, is a lawyer and Maryann had a very bright future ahead of her.

                Maram tells me that she realized that Palestinians were under Israeli occupation at the tender age of one as she recalls gunfire outside her home.   Just eight months earlier, the first Intifada began by inspired Palestinian youth who rose up against the Apartheid Israeli occupation and Maram remembers the gunfire.

                MaryAnn grew up and a new and bigger home was built for the family when she was 5 years old. Maram lost her father when she was 11 months old. A Palestinian traitor informed the Apartheid Israeli soldiers that Maram’s father, Ibrahim had a gun. Then an Apartheid truck chased him down and the Apartheid soldiers killed him.  The traitor quickly migrated to the US leading many to believe that he lied to earn a visa.

                MaryAnn never had a gun pointed at her face as did Maram one day at a checkpoint near Nablus.  Maram and her younger sister were heading home to Salfit which is south of Nablus.  Maram’s sister who was 17 years old had not acquired her “identity” card from the apartheid authorities as she was not required to get it before she turned 18. Approaching the checkpoint on that rainy day, the apartheid authorities would not let Maram’s sister get through, although Maram was allowed to proceed.  Of course, Maram refused to leave her sister and they both stayed together in the pouring rain for three hours as the apartheid soldiers held a gun to Maram’s face.

                I would like to believe that MaryAnn would have done the same had she been in Maram’s place.  Knowing my daughter, I am afraid that she would have confronted the apartheid soldiers with all her gusto and been thrown in prison.  But at the time, MaryAnn did not have a rifle pointed at her face but rather secluded away in a dorm of a Southern Illinois university majoring in biology studying to be a doctor.   Maram too was studying at a university near her home. Her field of interest was business.

                When Maram was in 7^th grade the Second Palestinian Intifada began.  Maram remembers the school being closed for a day every time the apartheid soldiers entered their elementary school.  The school would be closed for several days each time disrupting her education.  The elementary school was used to interrogate the residents of Salfit, two of which were Maram’s grandparents. 

The closest MaryAnn got to a policeman was when I was stopped for speeding on the way to Church when she was young.  The officer was nice and he let my family go to be on time to church. MaryAnn did have an experience of what it means to be an Arab on September 11, 2011 when other children on her school bus called her and her brother “terrorists.” I made sure those children were disciplined by school authorities.

Yes, MaryAnn traveled to school on a school bus while Maram walked to school.

These two young Palestinian ladies have similar dreams.  They both want to help others. MaryAnn recently held a major fundraiser for St. Jude Hospital at her campus, being inspired by making rounds with her Doctor Aunt at the cancer ward. Maram tells me that she wants to help build Palestine.

Both Maram and MaryAnn know that one day they will be married; both want children and want the best for them.  Maram tells me that she wants her children to have a better life than she has had—a trait in all of us. Yet, Maram’s desires are more profound than those of MaryAnn. 

While MaryAnn would want to give a better life to her children, I do not know what that can be. MaryAnn went to Disneyland more times than I can remember; to Wisconsin Dells resort almost every year during her childhood; and to my Ramallah Family conventions on several occasions.  She had all the clothes she needed and enjoyed all the toys any child could want.  Her stuffed animals filled her canopy bed.

Maram longs for freedom something that although Maryann has does not long for as it is ever present. Maram longs for a life without checkpoints or a separation wall, something I do not believe MaryAnn or any other American youth can comprehend. Maram longs for her father who was killed when she was only 11months old; MaryAnn has both her parents.

Maram wants to live in a country, her country Palestine, where there is “freedom of expression” where she would not fear imprisonment for her thoughts by the Apartheid State of Israel. I cannot imagine that MaryAnn can live with her thoughts repulsed, where she could not express her thoughts and desires.

Maram wants to live in a city that is not surrounded by a barbed wire separating the village from the farms owned by the villagers.  During harvest season, farmers must strictly abide by exit and entry timelines to get to their farms.  

I do not think that MaryAnn can understand such a life.  She cannot understand a life without freedom—plain and simple, a life without freedom.

(  © Copyright, Fadi Zanayed.  Publication or distribution of this material is allowed provided its content is not altered and the source and its author are cited.)

The Lowe’s Controversy—Moving Forward

                Three weeks after the home improvement store Lowe’s offended the American-Arab community by pulling its ad from the TLC channel show All American Muslim and after a lackluster response by the national American-Arab organizations, we need to look at how the “community” needs to act now to prevent future affronts.  The problem with our community is that we are reactionary rather than "preventionary” community. Yes, this is a new word which means that we have to take action now to prevent any further politician, corporation or any other person from affronting our community.  We need to make the next perpetrator of racism an example of why such action will not be tolerated.

  

              Our community has mandated confronting and preventing discrimination to the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) which is celebrating its 31^st year, having been founded by Senator James Aburizk (D-SD   1973-1979) in 1980 after FBI agents dressed up like Arab oil sheiks to “sting” members of Congress. Outraged at this negative portrayal of American-Arabs, Senator Aburizk went around the US and organized ADC chapters in major cities. I was at the founding meeting in Chicago in 1980 and served as the Chicago Regional Director in 1984 and Chicago Chapter President in 1988-1990 and again in 2009.

            ADC enjoyed many victories and was very successful in combating discrimination in the 1980s. During that time, ADC confronted discrimination head on.  One notable campaign in 1988 involved the Nomad doll. The book A Short Course in International Marketing Blunders shows how a US corporation’s (Coleco) attempt to ethnically stereotype American-Arabs caused its downfall.

What landed on Coleco, however, wasn’t the issue of shelf life. It was the issue of ethnic stereotyping engendered in the Nomad, one of Rambo’s most ruthless enemies==a burnoose-wearing, obviously Arab figure described in its package insert as ‘dangerous, cold, unstable, and treacherous’ with ‘an intimate knowledge of sabotage.’ In short, the Nomad action figure embodied everything people thought they knew about real Arabs.

The outrage was deafening, with Arab-American community activist groups and others demanding the toy be removed from store shelves.  And newspapers across the country reported on planned boycotts and anti-Coleco media campaigns.[1]

                ADC organized a massive campaign across the country which helped bring “Coleco—once the King of Toys and global marketer of Scrabble and Parchesi board games” out of business.[2] The campaign involved demonstrations in front of Toys R Us stores and a more effective telephone campaign that sent hundreds if not thousands of calls into the Coleco headquarters complaining about the insidious attempt to stereotype American-Arabs.  ADC taught an American corporation a lesson in the 1980s and “prevented” other corporations from manufacturing another racist toy.

                This lesson, however, was short lived as the first and second Gulf Wars and 911 perpetuated further negative stereotypes against American-Arabs.  Additionally, ADC’s stance during the first Gulf War in which its position was that Iraq’s invasion into Kuwait was an internal Arab matter for which the US and the world should not get involved hurt ADC’s stance and funding. As a result, ADC ‘s prestige as the premier American-Arab organization suffered.  Consequently, ADC has not fought the good fight against discrimination since.

                Now in 2011, ADC needs to go back to its roots.  ADC gained prestige by combating discrimination head on, i.e. Coleco.  The incident with Lowe’s was not confronted with the same pizazz and fervor as ADC confronted discrimination in the 1980s. Back then, computers were not widespread; the internet, and consequently email, was not a part of our lives; and cell phones were still too premature.  Yet, ADC responded instantaneously (within a week, which was good in those days).  With the Lowe’s, ADC’s response was at best lukewarm—calling for demonstrations by the second weekend.  

                While the NY Times on December 23, 2011 issued an excellent editorial which called Lowe’s decision to pull its ad a foolish judgment call,[3] it was not because of any American-Arab outrage.

                ADC needs to follow-up on this issue.  It needs to meet with Lowe’s officers and present a program to educate the American public about Muslims and Arabs and present Lowe’s with the bill.  Lowe’s has to rectify its image with Muslims and Arabs by combating the Islamophobia that has engulfed the American mainstream.

                Additionally, ADC needs to develop a rapid response committee of American-Arab activists who will respond to text messages instantaneously whenever discrimination rears its ugly head again—and it will.  In this age of lighting communications, ADC needs to respond quickly to get its message across.  The AT&T commercial which pokes fun at other wireless networks for disseminating information that is 42 seconds old is a reflection on how fast communication is moving in this second decade of the 21^st Century.  

                In retrospect, ADC should have sent a text message to its committed activist such as the following 159 character message within hours of the Lowe’s controversy:

Call Lowes 1-8004456937 press 4 then 3 and complain about its pulling ad from All American Muslim Show. Tell them you will not shop there unless ad is replaced

                I communicated this text message to an ADC staff member—but nothing was done. 

                Now let us understand what we need to do to move forward—to be a “preventionary” force.  ADC needs to identify 100-200 of its very active members who will be willing to act immediately whenever it receives an “action alert” text message from the national ADC office.   Additionally, these members must be committed to get 10 relatives and friends to so act.  Had Lowe’s received a  1,000 telephone calls within hours of its decision to pull the ads, it may have rescinded its decision or at the very least it would have put ADC in a better bargaining position to have Lowe’s help ADC fight the Islamophobia that created this controversy.

                Additionally, ADC executives need to read Saul D. Alinsky’s book Rules For Radicals.   Although written prior to his death in 1972, Allinsky’s book provides out of the box thinking for organizing campaigns for social justice.   ADC needs to be creative, spontaneous and enthusiastic in meeting its mission to confront discrimination against American-Arabs just as it did in the 1980s.  


(  © Copyright, Fadi Zanayed.  Publication or distribution of this material is allowed provided its content is not altered and the source and its author are cited.)

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[1]A Short Course in International Marketing Blunders, p. 136 http://books.google.com/books?id=zz1L3nnNmMcC&pg=PA136&lpg=PA136&dq=Nomad+doll+ADC&source=bl&ots=ZU717vjtr-&sig=2auUpAu2PZj2raunSxYkip5sjvo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Fev1TrukA8eSgwf8tpH-AQ&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Nomad%20doll%20ADC&f=false (See also 1998 - Coleco Nomad was one of Rambo's antagonists from this mid-eighties line of action figures. The Arab community protested the stereotypical portrayal of an Arab as a terrorist and were successful in having the figure pulled.  http://www.bigredtoybox.com/cgi-bin/toynfo.pl?condolindexI know the controversy was in 1988 or there about, not 1998 as this site states.)

[2] Supra

[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/24/opinion/an-all-american-misstep.html?_r=1

American Women should Support Israeli Rosa Parks and Palestinians

                It is not hard to find stories within Apartheid Israel which show how it discriminates not only against Palestinians but against its own people.  Perusing Apartheid Israel’s daily newspapers, Jerusalem Post and Haaretz.com, on-line, one can easily find some governmental law or inaction that shows how undemocratic the so called democratic Apartheid State of Israel really is.  The latest exposure of apartheid shows how women are subjected to the disparaging and humiliation of having to sit on the back of a public bus. Remnants of the indignity African-Americans had to endure in the segregated southern States in the US prior to the 1960’s flash back.

                Yocheved Horowitz, called the Rosa Parks of Apartheid Israel, has set out to challenge the unwritten law that women in Israel must sit on the back of the bus.  See the article at Haaretz.com http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/israel-s-real-rosa-parks-takes-to-the-buses-1.403135.

                Statistically, Jewish-Americans   were one of the most actively involved non-black groups in the civil rights movement.  It is ironic that 56 years after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama public bus, Jewish women in Apartheid Israel are fighting the same battles that African-Americans fought with the help of Jewish-Americans.  This is the reality that Americans do not realize.  Apartheid Israel would have the world believe that it is a democratic state, after all, perception is reality; however this perception that it tries to convey is far from reality.

                Discrimination against Palestinians in Apartheid Israel and in Occupied Palestine is a daily reality. One indignity that Palestinians have to endure daily is that they cannot travel on Jews only by-pass roads—spelling it out more clearly, Palestinians are not allowed to travel on these roads.  This is enforced by designated colored license plates for Palestinians.

This segregation of Palestinians and Israelis is clearly within the meaning of apartheid: a political system that separates the different peoples living under its control and gives privileges to those of the Jewish religion.  But this definition now needs to be redefined: a political system that separates the different peoples living under its control and gives privileges to those of the Jewish religion but some privileges are only given to Jewish men, i.e. sitting in front of the bus while women sit in the back.

                Women all over the world should be outraged at this apartheid mentality exercised so blatantly in Apartheid Israel in the 21^st Century.    But being outraged when a member of your “group,” in this case women, makes you outraged, should give you pause to reflect upon these words by Martin Luther “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”  

            The injustice that Apartheid Israel perpetrates with cruelty each and every day against Palestinians should make you just as outraged as knowing that Jewish women are subjected to the indignity of having to sit behind Jewish men on public buses.  As the MLK statement clearly states, those who do not necessarily feel injustice should be threatened by injustice anywhere for while injustice may not be directed against you today, it may tomorrow. Thus all humankind should be ever vigilant against injustice anywhere.  

            Segregation of people, whether it is between Palestinians and Israelis or between men and women within Apartheid Israel, is a threat to justice everywhere.  Perpetuating injustice continues the conflict in the Middle East and leaves the stability of the region in doubt. American acquiescence to such injustice allows the people of the Middle East to look negatively upon the US, especially if one injustice is confronted while the other is ignored. 

            When the US confronted Sadam Hussein’s occupation of Kuwait in 1990, Arabs were elated because they believed that the natural progression would be for the US to confront Israeli occupation of Palestine.  However, continued US acquiescence to Israeli occupation has rendered American justice to be injustice.   

            America has and continues to ignore the injustice of Apartheid Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land.  If women and particularly Jewish-American women come to the aid of Yocheved Horowitz and all Jewish women in Apartheid Israel and ignore the injustice committed against Palestinians, injustice will continue to threaten everyone everywhere.

(  © Copyright, Fadi Zanayed.  Publication or distribution of this material is allowed provided its content is not altered and the source and its author are cited.)

ADC has failed to protect American-Arabs

                The mentality imbedded into Arab culture from decades of decadent dictators ruthlessly ruling is that everyone wants to lead and nobody wants to follow.  Thus we have too many chiefs and no warriors. It is the same with our American-Arab organizations. Every organization wants to operate exclusively from the rest of any other organization to the detriment of the American-Arab advancement.

                This past two weeks the American-Arab community missed a golden opportunity to confront bigotry and racism in the Newt Gingrich and Lowes Corporation Islamophobia incidences.   While major American-Arab organizations each individually tried to “do something” their efforts will be unsuccessful because each claps with one hand.

                The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) has failed miserably to live by its mandate to fight discrimination.  When Lowes pulled its ads from the TV show “All American Muslim” because an insignificant organization called Florida Family Association objected to a positive portrayal of Muslims in the US, ADC should have taken immediate action.   This weekend, finally, ADC is trying to organize demonstrations in front of Lowes stores across the country. Too little too late.

ADC should have rallied immediate widespread support across the country to organize massive telephone calls to Lowes customer care center during this Christmas gift giving season—effectively shutting down their telephone operations.  ADC needs a rapid response action alert system whereby it can respond to acts of racism and discrimination within hours. After 30 years of operation, it is absolutely amazing that ADC does not have such a system.  ADC should use the electronic media in set up a rapid text messaging system to move the young people to action.

                Each American-Arab organization has a specific purpose.  As I stated, ADC’s mandate is to fight discrimination.  The American-Arab Institute (AAI) headed by Jim Zogby and George Salem, has distinguished itself as the leading organization in improving American-Arab participation in the electoral process by increasing the number of voters (Yalla Vote), getting people to become involved in political campaigns or assisting candidates to run for political office.  The American Federation of Ramallah, Palestine (AFRP) and other town based Palestinian organizations keep their members together because of their loyalties to their specific town. Religious organizations have a specific faith based membership.  Political organizations who owe their allegiance to a particular party or government in the Middle East have their own agendas.  Business organizations, who can really benefit from a cohesive community, have not attempted to produce an environment of cooperation.

                What is common to all these organizations is a self interest in promoting the American-Arab image. Everyone wants greater American-Arab participation in the electoral process; wants to stop the discrimination and the Islamophobia engulfing America; wants to promote family ties between members of “hometowns” in the Middle East; wants to promote religious activities within the community and wants a strong business community.  Yet each organization acts so independently that the greater good does not prevail and ironically, the interest of each organization is thus marginalized.

                ADC should reach out to AAI, AFRP and other cultural, political and religious organizations to promote the common interest of fighting discrimination and Islamophobia. AAI should reach out to ADC and these other organizations and help promote participation in the American electoral system.  The AFRP and other organizations should encourage its members to participate in ADC, AAI and others to promote American-Arab causes. 

                The problem with these leading organizations is that they operate in a mutually exclusive environment rather than a mutually inclusive environment.  Each organization is doing whatever it does with its own members rather than working together to get beneficial results which benefit the entire community. In the final analysis, the result of each organization is a dismal failure.

                Thus when Lowes and Newt Gingrich took aim at the American-Arab community, they did it knowing that the community does not have the ability to fight back.  This is really sad.

                It is time for American-Arabs to start telling its organizations to start cooperating with each other. They owe it to each other, they owe it to the American-Arab community. 


(  © Copyright, Fadi Zanayed.  Publication or distribution of this material is allowed provided its content is not altered and the source and its author are cited.)