Editorial

These remarks were delivered at a tribute for Helen Thomas, Thursday, November 18, at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington DC D.C., sponsored by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). I’m very proud to be asked to speak at a tribute to one of the great journalists in the history of this country – Helen … Continued

Kinda Hibrawi is a Syrian American artist. Hibrawi’s original artwork is sought by collectors and is currently exhibited in shows across the US. She is paving the way for a new generation of young Arab American artists. As an Arab American, she has felt the need for her artwork to reflect the richness of the … Continued

All week I’ve been looking for signs of the thaw. The mile-long queue of Turkish and European Union-plated trucks idling at the border was the first, and surely the optimism with which the taxi drivers talked about the future, zigzagging through the streets of Aleppo, was another. But as I wander the tributaries of the … Continued

Hating on Muslims seems to be very popular these days among the politically conservative set, as in the controversy over the so-called “Ground Zero mosque.” And one of the objects of that hate seems to be the alleged creeping influence of sharia. Sharia is the sacred law of Islam, although there are different interpretations of … Continued

AMANPOUR: So we’re going to start now by talking to Peter Gadiel, whose son was killed on 9/11 in the World Trade Center. Let me ask you, Peter, should Americans fear Islam? PETER GADIEL, SON KILLED ON 9/11: Well, I’d like nothing better than to say that I was not afraid of Islam. I’d like … Continued

Government agents searched eight homes of a handful of activists in Chicago and Minneapolis this past week claiming that they were giving “material support to terrorism.” I don’t know the people whose homes were searched in Minneapolis but I do know one of the three people whose homes were targeted in Chicago. He is Hatem … Continued

A visit to the occupied territories of Palestine can change one’s perspectives forever. Such was the case of Anna Baltzer. Baltzer is a Jewish-American granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. In 2005, she was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to teach English in Ankara, Turkey and volunteered with the International Women’s Peace Service in the West Bank. There … Continued

“The Palestinian struggle for independence embodies a noble idea and a just cause. In Afif Safieh it found one if its most intellectually powerful, articulate and eloquent spokesmen. His book makes a vital contribution to our understanding of the cause that he has served with dignity and distinction for over three decades. It deserves the … Continued

Five Arab countries – Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon – are among the 37 failed states that Foreign Policy magazine and the Fund for Peace singled out recently in their Failed States Index 2010. These five are unable to control their territories, rendering them havens for crime, drugs, piracy or terrorism. Their territorial integrity … Continued

The circus around the mosque should start to lose audience. New York officials have the authority to decide whether an Islamic center may be built near the tragic site of the attacks on the Twin Towers. They’ve given it a green light. Our foreign policy establishment worries that the intemperate rants against the project are … Continued

Conjure, for a moment, a place just steps from City Hall but a world apart. Salaam. Yes, that is the fragrance of strong coffee in the air, of sweet figs and tart lemons, of pastries that remind buyers of childhoods in Damascus and Beirut. Bazaars abound with handmade rugs and brass lamps and water pipes. … Continued