The Truth

Changes are happening in the Arab world

2011-01-25T19:07:00.000-08:00

It has been a very long time since I actually blogged or wrote something new, but the current situation in the Middle East right now is something hard to not to pay attention and share my thoughts about it. I honestly don't know if I should start with Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, or Palestine and this list can keep going on to cover many more countries in a region that is boiling now with the people finally rising against the darkness that they have been living in because of the dictators backed by the west.

I want to and should start by saluting the Tunisian people for their revolution which forced their dictator, who was the president of the country for the last 23 years by terrorizing the people and government corruption, to flee the country. I was happy to see that finally an Arab nation forced a change they have been waiting for a very long time to happen. It was really painful to see that what initiated the revolution and riots was unemployment after a university young graduate, Mohamed Bouazizi, set himself alight in protest at having his only source of income which is a vegetable cart taken from him for not having a license. After continuous demonstrations and riots, that the police killed many people during, the people were able to finally get that they asked for. This is the first revolution in an Arab world that is freeing the people from the darkness.There are Interpol warrants to arrest the Tunisian president and his family as they need to be trialed back in Tunisia. Back in 2006 Saddam Hussein, president of Iraq, was sentenced by an unjust trial, for his dictatorship and crimes, which benefited the American and the west by justifying their occupation. I am wondering if the west really will have an interest now in actually sentencing another dictator and criminal who should not be free out there.

This good trend of Arabs not accepting what the older generation had accepted is spreading to neighboring countries. Egyptians are the latest people to rise against a corrupted government and a president that has been in charge since 1981 and over these 30 years he was able to get more than 95% of the popular vote in every election. To get this high of a popular vote percentage you must be running the country undemocratically as a dictator. I believe that the Egyptians are intelligent people, and they were encouraged after they saw the success of their Tunisian brothers and sisters. I know these riots has just started in Egypt, and I know that the Egyptian police will be vicious to hurt people and stop these riots, of course there is no human rights barriers for their police, but I hope this will not get so bloody. A nation like Egypt with all the natural resources and man power can be a leading economical nation in this world but because of a corrupted government Egypt is a slave for the west countries, as many Arab nations that have a corrupted leadership backed by the west.

I really wanted to talk about the Palestinian situation and how the corrupted government again showed us why Palestinian people didn't trust the Palestinian Authority lead by Fateh and decided to vote for Hamas in 2006. Aljazeera released documents showing how the Palestinian Authority and Fateh's negotiators specifically were willing offer Israel East Jerusalem and many more parts of the West Bank, ignore the right of return, and still allowing the illegal Israeli settlements to stay in the West Bank. Sadly you can still see some loyal idiot Fateh supporters coming out in the streets in support of Fateh. I definitely can’t deny that Fateh was a great group of people back when it started in the 60s till the early 80s, when they were fighting for freedom, but then it was infected with many corrupted people that sold the cause and settled for a couple of guards, houses and some cars. People in Palestine that resisted and survived the occupation since 1948 I believe can revolt against this corrupted government with negotiators willing to settle for nothing. Fateh does not have the popularity that it used to have, another election will show that they will lose again, but the Palestinian need to go out and demonstrate the bad situation they are living under because of this leadership. I don't think I can give the Palestinian conflict and these released documents its fair value if I just include them in this article, so I will be writing my thoughts about the situation in Palestine in a separate article.

I am really getting into writing about all these events in the Middle East. I am not trying to be a journalist and report the news, but I am writing about what I feel, about what has been happening over the last decades. Was the revolution in Tunisia the "Tipping Point" of the Middle East? Malcom Gladwell defined a tipping point in his book "The Tipping Point" as “the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point." I believe that without a doubt the Social Networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, were one of the most influential factors in these revolutions because the news about every single event is spreading out quickly and with no governmental control, and people are getting motivated to go out and join the masses. It was always known that in the Middle East if you ever talked against or just even about the government you will get arrested and tortured for by police. With the youth representing the majority in the Middle East, and being educated and ambitious, but are unemployed, frustrated and resentful of the situation I really believe that change is coming to the Middle East. I want finish this article by repeating what the Tunisian poet, Abul Kassem al Shabbi said earlier in the previous century as it is reflecting the situation in the Arab world: "Itha ash-Sha'abu yawman Aradal Hayat, Fala budda ay yastajeebal Qadar" which is translated to "If one day the people really sought life, destiny will certainly consent". Changes are happening in the Arab world!

Robert Fisk on the Dead Sea Scrolls

2009-07-12T17:56:00.000-07:00

An excellent article by Robert Fisk on the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Robert Fisk’s World: You won't find any lessons in unity in the Dead Sea Scrolls

I looked at the texts in Toronto – a tale that was bound to pose a series of questions

Saturday, 11 July 2009

At last, I have seen the Dead Sea Scrolls. There they were, under their protective, cool-heated screens, the very words penned on to leather and papyrus 2,000 years ago, the world's most significant record of the Old Testament.

I guess you've got to see it to believe it. I can't read Hebrew – let alone ancient Hebrew (or Greek or Aramaic, the other languages of the scrolls) – but some of the letters are familiar to me from Arabic. The "seen" (s) of Arabic, and the "meem" (m) are almost the same as Hebrew and there they were, set down by some ancient who knew, as we do, only the past and nothing of the future. Most of the texts are in the Bible; several are not. "May God most high bless you, may he show you his face and may he open for you," it is written on the parchments. "For he will honour the pious upon the throne of an eternal kingdom."

The story of the discovery of the scrolls is, of course, well known. An Arab Bedouin boy, Mohamed el-Dib, found them at Khirbet Qumran in a cave in what is now the occupied West Bank of Palestine in 1947, and handed them over to a cobbler turned antiquities dealer called Khalil Eskander Shahin in Jerusalem; they eventually ended up in the hands of scholars – mostly American – in the Jordanian side of Jerusalem. Then came the 1967 war and the arrival of the Israeli army in East Jerusalem and... well, you can imagine the rest.

Now, I have to say that I looked at these original texts in the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, a tale that was bound to engender a whole series of questions, not least of which is Canada's softly-softly approach to anything approaching controversy. At no point in the exhibition, jointly arranged with the professional (and brilliant) assistance of the Israel Antiquities Authority, is there any mention, hem hem, of the West Bank or occupation. Or how the documents found there came to be in the hands of the Israelis.

So cautious are the dear old Canadians – who should by now have learned that concealing unhappy truths will only create fire and pain – that they do not even mention that "Kando", the first recipient of the scrolls, was Armenian. Of course not. Because then they would have to explain why an Armenian was in Jerusalem, not in western Turkey. Which would mean that they would have to mention the Armenian Holocaust of 1915 (one and a half million Armenian civilians murdered by Ottoman Turks).

This would anger Canada's Turkish community, who are holocaust deniers. And in turn, it would anger the Israel Antiquities Authority, who do not acknowledge that the Armenian Holocaust ever happened, there being only one True Holocaust, which is that of the Jews of Europe. The Jewish Holocaust is a fact, but the Armenian variety – a trial run for Hitler's destruction of six million Jews – cannot be discussed in Canada. Nor indeed in America, where Obama gutlessly failed even to use the word "genocide" last April.

Then we come down to the exhibition itself. Poor old Canadians, they had to publicise the whole fandango as a form of "unity" – there being three monotheistic religions, Jewish, Christian and Muslim, geddit? – but alas, the scrolls are not written in Arabic and the sole gesture to the Islamic faith is a single 200-year-old illuminated Koran. The museum bookshop also devotes a small heap of books on Islam to bolster their claim to "unity". The exhibition, according to the museum's director, William Thorsell – in a lamentable piece of pseudo prose – "will launch provocative enlightening inter-faith discussions". Here I reach for my sick bag.

Because the message of most of the videos showing around the exhibition (this being the age of multitechnical as well as multicultural wellbeing) make it clear that Judea and Samaria (the West Bank to the rest of us) is originally Jewish. And so it was, by God. The poor old Philistines lived on the sea coast. But when I suggested a swap to a bunch of Israeli settlers some years ago – to be fair, they roared in good-humoured laughter at my horrible suggestion that Israel might be given to the Palestinians in return for the occupied West Bank – the idea did not commend itself to them. They wanted Tel Aviv and all of internationally recognised Israel plus the West Bank. (At the time, they also wanted to keep Gaza, partly on the grounds – according to one of them – that this was where Jonah was puked up by the whale.)

No such claims soil the Ontario exhibition. "Words that Changed the World" is how the organisers coyly entitle their exhibition, "a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see these historical treasures". But up come the spoilsports, namely the Canadian "Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid", to suggest that the scrolls, originally in the hands of the Jordanian Department of Antiquities and the Ecole Biblique Française, were "confiscated and illegally removed by Israel" in 1967. The Royal Ontario Museum, the protesters say, is showing "looted" property which it has no right to exhibit. The Palestinian Authority itself has intervened, arguing that the museum is "displaying artefacts removed from the Palestinian territories". (Let us not, O Reader, mention the Elgin marbles, albeit that the Brits don't occupy Greece.)

So the museum has started to clam up. "We're not granting any interviews," according to a snotty spokeswoman for this esteemed institution. I can well see why. The museum claims it has documents to prove the legality of the exhibition. But it won't show them. Nor will it consult Unesco for its opinion. Plenty of unity there, of course.

Needless to say, if the Saudi government were to exhibit its Islamic treasures in Toronto, I doubt very much if it would mention the large Jewish community that once lived in Arabia. Any more than a recent Turkish cultural exhibition at the Royal Academy mentioned the – ahem, ahem again – contribution of the Armenians to Turkish history. Mind you, given the fact that the photographs of the Dead Sea Scrolls are infinitely clearer and more decipherable than the originals stared at by The Independent's Middle East correspondent, I do wonder if these precious documents really need to be flown around the world.

But I guess it's the same old story: seeing is believing. Providing you're not a Palestinian or an Armenian or anyone interested in property rights.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fiskrsquos-world-you-wont-find-any-lessons-in-unity-in-the-dead-sea-scrolls-1741943.html

Decisions must be overturned immediately

2009-03-30T18:43:00.000-07:00

Canada right now is facing a real threat; it is not an external threat but an internal one. It has nothing to do with explosives or physical destruction but something more serious that that. The threat is from the current Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Honorable Jason Kenny, which poses a threat to the Canadian national democratic system. Checking the minister’s statements and decisions over the last two months have been disturbing and it shows that the current Minister of Citizenship and Immigration has a lack of respect for citizenship, democracy and the right of free speech.

The minister ‘s statement few weeks ago accusing the Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) events as being anti-Semitic and form a threat to the Jewish students on our campuses is a misleading statement. The events of the IAW that were organized in more than 40 cities worldwide were never meant to be against Jewish people but to criticize the actions of the Israeli apartheid state. A lot of the speakers and organizers of the week itself are Jewish themselves and they oppose the racist actions of the Israeli state. So whoever is trying to use this excuse of the week being anti-Semitic or spreading hatred against the Jewish people is a liar and using this to restrain people from criticizing Israel. So comments like this by the minister will not stop this week from happening and as Naomi Klein, a famous Canadian Jewish author, commented during the opening of the Israeli Apartheid Week in Toronto that “ Serious movements have serious enemies, all the attacks you are facing is a measure of the success of this movement”

Another shameful decision by the minister happened this week by ordering to cut the funding to the Settlement Service of the Canadian Arab Federation (CAF). The head of the Canadian Arab Federation, Khaled Mouammar, spoke loudly criticizing the government of Canada’s silence during the Israeli raid on Gaza that started in December and killed 1400 Palestinians within 3 weeks, and this started a war between Mouammar and the minister. The funding given was used by CAF for language lessons for newcomers and workshops to develop the necessary skills to successfully integrate into the Canadian society. I personally feel this is a disturbing action by minister because only new immigrants, as well as the whole society, will be affected by this decision not anyone else. The minister should not be allowed to punish a whole community just because they disagree with his or the governments actions, this is insane. It sounds to me this minister is sending a warning to other non-profit, anti-racist organizations not to criticize members of the Canadian government of they will face a similar destiny, which means suppressing our freedom of speech in this country.

Last but not least, the minister this week has banned British MP George Galloway from entering Canada. Galloway is scheduled to speak in four cities during a pan-Canadian speaking tour from March 30 to April 2. Due to Galloway’s views on the war in Afghanistan the minister is claiming that Galloway represents a “threat to national security”. I can not believe that this minister actually used this excuse; this is something we frequently heard it used by the previous American administration about anyone they disagreed with. The decision by the minister to ban Galloway is an attack on free speech and on the right to criticize our own government's foreign policy. If this minister had a referendum today to ask Canadians about the war in Afghanistan he will find that probably the majority oppose this war now. Why should we not oppose this war after seeing many Canadian soldiers being killed there this month alone? Canada does not allow anyone with a criminal record to enter it but to ban someone from entering the country for disagreeing with the Canadian foreign policy is shameful and a will be marked as a black day in the history of this nation.

I want to finish this by asking the people to take a stand against the actions of the minister. I believe that his decisions are racist and targeting specific group of people. Canada has been built on accepting all immigrants here disregarding their color or race and helps them in integrated in the society easily, but the decision of the minister will jeopardize this now. At the same time, trying to limit the freedom of speech of people in Canada now is something serious that all people should be aware of and should take a stand against it because this might affect any topic that the government is not in agreeing with. These decisions and actions are not welcomed here and should be overturned immediately.

The Fifth Annual Israeli Apartheid Week March 1 - 8, 2009

2009-02-22T10:26:00.000-08:00

Mark your calendars - the 5th Annual Israeli Apartheid Week will take place across the globe from March 1-8, 2009!

First launched in Toronto in 2005, IAW has grown to become one of the most important global events in the Palestine solidarity calendar. Last year, more than 25 cities around the world participated in the week's activities, which also commemorated 60 years since the expulsion of the Palestinian people from their homes and land in 1947-1948. IAW 2008 was launched with a live broadcast from the South African township of Soweto by Palestinian leader and former member of the Israeli Knesset, Azmi Bishara.

This year, IAW occurs in the wake of Israel's barbaric assault against the people of Gaza. Lectures, films, and actions will make the point that these latest massacres further confirm the true nature of Israeli Apartheid. IAW 2009 will continue to build and strengthen the growing Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement at a global level.

Check their website to find all the information about the events at different cities www. apartheidweek.org/

You can check the trailer as well:

CBS "60 Minutes" segment "Time Running Out For A Two-State Solution?"

2009-01-27T17:09:00.000-08:00

It is quite extraordinary that CBS broadcast a segment that openly addresses Israeli Apartheid and the treatment that the Palestinians receive under Israeli Occupation. Please make sure to watch it and distribute this segment. CBS should be thanked for broadcasting this.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/23/60minutes/main4749723.shtml?tag=topStory;topStoryHeadline

Stop the Massacre in Gaza

2009-01-08T18:06:00.000-08:00

What is happening right now in Gaza is something that no human being should ever have to witness or accept. On December 27, 2008, Israel launched a series of air strikes and bombing on Gaza, killing more than 200 Palestinians within the first few hours. On January 3, 2008 the Israel Occupying Forces (IOF) started their land invasion on the Gaza strip. At the time I am writing this article, the total number of Palestinians killed by these unjust attacks has mounted to over 660, with over 2,800 wounded. On the other side, the Hamas and Palestinian fighters launched homemade short range rockets, causing the death of 10 Israelis and injuring around 30. This means that for every Israeli killed, there have been approximately 70 Palestinians killed by the IOF. It is ridiculous and shameful that no one is forcing Israel to stop their attack. A human being is still a human being, whether they are Palestinian or Israeli. It does not make sense that there is death on both sides, with the Palestinians having a death toll that is 70 times higher death numbers than that of the Israelis. This is not a matter of math equations and numbers; we are talking about humans and their lives. Each one of the people who died had a family, a life, stories and things to accomplish.

Because of the crisis in Gaza, on Saturday, January 3, 2008 more than 10 000 marched in the streets of downtown Toronto opposing the terrorist attacks by the IOF on Gaza. People from everywhere in the province gathered at Yonge & Dundas, and marched first to the Israeli consulate, then to the American consulate, shouting to end the occupation of Palestine and stop the attacks on Gaza. This number of demonstrators should be a sign for the Canadian government to hear the people and take action against Israel. The Canadian government should call for a fair immediate cease-fire from both sides, and the lifting of the siege on Gaza to allow the delivery of aid, medicine, etc. Canada should pressure Israel to allow free access for international humanitarian organizations, journalists and diplomats, which has been blocked. I really felt like throwing up when I read the statement made by the Minister of Foreign Affairs about the situation in Gaza, in which the blame was placed upon the Palestinians.

People are blaming the Palestinians and Hamas for firing home made short-distance rockets into the Israeli cities close by Gaza, but what do you expect them to do in response to the destructive Israeli bombing on Gaza? The recent “cease-fire” between Hamas and Israel, which ended in early November, resulted in a decrease in missile fire into Israel but the situation in Gaza only got worse. During the cease-fire, Israel had a blockade on Gaza and restricted anything from moving in or out of the strip. They restricted the amount of fuel flowing in to less than 15% of the required amount, limiting electricity access to a maximum of 5-7 hours daily. By limiting the amount of fuel flowing into the strip, they paralyzed life in Gaza, as even hospitals could not operate properly without any electricity or fuel for an electricity generator. Even the United Nations (UN) has suffered because of the Israeli occupying regime, as the Israelis restricted their supplies, leaving the UN with no food supplies for many days. I am laying most of the blame upon Israel for the deaths of the Palestinians and the Israelis too, because their actions led the Palestinians to fire their rockets.
There is a verse in a Bob Dylan song which says, "When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose." This can be applied to the situation faced by the Palestinians: faced with terrible conditions as a result of the Israeli occupation, they are firing rockets knowing that they will not damage Israel, but they have nothing more to lose.

Last month, General Assembly President Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann prescribed that the only way for the international community to deal with Israel would be through “boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS)," similar to those enacted against South Africa two decades ago. This is a non-violent campaign to pressure Israel to stop its violations and end its occupation. It is time for the international community to take action and work on solving the conflict, because the Palestinians have been suffering for the last 60 years due to occupation. I am not writing this article to force people to have sympathy for the Palestinians, I am writing it so you can sit down and think about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and take an action to help in ending the Israeli occupation.

This article was published in "The Silhouette" newspaper on January 9th, 2009. The editor changed the title to "Israel-Palestine" and changed the Israel Occupying Forces (IOF)term to Israel Defence Forces (IDF)at some sections on the website version but not the paper version.
http://thesil.ca/?p=1847
This article was published in "The Frontline" newspaper as well. This is the Social Sciences Society's newspaper.

‘Change’ we need

2008-12-14T13:41:00.000-08:00

After 8 years of the Bush administration being in power, it has become obvious that they have failed in many different aspects - one being the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. There was never any reason to expect anything great out of this administration with respect to the Palestinian- Israeli conflict, however, not only did nothing positive arise, it was actually quite the contrary; this administration made the Palestinian situation even worse, as they increased their financial and military support to Israel, hence giving Israel the power to do whatever they please. I believe that this conflict will be resolved only when there is an un-biased America, and International support for both sides; therefore the Americans will have to stop aiding the Israelis.

It has also become apparent that Barack Obama will do nothing to change the situation either, as he will be caught up in the Bush administration's mistakes. For example, Obama must end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and take care of the economic crisis. With all of these factors, it seems logical that Obama’s administration will, at least for the first while, keep the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the back of their minds. With Obama strongly supported by the Jewish vote, with a whopping 78% of the Jewish people supporting him, his support base will want to see him doing something for the Israeli side. Additionally, another factor that is beneficial to the Israelis, yet detrimental to the Palestinians, is Obama’s choice in selecting Rahm Emanuel, a well-known vocal pro-Israeli politician who volunteered and served in the Israeli defence force during the Gulf War, as his Chief Of Staff.. In looking at these factors, I worry that this administration will not offer balanced policies in regard to the Palestinian- Israeli situation. I am hopeful that at least if Obama’s administration will be busy with other issues that need resolving, they will not have time to screw up the situation even more.

Moving now to the actual regional conflict; the situation between the Palestinians and Israelis is again heating up. Firing started again at the beginning of November after a 5 month truce between both sides. Gaza is again suffering because of these raids and blockade. The food that is usually supplied to the strip by the United Nations (UN) was depleted since the Israelis maintained a blockade for more than two weeks. Israel is also blocking fuel from entering the strip, which is causing people to be without any electricity and heat - all food that Palestinians had in fridges has gone bad already.

The UN’s new human-rights chief has called for the Israelis to immediately end their blockade of the Gaza strip. The surprising and sad thing is that this came as a shock to the Israeli government. I really do not understand how this came as a surprise to the Israeli government, since they are killing people by not allowing food or fuel in the strip. Obviously the UN has to do something, regardless of the unfortunate fact that they are losing their power on an international level. It seems that Amnesty International and other humanitarian groups are begging Israel to stop the blockade and firing, and begging the Palestinians to stop missile fire.

Since the fights started, damage has progressed on both fronts; however, it is unequally occurring. Since the truce was broken between both sides, ONE ISRAELI solider was wounded and more than SEVENTEEN Palestinians were killed. I really do not see this as a fair fight between two sides, and unfortunately the death tolls and damage on the Palestinian side support my argument.

As in any conflict between two sides, you will hear each side blaming the other for the situation. After reading a lot about what is going on over there, I am finding it very difficult to determine who started the conflict since both sides are blaming one another with full responsibility. In my eyes I see no relevance in who initiated the conflict. For example, if you were a 20 year old person and got hit by a 5 year old child, even if you were powerful enough to destroy the child, it would not be appropriate to attack back. After generations of being stripped of their power, the Palestinians are comparable to a child against a strong power. At the end of the day, a life is a life despite its background, it does not matter if the life is a Palestinian or Israeli, both deserve equal representation on the world front. It is sad and depressing to see the difference in the treatment of a death on one side compared to the other

In the end, it is the job of the world leaders and the United Nations to see a catastrophe such as this, and to demand a ceasefire when one side, no matter who is at fault, is being so brutally attacked. The evidence is present: 1 wounded opposed to more than 17 killed, and half of the food supply being cut, which will inevitably lead to many more deaths. Something must be done.

Under Fire

2008-03-12T19:58:00.000-07:00

I honestly don’t know where I should start from in regard to the Palestinian-Israeli issue, especially due to the many developments and issues that have been occurring recently. We now have the issue of using the term “Israeli Apartheid” right here on campus. Gaza has been under siege and attacks for more than a month and the Israeli settlements have been targeted with rockets launched from Gaza. Israel deputy defence minister has threatened the people in Gaza with genocide. These are just a few things that have been happening lately in the area that I believe need to be regarded with some serious thought.

To begin, I want to send a very clear message to any university or any student union that stopping any group from using specific terms against the actions of the any government won’t help in hiding the truth. Students at a university level are smarter than that, and they are willing to go out and seek the truth by themselves. After the whole fuss that we faced here at McMaster I believe that many students have personally researched to find out if the term “apartheid” is being used properly or not. I am sure that after researching this topic for themselves many students may agree that the government of Israel could indeed be considered an “apartheid” government. I would even think that more students would believe that a stronger term against the action of the Israeli government should be used. I am glad to see that our student union is working hard to solve the issue on our campus by explaining exactly what has happened and what decision they are taking regarding this topic.

The term “apartheid” was used against the actions of the Israeli government and not against the Israeli people. It was not used against them based on their religion or race. So the term was not targeted against any person specifically but targeted instead at the actions of the Israeli government. Jimmy Carter’s famous book that was published two years ago, called “Palestine: Peace not Apartheid,” claims that the actions of the Israeli government do indeed make it an apartheid state. The famous South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu himself has accused Israel of practicing apartheid in its policies towards the Palestinians. He stated after a visit to the Holy Land that he was "very deeply distressed, it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa". If you want to read more you check it about his visit on the BBC’s website.

The “holocaust” is engaged with very tragic feelings towards the Jewish community, and to any human being who treasures the lives of others and does not believe in the death of any other human being. On Thursday February the 28^th the BBC website stated that the Israeli deputy defence minister, Matan Vilani, has threatened the people in Gaza with a “shoah”, the Hebrew word for the Nazi holocaust. Seriously, what do you want me to say about an official government that is declaring to the world and the Palestinians in Gaza a very public genocide? Is that an acceptable reply for the home made rockets fired from Gaza that in essence are replying to the siege the city has been under for more than a month? I was disappointed at not seeing the international community more infuriated and opposing to the Israeli official’s use of the term “holocaust” against the Palestinians.

Because of the siege that the Israeli occupying forces have placed on Gaza since mid January, not allowing food, medicine, electricity and many other basic life necessities from getting to Gaza, many Palestinians have died. More than 90 people died in February because of the Israeli attacks, and that is so much more than the Israelis that died because of the rockets launched at the settlements. Since Wednesday February 27^th, 123 Palestinians died in Gaza, plus 350 injured, because of the continuous Israeli attacks on Gaza. At the same time there are Israeli soldiers and settlers that are dieing because of the rockets launched from Gaza. The international community needs to take quick action in severly recommending that both sides have a truce because the numbers will have increased already by the time you are reading this article.

Unfortunately we don’t have many free people or free governments in this world anymore because when a Palestinian committed a suicide attack killing one Israeli settler earlier in February I found out that so many countries including Canada condemned it. I personally condemned it also as this action will not move the peace process forward. But what I find ridiculous is that this attack happened weeks after the siege that has been placed on the Gaza region, and the many attacks committed against the Palestinian civilians did not receive the sympathy of the same number of governments condemning the actions of the Israeli government and it’s military.

I want to conclude by showing my deep sympathy to all of the people in the Gaza and Israel regions that have been and continue to be affected by this situation. The Israeli government and army need to alleviate the siege on Gaza, while the Palestinian resistant movements need to stop their rocket attacks against the Israeli settlements. Until we see both sides working to improve this situation, the peace process will not move along in the direction of true resolution that it should be moving towards.

* Finally my articles are being published again in The Silhouette. This article was published in V.78, No.21 for Thursday March 6, 2008 *

New developments from Palestine

2008-03-01T09:45:00.000-08:00

Few developments had been happening lately in regards to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. The biggest difference is that the United States decided finally to try to give a chance to supporting new peace negotiations. Since been elected, George W. Bush didn't pay attention to this conflict, but rather decided to take one side against the other.

At the end of last November George W. Bush invited the Palestinians, Israelis and many other countries to the Annapolis Peace Summit. The idea was to have one day meetings to decide on starting the peace negotiations that were to take place a few months after this conference. Earlier in January George W. Bush had a visit to the Middle East region, as he visited Palestine and some of the other countries in the region.

There are few obligations on both sides to be done so a real peace deal can be reached. The international community is demanding both sides agree to their obligations. The Israelis for this time being must retreat back behind the lines of the 1967 war, which means Israel has to respect the resolutions made by the United Nations (UN).

The Israeli settlements are an obstacle always in this peace negotiation. The International Court of Justice and many other countries regard all Israeli settlements in the occupied territories as illegal, citing provisions in the Geneva Conventions which forbid the forced transfer of populations into lands seized in war. Even Bush said that those settlements are an obstacle for peace between Palestinians and Israelis. The only hope in regards to this is that the office of Israeli Prime Minister had announced again that they will be removing some of the smaller and newer settlements. The problem is that every single Israeli Prime Minister promises this but they never actually go through with it.

The apartheid wall that is being built on the Palestinian region is one of the main problems in the meantime. This apartheid wall runs over 650 km (400 miles) inside the West Bank, which breaks up the Palestinian territory. The wall is 8 meters high, twice the height of the former Berlin wall. The wall is another violation of Human Rights restricting and hindering the Palestinian movement around their own territory. This wall is affecting the Palestinians in so many ways that in 2004 the International Court of Justice declared that the wall is illegal and ordered Israel to stop the construction of this wall but until this moment Israel has not complied. Palestinian villages and cities are divided because of this wall and more check points have been implemented. People are only allowed to pass by those check points for very short periods during the day.

Another thing both sides need to really find a solution to is the “Right of Return” of the Palestinian refugees who were expelled from Palestine either in 1948 or 1967 or their families that were born outside Palestine. When you want to talk about the right of return you get to talk about what kind of state solution they will agree on, will it be a two-state solution or one state solution. I remember last November I attended a lecture by an Israeli journalist on campus and he mentioned about how he believes Israel wants to have its own Jewish state structure. They allow any Jewish person who never lived in Palestine or Israel or had any relation to the area to move and live in Israel, but at same time Palestinians who are originally from the region are not allowed to go back yet. So a key to solve this conflict is actually to agree on something in regard to those Palestinian refugees.

As any conflict there must be initiative from both sides to settle down on an agreement. The Palestinians who are resisting against the occupation shouldn’t perform any kind of resistance actions behind the 1967 boarder line. For the last many months the Palestinians had stopped any kind of resistance attacks outside the region, so they should keep it that way and work on solving this conflict.

So through Annapolis what did both sides accomplish? First, they call for negotiations over “all core issues without exception”, that includes all the topics I mentioned earlier. Second, both parties accepted the US decision to serve as a monitor, a role that until now Israel had kept to itself. Third, both parties agreed on implementing the road’s map obligation for each party. But Annapolis failed to deal with some of the major remaining obstacles.

Palestinians are obliged to do everything to bring violence under control. As for Israel, what is expected are not concessions, but rather to meet the obligations imposed by UN resolutions, international law and previous agreements? I believe that Canada and the international community should be fair and monitor and help out to find a final resolution for this conflict.

But in the mean time Israel should stop its attack on Gaza strip. Gaza had been living in the dark since Sunday, January 20^th, when the power plan ran out of fuel and was shut down due to the tightened siege forced by the Israeli army. This will be having a catastrophic effect on 1.5 million residents of Gaza, who are already suffering chronic shortages of fuel, medicine and some basic food things. I’m not going to give you details about the situation over here now, but I encourage you to check it out for yourself and find out how bad it is. With acts like this done by the Israeli government how will peace negotiations be resumed? That’s a question left for everyone to think about.

22/1/2008

* This article was banned from being published in The Silhouette, increasing the number of articles banned for me this year to two. The McMaster Social Sciences Society published it in their newspaper, The Frontline. *

A reminder or Israeli atrocities against the Palestinian people

2007-11-25T13:33:00.000-08:00

It was very interesting to read that a student complained about what was published in the silhouette and how the silhouette can publish such an article about the Massacre of Jenin. Well, in response, we would like to ask, what happened to freedom of speech and freedom of expression? If something does not appeal to you, it does not necessarily imply that it is incorrect or is a “pervasion of facts”. The silhouette has given students of McMaster great opportunity and space to openly debate issues that affect our lives in way or another.

The Jenin massacre was committed by the Israeli army and resulted in the deaths of many Palestinian refugees. Some may deny the massacre but “A British forensic expert who has gained access to the West Bank city of Jenin says evidence points to a massacre by Israeli forces” (BBC April 18, 2002). If one were to Google the words ‘Jenin Massacre’ and look up the images, you will see horrific sights of dead civilian men, women and children which under no circumstances should be justified even if it was a direct response to homicide bombers which were supposedly traced to Jenin. Response by the Israeli army should never come at the cost of the innocent civilians including toddlers and babies in Jenin. No matter how little or how many died in the Massacre; it is still a crime against humanity committed by the Israeli army.

It was claimed in a previous article that Israel has a code of conduct; however, the Israeli army does not abide by any of it. Everyday, Palestinians are humiliated by the Israelis every time a Palestinian crosses a checkpoint. We would like to ask what is the Israeli code of conduct is, when an Israeli soldier himself once said in a documentary “Whoever comes close wants to make trouble, we break them” then states “What do we mean by break them? We let them suffer”. Moreover, to show the brutality of the Israeli army, CBS have released a clip showing the abuse of a Palestinian boy by the Israeli soldiers. (YouTube: Israeli police beating Palestinian).

Apart from these isolated incidents of violation of human rights, lets not forget the Apartheid wall that runs over 650 km (400 miles) inside the West Bank, which breaks up the Palestinian territory. The wall is 8 meters high, twice the height of the former Berlin wall. The wall is another violation of Human Rights restricting and hindering the Palestinian movement around their own territory. This is a great opportunity to bring up this issue since this week marks the International Week of Action against the Apartheid Wall. Many events are happening around the globe to educate people on this topic. This wall is affecting the Palestinians in so many ways that in 2004 the International Court of Justice declared that the wall is ILLEGAL, and ordered Israel to stop the construction of this wall but until this moment Israel did not comply. Palestinians villages and cities are divided because of this wall and more construction points were implemented. People are only allowed to pass by those check points for 20 minutes in the morning, 15 in the afternoon and only another 20 minutes in the evening. Not only do the Palestinians have to go through the difficulty of getting through to the other side but get humiliated by the Israeli soldiers in the process.

At the end, some may not agree to what we have to say, but the ignorance must end. The information stated about is true and easily accessible. People must stop being oblivious to the atrocities committed by the Israeli army against the Palestinian people. We would like people to be more educated about this topic and try to seek the truth which will only reaffirm what we are trying to prove and raise awareness about it.

Basel Jarrad & Zahraa Al Khalisi
12/11/2007

PS. This article was banned from being published in The Silhouette. The reason was that the editor will not allow any articles about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to be published. Soon we will take off this ban and will make sure to allow those articles!!

False Claims

2007-11-02T18:16:00.000-07:00

Until when are we going to keep hearing words and phrases such as war on terror, rendition, interrogation and many other words related to the same topic? What always disappoints me is that the victims of these are always the same people, people who are basically MUSLIMS.

People think that Muslims became the target for all those claims after 9/11 but I actually believe it was even earlier than that. I read about it in a book once how that the CIA after the collapse of the Soviet Union had decided to find and create a new enemy for the States and they picked ISLAM to be their new enemy. For the last seven years the first people accused, and most of the time the only, are Muslims.

I want to mention more about a specific incident that we, as all Canadians, should stand up against any similar incidents happening again. Maher Arar, a name that probably a lot of you read his name in the newspapers lately. He is a Syrian-born, Canadian citizen who worked and lived in Ottawa until his rendition to Syria in 2002. Rendition? Yeah, that happened when he was travelling back to Canada and during a stopover in JFK airport in New York, Arar was detained by the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service. The Americans was acting upon information supplied by the RCMP. Arar, was interrogated by the American officials about alleged links to al-Qaeda. Twelve days later, he was chained and flown to Syria on a secret flight. In Syria he was tortured, beaten and forced to make false confessions. After spending a year in jail being tortured they cleared Arar of all terrorism allegations and said that he was innocent. This is a short summary of what happened to an innocent Canadian citizen of being rendered and tortured and then found innocent because of false information from the RCMP.

The reason why I wanted to mention this story because this is just a simple example for the false war on terror claims. I see this as something against human rights and our morals as free people. Arar received an official apology from the Prime Minister Stephen Harper and $10.5 million settlement for his ordeal. Yes it might sound that $10.5 million is a lot of money, but do you think this would heal the psychological hurt that he is facing now? I’m pretty sure if you asked any psychologist they will tell you that a person being tortured for an entire year would have many psychological problems that won’t be easy to heal at all, so this money will only begin the healing process.

There is a new movie called “Rendition” which I want to watch sometime very soon. It covers almost the same story for an Egyptian-American chemical engineer who got detained and transported to Egypt to be tortured because of terrorist affiliation, but his American wife kept trying to find out where her husband was taken to. So I believe it’s a good movie to watch regarding this topic.

Until when will Muslims have to live and accept this treatment? I hate those “random checks” in airports now, because I’ve never seen any person who is not Muslim being randomly checked. I believe the media has played a big role in affecting our mentality that you can see people everywhere now looking to any guy with a beard as being a suspect for any terrorist act. As we are all free students and intellectuals we should oppose all this kind of treatment to any human being. Guantanamo bay detainment centre is one of the places that we should fight for to be shut down because until this moment now many of the prisoners there have not even been charged with any act of terrorism.

Of course I would like to live in a safe and secure world but should that be for the price of the freedom of many people? Amnesty International is one of the international organizations that have been fighting against those secret detainee transfers and other kind of false war on terror claims. My self, as a student I really wish that we will be able to start attacking the terrorism problem in a different way, rather than accusing the same people always and most of the time those people are found innocent.

* This article was published in The Silhouette on November 1st, 2007 ( Volume 78, NO. 9) *

The Hamas-Fatah Tango

2007-10-12T14:01:00.000-07:00

During this summer Palestine had faced a lot of changes and crises. This time it changed from problems between Palestinians and Israelis to become between internal Palestinian groups. I believe that many reasons caused the problems to occur between Hamas and Fatah. After seventeen months in charge of the government the Palestinian president gave an order for the Hamas lead government to be dismissed by a presidential order and hire Faisal Fayaad, a well known independent Palestinian economist. Was that the best thing to happen to the Palestinians in the mean time?

Let me start by giving you a quick background about when things in Palestine started to change in the last two years. On January 25, 2006, approximately 1.3 million Palestinians cast their votes in order to elect a new parliament. Fatah were in charge of all of the previous governments, but for the first time Hamas, the Islamic resistance group, decided to run for the parliament elections that year. Fatah had lost to Hamas, who established seventy-four out of the 132 seats, while Fatah claimed only forty-five. I believe this was the decision of the Palestinian people; the rejection of Fatah was again due to their corruption and incompetency, and they saw a change coming with Hamas – and with Hamas they saw a potential change for the better. But since that day, things in Palestine have been going from bad to worse and all those reasons made things even more complicated.

Palestinians are disappointed with the West’s anti-Hamas position. Since the elections, the West has denied aid to the Hamas government; Canada unfortunately was the first country to do so, stating that they made that decision because Hamas refuses to recognize Israel. I don’t understand why the new Canadian government announced that they support Israel in everything they do, even the United States of America claim to find excuses and reasons to support Israel. But on the other hand, Israel does not recognize Palestine either and Canada or other countries had never spoken about that. What made me laugh was how suddenly the United States of America decided to deal with the Palestinian issues now; they basically decided to support Fatah in any way against Hamas by funding Fatah militias claiming that they need to protect Fatah’s officials. Israel on the same issue had been working with Fatah only, they even only release Fatah prisoners but none of Hamas’s prioners. The West accused Hamas of not respecting previous agreements. But on the other hand, Israel’s suspension of tax revenue transfers to the Palestinian Authority, and refusal to implement a Gaza-West Bank road link agreement are considered violations of previous agreements by Israel. I don’t understand why the West is accusing Hamas of mixing religion and potitics, but they never mentioned anything about Israel which did the mixture by creating a Jewish state, or is this a new way to attack Islam now? I personally don’t agree with mixing religion and politics in everything but I can’t understand why there is a difference between the Muslim version and the Jewish version?

Hamas had become the opposition to the West not because of its Islamic Ideology but only because of its opposition and resistance to the Israeli occupation. Fatah on the other hand are trying to become too political and ignore the resistance part of the Palestinians struggle and Israeli occupation, and this was another reason why Palestinians voted for Hamas rather than Fatah.

I personally believe that the only way to push a real peace process forward and if it was based on a two-state solution would be by an end of the Israeli occupation and the creation of a truly independent Palestinian state. Israel should be stopped from doing all their violations against the Palestinians.

During the first week of June, Israel was celebrating its 40th anniversary of beating the Arabic countries in the six days war of 1967, which made them occupy the West Bank, Gaza, Golan heights, and the Sinai Peninsula. On the other side, where the Palestinians were supposed to be speaking out more to the Palestinian Authority about their West Bank and Gaza rights, an internal power struggle was created in Gaza. The armed militias for Hamas and Fatah kept fighting for the last few months, but in June things got out of control. I believe that those militias are armed people who shouldn’t be considered Palestinians, because after the fighting against each other they ended up killing many of the fighters from both groups and killing more civilians that were around the shootings. Hamas was able to take over Gaza and they took over some of the government’s offices that were in charge of Fatah, and what was embarrassing was to see Hamas fighters taking down the Palestinian flag and putting Hamas’s flag instead: shame on them. I couldn’t believe my eyes, now Hamas and Fatah forgot that they have a struggle against Israeli occupying forces, and decided to fight against each other so that they gain more power. I’m really disappointed that I’m writing down that Palestinians for a while ended up killing each other, but this is the truth that people should know about. So independent people should now work on helping the Palestinians fix those problems that were fueled by many outsiders.

Maybe I showed more support to Hamas rather than Fatah in my article so far but it’s not because I support Hamas, I still disagree with both parties. I hated Fatah’s corruption and their plans to do anything they are asked by the USA or Israel. But on the other hand, I respected Hamas earlier for their resistance against the occupation, but people might not agree with me on that but I will only say that “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter,” so I most of the time still consider what Hamas did was resistance, but of course I didn’t agree with everything they did as their timing for attacks was sometimes more destructive than constructive. I personally believe that when they got elected, Hamas didn’t know what their exact plans were. During those 16 months in charge of the government they didn’t decide how they want to move the Palestinian conflict /issue forward. Their problem was that they didn’t have any political experience in how to run the country as they usually never got involved in politics before, since Fatah was always in charge. So it was a very hard transition for them to change from a resistance group to a political group. Another mistake I believe they made was that they were more interested in developing Gaza rather than the West Bank, and from here I should say that any Palestinian group in charge should consider Gaza and the West Bank as equal sides and work on both of them.

The most important thing at the end after all these internal problems that happened in Palestine is that what the Palestinians should do is move on with their fight to get their independence and their state. All Palestinian organizations should agree on a basic program and they should all keep working on that, they should never give up on those demands at all. Some of those demands should be protecting the right of return for all those Palestinian refugees in the world; including eastern Jerusalem with the independent state; going back to the borders in place before the 1967 war. The Palestinians outside of Palestine should concentrate on the international arena, and try to delegitimize the apartheid; have organized committees working in every major Western city; to urge the media to be more just with the Palestinian struggle and show the truth; and to have more organized meetings and demonstrations. Hamas and Fatah should both wake up and start working again together as Palestinians for their freedom, not as people from each party working independently and even sometimes against each other. I believe that Palestinians after 59 years of occupation deserve to get part, at least, of their land that got stolen from them in 1948. Until my next article I hope that things in Palestine will be getting much better so I can be writing about something that will make others happy to hear about.

** This article was the feature article of The New Crescent Magazine, issue #3. Check the link please: http://www.newcrescent.org/i3/jarrad.html **

Music Matbakh

2007-07-25T09:23:00.001-07:00

I was lucky this week to be invited by one of my friends to a musical concert in Amman-Jordan. The band is called “Music Matbakh”, and Matbakh means kitchen in Arabic.

What caught my attention was how Music Matbakh was a mixture of different musicians from the Middle East, North Africa and UK. This group was brought together by the help of the British Council and they presented them so far in UK, Egypt and Jordan, the group will be also traveling to Syria and Tunisia soon.

The music that they played was a mixture of hip hope, rock and electronic music to Oud, Nay. At the beginning when my friend told me about it I had no idea what are they planning to play. But as soon they started playing the music I found my self enjoying it so much. My favorite member of the band was the Lebanese rapper called RGB, he was so good in the first two songs.

Music Matbakh performed thirteen songs, but I remembered at the end that I can use my camera to take a low quality videos. So at the end I recorded the last 5 songs. I hope you enjoy watching the videos as it is a different style of music that mixes Middle Eastern and Western music.

Chaouia – Pt 1

Chaouia – Pt 2

Arabian Desert (I really liked the name of the song and the performance)

Ragab More Fun

Struggle

Highway

Canada at the Human Rights Council

2007-07-04T12:26:00.000-07:00

During the third week of June the Untied Nations Human Rights Council held their fifth general meeting in Geneva. The council came up with many important decisions defending and protecting human rights in different countries. A huge success about this general meeting was that developing countries received fair and helpful ordersmore than the previous general meetings.

One of the most important orders was hiring a permanent position in the occupied parts of Palestine to observe the Israeli occupying forces violations. This is a measure that agrees with the human rights law and international humanitarian law. This is a similar mechanism apply to other countries in the world where human rights violations are recorded. Israel commits many human rights violations every day against Palestinians. Israel on a daily basis destroy Palestinian farms, demolish there houses, humiliate and insult people crossing by an Israeli check point for no reasons. Another human right organization had announced few months ago that Israel has the highest human right violation in their prisons, because of all the torturing and investigating techniques they use against the Palestinian prisoners.

When the council came to discuss the permanent position issue I was disappointed and sad because of the action that Canada decided to take. During the discussion the Canadian delegation objected and opposed the assignment of a permanent position to observe the Israeli occupying forces violations. Canada delayed the concluding session by six hours, because the delegates kept arguing against the decision. It was really embarrassing to see that all of the forty-seven countries of the council voted for the decision except Canada opposed it. What made me sad is to see Canada representing the United Sates Israeli point of view by defending the Israeli violations and policies in the International Human Rights arena.

Canada’s position lately has been changing from a peaceful country to a country supporting the United States in everything. Most of you might agree with me that taking a side with the Americans is not the smartest thing to do, as the United States only cares about its own benefits and there are no morals in most of their decisions. It is really sad to see many Canadian soldiers getting killed in Afghanistan, which is another thing we were dragged to do by the Americans. I pray to those soldiers to come back home safely, as I don’t want to see more Canadians soldiers getting killed there.

From my position as a member of the Student Representative Assembly of McMaster University Student Union and being the University Affairs committee chairperson I encourage everyone to come out and vote during the provincial elections in October. Picking the right provincial government will reflect many things on the federal government that is in charge of this external issue in the Untied Nations Human Rights Council. However, we should vote for the members that will take in consideration the human rights issues. Having more justice regarding the human rights issues and including human rights issues in our educational system will see our province going somewhere better regarding human rights. This will be definitely later reflected on our federal government that will be having elections again soon.

Palestinians in Lebanon

2007-05-25T00:02:00.000-07:00

It is most likely that you’ve been watching the news lately in the Middle East and you saw what is happening in Lebanon, specifically at Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon. A new militant group calling it self Fath al-Islam has been fighting with the Lebanese Army from inside the camp for more than a week; this fighting has left more than 80 people dead, which include army soldiers, Fath al-Islam fighters and civilians.

I don’t want to touch on the many internal political problems in Lebanon, but what is happening now in the Palestinian refugee camp. The Lebanese army decided couple of days ago to attack the camp to kill Fath al-Islam fighters, they are using now the same excuse as the Israeli army that those fighters are using civilians in the camp as human-shields, does that mean the army is allowed to bomb the camp? I think that The Lebanese army should reconsider another tactics to arrest or kill those fighters without killing the civilian refugees.

What I can say after researching/looking up information) looking around about it that Fath al-Islam is non-Palestinian terrorist organization. Watching and reading some interviews with their leaders can show that they have an extremist Sunni fundamentalist ideology which open doors to question what kind of support they have or what they want. I’ve read a lot of different opinions but there are two who I personally would think are true. The first is that this group can be funded directly or indirectly by the Americans to cause problems for Hezbollah whom is known to be supported by Iran, and this would be the same as when the American CIA funded Al-Mujahdeen to fight against the Soviet Union at that time, so they might be doing the same thing now in Lebanon or they have another reasons.

The other possibility would be that Fath al-Islam are funded and directed by a local party or group so to benefit their plan or goal. I read again that some political Lebanese figures had demanded again that Hezbollah should give away their weapons so that only weapons can be carried by the army, even though Hezbollah forced Israel to withdraw from Lebanon in 2000 and then defending it again in July of 2006.As I said earlier, I don’t want to talk about this in depth as coming days will show us what all this drama was about.

I want to mention some of the problems the Palestinian refugees were facing in Lebanon for a long time before what happened last week between Fath al-Islam and the army. When I was a kid I lived in the Middle East and I used to go to Lebanon a lot, because I have family living there, who are both Lebanese and Palestinians that moved in Lebanon in 1948. I always enjoy to spend my summer break with them. So what I came up to conclude was based on what I read and what I was able to see of facts on the ground too.

Still in Lebanon there is a general racist attitude, which is a classical racism towards Palestinians. This is why it is easy for so many people to tolerate indiscriminate attacks on Palestinian refugee camps. Maybe this is a reason why until now haven't heard about any Lebanese political party standing next to those Palestinian refugees in any situation, and not even now when they are being attacked by the army. I read an interview conducted by Al-Arabiya television on May 23 with the Lebanese defense minister, Ilyas Murr, who stated that out of all fighters of Fath al-Islam that had been killed not a single fighter is identified as Palestinian, but mostly identified as Lebanese, Saudi, Yemeni, Algerian, Tunisian, Moroccan and so on. So I still don't understand why I saw a lot of hate against the Palestinians last week in Lebanon, this is one of the main things I found in Lebanon that people there tend to hate each other just because of your political, religious or any other affiliations.

Palestinians in Lebanon also are not treated equally as other people there. I really hated that when I found out how much Palestinian are being discriminated against in Lebanon. Why can't the Palestinians in Lebanon work as doctors or lawyers there, those people with there knowledge and dedication can be in any of top countries in the world, I never knew that Lebanon is even better than all those countries! Meanwhile, about four hundred and fifty thousand refugees remain stateless, given no permission to work or move, and face mass deportation. The Lebanese government should think about it now more seriously, those Palestinians have been there for generations and they are not even treated equally, it's time to give those people more rights and a better life, wasn't it enough for those people to become refugees for more than 59 years. I’m not saying that all Palestinians there are angels or good people, there are of course some bad people there but have you thought of why would they become bad as anywhere else? The situation they are living under is not something you wish for another free human being.

What about those refugee camps? I really want to advise you all to do some research about this and find out how bad the situation in those camps. I was shocked to know that those refugees are not allowed to bring in any cement inside the camp, which meant that they are not allowed to build or expand their houses. People who are in charge of the country didn't notice that as time is passing by, people are increasing in number, and when the place you are staying in which is already so small will need eventually to be expanded. Beside that, all of those refugee camps are surrounded by army which made it look to me as if they are surrounding criminals. I was really impressed when I got the chance to talk to people from the camp because those people were really educated but they are never given the true opportunity.

The reason that influenced me to write this article was because I saw a group created on Facebook, which is a social networking website. So I was really shocked and sad to see that some Lebanese people attacking the Palestinians by creating those groups, and demanding that all Palestinians should be kicked out of Lebanon, it is like those Palestinians can go somewhere else!! Even also I read that some of them wishing for Palestinians to be killed by the Lebanese and Israeli army, can you believe that? I don't want to remind anyone that last summer this Israeli army had a war again with Lebanon and killed more than 1000 civilian and injured over 4000, how would those people stand with this army. I think things are going back to as 1982 when the Lebanese Kataeb party with the Israeli Defense Forces had killed more than 3000 Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, so are those Lebanese willing to see Lebanon back in the civil war??

At the end, what I want to say about this whole situation is simple. I really hope that the Lebanese army will be able to stop this terrorist organization, Fath al-Islam, but at the same time not to attack and kill any of the Palestinian civilian refugees. Also, as I mentioned earlier it's time now for the Lebanese government to think more seriously of treating the Palestinian refugees in a fairer way. And for those Lebanese haters, STOP what you are doing and try to unite, because if you didn’t this will cause more internal problems for our lovely country and I don't think anyone want to see Lebanon having another civil war. I'm pretty sure that even true Lebanese people don't respect what are those haters doing. Finally, I hope things will get better in Lebanon and end up the entire political struggle in this lovely and nice country.

University Affairs Plan

2007-05-06T17:05:00.000-07:00

I can really say that I was happy last April when the SRA (Student Representative Assembly) members for the MSU (McMaster Student Union) elected me to become the new chairperson for the University Affairs committee. I personally believe this is one of the most important committees the SRA has, as it deals directly with the students, academic or non-academic issues, and encourages constructive discourse between the MSU and McMaster University’s governing bodies and administration. This committee will be working closing with the VP-Education of the MSU, many other MSU official and a lot of other university officials that will have an affect on the students life. Before I decided to run for the chairperson position I had some ideas in my mind, and I really would appreciate any kind of opinion and suggestions given to the committee by the students or non-students.
Some of the ideas are so far:

1- Diversity campaign – Anti-racismWe should work with the VP Education and the new Diversity services coordinator to create a new powerful diversity campaign on campus. This should spread more awareness for students about diversity and having an inclusive community on campus. We should guide the MSU to fight any kind of racism and discrimination. I honestly see this as one of the most important projects for us next year, as we should leave a mark that we were able to spread more awareness and education about this sensitive time issue.You have heard about the islamophobic-racist hate crime that happened before exams in April, this inspired me to insure that McMaster are not like other schools suffering of any kind of racism here in Canada or any where abroad.

2- Campaign for McMaster – Survey for students to give us the feedbackThe previous SRA members voted on recommending the new SRA to direct the university affairs committee to investigate allocating and expending funds from the MSU surplus to go towards McMaster University’s “ Campaign for McMaster”.What I think we should do is get feedback from the students on what we should spend this surplus. In my opinion, it won’t be a smart decision to use this much of money all at once for one project, but at the end I want to find a way to get the feedback from the students directly.The other idea that I liked was using another portion of the surplus to create new student bursaries and scholarships, as there is a lot of student whom don’t get eligible to student bursaries or scholarships because of many reasons.

3- Provincial and Federal electionsIn any kind of voting or elections that happened at McMaster University, I found a very little turnout of students coming out to vote. We should discuss this with the VP-Education to find some ways to encourage students to come out and vote. And of course before coming out and vote we should make sure that students will send their messages for the candidates and get the chance to ask them questions and meet them. I will be looking forward to work with the external affairs committee on this idea, as they will be more in contact with the external students issues.

4- International studentsBeing an international student gave me the chance to view a lot of problems that other international students suffer from. International students don’t get equal opportunity compared to non-international students. For example, international students are not allowed to apply for bursaries or McWork summer program until they are done 2nd year. The school claims because they don’t have enough funds for that, but I believe that the MSU should fight for equal rights for all MSU members ignoring any differences between students. Maybe people will be saying that we can’t change the whole country or the school administration’s ideas, but still we can stand up for the justice that everyone deserves.

5- McMaster University ClothingAfter I visited the states a couple of times, I found out how much students there like to show which school they are from, you go to the school and find a lot of students wearing at least one piece that has their school name on it. Everyone knows that the clothing for McMaster at titles (bookstore) are ridiculously expensive, what I’m thinking of is if we can get in contact with a clothing factory or company that will be making clothes with McMaster University name on them and we can sell them at the new MSU shop in the athletic center.

6- More Support for Varsity Teams For me personally, I wanted one day to play for the university varsity team but because of some injuries and time limitations due to my engineering program, I was not able to fulfill my goal I wanted to do so. But still I’m crazy about sports and supporting it, so in my visits to the states I was able to find how much students support their varsity teams and go out to their games. I know that they have better championships than what we have in Canada. But why don’t we - the MSU - work on finding ways to attract more students to support our varsity teams. Maybe it’s not our duty as part of the university affairs committee to do this but we should be taking this issue and recommendation to the MSU.

I just mentioned some of the initial ideas I thought about before meeting with the committee, but I just wanted to start things quickly. I will of course be forwarding this to the committee and other people interested. I will try my best and the other members working with this committee to get feedback from students and listen to their needs, and I ask everyone to feel free to contact the committee. At the end, I really wish at the end of the year I will be able to reach the committee goals and leave a good mark behind us. This is one of my favorite lines which I want to end up with, “Now we talked the walk, so let’s walk the talk from here”.

Islamophobia invading McMaster

2007-04-11T00:34:00.000-07:00

A week ago (April 4th, 2007) here at McMaster University we had a unique and important event. Dr. Muriel Walker whom is a non-Muslim Professor at McMaster organized "Hijab Day at McMaster", an event to celebrate Canada's diversity. Dr. Walker wanted people to have an idea what it was to be in the shoes of a Muslim woman for one day. Dr Walker has been supporting the muslim community, especially the women, both on and off campus.

Muslims Student Association (MSA) at McMaster, along with other clubs and organizations, helped Dr. Walker in organizing this event. A booth was set up at the student center where curious people were given an opportunity to come and ask questions about hijab (head scarf). At the booth hijabs were provided for people to try on and even wear for the remainder of the day if they chose. The purpose of the event was served. It was a success.

Unfortunately there was some negative feedback from the people. I couldn’t believe my eyes yesterday morning (April 9th). I received an email from one of my friends telling me what had happened. As you can see the picture here, this was found on Professor Walker’s office door in the morning. I honestly never imagined something like this would happen here at McMaster University.

I’m telling you now that Islamophobia actually exists on our campus, and of course on many other campuses. We really should take immediate steps to start working on fighting against this kind of racism. During the final exam period I don’t have time to shave my beard, so I just let it grow for the 3 weeks. I was shocked when many people called me “TERRORIST”, even if they were joking with me. When I think about it, I come to realize that all these small things are causing this Islamophobia and racism to spread more. After Dr. Walker’s incident I really ask people to go out there from now on and start fighting against all kinds of racism. It would be a tragedy if we saw racism spreading into our communities and not attempt to prevent it.

Time for exams

2007-04-07T20:18:00.000-07:00

The school year is almost over. Now after being done with all my classes and labs, final exams are coming next week which I don't think this is a good news for anyone.
So until the last week of April I'm pretty sure I won't be able to do a lot of updates for the blog, but I promise as soon as I'm done exams I will be more active in this summer so I can have more plans and ideas for next year :)
Good luck everyone on exams, and here I will provide you with a video that you can laugh at when you decide to take a break. The first time I saw this video was this term, when one of my teachers showed it to the class.

Moving forward in The Peace Process

2007-03-29T19:07:00.000-07:00

It has become extremely evident as time goes by that our present world and its people have become very judgmental and blinded by the truth. Individuals have and will continue to pick and chose pieces of information they wish to listen to and understand. In response to an article published in last week’s newspaper entitled Lack of Peace Progress, the following is a more accurate and clear representation of the events that took place on February 15, 2007.

On that day, Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) and McMaster Muslims for Peace and Justice (MMPJ) held an event in which they invited the renowned Dr. Normal Finkelstein to speak. However due to Dr. Finkelstein arriving later than expected the organizers had to play a video until his arrival. A disclaimer was provided after the screening that the video did not reflect the opinions or beliefs of the organizers but was merely a video to be watched.

This video interview was conducted on a Lebanese channel in which a series of questions regarding Dr. Finkelstein’s views and ideas on mainly the Nazi Holocaust. However, the video which was shown and downloaded via YouTube was actuality edited by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) which is an Israeli propaganda instrument of mainstream Jewish news outlets, which is founded by an individual who has served for 20 years in the Israeli Defense Force Intelligence. Basically MEMRI’s main task is to deliver to the west misguided information.

Regrettably at the end of the enlightening discussion and ideas that Dr. Finkelstein informed the crowd of over 300 attendees on, a question regarding the video that was played prior to his arrival was asked by an attendee. Dr. Finkelstein then proceeded on to explain how MEMRI edited out parts of the interview and made their own condensed version of the interview to defame and make him out to be a Holocaust denier- which is quite absurd considering that Dr. Finkelstein’s own parents are Holocaust survivors. Dr. Finkelstein then mentioned that the full version, including the transcript, can be found on his website, where he highlights the parts of the interview which were not included in MEMRI’s version of the interview on purpose. Click here to read the full version of the interview.

But don’t take my words for it. I encourage everyone to check out the link if you are interested in knowing more how MEMRI changed the context of the interview. Moreover, if you are interested in watching the whole lecture contact the SPHR or MMPJ for the lecture event on DVD.

However, the mistake has been made and SPHR and MMPJ have acknowledged the mistake which has happened and treated it in a very mature way. They have sent out a statement explaining their position regarding the situation to all SPHR mailing-list members as well as the Jewish Student Association (JSA) and McMaster Diversity Services. Common ground therefore has been found in response to this incident that has happened.

Reaching common ground is therefore key in solving situations and moving along towards peace. And this is exactly what the Palestinian people have been working towards lately.

Everyone now would like to see the Palestinians and the Israelis sitting on one table, negotiating and moving forward in the peace process. But of course to reach that goal there must be something done at the present time. I want to mention some points that should happen this summer to move on.

The Palestinians took the initiative again to do the changes by forming a new coalition government two weeks ago which is lead by Hamas. Yet as soon as the announcement came out about the new coalition government the Israeli government rejected it, insisting that they are not willing to discuss anything with this government claiming that Hamas is a terrorist organization. Yet, since their election, Hamas has carried out a truce for a year and a half, and they are even considering extending their truce, yet the Israeli government continues to ignore their presence. Israel should understand that the Palestinian people voted for this party to be in charge and they have no right to reject that decision so they should start the peace process negotiations again.

To start, the Israeli military force should stop building the apartheid wall right away for many reasons. Some may argue that this wall was built for security reasons, however, why would they need to defend themselves on land that they should not be on anyways? Israel has also stated that the majority of construction was in order to take away land intended for illegal settlement expansion. Even Nelson Mandela stated after a visit to Palestine that the situation that the Palestinians are in is worse than what the black individuals experienced in South Africa. On July 9th 2004 the international court declared the wall being illegal and they ordered Israel to stop building it and demolish what was built already. Yet not surprisingly, Israel has continued to build the wall and ignored any kind of order from an international authority.

If peace is to happen between Palestine and Israel, negotiations and recognition of each others governments must take place. However, even more important is the fact that Israel must remove all its illegal settlements in the west bank, release the thousands of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons without trial and begin to treat the Palestinians as true aboriginals of the land. I believe that if most of these obstacles are solved, the peace process will be well on its way to success. A two-state solution that both government follow up on and comply to may even be possible. Although I am defiantly not the first person who wishes that it is time for the Palestinian people to gain some creditability in the eyes of the international world as well as its government, I surely won’t be the last one. The Palestinian people have been negotiating and fighting for their land since 1948 and they will continue to negotiate and find a peaceful solution until they are able to live in peace.

Basel Jarrad & Demah El-Sadek
27/3/2007

* This article was published in The Silhouette on 30/3/2007.

Things getting out of control

2007-03-25T20:54:00.000-07:00

It has been a crazy week on my blog, I'm just currently busy with the last week of school but by this week I will have to come up with a new regulations for using and commenting on my blog.

When I started this blog it was basically because I wanted people to DISCUSS different issues that we are facing and as I believe we will be the new leaders for the world we should start to communicate more rather than fight and blame each other more. I don't expect that people will agree with all my opinions all the time, but at the same time I'm sure that I won't agree with all of the other opinions. I was really mad that I couldn't reply yet to every comment on my article but at the same time I was really more mad when I saw people swearing at me, or swearing at each other.

My request is to please respect this blog and respect each other. Let's assume that we might end up being one day negotitating many different topics, so if from now we can't do it properly I assure you that we won't ever reach something that humanity can get any benefit from.

I will be posting this some of the new regulations, as violating these rules will force me to delete your comment. I will only delete two comments now as someone who really can communicate used my name to say something I never said, and in the other comment someone used vulgar words against me.

Thank you very much for everyone who wrote anything so far on my blog and I hope you will respect it because I'm trying to build something in the gap between the west and the east.

Let the PALESTINIAN people decide

2007-03-14T14:01:00.000-07:00

Let the PALESTINIAN people decide

People all around the world dislike the American government and its political views. ‘Why’, you may ask? In my opinion there are a lot of reasons but now I would like to stress a very important point that is happening lately. I am seeing it not only in Palestine -which is what I will mainly stress on- but also in many countries around the world where the American government has made its presence.
After thinking and looking into it for a while, I came up with a conclusion. The American government works on creating internal problems for numerous countries. In my opinion this is most apparent when the American government gets involved in countries which are struggling to deal with their own problems; hence showing themselves as saviors. The end result is not a new prosperous country, but a country in conflict and on the verge of civil war.
I will be mainly discussing the situation in Palestine and how the American and Israeli government played a huge role in stirring more internal problems. Other examples that will be provided are nations in the Middle East that are suffering because of American influence. The reason why I will discuss the conflicts in the Middle East is because they all are tied in with the Palestinian issue geographically as well as politically. However, that does not mean that the American government has not had a negative effect in countries all over the world. Venezuela is a very strong example of how the American government failed when they intervened. Although the American government supported a coup against President Chavez in 2002, the coup failed at its mandate only a couple days later, creating chaos.
Getting back to the Middle Eastern countries, Lebanon has experienced great interference by the American government. Its everlasting internal problems are now the cause of American influence over the past two years. American influence in Lebanon’s internal governance should be no business of the United States of America. Let me not state the obvious, however the American government failed to see it that way and began to support one Lebanese political group over another; and as a result fueling more hate and rivalry between the two political groups.
Moreover, in Iraq, the American government was willing and even considering on dividing the country in three states. I would continue talking more about American influence in the Middle East however I would like to go back to my point on Palestine.
Last year, January 2006, the Palestinian people democratically voted for a new governing political party- Hamas. The people voted for the party that the American government was totally against. Although European officials as well as Canadian officials were present on Election Day in Palestine, the American government continues to refuse the elections as being democratic. As a result, the Palestinian people have been suffering greatly by American and Israeli sanctions. Since that day of last year, the Israeli government stopped giving the Palestinian government their money from taxes and customs fees that they should earn. Last month the American and Israeli government decided to give the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, a portion of the money that was not given to the Palestinians since last year to support his party against the other party. Point being was that he hire more guards for his party politicians and have a bigger campaign if any elections was going to happen. Presently this continues to be a severe financial hardship that the Palestinian government is struggling with. Another thing that has and continues to happen is that the Canadian and American governments are cutting off all aid to the Palestinian people solely for the reason that they believe the Palestinians picked the wrong government. And so this got me thinking, isn’t democracy supposed to be the people’s decision or does it have another meaning for the Canadian and American government?

It has become more and more apparent that the west is enforcing its views on countries all over the world. In this case, the Palestinian authority played by the Americans rules, and adopted the democratic governmental system. In addition, one of the most noticeable characteristics of a democracy is free and fair elections. In the Palestinian case, on 25 January 2006, the Palestinian people democratically elected Hamas to represent and lead the Palestinian government. Regardless, the American and Israeli government refused to acknowledge Hamas’ victory into power. Hamas did not only form a government but a majority government of 76 out of the 132 parliament seats. With a clear majority, why is the American government concerning itself with Palestine? Is Hamas really and truly a great threat to the United States that they will not be able to contain any attempt, if an attempt was tried, before it even began? The fact is that the American government is using this situation in the Palestinian region to get involved and put its hands in something that is completely and entirely none-of-their-business.
What is more disturbing is that the present situation of sanctions and constant violence and threat initiated by the American and Israeli government towards the Palestinian government is not exposed or well known throughout the world. It does not make front page headlines when we hear that the Israeli apartheid wall is continuing to enclose hundreds of cities and villages and is being build no where near the green line that the United Nations (UN) put in place. Moreover the UN and International Court of Justice have already voted that the wall is illegal and must be torn down. Where are the people of the world to this injustice taking place?
It is time for the world to wake up and begin to treat Palestine as a democratic country of its own. With its hard effort in restoring its relations and continuing to pursue its own goals of creating a state of Palestine, the least the world can do is give this country some space and time to sort itself out. Sanctions and other blockades –including the very apparent Apartheid Wall enclosing entire cities such as Qalqiliya and isolating Palestinians from their livelihood- will not make the situation any better for the Palestinian people. The mere fact that the Palestinians democratically elected the Hamas government should entail a little respect from countries around the world. It was the citizens who chose this government, and after all, don’t citizens know what is best for themselves?

Basel Jarrad & Demah El-Sadek
12/3/2007

You can read the article published in The Silhouette on March 15,2007 at http://www.thesil.ca/article.pl?sid=07/03/21/2121220&mode=thread

1 year

2007-03-11T22:01:00.000-07:00

I was just checking my old article and found that it has been a year since my first article published in the university newspaper. On March 9th, 2006 I published the article talking about the Palestinian new government elections.

When I just thought about that why did I decide to start writing more often and try to publish my believes more. I know that I'm not doing a Political Science major or anything related to writing, basically my engineering major basically deals with numbers most of the time haha. It took me 6 months in Canada after I decided to start publishing articles in English which for me when I look back at it I should be proud of this try which I actually like it more and more now.

Coming back to the point why I decided to start writing and publishing it to people to read was because I wanted to try to educate people about some external issues that maybe our news channels and newspapers show it from another point. I found that many people have bad and wrong ideas about the place I came from. I felt by writing more I will be able to give the chance to more people to read what I wrote and maybe be able to give them some new points and facts that they never got the chance to hear before.

What I would like to have people give me their comments and opinions about what I wrote, because basically that will make me feel that I was able to succeed in my goal which was to make people think about what I wrote not just reading it. I also loved it when some friends didn't agree with some of the things I wrote or talked to them about after because that gave us a chance to discuss and try to educate each other about whatever we know and whatever we learned. What I would like to ask people to do is always give me a good or bad comment about my articles and always feel free to come and discuss it with me because maybe sometimes I won't be able to mention everything I want to in one article.

Unjust execution of Saddam Hussein

2007-02-24T15:32:00.000-08:00

Unjust execution of Saddam Hussein

On December 30, 2006 the Americans committed what I think was the stupidest mistake that they could ever commit-the execution of the former Iraqi president of 25 years, Saddam Hussein. I don’t want to talk about his time as a president but I would like to mention some of things that happened after the Americans have invaded Iraq.

Saddam Hussein’s execution timing was totally wrong and insulting for all Muslims. He was hanged on the first day of Eid ul-Adha that is Muslims holiday as Christmas for Christians. It’s not about Saddam Hussein or anyone else, but according to the Iraqi constitution that says no one can be executed on any RELIGIOUS national holiday. The only excuse the American and the Iraqi government had about this was that the execution had happened at 6:00 am local Iraqi time and the prayer for the religious holiday will start at 7:00 am. I don’t know if one day I will see any person being executed on any religious holiday in the west. So the first thing I didn’t agree with is the day as it was religious day for Muslims in Iraq and around the World.

Saddam Hussein was arrested by the Americans on December 14, 2003. The first trial was on October 19, 2005 and it trial took almost a year until November 5, 2006 to sentence him to death by hanging. According to the American government they assume that what they are doing is trying to spread the democracy in Iraq and other countries in the world. The former president was arrested in an American prison for 3 years and 17 days and only 3 hours in an Iraqi prison before his execution. For me it sounds like it was the more as an Americans decision not Iraqis decision, which is not a real democracy by any standards.

The entire court was more of a joke. It was a satirical display to embarrass and ridicule Saddam Hussein. In order for me to record all the ludicrous and shameful events that took place, I would need much more time and paper. The Bush administration picked November 5, 2006 as the date to read the verdict to the world live as it was 2 days before the Americans midterm elections which they expected it to influence the voter to vote for the Republicans and they called it November Surprise, the good thing is that the Republicans lost that elections to there rivals the Democrats.

The American court for former president Saddam Hussein didn’t respect the accused person which is against every international law. Former president was hit many times by his guards in jail, and every time Saddam Hussein wanted to show that for the court he was denied from doing so. Saddam Hussein needed sometimes to write his notes before the court on his hand so he won’t forget these points, in any court in the world the convicted person have the right to write his points on a paper but again that right was denied for Saddam Hussein. That court didn’t provide Saddam Hussein’s attorneys with protection because during the court duration that took was almost a year, one of Saddam’s attorneys, Adel al-Zubeidi, were killed by masked shooters according to the Americans, and in a second attack another attorney was shot and wounded. Some people who attended some of the courts didn’t respect that court for example by laughing in the court very loud as to interrupt Saddam Hussein and the judge didn’t even bother to order these people to leave, and once Saddam Hussein had said that “A lion doesn’t care if a monkey in a tree is laughing at him”. In one of the courts Saddam Hussein told the judge, that according to the constitution and as he was a military person that if the judge will give him a sentence to death it should be by shooting as he is military person and not being hanged as a criminal, but of course the court didn’t even respect his will or the constitution. As I mentioned before that if I want to keep mentioning things about this court I have to write a book about all of these incidents which you can see them by watching the court videos.
To some of you what I will be saying will surprise them but this is what the Americans do, they support someone today and the other day when they don’t need him anymore they just get rid of him. Iraq and Iran in the 70’s were considered both as a very powerful countries in the middle east and the American government at that time also worked very hard to destroy those two countries as Iran was not in a good relation with USA. So simply the American government kept insisting on Saddam Hussein to go and have a war with Iran and that really happened in the first Gulf war which started in 1980 and ended in 1988. During this war USA had provided Saddam Hussein with every single kind of weapon to be used against Iranian troops. Donald Rumsfeld meet Saddam Hussein twice once on 1983 and the other on 1984 of course those were to help the Iraqis in that war.

I heard many comments after the execution and of course some of them were with and some against the execution. One of the most important comments was by Human Rights Watch "Saddam Hussein was responsible for massive human rights violations, but that can't justify giving him the death penalty, which is a cruel and inhuman punishment." "History will judge the deeply flawed Dujail trial and this execution harshly." – Director Richard Dicker. And I totally agree with the director as Americans just wanted to execute Saddam Hussein and they didn’t even listen to anyone else, and I think they will pay that price after a while when people start knowing more about the secrets about this court. The head of the Vatican's Council for Justice and Peace, Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino, opposed the death sentence for Saddam Hussein, saying, "For me, punishing a crime with another crime -- which is what killing for vindication is -- would mean that we are still at the point of demanding an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." And even by Saddam Hussein’s execution I don’t think that the people who might had suffered when he was in charge are feeling better now. Iraq after Saddam is not anything better and won’t be better for a long time I guess as this will be the American plan to stay as long as they can in this oil-rich country.

Returning to his history while he was in control of Iraq, many people-Arabs and non-Arabs alike-actually admired Saddam Hussein because of his external politics and support of countries under occupation such as Palestine. Mr. George Galloway, who is a British Member of Parliament, was a member of the governing Labor party which he was kicked out of due to his support of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Hussein offered the Palestinians more than any other president had offered them. As a country he used to support the Palestinian government financially and politically. Palestinians were really mad to see this president going away as he had done a lot for them, he paid most of the rent for the houses of the Palestinian refugees in Iraq for example, he also gave the Palestinian refugees in the world many scholarships to come and study in Iraq simply because they were Palestinians. Such refugees were not permitted to study in other Arab universities. Saddam Hussein financially supported many organizations which supported families who had suffered because the breadwinners of the family, usually husbands and sons, were killed by Israeli army soldiers.

I never thought that one day I will end up writing an article about Saddam Hussein, which I know people will agree and disagree with what I said but I need to write about something I believe in. I actually suffered because of the Iraq invasion in Kuwait in 1990. I can justifiably say I was harmed by Saddam Hussein more than I was benefited, but even after these many years I won’t mind to bow for a leader who always worked on defending his race and supporting many of their political issues which at the end cost him his life. At the end I would like to say, Rest In Peace President Saddam Hussein, history will prove to everyone that you were a good president for your country and your people and the most important thing was the UNJUST his life came to an end.

* This article was edited and published in The Silhouette on February 16, 2007. The link to this article is
http://www.thesil.ca/article.pl?sid=07/02/16/215235&mode=thread

"A time to make friends, SAY NO TO RACISM"

2007-02-24T15:31:00.000-08:00

"A time to make friends, SAY NO TO RACISM "

It’s safe to say that not every student this summer had watched FIFA 2006, but a good number of you have at least heard about it either from friends or news broadcasters. The games began with young children proudly carrying four flags. Two of which are representative of the two initiating teams, another for the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) and finally, a flag entitled “A time to make friends, Say no to racism.” It has been FIFA’s goal to eradicate racism completely out of its association and football. This is seen through the representation of this particular flag as a constant reminder that there is zero toleration for racial discrimination. Further, any soccer club indulging in racial foul play of any kind is to be heavily fined.

Even if you are not an avid soccer player or supporter, the headlines on the Materazzi-Zidane controversy sparked interest in viewers worldwide. July 9th was an exciting day for me because I have been cheering for Italy all of my life and on that day they were playing the final match of the world cup against France. The official time of the game had ended with a 1-1 tie. They played the extra time and the score had not changed which sent them to penalty kicks. The last penalty kick was scored and left Italy victorious and gave the Azzurri their fourth world cup title. But there is one thing that I am sure everyone in the world will remember and never forget about this world cup. The particular incident I would like to address was French soccer player Zinedine Zidane’s headbutt against Italian player Materazzi, which cost Zidane a red card 10 minutes before the end of his last professional soccer match. What I want to talk about is not about this world cup, or the red card as much as what I started reading the day after the final match about that red card.

‘Son of terrorist whore’ was the retort made by Materazzi strewn across a newspaper headlines everywhere regarding Zidane’s headbutt. Briefly, to make sense of this remark, Zinedine Zidane was born in Marseille, France and born to Muslim Algerian immigrants to France. When I started reading such articles I was livid. I felt that Italy had only won the world cup because of a racist insult which cost Zidane and other French team players to lose there concentration on the field. I couldn’t imagine that would come from the team I’m cheering for as Italy had always being a peacemaker within any conflict. Italy has promised to give financial aid to the Palestinians who are suffering because of the occupation and the apartheid wall. In 1982, when Italy won there 3rd world cup title they dedicated that win to the Palestinian people under occupation. Two weeks after intensive investigation they came up with the final and actual sentence for that incident between the two players. They found out that Materazzi had insulted Zidane’s mother without any racist insult. Both players were fined for 3 matches. I can’t hide that maybe I was a little bit more satisfied to hear that sentence because there was no racist insult, but a bit sad for how Zidane was forced to end his career that way.

I’m writing this article for one main reason, which I hope everyone can understand or empathize with. The world cup incident reminded us that the possibility of racism is found anywhere. People are insulted everywhere because of their ethnicity, religion, race, gender and social networks. But if we stop for a second and think why people are insulting each other, there truly is no valid reason and the only thing racists are gaining is deeper hatred with other human beings. We are all lucky to live in Canada; I believe that this country is one of the fewest countries in the world suffering from racism. Europe had suffered from racism because many people had emigrated from other countries even within European countries. The U.S.A. is submerged in a culture of racism. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in 1968 because he was trying to relinquish the racial strains between blacks and whites in the United States. Nelson Mandela was sent to jail because he was fighting for the black people’s right in South Africa. Many Muslims are also sent to jail (Guantanamo Bay) because they are accused of belonging to terrorist units. Currently there are more than 500 Muslim prisoners and none of which have stood in front of any court.

My final statement is similar to the FIFA message ‘A time to make friends, Say no to racism’. We should all work within our community to say no to racism so we can live in peace and harmony together. Canada should remain a haven of neutrality and respect. We should set an example for every community around the world to show that we are a community of different backgrounds, but we live harmoniously and not affected by racism. When I moved to Canada I was afraid of suffering any possible racism, but after spending the whole year here I realized Canada is quite a diverse place and I never felt any kind of racism towards me. I hope that no one on this country shall suffer because of racism presently or in the future.

* This article was published in The Silhouette too on January 11th, 2007. Here is the link to the edited article http://www.thesil.ca/article.pl?sid=07/01/11/210244&mode=thread

Speakers spreading hatred not peace

2007-02-24T15:30:00.000-08:00

Speakers spreading hatred not peace

Maybe what I’m going to discuss now had happened at the end of last academic year, but I believe that we are all going to face the same problem on our campus again this year. So I thought of mentioning this problem as soon as school starts so at least that all of us can stop that of happening again. Basically the problem I’m talking about is about some speakers brought by some MSU clubs to speak out on campus. Those speakers must be banned from visiting McMaster University because they were willing spread some kind of hatred and discrimination between student. But I believe that those speakers must come to campus to spread peaceful thoughts and harmony between students on campus rather than hatred.
I came up with the desire to write this article because I faced this problem personally last year. I’m going to mention the story now about the speaker only, but I’m going to avoid mentioning the name of the clubs that invited her to speak on our campus.
Nonie Darwish is a speaker that her only mission is to spread any kind of hatred toward Muslims and Arabs where ever she speaks. I’m of course not accusing her of that, but that what I felt when I went to listen to her speak that was held at the end of March on our campus. She kept accusing Arabs and Muslims of being only as terrorists and that they were raised to hate and kill. We had a discussion with her after her speech and we proved to her that her points where not accurate and most of them were wrong. I left really sad that day and more than that offended, basically because she gave a bad idea about a race and religion to other students which maybe don’t know that much about this race or religion.

I really believe that this type of speakers must be banned from visiting this campus. Nonie Darwish got the chance to attack people in McMaster University while she had problems with other campuses across Ontario. After her speech in McMaster I heard that some students from Guelph University had forced the Israeli Action Committee (IAC) into cancelling Darwish’s appearance. The students claimed false advertising, because the IAC claimed that Nonie Darwish as a Muslim and her website says otherwise. I heard because of other things she was banned from speaking on Guelph’s campus.

York Federation of Students had demanded for official apology from Hillel@York, whom brought Darwish to there campus to speak. Darwish basically claimed that, “Most Muslims are terrorists” and some other racist comments regarding Islam; she also claimed that when she visited McMaster. Darwish repeatedly generalized Muslims into hateful stereotypes claiming that Islamic customs "treat its women like a herd of sheep who should neither be seen nor heard." She also assumed that she generalized all Arab nations by saying that, "Money comes easily through selling oil, thus their energy and money is mobilized to hate, war and Jihad [and that] every aspect ofthe Muslim culture and media is geared toward the hatred and elimination of Israel."

The most important point I want to get it clear is simple. I believe that we all should as Muslims, Christians, Jews and others work everywhere together, and we should start this on our campus, to solve the problems every where in the world. Being all united can solve all the fights and wars we are facing all around the globe, and we can be the reason to spread the peace and justice in any confliction. Maybe we can try to forget the past with all the conflictions and try to open a new page which we can all start writing new peaceful lines. This means we should find a way to stop everyone trying to spread any kind of hatred between us before doing anything else.
What I might be saying will sound funny for some people because mankind are not willing to make it possible. Rather than spending all this money on military equipments used only for destruction it can be used for peaceful projects. Half the world population – nearly three billion people – lives on less than two dollars a day. At the same time since 1973, Israel has cost the United States about $1.6 trillion. If this amount of money was divided by today's population, that is more than $5,700 per person. Can you imagine that, Israel spent that much of money to buy tanks, F16 and everything to kill the civilian Palestinian all those years with that amount of money? That money must have been spent by the Americans to build those third world countries not destructing them. According to some American Army documents that the annual cost of replacing, repairing, and upgrading equipment for the US Army in Iraq and Afghanistan is expected to triple over the next year, to more than $17 billion. Canada on the other side are willing to spend $4.5 billion to buy six Halifax class frigates, do you know that this money can be used to eliminate tuitions fees at public colleges and universities across Canada.

With all those numbers and facts I just gave you maybe I made you got bored reading this article but my point was direct. Rather than spending all this money on killing human beings and destructing what was built by man kind that money must be spent on educating people and making there life better.

*This article was published in The Silhouette on November 9th, 2006 . You can find it on
http://www.thesil.ca/article.pl?sid=06/11/23/1835202&mode=thread
http://www.baseljarrad.com