Blogger: Mideast Youth - Thinking Ahead
Article: Palestinian-Israeli Chanukah/Eid celebration at my home
Originaly Posted On: 2007-12-14 13:56:30

My friend at work was making fun of my “To Do” lists which have like 30 items for me to do in one day. “You ought to see a psychiatrist. You’re mad!!”

My kids though, think I’m crazy for entirely different reasons. My Complainer Daughter was bothered a little that I was having an interfaith chanukah party with Arabs and Jews. Why can’t I be like other mothers and just have Jews at the party? Why must we be an embarrassment to the neighborhood?

“Don’t talk about Arabs to Natty (her boyfriend). He doesn’t like Arabs.”

Well, that, of course, prompted me to go over to him and talk some sense into the young man of Moroccan ancestry.

 ”I hear you don’t like Arabs. We’re having a party tonight and you are invited. I used to think just like you. You know why you don’t like them, don’t you? It’s because it is what you were taught. You’ve never had Arab friends and all your friends say they hate Arabs so you hate them too, aren’t I right?”

He nodded.

I also dared to invite some locals from my neighborhood. These were old friends who I know never had contact with Palestinians. There was a Palestinian from Abu Dis whom I never met who is on my email list and got the invite. Surprisingly he said he’d like to come and bring a friend or two. Great. At least we’ll have some diversity.

By the time the party was supposed to begin,the apartment shone and I lit candles all over the place to make that warm and fuzzy mood. The Abu Dis guys called. I thought they’d have problems at the entrance check point but didn’t. They were lost so I had to guide them through. In fact, everyone got lost. No one’s been to my new pad before plus it’s a new neighborhood so it was quite a challenge for me to explain directions to people, since I’m no good at them myself. Turns out the Abu Dis guy brought in a friend from Jenin who told me he had never been invited to a Jewish home before and he seemed so delighted to be in my house. Even in Maaleh Adumim. Settlement, shmettlement. There.

He was intrigued by the uncovered mezuzot I had on my door frames and I explained the Moses and Egypt story to him, so he could understand the origin of this. “the prayer inside is the same prayer as you have…Lah Il’ha Il Allah - there is no God but Allah” - “Shma Israel - the Lord is One.” He smiled.

One of the Jewish guys came over to me and said “I’d been to Jenin.” “Oh yeah?” “Yeah, in a jeep. With a gun.” he whispered to me. Yikes. Better not say that too loud. And I was pleased that he was here because next time, he may not want to go into Jenin in an army uniform with a gun, if he gets to know some of the locals.

My daughter and her boyfriend were going out on the town and walked towards the door. I intercepted and introduced them to the guests. The happy Jenin guy looked at Natty, thinking perhaps he was an Arab because well, many Moroccans just do. “Kif Halak!!” He grabbed Natty’s hand shaking it hard and smiling widely. I see Natty’s face getting all red. He can’t get out of this one. The Jenin guy continued to talk to him in Arabic. I thought I would pee in my pants - I found it hilarious. I explained that Natty doesn’t know Arabic, his name is Hebrew - short for Netanel. “Have a great evening kids!” I said as I closed the door behind them.

It was time to light the Chanukah menorah and we said the blessings and sang Maoz Tzur while my friend played guitar. I was frying sweet potato latkes (pancakes) and the Jenin guy pointed and said “levivot!” the Hebrew word for what they are. He googled Chanukah, wanting to come prepared. I thought that was really sweet.

Meanwhile, I introduced everyone to each other. Haj Ibrahim came in traditional Arab dress. Some of my right-wing Jewish Orthodox friends were there and shook hands with my Palestinian buddies and they were wrapped up in conversation on my couch and standing in the kitchen. I told my Jewish friends that we don’t talk politics so we don’t get angry, we will just celebrate together. And I think we were all relieved we didn’t have to point fingers and yell and scream at each other. But then again, my house isn’t the Israeli Knesset.

I then asked the guy from Jenin if he would like to speak about the upcoming Moslem holiday Eid Al Adha so my Jewish friends could learn something about it. I actually made Makhlouba to celebrate and people actually liked it. Of course, the Jewish folks had no idea what it was but everyone seemed to enjoy it, except for the vegetarians.

I thought the party would end at a reasonably early hour, but guests left at 11:30 pm instead. People were making connections and exchanging numbers and emails. And I wasn’t tired. It’s funny how happiness could give you that wonderful burst of energy.

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Blogger: Point of no return
Article: Arabic version of Israeli novel to be sold in Egypt
Originaly Posted On: 2007-12-13 22:30:00

Israeli novelist Eli Amir’s novel ‘Jasmine’ will soon be available to readers shopping in Egyptian bookstores. While many Hebrew-language novels are translated around the world, rarely does an Israeli author get to see his work translated into Arabic and published in an Arab country, Ynet news reports.

“In the introduction to the Arabic version, translator Hussein al-Sarag, deputy editor-in-chief of ‘October’ magazine, wonders why only three Israeli novels have been published in Egypt so far.

“Al-Sarag also quotes Eli Amir’s statements from a literary conference in Cairo: “After the peace agreement with Egypt was signed, many Egyptian authors were translated into Hebrew. We, Israelis, do not fear the spread of Arab culture in Israel. I wish the same would be true for you. How can there be peace without us knowing each other?”

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Blogger: The Muslim Network for Baha’i Rights
Article: Up for one year, and in need of some help!
Originaly Posted On: 2007-12-14 19:43:43

Dear friends,

In 2 weeks, the Muslim Network for Baha’i Rights will be celebrating its first year. In this year we have covered a great deal of human rights violations against our Baha’i brethren, especially those taking place in Egypt and Iran. It has been, for the most part, controversial yet imperative. We are extremely determined to make this work, however for this network to be more effective, with more multimedia incorporated, we need helping hands!

If you’re interested in helping us, please send us an e-mail, with the following questions in mind:

- Are you a Muslim?

- Do you believe in interfaith, coexistence, and tolerance, which our faith openly promotes?

- Are you willing to fight against the grave injustice of denying Baha’is their basic human rights simply because of their faith?

- Baha’is consistently defend Islam, as well as praise our revered prophet Mohammed (May Peace Be Upon Him), hatred against Baha’is is therefore unjustified and is mostly due to the way they have been misportrayed throughout the mainstream media. Since many of these injustices take place in our societies, in our NAME, do we not have a duty to support our Baha’is brothers and sisters who did absolutely nothing to ever wrong us? Is human rights abuses, persecution, and intellectual isolation something that Islam wishes upon other average civilians who are very welcoming of our faith and religious values?

We are looking for Muslims who believe in these values. Please join us, make others aware of Baha’i human rights abuses, join our collective voice in condemning such abuse especially if they are taking place in the name of our religion, and help us create a safer, peaceful, and more tolerant Middle East (and the rest of the world!)

CONTACT US.

Blogger: Baha’i Faith in Egypt
Article: Egypt Moves Forward in the Path of Human Rights
Originaly Posted On: 2007-12-14 16:55:00

This week, in the English version of Egypt’s semi-official newspaper Al-Ahram Weekly, Gamal Nkrumah wrote an article about Egypt’s celebration of Human Rights Day. Al-Ahram newspaper is the voice of Egypt’s government.

Below are a few selected paragraphs quoted here for their relevance. In order to read the entire article, please click here….

Egypt celebrated International Human Rights Day this week, drawing attention to the country’s mixed record, writes Gamal Nkrumah.

On Monday, a ceremony took place at Al-Ahram organised by the Human Rights Capacity Building Project (BENAA, or “Building” in Arabic), during which prizes were distributed to journalists whose writings promote human rights.

Among the topics raised in the winning articles were the role of Internet blogs in enhancing public awareness of human rights, as well as violence against women, the issue of street children and the prickly subject of torture.

“We based the NCHR’s third annual report, the Human Rights Situation in Egypt 2006/2007, on complaints received from citizens from all walks of life. We took into consideration infringements and violations of their rights as provided for in the Egyptian constitution, national laws and legislation, and in the international Charter on Human Rights,” Boutros-Ghali explained.

He stressed that the focus of the NCHR was to “identify the most serious infringements of human rights.”

Ghali also noted that particular problems faced by religious minorities, such as Coptic Christians and Bahaais, had been carefully examined. “However, many Muslims also complained about what they saw as infringements of their human and social rights,” Boutros-Ghali added.

“The violation of the rights of one citizen is as important as the collective violation of the rights of many citizens,” Boutros-Ghali said.

He said that in the case of the Bahaais, the NCHR had recommended that the religious identity of individuals should not be written on identity cards. This, he noted, was of particular importance to Bahaais and to people who had changed their religious affiliations.

“Religion should be a private matter,” Boutros- Ghali insisted. “No citizen should be discriminated against because of his or her religion, gender, race or political affiliation.”

Blogger: Point of no return
Article: Reaction to B. Lewis’s ‘On the Jewish question’
Originaly Posted On: 2007-12-10 09:36:00

Three letters were published in The Wall St Journal in reaction to Bernard Lewis’s piece On the Jewish question, in which he states that it is Israel’s existence that is in question, not its size. Furthermore, Lewis writes, refugees were created by all major 20th century conflicts, including the war resulting from the partition into India and Pakistan. The Arab-Israeli conflict is no exception, it too having produced an exchange of refugee populations.

Both the first two letters miss the point about ‘population exchange’. Steve Feldman is so outraged at the injustice of Palestinians ‘losing their land’ that he does not consider the issue of the Jewish refugees at all. Gary Goldman sees the Jews only as usurpers of Palestine. The fact that the Jews were indigenous to the Arab countries they were forced to leave, and not even party to the conflict in Palestine, has no effect whatsoever on his thinking. All that matters is that Palestinians were indigenous to Palestine, even though history has shown so many had been in the country for such a short time that they qualified for UNWRA refugee status if they had lived in Palestine for as little as two years.

So brainwashed are certain well-meaning westerners about the ‘tragedy’ of the Palestinians that they just cannot conceive that Jewish rights were violated as well. What would it take for a paradigm shift in western thinking to take place?

Blogger: Baha’i Faith in Egypt
Article: BBC Xtra: Program on Baha’is of Egypt
Originaly Posted On: 2007-12-07 15:06:00

BBC Xtra Arabic program aired on 5 December 2007 a broadcast on the struggle of the Baha’is of Egypt. A number of Egyptian Baha’is, human rights activists and journalists were interviewed regarding their current status of being deprived of their civil rights in their own homeland.

The introductory paragraph (attached) explains that, for example, in Lebanon after long years of civil war, the authorities had finally eliminated religious classification from ID cards. However, it added, in some other Arab nations, the authorities demand that all citizens enter their religion in ID cards. Only Egypt allows just three choices for religion to be entered: Islam, Christianity and Judaism. It then states that religious minorities, for example Baha’is, are left without ID cards because they do not belong to any of the three religions.

The introductory article, then, elaborates on the court case of the Egyptian Baha’i twins who are without birth certificates, merely because of their parents’ religious affiliation.

Listen to the radio program by clicking on the link below:

Blogger: Baha’i Faith in Egypt
Article: Radio Netheralnds: Religious Freedom in Egypt!
Originaly Posted On: 2007-12-02 16:56:00

The inhumane treatment of religious minorities in Egypt is clearly portrayed in this Radio Netherlands program. It interviews a number of individuals who are directly affected by their inability to obtain the national ID card solely because of their belief.

The case of a young Baha’i university student who was expelled from the university because of his religion is presented in his own voice. Since his father is now dead, this young man is struggling to fulfill his responsibility to support the rest of his family but he cannot because, according to the current arcane authoritarian policies, he does not exist without an ID card–thus he suffers civil death!

The program also examines the dilemma of those who, at one time, were forced to convert from Christianity to Islam and now want to return to Christianity–all road blocks are placed in their path!

This program is indeed worthy of listening to…please click here to listen.

Blogger: Point of no return
Article: JJAC ‘gratified’ at Annapolis refugee mention
Originaly Posted On: 2007-12-04 09:15:00

Advocates for Jewish refugees from Arab countries are “pleased and gratified” that Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister Tzipi Livni raised their issue during a speech to delegates attending last week’s summit in Annapolis, writes Paul Lungen in Canadian Jewish News. (It now appears that her words, quoted in Ynet News, were not quite accurately reported.)

“I think it was an appropriate reference. I think it was the first time such a reference was made in such a major speech by the foreign minister,” said Stan Urman, executive-director of Justice for Jews from Arab Countries (JJAC), an umbrella organization that speaks for an estimated 850,000 Jews who fled Arab countries following the establishment of Israel in 1948.

In an address to delegates that included senior Arab leaders, Livni reflected on the UN partition resolution of 1947 that created Israel as a Jewish state and was meant to create a Palestinian entity alongside it.

“I am proud of where Israel is today,” she stated. “I am sorry that the Arab world rejected the principle of partition in the past, and I hope and pray that today there is an understanding that instead of fighting, the right thing to do is to build a shared future in two separate states: one – the State of Israel, which was established as a Jewish state, a national home for the Jewish people; and the other – Palestine, which will be established to give a full and complete solution to Palestinians wherever they may be, those who are in Gaza and the West Bank and those in refugee camps in other Arab countries with temporary status, waiting for a sense of belonging to a national state, the same feeling of wholeness that the establishment of the State of Israel gave to Jewish refugees who were forced to leave Arab countries and Europe and became partners in building Israel.” (My emphasis - ed)

In the months leading up to Annapolis, and even before, JJAC argued that the experience of Jewish refugees had to be incorporated into any narrative that described the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The public perception – even that of negotiators – focused exclusively on Palestinian refugees when an even larger number of Jews were made homeless as a result of the Arab-Israeli conflict, JJAC contended.

In the weeks leading up to Annapolis, JJAC revealed a 1947 Arab League policy of colluding to disenfranchise Jewish citizens in Arab countries, seize their property and force them to flee.

MP Irwin Cotler, Canada’s former justice minister, told The CJN that “we need to rectify the historic injustice in which Jewish refugees have been expunged from the peace and justice narrative of the last 60 years.”

As a victim refugee group, Jews from Arab lands should be given the same consideration as Palestinian refugees. In addition, Arab states and the Arab League must acknowledge their roles in creating Jewish refugees, he said.

Cotler noted that at Annapolis, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert referred to the suffering of Palestinian refugees but there was no reciprocal acknowledgement from any Arab delegate of their states’ role in creating Jewish refugees.

The Annapolis summit convened 60 years after the UN voted to create a Jewish and a Palestinian state, he continued. What has been forgotten in the widely accepted Palestinian narrative – which focuses on their displacement and suffering – is that all Arab countries and the Palestinian leadership rejected the UN partition plan and fought a war to prevent it.

Palestinian and Jewish refugees were created because the Arab countries rejected partition, Cotler stated.

He said Canada “has the refugee gavel” in multilateral refugee talks and should include the plight of Jewish refugees whenever Palestinian refugees are discussed.

Canadian Jewish Congress co-president Sylvain Abitbol said he was pleased at Livni’s reference to Jewish refugees. “It is a forgotten story in the sense you have about a million Jews [made homeless]. The moment they left their countries and entered Israel they were no longer refugees, while the Palestinians have been kept as refugees as an example against Israel.”

Abitbol, who is a member of JJAC’s executive, said Jewish refugees lost property with an estimated value of $20 billion, and their claims have to be addressed when those of Palestinian refugees are discussed.

Urman acknowledged that while Livni’s reference to Jewish refugees was brief, it was appropriate for the occasion, as Annapolis dealt with process and procedure, not with negotiations over substantive issues. He said he has been told the issue was also raised in private conversations.

JJAC plans to keep the issue alive as negotiations unfold, he continued. JJAC will meet in Israel early in the new year and, in co-operation with organizations representing “Mizrachi” (eastern) Jews, “we will try to put this on the radar screen forcefully in Israel.”

JJAC hopes to meet with Olmert, Livni and senior Israeli parliamentarians.

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Blogger: Point of no return
Article: The refugee from Cairo who works for peace
Originaly Posted On: 2007-11-30 20:22:00

Photo: Wendy Blumfeld

The inveterate peace campaigner and champion of the rights of Jews from Arab countries, Professor Ada Aharoni, is profiled in The Jerusalem Post: from Cairo to Haifa - 1949.

“In spite of her experiences of exile and displacement, the theme of Ada Aharoni’s work has been building bridges for peace. She is also fiercely proud of the culture of the Jews of Egypt and, as organizer of an international conference on conserving their history, culture and literature, she also relives the coexistence between Muslims and Jews that thrived prior to 1948. In her biography of the amazing Jewish German nurse Thea Wolfe, who headed the Jewish hospital in Cairo during World War II, she highlights the efforts of the Muslim police and customs authorities to cooperate in the rescue of Jewish refugees who escaped to Egypt.

“Aharoni lived in comfort with her family in Cairo. Her father sent her to the English convent school> for girls because he wanted her to be his secretary, but she so thrived in the language that she soon declared that she wanted a career in English literature. “At the age of 10 I was going to be a writer, not a secretary.” she reminisces. At 13 she co-edited the school magazine with an Arab student and their p>motto was: Abolish wars forever. At 15 she was a counselor in the Maccabi Zionist Youth movement, but when she was 16 her father’s work permit was rescinded because he was Jewish and the family prepared to leave for France.

“We arrived in Marseille to find that the Egyptian authorities had confiscated the money that my father had transferred to a Swiss bank and we were left penniless and without financial resources, apart from land he had bought in Herzliya,” she says.

“They moved to Paris and her father then suffered a heart attack and was unable to work again. Her mother, who was a piano teacher, went to work punching tickets on the Metro but later succeeded in business after taking a cashiers’ course.

“Nevertheless, her parents wanted her to take up a place offered at the Sorbonne. By this time, Aharoni was concerned about the rising anti-Semitism in France and enrolled for a year’s agricultural training in Israel, promising to return after that to study in Paris.

“She did not return to France to study because as a 17-year old coming to Kibbutz Mishmar Ha’emek, she fell in love with the land and with Haim, also of Egyptian origin. (…)

“Aharoni believes in starting from one’s own neighborhood. She and Ruth Lys, the co-founder of The Bridge: Jewish and Arab Women for Peace in the Middle East, knocked on doors in the Arab neighborhoods of Haifa inviting women to the first meeting. At the same time, they corresponded with Jehan Sadat and roused interest for the group throughout the region. Lys, herself a prime example of the bravery of these women, was a Holocaust survivor who lost her husband and four children. She remarried in Israel and her only son was killed in the Yom Kippur War.

“It is through the mothers that we will make peace,” she declares. In 1999 she founded IFLAC: Pave Peace, the International Forum for the Literature and Culture of Peace, of which she is still president.

“In this context grew the idea of organizing a conference this year at the University of Haifa jointly sponsored by the World Congress of Egyptian Jews and the Herzl Institute on Conserving the History, Culture and Literature of the Jews from Egypt. “There is so little awareness of the life of the Jews in Egypt prior to 1948,” she says, explaining why in 1983 she wrote her historical novel The Second Exodus, describing the forced exile of Jews from Egypt. “We do not expect any material benefit but we want to recapture our cultural heritage.”

She believes that the stories on both sides should be told. “This was our nakba - disaster,” she says. “We lost everything, but I never had any hatred for anybody. I never took a gun and tried to kill anyone. We just started over again.” Unlike so many refugees who fester in hatred and revenge, Ada has used her experiences to work for peace.

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Blogger: Baha’i Faith in Egypt
Article: Egypt: A Newspaper Refutes Another in Defending the Baha’i Rights
Originaly Posted On: 2007-11-29 17:16:00

Yesterday, Cairo’s weekly newspaper, Al-dostour [the constitution] published an article written by Sheema’a Abul-Kheir refuting Al-Ahram’s article written by its writer Muhammad Dunya, referred to in this previous post.

Al-Dostour’s article is quite critical of the negative coverage provided in Al-Ahram regarding the recently released Human Rights Watch (HRW) report on the identity crisis in Egypt. The title states: “Al-Ahram criticized ‘Human Rights Watch’ report regarding religious freedom as if it [Al-Ahram] is inviting the citizens to commit forgery!”

In order to make a point, Abul-Kheir uses the Egyptian proverb “they did not find any fault in the roses.” He stresses that Al-Ahram has a consistent history of being critical of international and national human rights reports accusing them of producing inaccurate information and data. This time, he adds, Al-Ahram was unable to refute any of the information and findings produced in the Human Rights Watch report, so instead it attacked the proposed solutions suggested by this well-respected human rights organization, “which, for the sake of accuracy, was produced in collaboration with the Egyptian Initiative for Human Rights, an Egyptian organization.”

He also points out that Al-Ahram was unable to argue any of the statements made in the report regarding the constitutional and legal guarantees of freedom of belief and the right to choose one’s religion–guarantees that were confirmed by various Egyptian courts including the constitutional court. Instead, Al-Ahram criticized the practical component of the report that addresses the applicability of the actual dictates of the law. Specifically, he points to the violation of citizenship rights of the Baha’is to be able to enter their religion correctly in official documents. He brings up that these citizen, as a result, are deprived of their rights to education, employment and health care. This violation extends further to their rights to marry and have families.

In response to Al-Ahram’s statement about the Ministry of Interior’s obstruction being based on the excuse that the second article of the constitution refers to “Islamic Shari’ah as a principal source of legislation” and that Islamic Shari’ah recognizes three religions only, he maintains that this excuse contradicts the findings of HRW report, which are based on multiple opinions of the highest Islamic authorities–including that of the honorable leader Gamal Qoutb–showing no evidence whatsoever to support the claim that Islamic Shari’ah recognizes only three religions.

He then puts forward the following questions to Al-Ahram: “what would these citizens do without official documents, of which they have been denied, and without which they are unable to manage their daily affairs? If the answer is that they would have to choose one of the three religions, what then if a Baha’i citizen is issued an ID card, with “Muslim” as his religion, marries a Muslim woman…would the all-capable Al-Ahram organization explain to us whether or not this marriage is to be considered legitimate?”

In the caricature accompanying the article, the newspaper chief editor seated at the desk asks his employee: “What do you mean the paper is not selling? What then would they cover people dying in the streets with?”

This is indeed a refreshing piece of intelligent journalism. Egypt is to be congratulated on producing this generation of eloquent, righteous and courageous journalists.