Ihsan Alkhatib

The scandalous division in the Lebanese parliament over the bills ending policies of discrimination in housing ownership and employment came up in a phone conversation I had with a relative of mine, a Palestinian refugee from Syria. My relative was puzzled by the treatment of the refugees in Lebanon and by what happened in the parliament. The country of his family's forced refuge, Syria, gives the refugees all the rights Syrians have except the right to vote and to run for office. The world has moved away from such blatant discrimination, how could those who speak of democracy, human rights shamelessly act the way they did he asked? Any Muslim, any Arab but not a Palestinian Muslim This phone conversation got me thinking of a situation that puzzled a friend of mine from Dearborn, a Muslim Palestinian attorney born in the US whose parents were from the West Bank, with no ties to Lebanon. Learning that Lebanon was seeking basketball players from overseas, this man wanted to take a...

Official Lebanon policy on the Palestinian refugees: Undermining Palestine and feeding the global terror network The siege on Gaza and the Israeli assault on the Turkish humanitarian relief ship has brought world attention to the suffering of the besieged Palestinians in the Gaza strip. After Hamas won the Palestinian elections the Israelis with, Arab and international collusion, imposed a criminal siege designed to punish Gaza’s civilians for voting for Hamas. The Israelis are just professional liars when they say the siege is designed to stop the flow of arms. The siege is designed, just like the war on Gaza and the war on Lebanon in 2006, to break the will to resist occupation and Israeli hegemony. The Wall Street Journal reported on 6/10/2010 that in response to developments after the piracy and massacre at sea of the humanitarian workers, Israel allowed formerly banned items such as potato chips, spices, and cookies. Official Lebanon undermines Palestinian nationalism Governm...

What good is it to gain Zionist approval but lose Islam’s soul? Saying no to Muslim Zionism In April of this year the American Arab anti- Discrimination Committee (ADC)- Michigan sponsored the Uniform Periodic Review event at Wayne State University. At that event one non- Arab Muslim leader asked a question and made a comment that seemed to be wrong in their logic and premises. The question was why the US government is refusing to give a “clean list” of Muslim charities that American Muslims can safely donate to. The comment was a response to a Palestine- related question. The comment was that Muslims have "many issues" and should not focus only on the issue of Palestine or be seen only from that angle. Betrayal by appeasement: Asking the axis of evil Cheney-Rumsfeld-AIPAC where to give the Zakat? The flawed thinking behind the question and the comment is clear to those who are familiar with the challenges that are facing American Arabs and Muslims in the United States afte...