Queen, Comedians Use YouTube To Fight Stereotypes

Vivian Salama

PostGlobal – Washingtonpost.com

If I had a nickel for every time somebody has asked me if I walk like an Egyptian, I’d be well into retirement!! Apparently, I’m not alone.

A team of Middle Eastern-American comedians has banded together, with the help Jordan’s Queen Rania, to promote an awareness campaign against stereotypes. The video released this week is just the latest installment on Her Majesty’s YouTube channel geared toward encouraging global dialogue to counter racism, violence and hate. “Queen Rania: The YouTube Queen,” as the project is called, encourages viewers to express their opinions of the Middle East and discuss the stereotypes they believe or have experienced.

Queen Rania of Jordan

“I’m hoping that this will really become a channel of communication and hopefully one of many between East and West, because I really think that our world is very much in dire need of that,” the Queen told the BCC in a televised interview this week.

In a year when the race for the White House is dominating headlines and political parties are working overtime to get the vote out, a handful of Arab-American performers are vying for the hearts and minds of their countrymen via awareness through laughter.

Call it the new Arab Lobby — only it’s not the minds of those on Capitol Hill this group is looking to woo. American performers of Arab and Iranian heritage are taking their case around the world with an explicit message: No More Mr. Bad Guy.

Performers ranging from stand-up comedians to actors and film makers have been working to tackle numerous issues; from the daily struggles of Arab-Americans in post 9/11 America, to politics, the War on Terror and American pop culture. They often poke fun at themselves or tell anecdotes about their parents since most of them are American-born.

This latest short video, which includes regulars on the US comedy circuit, including Dean Obeidallah and Negin Farsad, features a montage of funny — and sometimes rather disturbing — misconceptions about their ethnic heritage.

“Queen Rania’s initiative provides people with a unique platform to showcase their videos and allows us to tell our story in our own words,” Obeidallah told me. “Our hope is that the video we made will continue the discussion Queen Rania started with her project and help breakdown the negative misconceptions people have about us as well as highlighting some of the contributions we have made to civilization. In addition, I hope our video makes people laugh!”

Scents and Sensibility

Vivian Salama

The National | July 08. 2008 9:40PM UAE

Throughout history Arabs have used fragrance as a form of art, a symbol of reverence and a token of beauty. In the 13th century the Sufi Arab mystic, Ibn Arabi, wrote in his masterpiece, Pearls of Wisdom, “of all the worldly goods, three things are dearest to my heart: perfume, women and prayer”. 

Centuries earlier, the art of perfume-making was documented on the walls of the tomb of Petosiris by ancient Egyptians, who used different scents for everything from hygiene and prayer to animal sacrifice and mummification. When Tutankhamen’s tomb was opened some 3,300 years after his death, the scent of perfume could still be detected there.

Today perfume still plays an integral, albeit more subtle, role in Arab and non-Arab societies alike. And, with oils and fragrances ranging in price from a few dirhams to thousands of dollars, it is big business. Revenue from perfume sales in the Middle East is an estimated US$3 billion (Dh11.01bn) a year, with the UAE accounting for one quarter of sales. 

“Unlike in other parts of the world the perfume industry here stems from the rich culture and heritage of the people of this region,” explained Salim Kalsekar, the managing director of Rasasi Perfumes in Jebel Ali.

Perfumes are the highest-grossing products at Dubai Duty Free, last year earning $122 million, or 14 per cent of total sales. Leading perfume makers estimate that their profit from sales in the city of Dubai is between three and five times greater than any other market in the region. Industry professionals estimate that each person in the GCC spends an average of $334 on perfumes and cosmetics per year.

“Call it an obsession or a love connection with fragrances,” said Abdulla Ajmal, the deputy general manager of Ajmal Perfumes. “In this part of the world it’s about individuality. Men wear the dishdash and women wear abayas. Their faces, whether via make-up or grooming, and their scent, are the clearest ways to exert their individuality.”

The global perfume industry is in a period of expansion and diffusion, with new fragrances, a new emphasis on bottle design, and the use of celebrity endorsement to boost sales.

A 2008 Euromonitor International report showed that global fragrance sales were worth $30.5bn in 2006. The French perfume industry commands a 40 per cent share of a global market in which the world’s emerging economies are becoming increasingly important. 

Click here to read more….

NY Arab American Comedy Festival

Hey everyone.  I wanted to support my friends in this weekend’s Arab American Comedy Festival, scheduled to begin this weekend in New York City. Here’s a message from one of the co-founders, Dean Obiedallah:

Want to start the New Year with some great laughs?  Join us for the 5th Annual NY Arab-American Comedy Festival which will be held January 18-23, 2008 in NYC. This will be our biggest and funniest Festival ever!

The Festival showcases Arab-American comedians, sketch comedy and comedic films:

-January 18-19: Arab-American headliner stand up comedy show: Featuring some of the top comedians from across the country who have appeared on Comedy Central, ABC’s “The View,” CNN, and PBS, including: Aron Kader (Comedy Central’s “Axis of Evil” special), Maysoon Zayid (PBS upcoming documentary “Muslim American Comics come of Age”), Dean Obeidallah (Comedy Central’s “Axis of Evil” and “The Watch List”), Nasry Malak (Comedy Central’s “The Watch List”), Jimmy Goson (LA Improv), Ronnie Khalil (Comedy Central’s “The Watch List”), Amer Zahr (ABC’s “Politically Incorrect”), Maria Shehata (Comedy Central’s “The Watch List”), Sherif Hedayat (Comedy Central’s “Open Mic Fight”) and more.

-January 20 and 21: “Sketch Comedy Nights” – This edgy comedy show will feature 90 minutes of original sketches written by some of the top Arab-American comedic writers in the country and stars Arab-American actors who appeared on Broadway, Off-Broadway, in feature films and TV shows. No topic is off limits as we comedically tackle issues ranging from the presidential campaign, to the struggles of being Arab-American in post 9/11 America, to Fox News, to Arab-American dating and even American pop culture.;

- January 22: “”New Faces of Arab Comedy” featuring some of the top up and coming Arab-American comedians from across the country and Canada including from Los Angeles: Mike Batayeh (“American East”) and Noel Elgrably (“Sultans of Satire”), from Canada: Eman El-Husseini, from NY: Amanda Baramki, Meena Dimian, Mohamed Masoud, from Michigan: George Saba, from Virginia Remy Munasifi  and from Washington D.C.: Michael Tarazi
-January 23: Short comedic film Night and a big closing night party.

All shows are at the Zipper Theater and are only $20 per event. Tickets are now on sale at www.zippertheater.com or by calling 866-811-4111.

In the past years, all the events have sold out in advance, so even though we are holding our Festival at a bigger venue this year, we still encourage you to buy tickets in advance.

For more details about the Festival, or to make a donation to our not for profit Festival, please visit: www.arabcomedy.org.

The Other Christmas Rush Is Christians Fleeing Arabia

 As always, I am eager to hear your thoughts!

By Vivian Salama

Newsweek

Jan 14, 2008 Issue 

Christmas is usually a time to celebrate the arrival of Christians in the Holy Land. But this year, as Patriarch Michel Sabbah of the Latin Rite Catholic Church revealed during his Christmas sermon in Bethlehem, local leaders are currently concerned with the opposite phenomenon: exodus. Speaking to the legions of Arab Christians fleeing the region, Sabbah said, “I say to you what Jesus told us: do not be afraid.”But there’s reason to be. Last year, dozens of Christians were slain in Iraq and a Syriac Orthodox priest was beheaded in Mosul. Two prominent Christian Palestinians were recently killed in Gaza. A political stalemate in Lebanon and the increased dominance of Shiite Hizbullah has made Maronites fear their traditional perks, like control of the presidency, are slipping. Even in Egypt, where religion has played little role in government, Christians now worry that the increasing popularity of the Muslim Brotherhood could lead to new restrictions.

Thus many are voting with their feet. There are now just 12 million to 15 million Arabic-speaking Christians left in the Middle East, and this could drop to 6 million by 2025. Countries are being transformed: in 1956, Lebanese Christians made up 54 percent of the country; today they’re about 30 percent. Iraq’s Christian population has fallen from 1.4 million in 1987 to 600,000 today. And Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, was 80 percent Christian when Israel won independence in 1948; now it’s 16 percent. Fred Strickert of Wartburg College estimates that hundreds of thousands of Christian Arabs have been displaced in the recent years, including half a million from Iraq alone. Christian Arabs emigration isn’t new. But according to Drew Christiansen, editor of America Magazine, the tide has increased since the second intifada in the Palestinian territories and the Iraq War. James Zogby of the Arab American Institute says most Christians chose to relocate to Europe and the Americas. Some 75 percent of the United States’ 3.5 million Middle Easterners are Christian, as are large slices in Canada, France, and Brazil. Many new exiles hope to relocate to the United States: no small irony given that the instability they’re fleeing was set in motion by the United States itself.

With the exodus, ancient practices and cultures are being lost, and Middle Eastern Christians risk eventually being “amalgamated into Western Christianity,” says Christiansen. The result will be “a dilution of the diversity of Christian traditions.” But given the life or death choices many Arab Christian emigrants now face, that looks like a small price to pay.

Absence of Courage

A Palestinian official argues that international donors are pledging millions to Gaza and the West Bank because they hope their generosity will compensate for their lack of political will.

Aid package: A Palestinian woman receives food handouts in Jenin

By Vivian Salama | Newsweek Web Exclusive

Dec 18, 2007

Amid international skepticism and ongoing regional tensions, 87 countries and international organizations have pledged $7.4 billion in aid to help build a Palestinian state. Monday’s Paris meeting of the donors comes on the heels of last month’s Annapolis talks, a White House effort to revitalize Israeli-Palestinian negotiations before the Bush administration leaves office. The money, which is expected to pass through various channels, including international aid organizations and the Palestinian government—that is, the government of Mahmoud Abbas and not the now-defunct Hamas-led government in Gaza—was donated in response to this week’s World Bank report, which noted that “even under the most optimistic scenarios significant aid will continue to be required” to ensure the economic stability of the West Bank and Gaza. Afif Safieh, a Palestinian diplomat who heads the Palestine Liberation Organization Mission in Washington, spoke to Vivian Salama about the likely impact of the aid package and the latest political developments in the Palestinian territories. Excerpts:
 
Vivian Salama: What is your reaction to the news of the aid package?
Afif Safieh: Since the international community did not show the political courage needed in Annapolis or in the pre-Annapolis period, which necessitated some confrontation with the Israeli territorial appetite, they are now showing financial generosity because of the absence of political audacity and political courage. They feel the collapse of the Palestinian society and the Palestinian economy will generate additional chaos to a region already plagued with it, so this is the result.
 
What is the alternative and/or the lacking initiative, in your opinion?
I would have preferred the political courage and the diplomatic courage which is needed to support the Palestinian state, but this would have meant a political confrontation with the Israeli political leadership. This is what countries in the international system want to avert. They compensate the lack of political courage with financial generosity. Now, the report made by the World Bank says that if the roadblocks and strangulation of [Palestinian] society and the economy of society continues, even with external financial help, our economy will continue to shrink and decline by 2 percent every year. We have the potential of going back to levels of growth which will be double digit if you give [us] the capability.
 
Do you see Israel as a partner?
The Israelis are until now reluctant to reduce the number of roadblocks, most of which have no security value except to plunge us into economic decline. Here I invite you to explore the expression that was originally coined by Sarah Roy, a Jewish-American writer, the daughter of survivors, a Harvard scholar, who invented the concept of de-development of Palestine—meaning that the deliberate Israeli policy [was] to plunge us into economic decline, and that’s what’s happening.
 
The Bush administration—namely [Secretary of State] Condoleezza Rice—has pledged its devotion to the creation of a Palestinian state before the end of its term. Are you optimistic, and is this new aid package what is needed to get this process off the ground?
I believe in the sincerity of President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. I find the statement made by Secretary Rice that the creation of a Palestinian state is an American national interest [is] an important political statement which reflects the reality of the analysis by a growing body. I believe Bush when he told President Mahmoud Abbas in New York in September [that Bush] is growing increasingly impatient by the absence of progress. Since we have been unreasonably reasonable, I don’t think his impatience is addressed to my side of the argument. The question is will [Bush and Rice] vent their annoyance with the obstacle towards advance. Unfortunately so far there is no indication. Not only did the Israelis invest all their genius to lower expectations in the weeks that preceded Annapolis, but immediately after Annapolis they invested all their brilliance into torpedoing the modest results that emerged. Annapolis was supposed to retrigger a credible diplomatic avenue.
 
Does the aid package at least make you optimistic?
We are often asked, “Are you optimistic or pessimistic?” Even though I don’t feel we Palestinians have the luxury of pessimism, even though I believe that it’s only optimists who make history, I am often reminded that the definition of a pessimist is an informed optimist.
 
The World Bank has just released a detailed account on the dire economic conditions in Gaza and the West Bank. How would you describe the situation in [Hamas-controlled] Gaza?
A stain on the conscience of mankind. I read [the World Bank] report on Gaza: the inadmissible, the inconceivable is perpetrated on a daily basis. The Israelis withdrew out of Gaza yet besieged Gaza immediately, turning it into an open-air prison. They withdrew out of Gaza in order to improve their grip on the West Bank. [Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon never concealed that aim.
 
Some see this aid package as a victory for the Palestinian cause.
It shows the reservoir of goodwill and the diplomatic and universal unanimity the birth of a Palestinian state enjoys. Yet I am today more worried by the political impotence that we have witnessed throughout the decades. I believe peace is desirable, possible, doable yesterday already! As is frequently said, every possible scenario alternative and their opposite have been explored ad nauseam. I always tell Israelis that a territory that was occupied in six days can also be evacuated in six days, so that they can rest on the seventh and we can engage in the fascinating journey of economic development and reconstruction. It’s the absence of the political will that is disturbing.

Click here for the Newsweek.com link.

Palestinian Donors’ Conference – World Bank report

Today I interviewed Afif Safieh, head of the PLO Mission to Washington, DC regarding news out of Paris of a $7 billion pledge to support a viable Palestinian state.  The conference was the first step toward finding a solution to the on-going Palestinian-Israeli crisis following the conference in Annapolis last month. I will publish and then post the interview tomorrow.  In the meantime, I encourage all of you to read the World Bank Report, entitled Investing in Palestinian Economic Reform and Development. 

Can Hamas be Ignored?

by Vivian Salama

Middle East Times

Middle East author and historian Rashid Khalidi offered the following forecast for Tuesday’s peace gathering in Annapolis, “Cloudy with rain and a chance of storms.” He added, “That’s been the Middle East forecast for decades.”

The media has been criticized for its relentless skepticism of the “get together” – as one White House official described it – taking place in Maryland this week. For many, this multilateral gathering of more than two dozen delegations to discuss the Palestinian-Israeli issue is merely history repeating itself. In 2000, just as President Clinton was preparing to leave office, he invited the then-embattled Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and his beleaguered Palestinian counterpart Yasser Arafat together at Camp David to negotiate a final settlement to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Seven years later, a politically besieged President George W. Bush has invited Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas – both of whom are fighting to stay for political survival – to make long overdue concessions and revitalize final status talks. Photo-ops and cliché catch phrases like “Road Map to Peace” will not undo the decades of damage this conflict has inflicted upon both sides. Israel’s Prime Minster Olmert has lost considerable support in Israel following his futile military campaign against Hezbollah in the summer of 2006. President Abbas comes to the table representing a government that was not democratically elected by the majority of Palestinians, and so by attending the meeting – all the while further alienating Hamas which essentially rules over Gaza – he may be doing himself more harm than good.

Meanwhile, since September 11, 2001, the Bush administration has been preoccupied with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the greater War on Terrorism, all the while neglecting this conflict which continues to be a source, if not a consistent grievance for much of the Middle East and the Muslim world. The War on Terrorism ultimately amounts to a war of ideas. To win the war of ideas, the U.S. must take genuine steps toward solving the Arab-Israeli conflict. That’s where Annapolis comes in.

British-Arab historian Albert Habib Hourani wrote shortly into the Suez Crisis of 1956 that “[He] who rules the Near East rules the world; and he who has interest in the world is bound to concern itself with the Near East.” With just over one year left on the clock, the administration, led by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, has put considerable time and energy in recent months into assuring both sides that it is committed to finding a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. How the Bush administration intends to help foster the creation of a Palestinian state when neither the United States nor Israel recognize Hamas – elected democratically by the Palestinian people in January 2006 – has yet to be determined.

Much of the talk leading up to this meeting has revolved around the idea of concessions. Such a compromise would include full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank with the exception of a few areas amounting to minor border tweaks. Control of the city of Jerusalem would be shared along ethnic lines with commitments from both sides to strive for peaceful coexistence.

A positive aspect to staging the Annapolis gathering at this particular time is that the stakes are high for all the major players involved. The Bush administration, desperate to establish any kind of credibility in the region, knows that the road to fixing the diplomatic disaster created in Iraq runs through Jerusalem. Also, many Israelis, tired of the same old tug-of-war that has dictated the conflict, are pressing for the old “land for peace” notion that has popped up repeatedly in various peace processes involving Israel. Abbas and his Fatah party understand that a failure to achieve a final settlement for the majority of Palestinians will undermine the credibility he is struggling to retain in the face of Hamas. More poignant is that the United States and Israel understand this too.

Ultimately it is not what comes out of the meeting in Annapolis that will be telling, but rather, what is to follow. If the meeting can jump start a series of talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis, then hope is not lost. However, it is unrealistic to think that anything will be accomplished so long as the parties involved continue to isolate Hamas.

Constitutional impasse in Lebanon

Over the coming days, I will be writing a lot about the upcoming Annapolis “get together” (as White House officials are calling it) as well as the escalating crisis in Lebanon.  In the meantime, BBC’s Kim Ghattas provides a great summary of the political situation in Lebanon and what it could mean for the country’s ever-fragile stability.

Constitutional impasse in Lebanon

Kim Ghattas BBC News, Beirut

As Lebanon continues to wait for a new president and inches closer to the possibility of a constitutional vacuum, a sense of doom is settling over the country.

Issam – a 50-year-old owner of a large business – sends his wife to stock up on tinned food for their mountain house in fear of a possible war.

At a jeweller’s shop, the talk is all about the rising price of gold. “Every time the price of gold rises like that, there’s a war in the region,” says one woman.

Trying to make appointments with people is sometimes impossible – “Call me tomorrow, who knows if we’ll still be alive then” is often the answer.

And then there are those who have postponed all their plans, from going on holiday to buying new clothes, until after 24 November – the date on which the current president, pro-Syrian Emile Lahoud is meant to leave office. Parliament needs to elect a new president before then or the country will plunge deeper into a crisis that has paralysed political life for the last year.

The election has been postponed twice already because of a lack of quorum, as rival camps – the anti-Syrians and the pro-Syrians – try to hammer out an agreement outside parliament. The next attempt has been slated for 12 November but is most likely to be postponed again.

Assassinations

The 6-year-long mandate of President Emile Lahoud was extended for three years by a vote in parliament in 2004.

The extension required a constitutional amendment which legislators approved after much pressure and arm-twisting from Damascus. At the time, Syria was still the political power-broker in Lebanon, where it maintained more than 10,000 troops.

The vote extension turned out to be the start of Lebanon’s worst crisis since the end of the 15-year-long civil war in 1990.

Since 2004, there have been eight assassinations of high-profile anti-Syrian figures, including legislators and the former prime minister Rafik Hariri, massive demonstrations by both Syria’s opponents and its supporters, and a devastating war between Hezbollah and Israel.

Today, the situation is as follows:

The anti-Syrian camp has a majority in parliament for the first time in decades and wants to use it to install someone from its bloc as president, thus reclaiming one of the last vestiges of Syrian influence in Lebanon.

Four anti-Syrian legislators have already been assassinated, and to avoid being deprived of the slim majority they still have in parliament, members of the anti-Syrian bloc have checked in en masse into a highly-secured hotel until a president has been elected.

Stand-off

The pro-Syrian opposition accuses the majority of doing America’s bidding in Lebanon and insists on a compromise candidate, someone who will protect Hezbollah and its weapons.

The two sides have been in a stand-off for two years, with the opposition maintaining a sit-in in the centre of Beirut, effectively besieging the prime minister’s offices and other government buildings.

For such a small country, Lebanon commands a lot of international attention.

The country’s presidential election was on the agenda of the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when she held talks with some of her European counterparts in Turkey over the weekend, on the sidelines of a summit on Iraq and its neighbours.

Lebanon also came up in talks between US President George W Bush and French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Washington this week, and French presidential envoys have been sent to Damascus and Beirut.

The Arab League regularly sends representatives to Beirut and the Russians have also weighed in with a call on Lebanese leaders to “realise the historic responsibility and reach accord” at this “fateful” moment for Lebanon.

Regional tensions

Many of the regional issues and tensions come together here and often threaten to boil over: the Arab-Israeli conflict, Shia-Sunni tensions and more importantly the US-Iran stand-off.

The battle for influence over the Middle East is being fought not just in Iraq but also in Lebanon, and the election of a new president has in effect become a showdown between the US and Europe on one side, backing the parliamentary majority, and Iran and Syria on the other, supporting the opposition, led by the Shia militant group Hezbollah.

There are fears that if Lebanon fails to elect a new president, it could plunge into a constitutional vacuum and possibly civil strife.

The fate of Lebanon is in the hands of Bush and Sarkozy Headline, Al Akhbar newspaper

This in turn could have implications for the wider region, with the possibility that a conflagration could start in Beirut and spread throughout the Middle East.

Many observers, including some members of the anti-Syrian camp, advocate a compromise solution in the form of a consensus candidate to avoid rocking the boat at a time when the region is unstable and talk of war between the US and Iran is in the air.

Staunch members of the anti-Syrian camp say a compromise candidate would mean giving in to Hezbollah, however.

Rival administrations?

The US, worried about the possibility of losing Lebanon to the Syria-Iran camp, is sending strong signals – in statements by Condoleezza Rice and the US ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad – that it believes the majority should choose the president.

If no president is elected by November 24, the Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, an ally of the West, takes over executive power under the constitution.

But the opposition has already warned it will not recognise Mr Siniora’s powers and there are fears it might form a rival cabinet.

The parliamentary majority has also threatened to elect a president by a simple majority vote in the assembly, instead of the required two thirds – a move the opposition rejects as illegal.

Such a split could also lead to the setting up of two rival administrations, a sad reminder of the last few years of Lebanon’s civil war when a similar situation arose.

“The fate of Lebanon is in the hands of Bush and Sarkozy” was the headline of the opposition al Akhbar newspaper on Wednesday – and in the hands of Syria and Iran, the anti-Syrian camp might retort.

What is clear is that as so often in its history, Lebanon finds itself – or allows itself to be – at the centre of a tug-of-war between world powers, a struggle that is probably not going to end on November 24, unless signs of a regional agreement somehow emerge.

And so holidays and clothes-buying will most likely be postponed again and more tinned food bought.

CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS If no president is elected by November 24, the Prime Minister Fouad Siniora takes over executive power under the constitution The president must be elected by a two-thirds majority in parliament The current president had his term extended by three years in 2004

Arab-Americans organize to challenge Hollywood stereotypes

(Pictures from the event below — thanks to my friend Yasmin Hamidi for these great photos) 

The Associated Press

Friday, November 16, 2007

NEW YORK: A leading Arab-American activist said Friday he plans to open an office in Hollywood to challenge stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims in the U.S. entertainment industry.

 

“The equation on American television and film is, Arab equals terrorist,” said Jack Shaheen, who was in New York on Friday for a meeting of the Network of Arab-American Professionals.

The group is comprised of about 5,000 young professionals who “are all around us,” said Dena Zakaria, a Philadelphia lawyer whose parents come from Syria.

“They’re your doctors, your lawyers, your engineers,” she said. “They’re part of the fabric of American society, they’re integral to the nation’s landscape. We’re here to stay.”

Zakaria said that despite efforts by the government and others to combat stereotypes, “the perception of Arabs by American citizens is getting worse and worse.”

“The negative stereotypes of the Arab ‘bad guy’ without a counter-image have prompted this groundswell of activism by members of the community,” she said.

This year’s conference will include presentations by Shaheen on his book, “Reel Bad Arabs,” which examines how films present Arab stereotypes; the Palestinian ambassador to the United States, Afif Safieh; and the Egyptian novelist and feminist, Nawal El Saadawi.

Shaheen, a 72-year-old Lebanese American, said he plans to set up an office in Hollywood to lobby filmmakers and television producers, and will recruit staff members this weekend at the conference.

He says he has compiled about 50 examples of films and TV programs “that blend the Arab terrorist image with images of ordinary Arabs and Muslims in America.”

“I want these young Arab-American professionals to help squash this damaging virus of hate,” he says. “The only way that can happen is if they can take steps to meet with producers, writers, directors and not let these manufactured prejudices continue.”

The organization was founded in January 2001, nine months before Sept. 11.

Yasmin Hamidi, a network spokeswoman, said the terror attacks fueled the growth of the organization.

“Arabs and Muslims in America felt an urgent need to organize because the community was under increased scrutiny,” Hamidi said.

Below: Far Left, Afif Safieh, head of PLO Mission to the US; Jack Shaheen; gentleman nearest to the right, Khalil Jehshan of Pepperdine University and one of the founding fathers of the Arab American lobby.

Egyptian Author and Feminist Nawal Al-Saadawi

NAAP Conference a success

Spent all of yesterday at the Annual Conference for the Network of Arab American Professionals (NAAP).  I served on a panel discussing how to get published with two incredibly impressive women, Terri Ginsberg and Deborah Kanafai - both of whom have experience publishing books of different kinds.  The theme of the conference was reshaping the image of Arabs in American society, particularly following September 11th.  The keynote speaker, Jack Shaheen, delivered a very interesting (and to some, incredibly moving) speech on the need for an Arab Lobby in Hollywood (in addition to Washington) to change the image of Arabs in cinema.  All in all, it was a lovely weekend.  It was the first time I had attended such an event and I was proud to see so many bright and successful people of Middle Eastern descent under one roof. – V