Every time I think of 9/11
I see burning flesh dripping off the bones of Iraqi children in Fallujah
Now Gaza
I tend to memorialize the forgotten
The collateral damage eclipsing our unpunished crimes

Maybe it’s because I’m a numbers guy
Because if I had a dollar for every time an Iraqi died since 2003
I’d be a millionaire

And don’t get me wrong
Sometimes I don’t know who I hate more
The governments in the West
Or the politicians in the East
Who sell their souls quicker than the oil they export
Straw men who use Palestine as a tool to line their pockets
And don’t give a nickel to their people
Quisling governments
Who stitch mouths shut for a check from Washington and AIPAC
How can you be their prototypical anti-Semite
If you are signing peace accords to oppress your own people?

And then Orientalists and idiots talk about how
We can’t have democracy in the Middle East
Because of what happened in Gaza
A Hamas boogyman wrapped in democratic elections
Rahm Emanuel wants to educate me and my people about democracy gone wrong
Why doesn’t he try implementing one in Israel first?
Instead of bowing down to terrorists like his father and the IDF
Lauding a third rate, racist, European society that’s imploding quicker
Than its moral standing in the world
Enlightened like 1950s Afrikaners and slave traders
Just because the house is beautiful
Doesn’t mean the bones you built it on have fully decomposed

The Israeli left is about as alive as Ariel Sharon
I’m sick and tired of asking for permission to resist
From antiquated leftists and progressives
Who care more about keeping it Kosher than moving things forward
I put down my pen and waving fist to resist with college kids and Palestinians
Boycott and divest!
Because who cares about preserving a living when governments are killing civilians
Complicity by silence and reserve units bombing Gaza
Your academics and scholars, theater groups and practitioners, are part of the problem

And if logic doesn’t fit into your long term plan of rejecting
My right to return, I’m sorry
Maybe one day you’ll return to reality
Where my people have babies quicker
Than Zionists can concoct Jordanian options

I don’t want your sympathy or introspective confessions
Won’t sit on my hands till they lose oxygen
Like the people of Balata and Rafah
Vote for Barack Obama
And pretend that his 22 day silence was golden
While emaciated children starved to death
Surrounded by their parent’s corpses

This can’t be America the Beautiful
A criminal with a few positive attributes
Doesn’t alleviate genocide
Bombing Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq
Into oblivion doesn’t make you historic
It makes you as blind and bloodthirsty
As the white men that came before you
Apathetic hipsters now excited about a president
Who broke history, but not poverty, occupation, or corporate interests

I’d rather proudly walk through the graveyard of peace accords
And failed dialogue sessions
Than see my people just as occupied or third class citizens
We are the gavel that will slam down like a verdict
We are not waiting for Israel or America or the Supreme Court to approve it
We’ll boycott Lev Leviev, Caterpillar and your apartheid companies
We’re taking back the right of return and the keys to a country
Because we never asked you to go back to Europe or sit in open air prisons
I’m not asking for your advice, I’m explaining the decision
You can stay here, with us, but only as equals
It’s not that you’re Israeli, it’s that you’re wrong
That’s why I fight for my people!

In her other hand she held the key to her grandmother’s house
But I couldn’t unlock the cell that caged her older brothers
They said, we slingshot dreams so the other side will feel our father’s presence
A craftsman
Built homes in areas where no one was building
And when he fell, he was silent
A .50 caliber bullet tore through his neck shredding his vocal cords
Too close to the wall
His hammer must have been a weapon
He must have been a weapon
Encroaching on settlement hills and demographics

So his daughter studies mathematics
Seven explosions times eight bodies
Equals four Congressional resolutions
Seven Apache helicopters times eight Palestinian villages
Equals silence and a second Nakba
Our birthrate minus their birthrate
Equals one sea and 400 villages re-erected
One state plus two peoples…and she can’t stop crying
Never knew revolution or the proper equation
Tears at the paper with her fingertips
Searching for answers
But only has teachers
Looks up to the sky and see stars of David demolishing squalor with hellfire missiles

She thinks back words and memories of his last hug before he turned and fell
Now she pumps dirty water from wells, while settlements divide and conquer
And her father’s killer sits beachfront with European vernacular
She thinks back words, while they think backwards
Of obscene notions and indigenous confusion

This our land!, she said
She’s seven years old
This our land!, she said
And she doesn’t need a history book or a schoolroom teacher
She has these walls, this sky, her refugee camp
She doesn’t know the proper equation
But she sees my dry pens
No longer waiting for my answers
Just holding her grandmother’s key…searching for ink

Overnight, Al-Zaidi became a hero to many Iraqis, Arabs, Bush haters, and anti-war activists. After the episode, Iraqis rallied in the streets with shoes in hand and demanded that their new hero be released (reports have now surfaced that Al-Zaidi’s wrist has been broken and he has been tortured in jail). That’s when I realized that Al-Zaidi did something much greater than throw two shoes at a war criminal, he (even if it will only last a week) single-handedly put Iraq back on the map.

After the heartwarming questions concerning Bush’s safety (given his popularity, he should have been happy it wasn’t a couple Molotov cocktails) and the curious, almost racist, fascination with the meaning of the throwing of a shoe in Arab culture, a few journalists were bitten by what can best be described as a fleeting bug in their industry: integrity. On air, a number of journalists began to question why Al-Zaidi threw the shoes in the first place. The New York Times interviewed his proud family, who spoke of the devastation Bush brought to Iraq over the last half decade. His brother, Maythem Al-Zaidi, said, “[h]e was provoked when Mr. Bush said [during the news conference] this is his farewell gift to the Iraqi people.” It doesn’t take someone with an IQ higher than the president to deduce why Iraqis are so pissed off: our government is responsible for the death of a million Iraqis, the country lacks proper access to electricity, and nearly five million people have been made refugees. Compound this with Bush cramming US victory chants down the throats of Iraqis, and one can understand the journalist’s tame gesture.

Bush, like the fool we love to excuse, nonchalantly brushed off the encounter with substandard jokes and reassured the American public that this incident is evidence that democracy is in full effect. TIME Magazine’s Mark Halperin responded to the episode on Anderson Cooper 360, “[y]ou know my reaction to it, without taking sides … I think the president should be a little more sensitive to what this man was protesting, which was in effect, the death of innocent civilians in Iraq.” MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow also ended her segment discussing the deaths of Iraqi civilians over the course of the last two days and inferred that the last minute reframing of the war was itself a tragedy.

In the face of dwindling US coverage of Iraq, two shoes thrown at an outgoing president opened Baghdad’s door again. And while Iraqis deal with whatever America throws their way, George Bush dodged what one Iraqi threw back. Yet, one has to wonder what will come after the “shoe protest.” Though the media may stop covering the anger and devastation caused by America’s war on Iraq, it will not go away, nor will its consequences.

Nonetheless, many of these same individuals support the US troops in Iraq. Dangerously, most Americans put forth the notion that the troops’ intrinsic heroism provides them with the impunity to destroy any bogeymen who stand in their way, cultivating a code of silence that strongly discourages dissent. It is under this premise that we support our “brave” and “noble” soldiers: we know their stories well, they miss their families, they are “just like us,” and we should respect their service.

While one may comprehend the mindset of the troops, this understanding does not validate support for them. If the invasion of Iraq, the mission, and the occupation as stated policy are all wrong, then support for the armed forces carrying out the mission must also be wrong.

US soldiers are not a monolith and nearly everyone would argue that the majority of the troops are “good people.” Yet, our emotional inclinations and the societal norm that tells us troops are good like bumper sticker slogans shouldn’t serve as justification for supporting them and, by extension, the mission they are carrying out. We are led to believe that a soldier can either serve out the rest of his tour or be branded a disgrace and imprisoned for becoming a conscientious objector. In reality the choice is much starker: a soldier can refuse to serve or contribute to the death of a million Iraqis.
When people invoke the hardships our troops face, I think of the dead Iraqi mother, the splattered torsos painting the pavement, and the .50 caliber bullets that have hollowed out the bodies of Iraqi children. Each American has a distinct face and a tale that chokes us up, but our government and media have systematically dehumanized another people, whittling their presence in the world down to a nuisance that drains our budget, as though Iraq is a welfare state that strips our society of health care, education, and gas for cross country vacations.

Iraq is not Lehman Brothers pillaging our economy. Yet, even many self-described progressives deride the Iraqi people for their $79 billion surplus but make no mention of the fact that they lack proper access to electricity; Baghdad is still one of the most dangerous city in the world, and stability is nowhere in sight. Furthermore, a growing number among the mainstream left discuss Iraq in terms of “our” interests, criticizing the so-called ineptness of Iraqis and their unwillingness to embrace democracy (democracy that was never truly offered), all while five million have been made refugees, Baghdad has been cleansed of Sunnis, and each child, father, and mother live with horror stories we wouldn’t wish upon our worst enemies. This is the result and reality of US occupation.

The assertion that troops are “just following orders” and that it is impossible to refuse once enlisted rings hollow. The US has not implemented a draft; on the contrary, each soldier chooses to fight in Iraq on behalf of the American government. This should not be applauded, nor should it be respected. Real courage would be abandoning this war—against orders, against the US administration—as a number of US soldiers have done (a phenomenon ignored by the mainstream media).

Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejia is a well known conscientious objector who served nine months in prison for refusing to return to Iraq. In a 2005 article on AlterNet, Mejia wrote:

I say without any pride that I did my job as a soldier. I commanded an infantry squad in combat and we never failed to accomplish our mission. But those who called me a coward, without knowing it, are also right. I was a coward not for leaving the war, but for having been a part of it in the first place. Refusing and resisting this war was my moral duty, a moral duty that called me to take a principled action. I failed to fulfill my moral duty as a human being and instead I chose to fulfill my duty as a soldier.

Perhaps most importantly, many people fail to make the connection that supporting the troops enables the war and presents people who are against the occupation with a false reality: the ability to support the troops while rejecting the mission. Standing in solidarity with the troops facilitates funding for the occupation; it redresses the “intrinsic nobility” of the soldier, which further weakens congressmen who rhetorically reject the war, but support it through their votes. Occupation is dirty, and so too are the people who employ it. Following orders should not replace humanitarian law, and the excuse shouldn’t serve to satisfy our consciences.

We are asked to support US troops when logic is absent. We look at the troops as victims who are forced to do things they would not otherwise do; we give them immunity and their crimes become unseen collateral damage. Yet, Iraqis are not monsters; they are the victims that face the gun’s barrel. We should only support the troops as much as we support this war. Anything less supports the victimizer and not the victim.

This is precisely why his latest article, “Rahm Emanuel and Arab Perceptions” is so disturbing. In the piece, Zogby tries to calm the fears of Arab Americans about Barack Obama’s first appointment, Rahm Emanuel, to White House Chief of Staff. Zogby expressed shock and dismay that his constituency, once euphoric over the election of Obama, was now sending him angry and cynical letters. Zogby described the e-mails and calls to his office as “troubled and troubling — because much of the reaction was based on misinformation and because of what the entire episode reveals about the larger political dynamic.”

Zogby immediately followed up with what he calls “the facts” (i.e. a long list of Rahm Emanuel’s accomplishments), while conveniently leaving out any of his troubling positions related to the Middle East, namely that he was a staunch supporter of the war in Iraq and he has expressed hawkish pro-Israel views. The forcefulness of Zogby’s tone is elucidated in phrases such as “he knows how to get the job done” and “it’s as simple as that.” Right off the bat, Zogby informs his readers that if they don’t understand what a gem Emanuel is, they either cannot properly discern the facts, or their judgments are based on wild misinformation.

Zogby assumes that his constituency and the greater Arab American community are generally ignorant and know nothing of Emanuel (aside from the “myths”), and could not possibly come to a rational judgment on an individual who has been vocally pro-Israel, fought for Israel diplomatically, has supported Israeli militancy, and was an unabashed supporter of the war in Iraq. Zogby criticizes the Arab American community for ingesting defamatory myths, such as the claim that “he served in the IDF.” In fact, Emanuel did donate time during the Gulf War to repair IDF tanks; one could argue that, as an American, volunteering to help out a foreign occupying force is much worse than serving as an Israeli who is mandated to do so by law.

Another rumor that Zogby chastises Arab Americans for is the notion that Emanuel is an Israeli spy, which should make them “wary of the slanderous attacks smacking of anti-Semitism.” It is legitimate to debunk falsehoods, and it is right to hold any community to a proper standard, but to infer that Arab Americans should tread lightly or risk being consumed by anti-Semitism is an irresponsible way for an Arab American leader to silence dissent. There are a great many educated Arab Americans who are concerned about Emanuel’s record, and the notion that if you believe Emanuel served in the IDF, you are anti-Semite, is ridiculous. The falsehoods about Emanuel should be rejected, but they have absolutely nothing to do with anti-Semitism and to suggest otherwise is shameful.

Zogby then swerves in a bizarre direction by praising Emanuel’s involvement in the Oslo Accords. Emanuel is the person who coordinated the shaking of hands between Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin on the White House lawn. The Oslo Accords (which Zogby endorsed) were a complete failure. During the Oslo years, illegal Israeli settlements doubled and the policy that emanated from the accords helped destroy the Palestinian economy. It is the equivalent of proclaiming that Emanuel was the ribbon cutter, unveiling the “bridge to nowhere.”

Compounding his carelessness, Zogby incorrectly equates right wing allegations that “Barack Obama is a Muslim” with rumors that Emanuel served in the IDF. It is notable that in 2006, when MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell referred to Rahm Emanuel as someone who served in the Israeli army in an interview, Emanuel did not dispute the claim (if it was such a slanderous attack, one would think Emanuel, the “practitioner of hard-ball politics,” would have spoken up).

Making his frustration crystal clear, Zogby asserts, “that stories such as these have been circulating, and have taken hold, is as reprehensible as the ‘Barack Obama is a secret Muslim/Manchurian candidate’ tale, or the anti-Arab anti-Muslim canards to which I and many of my colleagues have been subjected over the years.” What Zogby fails to mention is the fact that there is nothing wrong with being a Muslim, yet there is something fundamentally wrong with the IDF illegally occupying 3.8 million Palestinian people, subjugating them to incessant collective punishment, and cordoning the people of Gaza into an open-air prison.

Ending his lesson on “the facts,” Zogby seems to contradict his own assertions. He contends that Arab Americans should understand the “political realities,” and that just about all members of Congress are pro-Israel. Is Zogby suggesting that Arab Americans just suck it up, sit on their hands, and get used to the status quo? What happened to the change Barack Obama was going to usher in?

It is strange that the man behind the Yalla Vote! campaign is using these tactics to push his constituency into giving Emanuel a free pass. Whether these appointments are to be expected or not, wouldn’t Arab Americans expressing their concerns be a good thing? Isn’t that part of the democratic process and the reason why they engaged in this election cycle to begin with: to bring change to Washington.

While Zogby wants us to be aware of the “political realities,” the actual reality for many Arab Americans is simple: this appointment represents more of the same — whether it is the hawkish policies of the Bush administration or the destructive Mideast policy that was wrapped in nicer packaging during the Clinton years. Americans worked tirelessly for two years to elect Barack Obama. Now is the time to work tirelessly to ensure that the change that he promised comes to fruition.

The mission statement of the AAI reads in part, “The Arab American Institute (AAI) represents the policy and community interests of Arab Americans throughout the United States and strives to promote Arab American participation in the U.S. electoral system.” Perhaps Zogby should reread his own organization’s mission statement.

You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, Sandler’s new flick, takes Hollywood chicanery and stereotypes that denigrate Arabs to an unprecedented level—surpassing hit flicks like The Kingdom, The Siege, and every Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chuck Norris movie that came before it. I group Zohan with other shamelessly racist action movies because a film should at least be minutely funny to be categorized as a comedy. For the Sandler diehards and hilarity-loving skeptics, I should clearly state: using race and prejudices to engender laughter is not the problem. Mel Brooks and the creators of South Park exploit stereotypes far beyond anything Sandler has ever done, but unlike Zohan, I don’t think insidious propaganda and underlying racism drive their comedy. After all, if this hebetudinous clunker was just comedy, Sandler and company wouldn’t have, as the New York Times reported, sought out Arab actors to give the movie “legitimacy.” Their search was successful and a few token Arabs showed their presence to innocuously inform the public that it is okay to vilify the crazy towel-headed terrorists once again.

What makes this movie even worse than many of the unfavorable movies made post-9/11 is Zohan’s disarming presentation; it is a comedic approach to understanding the inner workings of the substandard Arab people. Like the job stealing Mexicans, the liquor store robbing Blacks, and the HIV infested gays, negative stereotypes in Zohan strip down the Arab people to RPG wielding animals that senselessly thirst for Jewish blood.

From the start of the film, Sandler’s character, Zohan, is positioned as the altruistic hero—an Israeli Mossad agent who reluctantly kills Palestinian “terrorists,” while forgoing his real dream: to cut hair in the US for Paul Mitchell. Zohan is “brave,” “lovable,” and “funny,” and even his stereotypical chauvinism is eaten up by women (and men) throughout the movie—including his eventual Palestinian love interest, Dalia.

Compounded with played out, corny penis gags, the Israeli narrative is interwoven into the fabric of the film, including propagandistic reminiscences by Zohan’s father who recalls the oft-repeated myth of being surrounded “on all sides” by powerful enemies during the Six Day War—a war in which Israel preemptively struck and dominated those “enemies.” In line with Israeli and Western intelligence, Israel won the war in six days (and five hours, as Zohan’s father dutifully reminds us)—so much for existential threats and heroic narratives. Other historical revisions include a reference in a verbal battle between a Palestinian and Israeli shop owner, in which the Palestinian proclaimed, “Give it up, like you gave up the Gaza Strip!” This biting taunt, while not as blatant as the common stereotype, infers that Israel “gave up” the Gaza Strip and further insinuates that Israel had claim to it. The “humorous” jeer glosses over the glaring reality: Israel still occupies Gaza’s borders, airspace, imports and exports, and has economically strangulated and suffocated 1.4 million Palestinians in the world’s largest open-air prison.

But rewriting history (and regurgitating jokes from 1996) is hardly the movie’s worst crime. The portrayal of Palestinians as ugly, dirty, incompetent, stupid, goat loving terrorists was jammed down the viewer’s throat more times than Zohan’s lame hummus jokes. It becomes obvious to the audience why these good looking, suave, kindhearted Israelis have to kill these evil Palestinian “terrorists”—because they hate Jews more than they hate soap. The most egregious grievance by a Palestinian “terrorist” throughout the film was the stealing of a pet goat. Israel has killed more than 4,000 Palestinians since the start of the second intifada, including nearly a 1000 children, yet the main gripe of these rabid “terrorists” is a stereotypical love for hillside animals. This “inoffensive” scenario is the equivalent of a scene in a Hollywood “comedy” made by a Palestinian filmmaker stereotypically portraying Jews as pissed off about being sent to Auschwitz because they found out that Hitler was going to make them pay for the train ride.

A particular scene in Zohan went beyond comprehension: Sandler’s casting agency rounded up a handful of children to play Palestinians throwing rocks at Zohan. What does Zohan do in response to the actions of these soon-to-be terrorists? He gleefully catches the stones and turns them into the equivalent of a balloon animal. One is supposed to toss aside any arising sensitivities and overlook the many instances Israeli snipers and soldiers have shot Palestinian children in the head or taken their eyes out with rubber bullets because of these rocks Zohan takes with a smile. The posturing of the noble and affable Mossad agent is a slick attempt to humanize Israel and make the Mossad (an outfit that has engaged in countless operations of state terrorism) look like the valiant GI Joe force in the Middle East combating jihadi thugs in the name of good. But Sandler’s character is not only a hero, he’s also a humanitarian. There are multiple scenes where Zohan informs the audience that Israelis do their best to minimize the loss of innocent Palestinian life, when an examination of the conflict by Israeli human rights organizations exposes quite the opposite.

Other stereotypes saturate the movie. The Palestinian salon that Zohan gets a job at is described as a dump, Palestinians constantly cheer for the “terrorists,” a crowd of Palestinians applaud the death of “heroic” Zohan (which he faked), and the “terrorists” are so stupid and illiterate that they purchase Neosporin instead of liquid nitrogen to make their bomb to kill Zohan. There is no distinction made between Hezbollah, Hamas, jihadists, and terrorist sexcapading sheiks. Furthermore, the film conveniently illustrates how Israelis in the US, as “fellow” natives of the Middle East, suffer the same discrimination and tribulations as Arabs in a post-911 world. Oddly, Israelis are passed off as “brown” and “other” like the Arabs in the film, yet Zohan’s parents look like European Ashkenazi Jews. Moreover, while Israelis are shown as native hummus loving Middle Easterners, Zohan’s family is portrayed distinctively differently from the backwards Arabs. Zohan’s parents are sweet, comforting, reasonable and accepting from beginning to end, not rigid like their Arab counterparts. Even when Zohan finally captures Dalia’s heart, his parents show up in America and warmly embrace their relationship without question—while Dalia and others resist the notion of a courtship between the two and tells Zohan that her family would never accept him. Ah, if only all Arabs could just get to know Israelis and see how kind, generous, and amorous they all are, the sooner we could all sit in a circle singing Kumbaya over s’mores and unfunny Zohan hummus jokes.

The worst dialogue throughout this 102 minute laughless action flick is made by Dalia (played by Emmanuelle Chriqui), Zohan’s eventual Palestinian love interest. She serves at the omnipotent propagandist—blaming the troubles of the conflict on “extremists” and “hate” on both sides. She endlessly and vaguely laments about how much “hate” there is “over there,” and describes to Zohan that things are “different here.” As any knowledgeable American knows, Palestinians and Israelis love each other here in the US; they frequently have bake sales together; they form sit-ins for blind coexistence on college campuses; and have Palestinian/Israeli karaoke nights where they sing their favorite Beatles tunes like “Give Peace a Chance.” What Sandler, and co-writers Judd Apatow and Robert Smigel, fail to understand is that before there was Hamas, Yasser Arafat, Fatah, the PLO, or any resistance movement, there was the dispossession of the Palestinian people, whereby 780,000 indigenous Palestinians were displaced from their homeland by Jewish gangs and terror groups. Flash forward 60 years and the Palestinian people are living in squalor in demolished towns and refugee camps enduring a 40 year occupation that strangulates their economy and diminishes any semblance of normalcy or a proper life. What we are to believe by watching this film is that if everyone would just stop “hating” (which Israelis are depicted as clearly willing to do, while Palestinians resist it vehemently) Israelis and Palestinians could effortlessly live together in harmony. But “hate” has little to do with a conflict rooted in a people’s desire for basic human rights and an end to oppression.

In the end, everything ends up happy and joyful: Zohan gets the girl, he saves the block from a conniving mall developer, and the “terrorists” stop terrorizing. But the jovial ending left a sour taste in my mouth. As nearly a dozen “nameless” Palestinians were killed by innocent and heroic Israeli soldiers last week and another report of the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza went unnoticed in the US press, people were laughing all over the country at how stupid, feeble, violent and backwards Arabs are. A diehard Sandler fan proclaimed: “He’s making it for 13 year old boys. It’s Critic Proof.” That’s what scares me most of all.

During the 1980’s, BDS of South Africa included a cultural boycott whereby musicians and artists from around the world were prohibited from performing in the apartheid state.

In addition to internationally supporting the subjugated black population, this policy was instituted to express that no real dialogue — economic, academic, or cultural — could take place in concert with the atrocities of apartheid. With regard to Israel, the implementation of international BDS is but one necessary measure to shift the balance away from the oppressor and help place it in the hands of the oppressed.

It is imperative to note that a cultural boycott is not aimed at individuals, but rather institutions and a state. Frequently, Israelis travel the world and speak out against their nation’s policies, and many support a full cultural and academic boycott. A cultural boycott does not hinder the prospects for peace; rather it serves to empower conscientious Israelis and Palestinians, and provides the international community with a viable non-violent solution to the current impasse.

After traveling to the occupied Palestinian territories, a host of individuals have asserted that Israeli occupation is in fact worse than South African apartheid. Among these people are highly esteemed anti-apartheid advocate Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Jewish South African Minister of Intelligence Ronnie Kasrils. In an effort to pressure Israel to abort its destructive policies, both argue that the international community should impose a boycott on Israel, analogous to the one imposed on South Africa.

Many organizations and individuals have voiced opposition to an academic and cultural boycott. Their contention is that the arts and academic community in Israel will be denied the basic tenets of free speech. Ironically, the proposed model asserts that people of conscience, including conscious Israelis, are ostensibly encouraged to embrace “free speech” and “dialogue” over the most basic rights of an oppressed people. What remains missing from their argument is the fact that the Palestinian people have been methodically occupied, controlled, and embargoed by the Israeli government and many Israeli institutions for decades — with no effective recourse taken by the United Nations, European Union, or United States.

Just this week, the Associated Press reported that seven Palestinians from occupied Gaza were denied exit visas to “pursue their Fulbright scholarship studies” by the Israeli government. While their Fulbrights were reinstated after the AP article circulated, and the US State Department is now purportedly “trying” to get Israel to change its position, the vast majority of these incidents go unnoticed. There are countless other stories of hip hop artists, theater groups, and debke troupes not being able to travel to the West Bank from Gaza, and vice versa, never mind exiting the prison walls of the Occupied Territories. Moreover, one cannot downplay the multitude of instances where Palestinians — using means of non-violent protest — have been arrested, beaten, or shot by Israeli soldiers. Sadly, many of these detracting groups and individuals in Israel calling for “dialogue” based on “dual narratives” cannot be seen at any of the non-violent protests against the apartheid wall or part of the growing list of Israeli soldiers refusing to serve in the army. Onlookers in the so-called “left” in the US incessantly opine about the need for Palestinians to assert themselves non-violently — yet when Palestinians and their supporters embrace a fundamental tool of non-violent resistance, they are castigated.

Furthermore, those in a position to boycott must recognize the effects of Israel’s policies on the 1.3 million Palestinian citizens of Israel who have become relegated to third class status and have seen their own art and film community attacked by Israel’s discriminatory legal system. If the Israeli people and those in the international community truly want to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people, they will embrace what more than sixty Palestinian academic, cultural and civil society organizations have endorsed: a full academic and cultural boycott of the state of Israel.

Throughout the Oslo years, the purported time of peace, endless cultural dialogue took place. But as Omar Barghouti — dance choreographer, activist, and ardent sponsor of a cultural boycott — contends, “A decade of joint Palestinian-Israeli projects mostly resulted in providing a figleaf, covering up Israel’s relentless colonization of Palestinian land and its crimes against the Palestinian people.”

It is clear that even cultural dialogue with the Israeli establishment has only proven to normalize the occupation. Tutu once declared, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” Now is not the time to be neutral, nor the time to be reticent; it is the time to act.

* A shorter version of this essay was first published as part of a collection of positions compiled by Randy Gener, titled: “12 Positions on Cultural Sanctions — Theatre practitioners offer their views on a call to boycott Israel,” in the May-June 2008 issue of American Theatre Magazine.

Searching for substantive policy, I began to chip away at Obama’s political posturing, and came to a daunting conclusion: there are a multitude of reasons one shouldn’t vote for Barack Obama, especially those within the Arab-American community.

Senator Obama is not anti-war, nor does he genuinely seek appropriate alternatives to militarism in the Middle East. Arab-Americans and putative leftists naively, and sometimes willfully, overlook the fact that he is an ardent supporter of the invasion, bombing, and ongoing occupation of Afghanistan. One also cannot dismiss that his views are consistent with the Democratic Party platform, which aspires to refocus on Afghanistan. Such views bode well with Obama’s plan to deploy additional troops and increase funding, but as with the case in Iraq, it will only intensify the struggles of the civilian population of Afghanistan. Obama fully supported the Lebanon war (even as the Israeli military killed hundreds of Lebanese civilians and leveled civilian infrastructure with tens of thousands of US-shipped cluster bombs), and played up his pro-Israel rhetoric nearly as much as his current democratic opponent, Hilary Clinton. As with nearly every other candidate, Obama fully supports Israel’s 40 year occupation of Palestinian land and dutifully endorsed the besiegement of Gaza. Surprisingly, this is a politician who once curried favor with prominent members of the Palestinian community, attending a community fundraiser in which Edward Said was the keynote speaker, dining with Rashid Khalidi in Chicago, and receiving praise from Ali Abuminah during his time as a state senator. Domestically, his shift to the right is glaringly apparent, reflecting weaker stances on undocumented residents, the patriot act, gay rights, and a host of other domestic issues.

Obama may have voiced opposition to the Iraq war five years ago, but his “courage” came at a time when it minimally affected his political aspirations. Since entering the senate, he has voted in favor of nearly 300 billion dollars in war appropriations and will continue to appropriate billions more if elected president. Obama is already playing up his ability to be hawkish on foreign policy (e.g. his illustrious declaration that he’d bomb Pakistan on “actionable intelligence”) and has tried to validate himself as a “tough when necessary” type of leader.

Post-911, inexperience with foreign affairs has been a sore point for all democrats. There is nothing more troubling than a field of candidates trying to prove themselves to their opposition. One only needs to look at the rise of Amir Peretz as Defense Minister in Israel. He was a well-known leftist against the Israeli occupation before coming into office. In an attempt to demonstrate his intestinal fortitude and establish himself among the Israeli public, he championed the destruction of Lebanon, and defended the decision as fervently as any right-wing activist. At best, Obama’s inexperience will limit his capacity to control the military occupation of Iraq, as it would every democrat and most republicans during the inaugural year. Additionally, expectation for his vaguely outlined phased withdrawal, which creeps well into midterm election campaigning, further denies the mechanics of mainstream American politics and Congressional trepidation. No democrat or republican can afford to lose seats in the house and senate; it’s precisely why little is achieved during election years. Potential voters may find it useful to recall the excitement engendered after the 2006 midterm elections when a pullout was “imminent;” assurances were given that mass hearings would take place on Capitol Hill, and accountability was declared to be the wave of the future. Predictably, campaigning supplanted accountability, while the people of Iraq were left hanging in the balance. Ultimately, no viable political candidate will be able to pull out of Iraq before the 2010 elections.

Contrary to public perception, Obama is not a humanitarian. He consistently places the onus of solving the conflict in Iraq on the Iraqi people alone, absolving the US of its responsibility for an illegal invasion and occupation. Nor does he support a sustainable future for the Iraqi people or their right to reparations; rather, he supports an eventual end to the war primarily to alleviate America’s financial and militaristic burden. His position illustrates a profound difference between a humanistic and militaristic approach to Iraq, the latter of which will have a dramatic negative effect on Iraq’s civilian population. Moreover, Obama squarely blames Iraqis for their own misery, focusing little attention on the US campaign. The incessant mantra that Iraqis refuse to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and accept democracy ignores a simple reality: it was never presented to them in the first place, nor has there been a serious attempt to rebuild Iraq infrastructurally or economically.

Arab-Americans should not be confused. No matter how appetizing the Bobby Kennedy-style rhetoric and charismatic speeches may be, if our community keeps acquiescing to the status quo, it will never change. We must begin building solid coalitions with other groups that face similar challenges (i.e. the Latino and African-American community), or our small vote will amount to little more than election-time pandering. Unfortunately, organizational work and outreach is in its infancy stages. Many of the organizations that purportedly speak for us have become part of the system, consequently stripping away their constituents of their legitimate demands. Furthermore, our community has become enthralled with general election politics, but it isn’t sufficiently focused on working at the state and local levels, where we can have the most impact. Barack Obama may lend more support to our issues than Mike Huckabee, but if our community starts supporting candidates who do not recognize our plight (as well as the plight of other minority groups) our community at home and our families abroad will suffer for endorsing him.

One question still remains: which viable candidate is left to vote for? Unfortunately, in its existing capacity, our vote isn’t strong enough to make a viable impact. Reaching out to prospective candidates can be effective, but it must be coupled with a plan to comprehensively inform the field of where we stand on the issues. Enthusiastically endorsing candidates who refuse to appreciate our concerns is a fundamentally flawed approach. If the system is broken and the game of Washington politics is corrupt, then playing it with a weak hand only strengthens that system. The naysayer will proclaim that our votes count in swing states. Yet, if this was truly the case, our vote would be coveted, not ignored. No viable candidate on either side of the aisle even bothered to show up to the Arab-American Institute’s National Leadership Conference in Michigan, where the largest portion of our constituency resides.

Our current predicament underscores the limitation of the two-party system: small voices have no voices. The only way to build a better future for the Arab-American community and positively impact policy toward the Arab world is to invest in ourselves, and begin to build coalitions, where smaller voices can come together to effectively change society. This method will legitimately allow us to empower ourselves without acceding to a blind principled stance. We can’t just hope for a better future; we have to work for it, and sadly, the empty rhetoric spewed by Barack Obama, and the rest of the mainstream candidates, only serve to solidify our problems in perpetuity. So, Yalla Vote! But do it in good conscience, and in a way that makes sense for our community.

As I write from Ramallah, I recall my and my brother’s experience in Ben Gurion just one week ago. After a sleepless 15 hour trip from New York, we arrived at the airport and went directly to the check-in booth. After waiting in a short line, a friendly woman asked for our passports, yet immediately turned sour once she viewed them. We were asked to step aside and after about 15 minutes a woman from airport security told us to follow her into one of the detainment rooms. Given the countless stories of harassment I had heard and read about before my trip, I wasn’t so foolish to think that my journey through Ben Gurion would be a walk in the park. I had initially anticipated a four hour wait, interrogation, and a thorough pat down by Israel’s finest.

When we arrived at the first detainment room, several young female security agents asked us where we were going, about our ethnic background and family history, whether we had family in Israel or the occupied territories (and if we would be staying with them), and if “there was anything they should know.” We were then taken to another detainment room, where a few other detainees were being held. Over the next three hours, several female security officers came into the detainment room we were being held in to question us, while at other times we were called into other detainment rooms for questioning. One African detainee, an elderly black woman, was not allowed into the country with her husband despite a seemingly innocent decision to visit her family.

After about four hours, pure exhaustion set in. At this time, we were taken to a large room with metal detectors, an x-ray machine and a coffee machine that looked like it wasn’t in use. Still, in a token attempt at friendliness, the security agent offered us a cup of coffee. But the offer was rescinded once he noted the machine was out of service.

About every ten minutes another member of airport security entered the room. After about 30 minutes we were taken into a back room, patted down, and scanned with a hand held metal detector. After being held for an hour, Sami, who claimed to be a higher up in the IDF and airport security, entered the room. He had apparently been called in by regular airport security because of certain “red flags” we had raised.

Sami didn’t look particularly happy to see us. He started to go through our bags, which had been checked by every member of airport security that previously entered the room. He had a determined look on his face as he sifted through my brother’s book on corporate law and became more agitated when he didn’t find the holy grail of information.

After about 15 minutes Sami looked up at us and told us that “something was missing;” we were “leaving out part of the story,” and he was going to find out just exactly what that “part” was. He was looking for what he called the “truth.” So I repeated what we had told the previous soldiers: we were staying our first two nights in East Jerusalem, we would be traveling to the holy sites (to see where baby Jesus was born), Haifa and Yaffa (the cities our grandparents were dispossessed from in 1948), Nazareth and Bethlehem. We told the truth, but kindly omitted Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron, Jenin, Dheisheh, and any other intended stops in the occupied territories that didn’t involve conventional tourism. In all honesty, we had only planned out our first two days in East Jerusalem, which made Sami increasingly annoyed.

Sami put it bluntly, as of the moment we were called in we were considered “terrorists” or people intending to “engage in terrorists activities” because we “lied” to airport security about the intention of our travels. Sami defined terrorism and terrorist activities as meeting up with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), working in “terrorist” branches of the Alternative Information Center (AIC), and non-violently protesting against the Apartheid Wall in the village of Bil’in. He was trying to a strike fear in us that went well passed being denied entry. It had become a matter of whether he was going to tell the US government if we were terrorists or not. He claimed that if he told the US government we were terrorists, it would not only affect us the rest of our lives (i.e. anytime we tried to get a job, bought a plane ticket, or applied for a credit card), but it would affect our family, immediate and extended, in a similar fashion. The explanation was clear: nobody would believe two Palestinians males over a respected man in the IDF with 40 years of experience. At this point I started to offer up information that may or may have not been considered “terrorist activity,” essentially the plans for our trip, which my brother and I were still faintly excited about, plans that didn’t seem to bring much joy to Sami.

Sami started to go through our phones, writing down numbers and asking questions about anyone with an Arab, Persian or Jewish name. He was particularly angered when he saw the name of a well known Jewish activist who had done extensive work in the occupied territories in my brother’s phone. Ironically, the number in my brother’s phone was the number of a paralegal in New York City, not the well-known activist, but Sami wouldn’t get off the subject for a solid half hour.

After about 90 minutes of intense bullying, Sami concluded we weren’t terrorists. At this point, good old Sami started to warm up, but not without first telling us what we explicitly weren’t supposed to do: no ISM, stay away from AIC activity, and do not engage in anything that we would categorize as non-violent activism.

By the end of stay at Ben Gurion, Sami informed us that we were lucky to catch him on a good day. He became extremely open and candid in the last 30 minutes. He said that he may not agree with everything that he does and he may not agree with the political situation, but he’s a soldier of the state, and serving its interest is his job. While I appreciated his honesty, this type of rationalization has been used throughout history, justifying war crimes and human rights violations ad infinitum.

As our seven hour journey came to an end, Sami began telling us personal stories. I’m not sure if it was an attempt clear his conscience, but he told us about his diverse group of friends, which included Arabs, and how his life had been saved five times, all by Arabs. It was amazing to see how human and forthcoming some of the “toughest” people in Israel have become, while at the same time keeping up their walls of discrimination and oppression, walls that have ultimately been encompassed by a greater wall of rationalization. For us, it was seven hours of hell in Ben Gurion. For a Palestinian here, occupation is a reality every day of the year.

Nonetheless, there must be a clear understanding that only one people is living under occupation — many after being dispossessed in 1948 and again in 1967. By even phrasing today’s climate as a conflict, it lends support to the assumption that this is a dispute between two equal sides, with equal grievances. The complexities of the Palestine question is further complicated by issues beyond the 40 year occupation, including the Palestinian right of return, the Israeli settler movement in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the third class status of Palestinians living in a Jewish state.

Supposed peace activists find solace in verbally condemning the settlement movement and the harsh conditions that emanate from occupation. Yet most aren’t doing anything to actively stop it, and when moral fiber is truly urgent, as was the case during the Lebanon war or the continuing debilitating sanctions and bombardment on the Palestinian people, they remain silent. Condemnation after a war isn’t moral reflection, it’s cowardice. There is no difference between hawkish and dovish policy in Israel, only a divergence in the approach to implement it. Those on the “far left,” who are the brink of being classified as “self-hating Jews,” including self-styled humanitarians such as Meretz MK Yossi Beilin, only serve to massage their own egos and consciences by portraying an image that they are fighting for peace. In reality, these people assign themselves to the same racist and exclusivist ideology that came into form long before the creation of the state of Israel.

The discourse that frames the parameters of debate pertaining to the Palestine question is disturbing on multiple levels. Take for example, the recent fighting in the Gaza Strip. Nine Israelis have been killed in Palestinian rocket attacks over the last seven years, while last year alone, 700 Palestinians — half of them unarmed civilians—were killed throughout the occupied territories. Reading the news columns, be it in Israeli or Western newspapers, one would think it was the Israeli people who were occupied and being indiscriminately killed. The opposite remains true: when one woman is killed in Sderot, it consumes the Israeli media and immediately becomes headline material for nearly every Western newspaper.

The cease-fire between occupied Gaza and Israel is another case in point. Hamas eventually ended its unilateral recognition of a cease-fire because of continued attacks by Israeli forces inside of Gaza and the West Bank. The demand for a Gaza-West Bank cease-fire by Hamas is seen by Israel as the same old story, where “conventional wisdom” suggests that the obstinate, overreaching Arabs insist on the fulfillment of unreasonable demands, when they are in no position to do so. Yet, calling on the Palestinians (including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade), to accept a truce localized to the Gaza Strip, giving Israel impunity to act within the West Bank, is tantamount to asking Hamas not to fire rockets at Sderot and the Negev, while remaining free to bombard Tel Aviv and Haifa. The Palestinians are a people, no less than the Israelis are a people, and a death in Ramallah is as significant as a death in Gaza City.

Every problem afflicting Palestinian society, be it the expansion of the Apartheid Wall, checkpoints, flying checkpoints, curfews, or the restriction of goods and access to education, is characterized as necessary measures for Israeli security. Nonetheless, many non-partisan organizations, including the World Bank, the United Nations, the Hague, Amnesty International and a number of other institutions have condemned Israel and its tactics on levels of morality, legality, and effectiveness. Logically, if one is looking for peace with a society, economic strangulation and imprisonment will not create an environment conducive to peace. The Wall is not being built on the internationally recognized green line and encroaches so far into the West Bank that thousands of Palestinians have been kicked out of their homes, lost their land or have been split from their towns, workplaces, and schools. Even if one were to justify the Wall, which the Israeli Shin Bet has called an ineffective means of protection, why not build the Wall on Israeli territory? “Punishing” the Palestinian people by creating a greater refugee problem and economic deprivation is hardly an incentive for Palestinians to resort to more preferred tactics of resistance. Furthermore, settlements continue to grow, far surpassing the number of settlers that were removed from Gaza, and even with the basic cessation of suicide bombings, restrictions in movement have markedly increased in the West Bank.

The issue of the 400,000 settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is particularly startling. Policy in the United States has slowly shifted from a two-state solution on the basis of the green line, with no Jewish settlers within Palestinian territory, to the vast majority of settlers staying in place, with effective Israeli control of half of the West Bank for an indefinite period of time. The prevailing truth that Israel and America want people to accept is that time creates “indisputable” facts on the ground, meaning: if a crime is committed for a long enough period of time, the international community and the victim must recognize the crime. It is to the bewilderment of the Palestinian people that they are seen as the uncompromising ones when they are asking for no more than international law provides. Sadly, it was the Labor party — the party that many purported peace activists are members — that propped up and legitimized the settler movement, leading to one of the many disputes Palestinians and Israelis find themselves in today.

Many so-called Israeli peace activists point to Camp David 2000 as the quintessential example of Arab rejectionism. One is told that Israel offered the Palestinians 95 percent of the occupied territories, including a grand compromise on East Jerusalem. Let us suppose this is true and forget the Palestinian narrative, that by engaging in Oslo, the Palestinians had effectively relinquished the right to 78 percent of historic Palestine (a “generous” compromise in their minds). Even looking through the Israel prism, one should ask themselves, if Israel was interested in peace (added to the fact they are the occupying force with the upper hand), would it not be reasonable with peace at the forefront of one’s mind, to give up all of the occupied Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as 5 percent of the Negev? While Israel has much empty land, an abundance of resources, power and capital, an Israeli could claim that on principle alone, the state could not commit to such a plan. But is principle really an option when peace could be just over the horizon or even a remote possibility? If the offer failed, the Israeli left could point out further Arab rejectionism, could it not?

The way in which one is expected to digest the so-called “facts” of the Israeli occupation and the Palestine question hinders any rationale debate and demonizes any individual calling for an end to Israel’s racist and hegemonic policy, as was the case with former US president Jimmy Carter. If there were 100 suicide bombings in Tel Aviv tomorrow, it would not diminish the Palestinian right to see an end to the occupation, nor would it minimize the urgency. Furthermore, Israel is not occupying Palestinian land as a punishment. It is not as though a suicide bombing struck Tel Aviv 40 years ago by a Palestinian group and the Israel army decided it was time to clamp down on Palestinian society. Rather after a preempted strike on neighboring states, Israel colonized a land that the international community, including the United States, insisted it had no business occupying.

A quick and just two-state resolution to Israel/Palestine may sound like an oversimplification, but if supposed steps towards peace were made and “offered” at Camp David 2000 and at the following talks at Taba, the same type of directive could be taken today. But let’s be honest with ourselves, the two-sate solution is dead. It is a figment of the imagination of the Israeli left and of the multitude of Palestinian leaders and diplomats who have gone enormous lengths to sell out the Palestinian people. That is the danger of looking at the two-state solution and Israel/Palestine through an Israeli prism: it draws the parameters of practicality, affecting even those who support the Palestinian plight. Israel doesn’t want peace, not under a Barak government, a Sharon government, an Olmert government or a Peres government. It’s been forty years, and yet Israel has become married to the settlements and to an ideology that sees a Jewish state with inherent rights over its non-Jewish citizens, but more critically it as an expansionist state that believes in the right to permanent domination of the lands it controls.

The only way to break down a racist and exclusivist structure is to chip away at its base and force an alternative reality. This would require not only ending the occupation, but looking internally at the Israeli state, a Jewish state, a state which doesn’t and can’t function as democracy for all its people. Many Palestinians leaders and supporters within Israel have come to realize this and have been ostracized for bringing this notion to light, namely Azmi Bishara, while many more will be undermined and attacked in the future. Yet, divestment, boycott, and sanctions coupled with a movement forward for both Israelis and Palestinians to live as equals in a shared society is the only hope for true peace. This new path must run counter to the Oslo mentality of submissiveness and acquiescence: a model much like South Africa, Northern Ireland and Belgium. It is time for an end to the occupation, but more importantly, it is time to look through a new prism, one that sees a better solution for Israel/Palestine.

Unsurprisingly, one important question has not been asked since Imus’ downward spiral: what if those “nappy headed hos” were Arab or Muslim? Regrettably, we have a plethora of examples to point to post-911, but we don’t need to rehash all of it, one can just watch a nightly episode of Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly or CNN’s Glenn Beck. Yet, my bone to pick is not with the establishment neocons, Fox News, or Ms. Malnourished herself, Ann Coulter, but rather those “peaceful” and “all-accepting liberals” who complain so frequently about Imus and those like him.

To see how anti-Arab/anti-Muslim bigotry is accepted and applauded in America, one has to look no further than HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, hosted by “left-wing” comedian and political commentator Bill Maher. “Liberal” pundits like Maher pass off their anti-Arab/anti-Muslim rhetoric as an innocent invocation of Samuel P. Huntington’s “The Clash of Civilizations.” Yet, Maher’s vitriolic diatribes are no different than one saying, “black people are ruthless, welfare grubbing criminals.” Nonetheless, to a “liberal,” the previous comment is racist and wrong, because black people, unlike the days of slavery, are now “like us,” meaning white Anglo-American society, whereas Arabs and Muslims (as if they are a unitary, monolithic people), can still be labeled wholly as “backwards, ruthless, Jew-hating animals.”

In Maher’s program, he regularly brings on guests that espouse anti-Arab/anti-Muslim views, some of them being supposed “self-critical” Muslims. These guests, however, principally serve to support Maher’s own bias against Muslims and Arabs, bolstering his pro-Israel feelings. These guests include conservative Israeli politician and former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Lebanese-born neocon and political hack Fouad Ajami, putative introspective Muslim moderate Irshad Manji, and former Muslim, now professed atheist, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, among many others.

Showcasing the “tolerance of liberalism,” Maher brought on his claimed “hero,” Ayaan Hirsi Ali, of the hawkish American Enterprise Institute, to help him explain to HBO viewers just what was wrong with Islam. Like a fat kid in a candy store, Maher looked to Hirsi Ali on his panel this season and stated, “[I]s Islam a religion of peace? You are one of the brave people who say it’s not really a religion of peace.” More than happy to respond, Hirsi Ali proclaimed, “It’s not a religion of peace. Immediately after 9/11 they should have said, it’s not a religion of peace, we’re up against Islam.” That’s right because Pat Robertson speaks for all Christians and the list of disgruntled students that have gunned down their schoolmates since Columbine speak for all people under the age of 25. What if Hirsi Ali said, “Immediately after the black thug robbed the liquor store, they should have said, black people are criminals, we’re up against black people.”

After her enlightening comments, while she went on to trash Saudi Arabia for a moment, Hirsi Ali received a huge applause from the audience. Even Steven Weber, an actor who stars on TV’s Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, had to jump in and beg the question of whether it was right to characterize a whole religion and the beliefs of 1.3 billion people this way. Apparently it is because Maher, educating the naive Weber (who was talking of moderate Islam), asserted that “no, [religions are] not all alike… no [Islam] was extremist to begin with. Mohammed was a warrior.” Maher’s lesson on the malady of Islam followed up on his earlier comments in which he said that the West is not only better, but “superior” to the rest of world. Huh, I wonder why they don’t like us.

Bias against Arabs and Islam — and bashing them as a monolithic entity — is accepted across the news media, whether it is in reporting or punditry. This makes it even more important, especially in this “gloves off” age of comedy, to make a clear distinction between comedy and news. It is equally, if not more important, to condemn bigotry that is masked as humor. We should make fun of ourselves, our ethnicities, religions, and races, but when it is done in a vindictive nature or when a seemingly comedic joke or informative political comment is enveloped with racist, sexist, or bigoted undertones, it should be rejected by all peoples. That is not the “thought police” taking over, it’s common sense.

Unfortunately, Don Imus was used by reactionaries across the board, both condemners and defenders, when people should have been talking about the issue of racism and sexism long before his comments. Tragically, a couple of days ago, 33 people, mostly kids, were massacred by a student at Virginia Tech. The Imus case, like its predecessor the Anna Nicole Smith drama, has run its course in the mainstream media. Sadly, racism and sexism now seem to be out of the minds of Americans until the next big gaffe.

The only question left is how big of a gaffe is necessary for Americans to come to the defense of Arabs and Muslims?