Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May - June 2001, page 61
Southern California Chronicle
ADC’s Khalil Jahshan Urges Bush Administration to Set Parameters, Reassess Mideast Policy
By Pat and Samir Twair
“This is not the time for the Bush administration to take time out. Whenever the Middle East is ignored, it doesn’t stay the same. If the situation worsens, the U.S. will be forced to intervene militarily.” When Khalil Jahshan uttered these words during a major speech at Pepperdine University March 19, several hundred young men in the audience sat up as if electrified by the disturbing prospect of being conscripted into a Middle East peacekeeping force.
The vice president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) was delivering a Dean’s Lecture at Pepperdine’s spectacular Malibu campus overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
“Waiting for Godot: The Continuing Search for Peace in the Middle East” was the title ofthe speech presented on the eve of newly elected Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush. Jahshan warned that Sharon is trying to ignore treaties signed by Israel in the nearly 10 years since the peace process began in Madrid in 1991.
“This is reversing the wheels of history,” Jahshan stressed. “Sharon is entitled to his own views, but there are previous agreements the government of Israel signed and they can’t be set aside to please Sharon.”
The ADC spokesman pointed out that since 1937, 75 peace attempts had preceded the Madrid effort. He called upon the Bush administration to reassess the role of the U.S. in peace talks and to resume new permanent status negotiations. If all-out war is to be averted, he said, all people of the Middle East must see tangible dividends from signing peace agreements.
Jahshan outlined the steps leading to the onset of the al-Aqsa intifada that was set off Sept. 29, 2000 when Sharon, protected by a phalanx of 1,000 guards, set foot on the sacred Muslim courtyard of al-Aqsa Mosque.
The six-month-old uprising has taken on a life of its own, the Nazareth-born Jahshan said, “and has put the seven-year-old Oslo process out of its misery.”
Palestinian frustrations had been mounting for years, he said, as the people failed to receive economic and political lifelines promised by the U.S. in its 1991 Letter of Assurances to Israel and the Palestinians.
The critical issues—refugees, settlements, Jerusalem and boundaries—were delayed on the excuse that the two sides should build trust by cooperating on smaller issues of mutual concern. When Binyamin Netanyahu was elected prime minister in 1996, he changed the rules and no further progress was made, Jahshan explained. In 1999, Ehud Barak was elected to succeed Netanyahu and allowed Israeli settlements to increase while the Palestinian economy plunged in a free-fall.
When he visited the area last June, Jahshan noted, tensions were high, Palestinian frustration was palpable, yet Barak offered nothing.
The failure of the peace negotiations, Jahshan said, was caused by the failure to set deadlines for negotiating difficult issues and by the U.S. bias in favor of Israel.
This acquiescence to Israel and allowing it to even select which Palestinian negotiators could participate is unheard of, Jahshan pointed out. “It remains to be seen if Sharon will dictate a new frame of reference,” he said, “but it looks like there will be no chance for comprehensive talks because Sharon wants to limit talks until the ”˜belligerence’ ends.”
Referring to a March 13 meeting between Arab-American organizations and Secretary of State Colin Powell (see p. 87), Jahshan stated the diplomat was “deeply concerned over anti-American emotions in the Middle East. This is the first administration I have come in contact with which has expressed such concern over anti-U.S. movements.”
CAIR Hosts Meet-Your-Congressman Event
“If Israel’s goal is to ignore the Palestinians in hope they won’t exist in 20 years, it won’t work. Likewise, two decades from now Israel will still exist. Both realities must be accepted.” So said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) at the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ (CAIR) first annual Meet-Your-Congressman dinner March 16 at the Westin South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa.
More than 200 friends and guests were on hand to meet Congressmen Rohrabacher and his Republican colleagues Reps. Ed Royce and Darrell Issa. Also present were California Republican Party Vice Chairman Lois Godfrey and Orange County Republican Chairman Thomas Fuentes, who was master of ceremonies. An unexpected highlight of the evening was the impromptu remarks by former Jordanian Prime Minister Taher Masri.
In addressing Republican party guests, CAIR founder Omar Ahmed pointed out that in Florida there are 76,000 Muslim voters, 90 percent of whom voted for George W. Bush, which probably swung the crucial Florida vote for him. This was the result, he said, of a visit by a Muslim delegation last June to Bush on his Texas ranch, where Muslims pledged to vote for him as a bloc.
“Muslims in the U.S. are willing to be a catalyst to unite the Muslim world with Washington. It is the [Israeli] lobby that is demonizing Islam,” Ahmed continued.
As he took the podium, Representative Rohrabacher noted the values shared by Muslims and the Republican Party.
“All of us should be for what’s best for the U.S. and not bow to pressure from one lobby,” he stated. The former speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan said that, only the week before, he had introduced a bill that probably would bring him many a headache. The bill calls for compensating the Sudanese if the pharmaceutical plant the U.S. bombed was not involved in producing weapons.
“If we have made a mistake, we must admit it,” he affirmed. “We cannot continue to play up bad parts of one group and only emphasize the good side of the other group. The U.S. accepts a rubber-stamp policy on whatever Israel wants. This does not serve the cause for peace.”
Commenting that it is “ridiculous” to pass resolutions in Congress condemning the Palestinians, Rohrabacher said Israel is establishing a system that makes it impossible for the Palestinian Authority to function.
“I suggest that all those [Israeli] settlements should be abandoned and turned over to Palestinians living in refugee camps. But,” he cautioned, “you can’t have the right of return so much as justice for the Palestinians.”
Representative Royce, in his fifth term as congressman from California’s 39th district, said the U.S. must work harder at improving its relations with the Muslim world. He acknowledged the critical role Muslims played in the November elections, noting there were 60 Arab-American delegates at the Republican National Convention, where a Muslim delivered an invocation.
Royce said the last Congress approved a postage stamp commemorating the observance of Ramadan, and that he has signed onto a bill de-linking economic sanctions from military sanctions on Iraq.
Issa, newly elected representative of California’s 48th congressional district, called it commendable that 67 percent of Muslims voted for the Republican ticket in November—but said it should have been 99 percent.
“I challenge you,” he said, “to recognize that Jewish Americans built a strong lobby with energy, money and notoriety—and in Southern California, they have six congressmen. Out of a total of 436 congressmen, we only have three Arab Americans. That is not enough.”
The national dialogue on the Palestinian issue must be changed, he said. “Ultimately, a separate nation will exist and I believe it will share a common capital with Israel,” Issa predicted. “Apartheid was stopped in South Africa. Israel must decide if it is going to have an apartheid state or accept two separate but equal nations with access for both to their holy sites.”
Jordan’s former Prime Minister Taher Masri, who attended the event as a guest of film producer Moustapha Akkad, was asked to comment on the political crisis in the Middle East.
“We are angry in the Muslim world because of the impotence of our leaders in not allowing us to do something about the injustice toward the Palestinians,” he said. The anger of the people in the streets, he stressed, forced Arab governments to convene in Cairo for an Arab summit.
The Jordanian spokesman said that the brutality Israel exercises against the Palestinians is not shown on U.S. TV, but that Arabs daily view Israeli bulldozers demolishing houses and uprooting trees while Israeli soldiers shoot down Palestinian civilians.
“The Palestinians are fighting military occupation,” he concluded. “Israel can’t ignore four million Palestinians who are determined not to leave their land and become refugees.”
Muhaned Malas showed slides of the wounded and of barricaded cities in Palestine. A special gift was presented to Saed Moujtahed, who chaired the program.
MESTO Offers Premiere Performance
Under the baton of Dr. Nabil Azzam, the Multi Ethnic Star Orchestra (MESTO) gave its premiere performance March 11 at West Los Angeles College. A young Palestinian singer, Woroud, was the soloist for the program featuring the works of Dr. Azzam, Muhammad Abd al-Wahhab, Farid el-Atrache and the Rahabani Brothers.
The story behind the debut of the 35-piece orchestra is filled with the same pathos and emotion as the performance of the musicians who had practiced for six months without financial remuneration.
In 1990, Dr. Azzam received his Ph.D. degree in ethnomusicology from UCLA. In 1995, he traveled to his hometown of Nazareth, where he had been commissioned to establish the Galilee Symphony Orchestra. Just a few months after the first performance by the group, which included Russian émigrés as well as Israeli Arabs, Binyamin Netanyahu was elected prime minister and funds were no longer forthcoming to the fledgling orchestra.
Dr. Azzam returned to his family in Los Angeles and over the years taught intermittently at the University of Redlands and UC Santa Barbara and composed music. Last fall, he conferred with cellist Dr. Janice Foy-Principal and the two began to recruit musicians who have performed in Southern California symphony orchestras and were inclined to learn the music of other cultures.
The result: A full Middle Eastern orchestra with nay, qanun, oud, two flutes, clarinet, 12 violins, four cellos, four violas, two basses and three percussion instruments (riqq, daf, and small and large tabla).
As the concert progressed, it became clear that Azzam and fellow composer/musicians Kareem Roustom and Miamon Miller had created a distinctive style for traditional classical pieces.
Vocalist Woroud brought down the house with the Rahabani Brothers’ “Sanarji’u Yawman” and “Yalla Ta’ala.” She also sang Egyptian composer Sayyid Darwish’s “El Hilwa Di” (This Pretty Girl).
The finale was a collection of instrumental excerpts from Muhammad Abd al-Wahhab’s song “Bi’umri Kullu” (I Loved You With All My Life).
West Los Angeles College President Frank Quiambao announced the MESTO performance was the first concert presented in the Fine Arts Complex, and that he hoped to repeat MESTO programs on a regular basis and to have Dr. Azzam on campus as a professor.
President Quiambao is a man of his word and, as of April 2, Dr. Azzam joined the WLAC faculty where he will organize a multi-ethnic youth orchestra (MEYO) and focus on teaching world music.
“This is the first time my family has seen me on stage. Now they know what I do for a living,” quipped Dr. Azzam.
The MESTO orchestra will continue to practice Tuesday evenings in St. Andrews Lutheran Church of West Los Angeles and hopes to offer its second concert in late June in Thousand Oaks. Plans also are on tap for a recording of pieces performed in the concert.
ADC Hosts Alex Odeh Banquet
Rep. Cynthia McKinney, the Democratic congresswoman from Georgia’s 4th district, was keynote speaker at the Los Angeles/Orange County American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee’s annual Alex Odeh Humanitarian Award banquet. Fadia Rafeedie, the Palestinian-American valedictorian at UC Berkeley’s commencement program last June, was master of ceremonies for the March 10 program.
Rafeedie, whose commencement address was delayed until after then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright made a speech which was booed by the audience, talked about the bravery and stoicism of her Palestinian cousins. Now attending Yale University Law School, the articulate Rafeedie praised the children of the stones who stand in front of a ruthless enemy’s bulldozers and tanks.
Owing to the deepening crises in Palestine and Iraq, this year’s award banquet eschewed music and dancing. Each year, the Los Angeles and Orange County chapters present awards in commemoration of Alex Odeh, who was murdered in 1985 by a booby trap bomb in the office where he served as regional director of ADC. His killers have never been apprehended.
Dr. Musa Nasir and Adel Barakat were presented the ADC Empowerment Award, and Yacoub Saba received the ADC Appreciation Award. Raymond Jallow Activism Awards were given to Samera Sood, Rima Salem, Elie Khawam and Haitham Aranki. Vanessa Zuabi read her original piece about a refugee mother waiting for her child to come home during the intifada.
Stating that she was happy to be back in California, Representative McKinney, a USC graduate, said ADC exists because discrimination exists in the U.S.
She noted that the U.S. government tried for decades to make African Americans invisible by killing off their leaders, but that African Americans finally succeeded in creating an overwhelming movement that no longer could be ignored.
“They worked hard to keep 34 million blacks invisible, and I think now they’ve turned their sights on you,” she said, referring to the FBI’s use of secret evidence to jail Muslims and Arab Americans.
“As long as minorities are quiet, everything is okay,” McKinney continued. “The lesson is, don’t get involved in politics. The Secret Evidence Law serves this precept. Why haven’t the murderers of Alex Odeh been caught?”
The outspoken Democrat commented on National Security Council activities and former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski’s fears that African Americans could have sympathies for the Arabs and foment problems with American Jews.
“It appears to me there is a triangle between the blacks and Arabs, the JDL and the FBI,” she said, noting that there is a “deliberate attempt to deny blacks leadership and a voice in U.S. politics because we might speak out on conditions in the Middle East.”
Rep. McKinney recalled her November campaign and how her opponent accused her of accepting “blood money from Arab organizations.” Her opponent chortled over the fact that First Lady Hillary Clinton had returned money donated to her Senate campaign by Arab Americans, but that Cynthia McKinney had not.
The young, attractive congresswoman smiled at 500 faces smiling back at her and said she has declared her candidacy once more against her AIPAC challenger.
AAPG Continues Poetry Festival Tradition
In its effort to preserve the tradition of Arab poetry in the U.S., the Arab American Press Guild hosted its 16th annual Poetry Festival March 15 in the Glendale Main Public Library. Twelve poets read their original works, but the highlight of the evening was when Chief Librarian Laurel Patricread aloud a statement praising 91-year-old Jordanian poet Ibrahim Nasser Sweidan. Patric announced that a plaque naming Sweidan’s accomplishments as a poet who has made his residence in Glendale for decades will be inserted in a wall of the library.
AAPG President Samir Twair also presented a plaque to Lebanese Druze poet Mouaza Kifah al-Aridi. Poets selected to read their original works were Dr. Wafa Sultan, Khairi Hussein Hawari, Zickri Eram, al-Aridi, Sweidan, Bassam Hussein, Hasan Hassoun, Ahmed Nazir al-Attassi, Suleiman Saddi, Ahmed Shoumaf, Victoria Kildawi and Ester Williams.
Dervishes Whirl at UCLA
The Turath organization staged another successful cultural event March 18, when it hosted the premiere U.S. performance of Sheikh Hamza Shakkur, the al-Kindi Ensemble and Whirling Dervishes of Damascus in UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall.
The audience of several hundred was mesmerized by the bass voice of Sheikh Shakkur, choirmaster of the Munshiddin of the Great Mosque of Damascus. A muqri (Qur’an reader) and a munshid (hymnist), the sheikh is a disciple of Said Farhat and Tawfiq al-Munajjid and is carrying out the repertoire of the Mawlawiya order.
The al-Kindi Ensemble was founded in 1983 in Aleppo by Julien Jalal Eddine Weiss, a Frenchman who converted to Islam in 1986. Weiss performed on the qanun and was accompanied by Ziyad Qadi Amin on the nay, Muhammad Qadri Dalal on the oud, and Adel Shams al-Din on the riqq. Dervishes Hatem al-Jamal, Maher al-Jamal, Hisham al-Khatib and Ghassan Janid performed the Mawlawiyya ritual as it has been performed for centuries in Damascus. The dervish ritual, it was pointed out, is not performed in mosques, where musical instruments are forbidden, with the exception of percussion instruments sometimes allowed in the courtyard.
Turath, which means heritage in Arabic, was founded three years ago by Sami Asmar. The dervish concert was the sixth program offered by the organization, which also sponsored a program of flamenco music and Jihad Racy, and a concert featuring Marcel Khalife and Simon Shaheen. In addition, it has established the Ali Jihad Racy Fellowship for Arab Music Studies and has conferred awards on three graduate students in the U.S. and Canada. For more information, visit their Web site, <www.TURATH.org>.
Pat and Samir Twair are free-lance journalists based in Los Angeles.
