Jefferson Corner

Last week we had the pleasure of traveling to Cleveland to attend the engagement of one of my wife cousins, actually Iyad is the son of my mother in laws uncle, Marwan Mazhar. While Cleveland will remain Cleveland like so may ill planned and ill designed American cities, the engagement was just terrific. It was held in the main hall of the old court house, a very majestic place and of course the beautiful setting was made more beautiful by the mother of Iyad fiancé’ who added her touch to every thing in the place, turning the place to a very beautiful court of justice.
Well, Marwan who attend and graduated from LSU back in 1953 and perhaps was the first Arab and Muslim to hit the shores of Louisiana was there and as we sat in the hotel he was as his usual self, full of life and full of stories about his wonderful experience with the people in Louisiana and how he kept in touch with so many of them all these years. I even suggested he should publish a letter in one of the major Louisiana journal. I was in Louisiana in the army, basic training and the only thing I remember is Fort Polk and its swampy environed. But Marwan had great stories to tell including his stories as a deck hand on the Great Mississippi.
I loved one of his stories of a Lebanese woman, living in London who placed an order for some household item from that great store in London, Harrods. The woman fed up with the delay and went to the manager and said “after” meaning “Ba’edin” in Arabic.
Well, one has to appreciate the real meaning of “Ba’edin” which means so many things, and it’s mentioned most often when people are fed up or “lose it” with something. It is almost similar in meaning with TOZ, that Arabic word which is full of so many meaning. I thought it was so beautiful and so original from this woman to walk in to Harrods and say “ After” “ Ba’edin” enough is enough. I guess the same goes to the Palestinian Authority and one has to say to both Fatah and Hamas, “Ba’edin” every one is fed up with the situation in the Occupied Territories, fed up with a useless government and fed up with useless and “rudless” leadership who are more interested in their own self interests than taking care of the people. Perhaps it time to let go of the greed and incompetence that kept the Palestinian Authority alive for so many years without ever having any positive impact on the Palestinians. We all should know by now that Oslo was nothing but a private deal between Rabin and Arafat, where Arafat became a subcontractor to Rabin to quash the First Intifada with financing for Arafat and his 4,000 thieves coming from Europe and the US.
Yes, Marwan, we very much enjoyed your visit to our home in Virginia and we hope you enjoyed our company, and as promised I am publishing this note on “After- Ba’edin” for your laugh. Keep in mind that the most telling expression I ever heard any one use the word “TOZ” was Shafiq Alhout, who was the PLO representative in Lebanon, when asked about the Israeli plans to bring more Russian Jews to Palestine, he said “ TOZ”. The Palestinians will always catch up with the Israelis even if Israel brings Jews from Indian and Japan.
Marwan, you have to keep your promise and write all your friends in Louisiana a ‘thank you note” I am sure they will all appreciate hearing from you. Yes, American is not what it used to be, but there are whole lots of so many great, honest, loving and caring people that will compensate for what George Bush and his gangs are doing to America.

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Saddam Hussein the darling of Washington, Paris, Bonn and London few years ago was found guilty of crimes against humanity by an Iraqi court couple of days ago. The verdict was not so surprising given the fact that he ran a killing and murder machine through his Baathist Party and was and is responsible for the murder of millions of people within Iraq and also in Iran.
The surprising thing is that Saddam did not call for his defense the former heads of stated of the United States, both the late President Reagan and George Bush Sr., and did not call to his defense, Margaret Thatcher, the former British Prime Minister and did not call the former Chancellor of Germany, Mr. Kohl and not to mention Mr. France. All of these people made it all possible for a know criminal like Saddam Hussein to commit and continue to commit his crimes against his own people and against the Iranians. These people are as guilty as Saddam. They may not have pulled the trigger or order the killings, but they all made it possible for him to commit his crimes against his people and against his neighbor Iran. By the way, I was never a fan of the late Khomeini; I thought he was an evil man with nothing but vengeance and anger in his heart.
Of course we should not forget the honorable Donald Rumsfeld the present Secretary of Defense who was the Reagan connections to Saddam and who met with Saddam few days after the chemical attacks against the Kurds in Halabja and of course while there Mr. Donald made sure that Saddam knew how much he is appreciated by the United States and its allies in the Middle East, who also supported Saddam will tens of billions of dollars.
Saddam, like the late Shah was the darling of Washington, with his ambassador having an open check book to buy and trade congressmen and senators and buy any thing that darling Saddam wants from the US including giving him billions in line of credits, so that he can save his cash to buy weapons to kill his people and kill others.
Saddam got what he deserves. His own people should have hanged him long time ago, without the help from George Bush and his Tel-Aviv mafia. It is too bad that the Iraqi people did not stand up to Saddam and allowed him to get away with murder. Shame on all of the Sunni Muslims, who were part of Saddam killing machine and who stood in silent while Saddam waged his war and terror against their fellow countrymen, the Shiite and the Kurds.
Personally, I would be more happier if some of the western leaders who supported Saddam will also stand trial for their support of killer Saddam. May he hang for a long time and left to rot on his hanging robe. And may leading politicians and heads of states and military leaders everywhere in the world remember that NO one ever gets away with murder. It is never too late to bring to trial all of the men of the Reagan and Bush administrations and also bring to trial Thatcher and her boys and of course the Chancellor and his men and so many others. Perhaps we also need to dig up the grave of the late Khomieni and bring him to trial for his crimes against his own people. I wonder why these little dictators never learn lessons from the likes of the late Shah and Norriega.

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I was so surprised when I read this morning, with my morning coffee, an article in the Washington Post titled “ Stricter Policy Splits West Ban Families”. The Post refrains from publishing any thing that may embarrass Israel and its friends in DC. Don’t know what will happen to the writer or the editor. They may get fired if Israel’s friends decide to do so as it happens to all those who dare to write the truth about Israel.
In any case, the story of Sam Bahour, a friend of mine and also from the same hometown of El-Bireh has been in the news for few weeks now, in major media, both print and TV, ever since Israel decided not renew his residency visa. Sam, born in Ohio returned to our hometown soon after Oslo thinking that Israel has changed. It did not.
Israel has been splitting more families than it united and the number of over 120,000 waiting for re-unification is a small number compared with those Israel deliberately split. Israel not only exercises and with great styles its policy of ethnic cleansing, but also make sure that those it could not expel, turns their lives to hell.
My late father, who happens to be a US citizen decided at the insistence of my late mother to return to El-Bireh so that my mother, who happened to have an Israeli residency permit, can be with her aging and ailing mother. My parents returned to El-Bireh after spending 4th of July 1976 here in Washington DC. By the way, my late father was a die hard Democrat, talked always about labor unions and about FDR as if he was god. Now I can see why he was not a Republican, in any case we go back to the story.
Soon after its occupation of 67, Israel introduced a law that allows certain families, usually husband and wife, to reunite if one of the spouses happened to be a “resident” of the West Bank at the start of occupation. My mother qualified for that.
One would think that Israel, way back in 76, before terrorism, before Hamas will process these application at least with some slow speed. It did not. My father for over 10 years had to travel to Cyprus every few months and return so that he can renew his “ tourist” visa to his hometown and to be with his wife and his ailing mother in law. Well, my father did that for some 10 years until someone called “ Abu Daoud” an Israel Jew and an employee of the Israel’s civil administration suggested that my late father pay the sum of $15,000 and he will be able to get his permanent residency. My father did pay the bribe and he was able to get his residency permit. Of course, Israelis like all other people do accept and take bribes Sharon did that too! They may be “chosen” but they are also on the take and do take bribes and are corrupt like all other people.
When my late parents became ill, I was living in Geneva and I wanted to have a permit to be with them. They applied for me, but were turned down. With some European connections, I was able to have my file reviewed again. This time Israel did approve the application, but insisted that I leave my own family in Geneva and stay in the West Bank for a period of not less than one year. It was a difficult choice and after traveling to El-Bireh to meet with my parents we decided I would not take the offer.
This is in contrast to the fact that some American Jews armed with a gun and a deed from G-d decided to take over couple of our properties in an area of the town called “Jabal Altaweel” as part of the Israeli settlement. Of course, as US citizens of the Jewish faith they can, under both Israel and US laws take over any property they chose without due regard as to who own the property. They are the chosen one and we as Palestinian American do not rise to even a second-class citizens, with equal protection of the law.

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Recently in Jerusalem, a committee was organized called “Justice for Jews of the Middle East”/ This organization is seeking more than $100 BILLION in compensation from Arab countries, and if the success of European Jews is an indication, then for sure “Arab Jews” will succeed in collecting the $100 BILLION and more.
Soon the US Congress will pass a law that will make it mandatory for Arab countries to pay and compensate Arab Jews for properties left behind. May be the US Congress will pass a law taxing every oil barrel, every bail of cotton, every can of olive oil produced in the Middle to raise the necessary funds and will add a $100 surcharge on every tax bill of any “Arab” living in the US and paying taxes. May be the White House will appoint a Czar to raise and collect this $100 BILLION in compensation to Arab Jews.
As a Palestinian American I am all for the Arab Jews seeking compensation for property loss and I have advocated this for a long time. I even go further, I advocate that Arab Jews have every right to return HOME to their countries in the Middle East, including Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq among others. I also advocate and call for the establishment of an international commission that will investigate the circumstances behind the Arab Jews leaving their countries, and should open an investigation into the actions of the Jewish Agency and the Mossad in creating events that led the Jews to leave. This international commission should also have the same mandatory powers to investigate the circumstance that lead the Palestinians to go into exile. I am for the right of the Jews to return home to their countries, in Morocco, in Tunisia (not sure if Senator George Allen will chose to return to Tunis), to return to Egypt and Iraq and of course to the nation-state of the Borough of Brooklyn.
As a Palestinian American will property taken over by Jewish settlers in the West Bank of El-Bireh, who claim that G-d gave them my land and the property of my parents and their parents, I am willing to forego all of my rights to such a property and cede to any Jews from the US or any where in the world who will file a claim in any US District court and who can present to the court that he/she has a dead for the property signed by G-d or witness by Mohamed, Jesus, Moses, Noah even Abraham. If the US District court will formally and legally recognizes the right of a Jew to my property then I am willing to give it all up and accept the ruling of such court. Until this happens and until Jews from the US or any where in the world can prove that G-d gave them my property and prove it in a court of law in the US, then and only then will I accept the notion of the promise land.
I do hope that Arab Jews can succeed in claiming their rights to their properties in Arab countries and can succeed in their right of return. May be they can establish an added precedent for the Palestinian to sue for the right of return and sue for the right to recover their properties within Israel and perhaps then and only with such an international commission can we set aside all of the lies and discover the truth about the exiles of Palestinians by Israel Jews and the exiles of Arab Jews by Arabs.

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While this US Administration continue to provide legal, political, financial and even criminal coverage of Israel’s crime within the Palestinian Occupied Territories, the US recently announce a $42 million fund to support Fatah re-organization plans making sure Fatah continue with its “agreed to” role as subcontractor for the Israeli Occupation.
It is so ironic that at a time when the US government and especially the White House and the State Department are silent on the humiliating treatment of its citizens within the Israeli Occupied Territories, as we have seen most recently with the denial of entry to Palestine of US citizens of Palestinian origins. Israel went even further by demanding that those US citizens of Arabic origin must leave the Occupied Territories. Sam Bahour is one case in point (visit the different website that covered his case in the US and international media) and the case of my sister Laila and her husband who planned to retire in El-Bireh but where denied residency. Of course if this treatment happened to any Jew, and especial to a US Jew by any country in the world all hell will break lose and congressmen and senators will be tripping over each other demanding freedom of residency and movement to members of the Jewish faith. Of course Arabs and Muslims are not entitled to this kind of coverage by US lawmakers and this administration.
While this administration is silent about all the crimes committed by Israel it is doing all it can to undermine the very democratic practices it advocate.
Every one, except the majority of the Palestinians do recognize that the Oslo Accord signed by the late Yasser Arafat and Ishak Rabin was nothing but a contractual agreement by an occupying power and representative of the occupied, where Israel as the occupying power cedes its role of managing the day to day affairs of the people under occupation to an organization such as the PLO and Fatah, with the US providing the political coverage to both Fatah and Arafat and the European Union providing the funding that keeps Fatah, the racketeering machine, well funded and in business. That is why we never hear any thing about ending the occupation, not from George Bush, not from Secretary Rice, not from Olmert, certainly not from any the Palestinian leaderships that is identified with Fatah. It seems that Fatah leadership have added the US State Department as client in addition to the European Union and Israel.
$42 million dollars will go a long way to fund and buy many of Fatah leadership who also made a financial killing since Oslo and who make sure that the Israeli Occupation continue as a steady source of income for Fatah and its leadership.
Since Oslo many of the Fatah leadership hardly ever talk about ending the Israeli Occupation and for the most part talk only of managing the occupation and talk about salaries for their army of thugs. These Palestinian officials talk nothing of the Israeli criminal occupation but talk of making life a “little easier” for those who have suffered some 39 years under the worst military occupation since Nazi Germany occupied most of Europe. No Fatah officials talk of the more than 750,000 Palestinians who were guest of Israeli jails, and no one talk of the hundreds of thousands who lost their properties. I am sure the US State Department in the next few months will go on a shopping spree buying the “conscious” and “themam” of many Palestinians in the US and around the world, making sure they complete the transaction begun with buying Fatah. I continue to say and repeat that Arafat and the PLO after the Palestinian exiles of 48 and the second exile of 67 and the military occupation are the worst thing that could ever happen to the Palestinian people. Oslo was nothing but a crime. Arafat, Fatah and the PLO should take the blame for failing to end the longest military occupation in modern history

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When it comes to Iraq, no Iraqis so far was and is able to describe the Iraqi situation and the failure of the Iraqi people to form and build a modern nation state than Foulath Hadid, the honory fellow at St. Anthony’s College, Oxford as he eloquently expressed his views in an article published in the International Herald Tribune (Friday, October 20, 2006).
Mr. Hadid quoting the late King Faisal I, shortly before his death describing the Iraqis as “ There is still— no Iraqi people but unimaginable masses of human beings, devoid of any patriotic ideas, imbued with religious traditions and absurdities, connected by no common tie, giving ear to devil, prone to anarchy, and perpetually ready to rise against any government what so ever” The late king Faisal was somewhat correct in the last instance. However the Iraqis did not rise in mass and throw out Saddam and his Ba’athist gang. Too bad the Sunni Muslims did not join the Shiites and Kurds when they revolted against Saddam.
It is very clear that not George Bush nor any one in his administration bothered to read the history of Iraq before they set of their reckless, ill advices, ill planned, and ill executed war on Iraq. It seems when it comes to history, members of this administration to do not bother to read, or are unable to read.
No one in their right mind, will disagree that Saddam Hussein is a killer, a murder, a war criminal who had to go, but many disagree with the lies of George Bush and with the way he ramp the war on Iraq, as a war on terror down the throat of congress and the public.
It is hard to believe how Bush allowed Paul Bremer to execute the plans for the post war Iraq without any due considerations to its history and its very complicated social, religious, tribal and ethnic structure.
More troublesome is the fact that Bush and Rumsfeld continue to believe in the same in what they are doing and thinking they are on the right course when the facts on the grounds tell them they better change plans and change tactics.
Bush afraid to admit he made a major blunder and made the biggest mistake of his presidency continues to make believe and continue to advocate, “staying the course”. What course are you talking about Mr. President? Your course is nothing but a disaster and all of the provado you can give and pretend will not change the facts on the grounds.
The Late president Lyndon Johnson lied to Congress when he claimed the North Vietnamese attacked US Navy ships in the Gulf of Tonking, thus escalating a conflict the murdered over 55,000 of our finest soldiers, crippled for life hundreds of thousands of GI’s and killed and murder over a million Vietnamese, he left in disgrace which he deserved.
Bush is doing the same like Johnson, lied about Weapons of Mass Destructions and continue to lie about the ties of Saddam to terror and of so far the number of murdered and killed Iraqis is approaching the 700,000. Do we expect that Bush will admit his lies and his failures before the death toll in Iraq reach a million, I doubt it?
The only beneficiaries of the Bush’s War on Terror are the so-called “security and terror experts” and those companies that sell to Department of Homeland Security. I do not believe the nation is safer or safer under Bush leadership.
It is time for Bush to admit to the people of the US that he lied, he made believe and he should apologies to the families of the more than 700,000 who died in Iraq so far. He should apologies to the nation and for taking the nation for a reckless, and joyless ride these past 5 years.

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