Countdown
The Arabs Are Taking Over Hollywood…
Volume VII, No. 4
Posted on Tuesday January 31, 2006
Even if We Aren’t Hearing the Stories, This War is Real
We’ve been spared the photos of flag-draped coffins and, unlike previous generations, most Americans have not been asked to make meaningful sacrifices during the Iraq war. But for thousands of servicemen and women and their families, this war is very real. On January 25, the front page of the British daily The Independent led with “The life and death of an Iraq veteran who could take no more,” the story of Iraq veteran Doug Barber. Barber, who was a member of the Ohio National Guard, suffered Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and ultimately took his own life. On January 12, Barber described the suffering of America’s veterans in his own words: “All is not OK or right for those of us who return home alive and supposedly well. What looks like normalcy and readjustment is only an illusion to be revealed by time and torment…This is what PTSD comes in the shape of—soldiers can not often handle coming back to the same world they left behind. It is something that drives soldiers over the edge and causes them to withdraw from society. As Americans we turn our nose down at them wondering why they act the way they do. Who cares about them, why should we help them?” And why aren’t we honoring them by telling their stories?
The Truth Is In The Numbers…
While Hamas’ stunning election victory seems to have altered conventional wisdom on Middle East politics, there are some things that have not changed at all in the last week. Indeed, the ongoing increase in Israeli settlements on Palestinian land creeps up on us in years rather than days. In its latest “Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Territories,” the Foundation for Middle East Peace provides telling statistics that are sometimes overlooked: In the beginning of 1993, the population growth in the West Bank and Gaza (excluding East Jerusalem) was 105,400. By the end of that year, it was 116, 300—a jump of 10.4%. Each subsequent year — during the so-called “peace process”— settlements grew by at least 10,000. By the end of 2004, the settlement population had reached an astounding 243,900. And this number does not include the more than 200,000 settlers living in the West Bank areas around Jerusalem that Israeli occupied in 1967. Those are some stark “facts on the ground” which should not be forgotten.
We’d Like An Answer To That One Too…
President George W. Bush may be taking more “unscripted” questions from audiences these days, but there’s still one citizen he refuses to call on…Helen Thomas. Though Thomas occupied her usual front and center press conference seat, the President, not for the first time, ignored the legendary reporter. At the January 26 press conference the President had answered a question regarding the controversial NSA domestic surveillance program in part by saying, “the FISA law [which regulates domestic surveillance] was written in 1978. We’re having this discussion in 2006. It’s a different world.” Alas, Thomas could not ask her follow-up: “You keep saying the FISA law is a 1978 law, but the Constitution is 200 years old. Is that out of date, too?”
The Arabs Are Taking Over Hollywood…
Palestine’s Academy Award submission, the critically acclaimed “Paradise Now,” came one step closer to gold, earning its much-anticipated Oscar nod this morning. The 78th Annual Academy Awards, hosted by the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart, will take place on Sunday, March 5…The New York Arab American Comedy Festival took Los Angeles by storm this week, selling out “six comedic plays and a night of stand up,” according to the LA Daily News. “It’s a comedy uprising to change the world — to hopefully encourage people to see Arabs in a different light,” said comedian Dean Obeidallah, who founded the festival with fellow Arab American actor Maysoon Zayid.
