@grassfed there is no debate. It's a group spewing hate. I don't debate hate groups. I'm attacked by Muslim and Arab haters all the time

February 14, 2012 6:38 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@Deanofcomedy

Dean Obeidallah

Dean Obeidallah: why dont we meet in person and discuss it?…I really look forward to sitting down and chatting…I’ll be in California near where u live if u want to set up time.

Ikhras:  ”Dean, told you several times we’re not interested in meeting you. You’re a very boring, uninteresting, shallow person, and very dumb.  Would not enjoy your company and would spend the whole time worried you might attempt a joke.” 

Dean Obeidallah dean.obeidallah@gmail.com	Jan 5
to bcc: me

Hey Friends -

I Just wanted to share my new CNN op-ed “Rick Santorum wants to impose Christian sharia law on America.”

Hope u like it!

Dean
http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/05/opinion/obeidallah-santorum-sharia/index.html

Ikhras	Jan 6
to Dean

Thank you for sharing, Dean.  You’re hilarious, why doesn’t that come out in your unfunny, lame routines?

www.ikhras.com
www.facebook.com/ikhras
www.twitter.com/ikhras

Dean Obeidallah dean.obeidallah@gmail.com	Jan 7
to me

I ask myself that all the time. Maybe u can write me some jokes. U seem funny – why dont we meet in person and discuss it?

Ikhras	Jan 7
to Dean

Hi again Dean,I think we’re going to pass on both. Just like you, we don’t write jokes. But unlike you, we realize we don’t write jokes.

Second, like we’ve said before, we don’t think you’re an interesting person and do not wish to meet with you.

Peace out.

www.ikhras.com
www.facebook.com/ikhras
www.twitter.com/ikhras

Dean Obeidallah dean.obeidallah@gmail.com	Jan 7
to me

Ur writing is actually so funny- albeit unintentionally.

Do u know what albeit means? Look it up-it’s ur new word for the day.

I really look forward to sitting down and chatting when u muster up the courage.

I’ll be in California near where u live if u want to set up time.

Peace out

Dean

(why don’t u sign ur name like that?)

Ikhras	Jan 8
to Dean

Dean, told you several times we’re not interested in meeting you. You’re a very boring, uninteresting, shallow person, and very dumb.  Would not enjoy your company and would spend the whole time worried you might attempt a joke.  This is the last time we respond to you. You are now on notice that we reserve the right to make public any email you send to us in the future, and if you do it would also include all your previous emails. We find you just a little too cute to not share with everybody.Come clean with your relationship with the State Department and don’t let us ruffle your feathers so easily.

Ikhras

www.ikhras.com
www.facebook.com/ikhras
www.twitter.com/ikhras

@grassfed there is no debate. It's a group spewing hate. I don't debate hate groups. I'm attacked by Muslim and Arab haters all the time

February 14, 2012 6:38 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@Deanofcomedy

Dean Obeidallah

In truth, Dean has been in constant email contact with ikhras and repeatedly requesting that we sit down with him for a “debate.”  In addition to keeping us apprised of his CNN appearances, of which he seems especially proud, he regularly sends us articles, announcements for his latest “comedy” shows,  and links to his latest media appearances.  We initially decided to find his emails charming, and played along, but that quickly wore off.  Nevertheless, Dean continues to contact ikhras begging to sit down with us.  As we explained to Dean we are not interested and find him to be a very boring and vapid person.  Below is a just a sample of the emails exchanged between Dean and ikhras.  In this brief exchange below which took place last December, Dean requested to meet with us six (see bolded) times.

Dean Obeidallah dean.obeidallah@gmail.com	12/7/11
to me

Hey Team Ikhras – your last blog was sent to me – glad you waste your time analyzing my tweets over discussing the men, women and children in Syria being killed, Palestinian rights being trampled, etc. I guess to you attacking a comedian’s tweets is more important than those issues.

But I just wanted to make it clear in response to your demand that I “shut up” – my answer is no. I will not shut up. I will not let you stop stop me from speaking or expressing my views.  I will do that to my last breath. And here is the worst part for you: you can not stop me.  That is the same thing I tell the Muslim haters and Arab haters who tell me to shut up. You are in league with them.

You can smear me with lies and half-truths. You can even attack me and my late father as you have done on your website as much as you choose, but unless you literally kill me, I won’t stop expressing my opinions and views.

My question is: do you have the courage to meet me in person to discuss this? I know the answer- bullies like you hide on the Internet. I don’t hide. Im here. But if you ever grow some balls and want to meet and chat like adults, I am happy to sit down. 

But keep in mind: I will never, ever shut up. It’s that simple.

And by the way December 8 in NYC we have a great stand up show Im producing called “The Big Brown Christmas show” – its going to be great line up of “Brown” comedians- you should attend- https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/210205  -its almost sold out but for my friends at Ikhras there is always room. And also please ask people to follow The Muslims Are Coming Documentary I’m co-producing – We just interviewed CNN’s Soledad O’Brein, Imam Shamsi Ali, comedian Colin Quinn, Current TV’s Cenk Uyger and some more big names coming up later this week – we are at @MuslimsRComing

Thanks and Salam,

Dean

Ikhras	12/7/11
to Dean

Hi Dean,

Thanks for contacting us again. We usually keep all any correspondence private, but with your permission we would like to publicly share this. Would that be ok with you?

Ikhras

www.ikhras.com
www.facebook.com/ikhras
www.twitter.com/ikhras

Dean Obeidallah dean.obeidallah@gmail.com	12/7/11
to me

As long as u tell me ur real name ur welcome to publish it.Sent from iDean

Dean Obeidallah dean.obeidallah@gmail.com	12/7/11
to me

And meet me in person.

Those two conditions ur free to publish it.

Dean Obeidallah dean.obeidallah@gmail.com	12/7/11
to me

Ill even come to Moreno Valley, California and meet u there.

Ikhras	12/7/11
to Dean

Dean,

We have a right to publish any emails sent to us without permission of sender.  Unfortunately you appear to have mistaken our common courtesy and ethics with an opportunity for you to dictate conditions. We do not allow anyone to place conditions on ikhras content. We would like to publish your letter but it must be without any conditions. Our names have been on our site since we launched ikhras. You can find them as easily as you found our contact info.  We have no interest in meeting you.

You wrote to us pledging, with adolescent bravado, to continue babbling. You have a right to do so. We also have a right to cover your activities and report on public issues of  concern to our community and country. So we also pledge to you to redouble our efforts and relentlessly cover your exploitation of our community’s collective name in pursuit of your career on the margins of US pop culture, your support for anti Palestinian groups like the ATFP, and your links to the State Dept including your role in its propaganda campaigns.

In the future we encourage you to take your anti-ikhras rants public rather than share them with us. Keep in mind when you do so we reserve the right to republish them without notice or permission, but with due credit to original publication or website.

Dean Obeidallah dean.obeidallah@gmail.com	12/8/11
to me

You will redouble ur efforts to shut me up? I told u what it will take to do that – never going to happen. You don’t even have the courage to sign ur name to this email let alone shut me up.

With Syrians being killed daily and Palestinians suffering u have chosen to redouble ur attacks on a comedian?  Really – that is how you are helping “our community and country” as u put it? And what community and country is that exactly? Until I know your name I cant see where you are really from – perhaps that award I read about online that u received from a pro-Israeli group is correct – care to comment?

And why cant we meet in person? What are u so afraid of? You cant be of Arab heritage because every Arab I know had courage and would gladly meet and discuss these issues like adults. So who are you? Dont u think the people reading ur column have a right to know ur real agenda? Who funds you? Your background? Your connection to groups – pro-Israel or otherwise?

Bottom line: if u ever get the courage to meet in person or at least sign your name to an email, let me know.  If not then I will discount u like the anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hater that I think you are.

It’s always a dilemma. What to do, when people you admire are being attacked by the jealous and hateful? If you respond to it, it sometimes gives them the undeserved attention that they desperately seek. If you stay silent about it, you let baseless smears linger as if they contain some element of truth.

In the case of Ray Hanania attacking Palestinian surgeon and musician Doc Jazz, and Palestinian activist and publicist Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada, I have decided to respond. Hanania, an Arab-American comedian of Palestinian origin, wrote down his vile accusations in the Jerusalem Post, a Zionist outlet that he apparently regularly contributes to as a columnist. Although he didn’t mention their names specifically, the descriptions he gave of them leave no doubt that Doc Jazz and Ali Abunimah are the two people his poisonous claims are aimed at.

Here is the excerpt from Hanania’s article:

“The Arabs, though some may be talented, have a lot of loud-mouthed activists who scream and spew hatred. There’s the great jazz musician whose hatred of Israel borders on anti-Semitism. There’s the talented writer at the Electronic Intifada whose words are driven by hatred of Jews.

These hate-driven activists have compromised mainstream Arabs, putting them in a headlock of oppression. Moderate Arabs are discouraged from expressing their views or espousing moderation in the face of the bullying and threats from the fanatics who spend more time and energy beating up their own people than turning legal claims against Israel into meaningful reality.”

In comparison to the obscene and abusive language that Hanania recently used when attacking Doc Jazz on his own Facebook page, this accusation seems fairly civilized in terms of the expressions used, but not so in terms of the poisonous accusation itself. It is outrageous to claim that these activists, who put so much energy into their fight against racism, have anything to do with bigotry. Usually, such baseless accusations of anti-Jewish hatred are flung at Palestinians from Zionist circles. In the case of both Doc Jazz and Ali Abunimah, who both call for a one state solution without discrimination on the basis of ethnic or religious background, the smears are entirely undeserved and nauseatingly transparent.

If you have the stomach to read the rest of the piece, you will even find Hanania defending Newt Gingrich, the presidential candidate from the USA who called Palestinians an ‘invented people’. While Hanania’s main point is a lamentation that the main mistake of Palestinians is that they allegedly spend too much time bashing their own people, his article does exactly that: bash his ‘own people’. His defense of the presidential candidate just adds to the ridiculousness of his column: Hanania not only bashes his own people, but defends the very same Gingrich who bashed Palestinians on a world-scale level.

As is typical of authors whose objective simply is to smear others, Hanania does not provide any evidence whatsoever for his accusations. He provides no anti-Semitic quotes from these activists, and does not even have the guts to call them by name, apparently fearing that those who might wish to investigate his accusations would find out that no anti-Semitism can be found with these people, neither on the Electronic Intifada nor on Doc Jazz’s Musical Intifada.

It is true that Doc Jazz has criticized Hanania a few times on his website. However, it takes only little investigation into the writings and acts of Hanania to understand where this criticism is coming from. Since Doc Jazz is declaredly anti-Zionist, it makes sense that he would criticize those who defend Zionism, regardless of the background of these defenders.

When I confronted Ray Hanania on his Facebook page about his hateful rant against Doc Jazz that was larded with obscenities, where he did name him by name and went as far as calling him an “anti-Jewish, anti-Christian bigot”, he immediately showed his true colors. This accusation is also a complete absurdity: do your own research, and you will only find Doc Jazz being respectful towards both these Abrahamic religions. Hanania went on in the thread to accuse Doc Jazz of attacking him merely in response to his criticism of the Syrian government’s crackdown on protesters. I was quite surprised by this, since I had never read anything from Doc Jazz that portrayed him as favoring the Bashar government. His website does not contain any reference to the Syrian situation, let alone in combination with any mention of Hanania. I scrolled down all of Doc Jazz’s tweets on Twitter as well, and found only a few tweets in which he expressed his solidarity with the people of Syria, which contradicts Hanania’s obviously invented claim.

I have copied and saved the entire Facebook thread, since I believe in documenting evidence when making a point. Contrastingly, when I asked Hanania to produce any evidence of this claim about the Syrian issue, he immediately blocked me. This is why I decided that responding to hateful smears, even if they come from irrelevant people, can sometimes be necessary. Once haters prove themselves to be prepared to resort to outright lying just in order to make their hateful points, it becomes important to expose their lies, and to respond to them with the truth.

The only truths in Hanania’s entire piece are: Doc Jazz is indeed a great musician, and Ali Abunimah is indeed a talented writer. Apart from this, the entire article is a pile of hateful garbage that deserves to be dismissed, ignored, and never given a second thought. Both Doc Jazz and Ali Abunimah are prominent diaspora Palestinians who contribute in an admirable way to the struggle for Palestinian rights. For a Zionist sympathizer like Ray Hanania, this apparently is too much to swallow.

*To learn more about the Palestinian-American Zionist Ray Hanania visit Ikhras: http://ikhras.com/tag/ray-hanania/

“I’d like us religious leaders to call for a sacred month that that will allow people to go on pilgrimage,” he said. If Muslims – including Iranians, who are often keen pilgrims – “felt free to come here for part of their pilgrimage, you would have easily tens of millions of people coming to Jerusalem…The pilgrimage to Mecca has always been an occasion for Muslims to get to know Muslims from other parts of the world,” Rauf noted. “If Muslims could come here, you could create some activity on the sidelines between Muslims and Jews.”

This purely political gesture, complete with quotes of passages from the Quran and absurd analogies to feuding Arab tribes in pre-Islamic Mecca, is intended to serve the interests of the usurping Zionist entity in three ways.

First, it helps advance the false narrative that the struggle against Zionism is a religious struggle between Muslims and Jews, the current preferred framework through which Israel’s apologists pursue their propaganda campaigns. In reality, the struggle is between an invading colonial-settler population that has attempted to conquer a land through the application of mass violence, ethnic cleansing, military occupation, and continuous war and an indigenous Palestinian, Arab (Muslim & Christian) population that has resisted this onslaught, in one form or another, for the last 100 years.

Second, the call to visit Israel, under the cover of inter-faith initiatives, is an attempt to legitimize the Zionist entity. Even if we were to concede (and we do not) any potentially positive achievements can result from an inter-faith dialogue between Muslims and Jews, two centuries-old faiths, why would it need to take place in a racist, colonial-settler state created in 1948? Occupied Palestine should be the last place to host any such initiative. Abdul-Rauf’s call to take a pilgrimage to occupied Palestine is not intended to advance any Jewish-Muslim understanding but is simply another futile attempt to legitimize Israel in the eyes of the Arab world and Muslim-majority countries. Despite finding the entire notion rather silly, we’re not in principle opposed to any inter-faith initiatives between Muslims and Jews or any other religious groups, but such meetings should not be used to advance a sinister political agenda under the innocuous slogan of inter-faith meetings or dialogue. We would also expect, and hope, all religious groups, adherents of any moral tradition, and secular humanists to understand that recognizing Zionism as  a racist, illegitimate colonial project is the natural and obvious starting point for any constructive discussion of the struggle in Palestine.

Finally, Abdul-Rauf’s cynical attempt to manipulate religion is designed to promote normalization with Israel. Six decades after the illegitimate birth of the Zionist entity it has failed to gain acceptance among the surrounding Arab people, faces a growing international campaign of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions, and is increasingly being viewed as a pariah state. Despite his best effort, Abdul-Rauf’s disgraceful political stunt in Palestine will not help reverse this trend or halt the impending collapse of the Zionist project. For both moral and pragmatic reasons, there can never be peace with Zionism. Peace will prevail AFTER Zionism. The Zionist entity is doomed, the sooner it collapses the sooner we can build a peaceful and just Palestine.

Abdul Rauf’s call to take a pilgrimage to occupied Palestine comes as Israel continues a war on the Arab world it began in 1948.  It pursues a policy of ethnic cleansing in Palestine and still denies the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes. It occupies the Syrian Golan Heights, threatens Lebanon, and maintains a siege on 1.5 Million people in Gaza. It also continues to demolish homes, kidnap Palestinians, engage in extra-judicial assassinations, and incarcerates an entire population in open-air prisons.

For his shameless service to Israel and on behalf of anti-Zionists of all faiths, and the secular-minded alike, ikhras is pleased to award Imam Feisal Abdul-Rauf the Ikhras Shoe of the Month for this January 2012.

Every month Ikhras awards the Muntadhar Zaidi “Shoe of the month” to the House Arab or Muslim individual or organization whose behavior that month best exemplifies the behavior of what Malcolm X described, in the language of his own time, as the “house negro” (see video). The award is named in honor of the brave Iraqi journalist Muntadhar Zaidi who threw his shoes at the war criminal George W. Bush at a time House Arabs and Muslims were dining with him at the White House and inviting him to their mosques.  Arab dictators and puppets of the empire are also qualified to enter the shoe of the month competition based on their own subservience to U.S.-led global imperialism.  Contest guidelines prohibit any one individual or organization from winning the award more than 3 times a year. 

By Guest Writer and Ikhras friend Tammy Obeidallah* 

Arsalan Iftikhar, international human rights lawyer, former National Legal Director of CAIR and now author of a book entitled Islamic Pacifism, is yet another stooge making money off “humanizing” Muslims. It seems to be his sincere hope to convince colonial powers that Muslims really are peace-loving and don’t deserve to be obliterated. According to him, the “extremists” engaged in “terrorism” belong to a small minority who have “hijacked” Islam.

In an interview promoting his book, Iftikhar stated:

“The Arab Spring movements around North Africa and the Middle East are proving that only nonviolent democratic mobilization can help to overthrow dictators and autocrats who could never be overthrown otherwise using violent means. Ten years ago, if you had told any Middle East expert that both Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Gaddafi would both fall from power within the same calendar year, we probably would have laughed in your face.”

So Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Gaddafi were both removed from power through “nonviolent democratic mobilization.” Well, the Libyan rebels with automatic weapons may have been democratically mobilized, but they were certainly not “nonviolent.” Nor was the ensuing NATO massacre on Libyan civilians.  In Egypt over 800 people were killed by the security forces and some were forced to take up arms against local police stations in Port Said and other areas. Maybe the lack of thought preceding this statement should be let slide; however this glaring inaccuracy is a mere harbinger of the even more inane declarations appearing on Iftikhar’s website.

Iftikhar shamelessly throws Hamas in the same category with Ann Coulter and Dick Cheney, calling them “sinister warmongering dinosaurs.”  Yet when self-righteously recounting his participation in an interfaith commemoration of the September 11 attacks,touts the involvement of Washington Hebrew Congregation, the largest synagogue in Washington, D.C.  Ironically, one of the most influential groups within Washington Hebrew Congregation is the Israeli Engagement Committee, whose purpose is to promote the idea that “the security, vitality and improvement of the State of Israel and Jewish communities worldwide are essential to us as Jews and as Americans.” Furthermore, two members of Washington Hebrew Congregation, as part of the Israeli Engagement Committee, hosted a February 2011 presentation by the American Technion Society entitled “The CEOs and Inventers of Tomorrow.”   

The presentation included updates as to the group’s activities in assisting Israeli and US defense systems. One of the presenters served in the Israeli Air Force while another served in the IDF as part of an elite naval commando force. And D.C.-area Muslims allowed the adhan to sound from Washington Hebrew Congregation on the tenth anniversary of 9/11. While outwardly, the organization seemed to be made up of progressive Jews advocating tolerance vis-à-vis the treatment of Muslims in America, it adheres to a Zionist agenda common among Orthodox Jewish groups—with the exception of the Neturei Karta—as well as Evangelical Christians.

Evidently Arsalan Iftikhar and his ilk believe only in Islamic pacifism; otherwise it’s perfectly ok to hang out with the purveyors of destruction and oppression, provided it’s under the guise of an innocuous interfaith event. The justification for any act of resistance, armed or peaceful, should not be based on the faith of the person but rather on the moral right to defend oneself. In Palestine it is the Palestinians who are under occupation; whether that resistance is carried out by the Islamic Right, Christians or the Secular Left is irrelevant.

The Israeli occupation of Palestine, so integral to the mission of Washington Hebrew Congregation, created the necessity for Hamas and other resistance organizations. Dick Cheney, largely responsible for unleashing genocide on the Iraqi people, committed mass murder for profit. If Arsalan Iftikhar is too obtuse to understand the difference, just keep in mind this elitist, self-absorbed vacuum is focused more on flaunting his gadgets than on ground-level realities, as evidenced in this statement: 

“So alas, with my trusty black ThinkPad, white iPod earbuds and red Swinglinestapler, this evolved millennial version of Islamic Pacifism is officially introduced to our global community today.”

Pompously proclaiming himself a Muslim Gandhi with the audacity to invoke Malcolm X, Iftikhar thinks he speaks for a billion Muslims worldwide. As if Mr. iPod can relate to people who risk their lives by crawling through tunnels just to smuggle in enough food to feed their families. Or to those stripped of everything and tortured indefinitely without trials in places such as Guantanamo Bay, Bagram Air Force Base and Abu Ghraib.

If you can’t speak out for victims of occupation, torture and genocide, at least don’t demonize those who choose to resist. If you want to spend time with people who desire more effective and efficient means with which to oppress them, at least don’t brag about it. Just ikhras.

* Ikhras friend and guest contributor Tammy Obeidallah was born and raised in the suburbs of Dayton, Ohio. She graduated from Eastern New Mexico University, earning a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science. She has traveled to 45 countries including Palestine, Egypt, Morocco, Syria and Pakistan and lived for over a year in Amman, Jordan.

He is absolutely horrible. I told you that I enrolled (that is the best way I can explain it) in one of his Arab American seminars in 2006 while I was surveying students for my dissertation research. I thought I would be enlightened. After 4 days of the 5 day seminar, I ditched it. Luckily, one of my cousins lived nearby to DC in Chevy Chase, Maryland. When he heard I was attending this seminar, he chastized me, how on earth I would sign up for it. At the time, I was trying to secure funding for my PhD research on a cutting edge topic on  Arab American and Muslim American students in higher education–amidst the post-9/11 backlash no scholar even the ones that are regular posters on… [name removed by editor] …were surveying Arab and Muslim American students’ attitudes or holding focus groups–both I did– on what the campus climate was like post 9/11. After applying to traditional foundations that extend funds designated for dissertation fellowships, i.e. Spencer, Mellon, I thought maybe Ibish! would know of other foundations. He exhibited no interest in an Arab American scholar doing worthwhile education research only on listening to his palaver. In an email correspondence with Norman Finkelstein, I related to him that I was in a 5 day seminar with Ibish, it is comical what he said “there should be a statute of limitation in having to sit through such a seminar with Ibish”. First of all, having lived in Gaza for 3 to 4 months in Spring 2010 and 2011 I know more than I did back when I attended Ibish’s seminar. But, I was equally knowledgeable on Arab American immigration, racism, and Islamophobia. Ibish absolutely went nuts when I upstaged him on his session regarding these specific topics. I was not being a show off I felt he omitted some points. Although I was not expecting the conference to pay for my dinners, as a generous lunch was given. But in our first dinner in DC Ibish invited us. He drank like a fish, which I don’t care I drink too, but I don’t expect those present to pay for my indulgences. I asked Ibish for my part of the bill (I did not drink that night), and he threw out to all of us seminarees to each pay a certain dollar amount. I asked him twice can I see the bill. He is a piece of work.

Follow up: Forgot to mention the upshot of trying to find a foundation to fund my dissertation research was finally granted by the USC Graduate School.  So in the end I did not suffer from Ibish’s lack of knowledge of how to pursue funding for my dissertation. Connections like Ibish I didn’t need.

Hussein Ibish

Ibish has not hesitated to make anti-Arab racist comments in the past like this one  directed against Iraqis for which he hasn’t apologized. Ibish, like all the Arabs and Muslims in this country that consider their conditional acceptance by the white man to be an affirmation of their civility and humanity, adopts and internalizes the same racist political culture in which he (and others) seek to immerse themselves as a means to achieving their cherished acceptance and approval. One of the most obvious manifestations of this behavior is their embrace of the same discourse that dehumanizes not only Arab rulers, but groups with broad popular following.

This can be seen by comparing the language, descriptions, and tone with which these Arab-Americans discuss someone like Mouamar Qadhafi with their language, descriptions, and attitude when speaking of US Presidents like George W. Bush. This is not to defend any Arab ruler, but the dehumanization of Arab rulers is part of a broader dehumanization of an entire Arab culture.  War criminals and mass murderers like Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, or Dick Cheney are always treated with deference by the establishment Arabs. Even those Arabs that ostensibly criticize their war crimes maintain all criticism within the bounds of permissible criticism and always with the utmost respect.  War criminals are not only treated with deference but get invited to address galas as keynote speakers. Ibish’s ATFP invited Tony Blair, (watch this ikhras video of the empty-tuxedo Ziad Asali introducing him), Condoleezza Rice and Gen. James Jones as keynote speakers at their annual flagship event.  In his ongoing efforts to undermine the struggle for Palestinian rights Ibish routinely invokes stale and disingenuous arguments about International law yet if we lived in a world governed by laws all the keynote speakers at the ATFP galas would be sitting in jail.

Those who would deny the dehumanization of rulers and groups in the Arab world is part of a broader dehumanization of Arabs and Arab culture should remember anti-American dictators and groups in other parts of the world are never denigrated and dehumanized in the same fashion as Arabs.  One only needs to look at the contrast between Western officials’ past descriptions of Eric Honeker, Gustav Husak, and Nicolae Ceaușescu with their descriptions of Qadhafi, Saddam Hussein, or Bashar Assad.  We can also compare the language used to describe HAMAS and Hizballah with that used to describe non-Arab, non-Muslim armed groups which have been designated as “terrorist organizations” like the IRA or ETA.   Again, this is not to defend any Arab ruler, regime, or group but to highlight that the stark contrast in language is part of a broader dehumanization of an entire people and culture.

This same mentality and language when adopted by the likes of Ibish often becomes even more striking and openly racist than the original version.  Ibish not only harshly condemns all real and American-fabricated crimes about Arab rulers, but he also makes it a habit to denigrate, mock, and ridicule any Arab or Muslim ruler or leader not approved by the US government.  Pro-Washington Arab tyrants, of course, are never criticized, and their Ambassadors in Washington can also be found as “honored guests” at their galas, another manifestation of hypocrisy and racist double standards when it comes to the human rights of Arabs and Muslims.

The denigrating and condescending language also extends to political parties and groups with broad popular support in the Arab world. The HAMAS resistance organization in occupied Palestine is a perfect example. Part of Ibish’s assignment at the ATFP is to promote Salam Fayyad and the PA while maintaining a constant barrage of attacks on HAMAS. We don’t wish to get into internal Palestinian politics in this article, but would rather highlight the latest example of the racist language and mentality Ibish has internalized.

In a tweet about HAMAS Ibish described members of the organization as “a gang of repulsive imbeciles.”  Could anyone imagine Ibish referring to the war criminals he dines with as “imbeciles”, let alone “repulsive”?  Would Hussein refer to an American political party that enjoys the support of at least half the American people with such language? After the mass-murdering war criminal Bush invaded Iraq on instruction from his own god, over 55 million Americans voted for him: Would Ibish dare describe them as “repulsive imbeciles”? And we all remember how polite Ibish was during his “debate” with a Zionist settler fanatic. At one point, he even walked across the stage to hand him a bottle of water.

The issue here is not HAMAS, and although we recognize the legal and moral right of the Palestinian people to resist the Zionist colonial occupation, this recognition extends to all Palestinian resistance groups regardless of political persuasion or ideology. This is also not about any Arab tyrant (See Ikhras FAQs page #6 to learn where we stand on Arab regimes). What this is about is the dehumanization of the Arab people and culture evidenced by the language employed in discussing Arab politics and describing various Arab rulers, leaders, and groups. Ibish and the rest of the Arab-Americans that adopt this language are the truly repulsive imbeciles lacking all self-respect and dignity.

[Ikhras Note: Unsurprisingly alleged comedian Dean Obeidallah has failed to digest the irony of someone that launches a career as a nominal Muslim Arab on the far fringe of American pop culture dismissing the dedicated work of an American solidarity activist because she doesn't share an Arab-Islamic heritage.   Ethnicity is a chance of birth and religious persuasion is a personal choice.  You don’t have to be a Palestinian, an Arab, or a Muslim to recognize and be part of the struggle against Zionism and injustice in Palestine.  Our  universal human values should lead all of us to accept and promote a shared global responsibility for fighting against injustice, racism, ethnic cleansing, occupation, imperialism, and war wherever it may exist.  In this special guest submission ikhras friend Tammy Obeidallah shares her personal experience with Obeidallah and makes it clear that Palestine is not a punch line for aspiring American comedians, it is a morally compelling cause that has enlisted people of conscience from all backgrounds.] 

By: Tammy Obeidallah*

In May 2007, I was working as a staff writer for the Daily Advocate in Greenville, Ohio. While the newspaper is a small-town rag if there ever was one, it served as a forum to write as much about Palestine as possible to a largely conservative “Christian” Zionist community.

One day a message showed up in my inbox at the newspaper’s account from Dean Obeidallah. He had contacted me out of the blue, asking if we were related. I informed him my then father-in-law and his father were first cousins. He offered me free tickets to the upcoming Axis of Evil show in Cleveland, Ohio. Only vaguely familiar with his name at the time, I agreed to go.

Right away, I felt uncomfortable in the Starbucks-drinking audience, but stuck it out. The comedy was mediocre at best; in fact, the highlight of the evening was when Aron Kader called Dick Cheney’s hunting partner a filthy name. Afterward, the performers and several audience members, myself included, went to a nearby bowling alley. I started talking about Palestine, mistakenly thinking Obeidallah would be interested. He sat there drinking a glass of wine and responded with the occasional “wow, you really know a lot about the issues,” without further elaboration. He asked about my family and informed me that although his father was Muslim, he had chosen the Christian faith. This of course would be irrelevant to me, except that in recent television appearances, he has not only claimed Islam, but has promoted himself as an expert in the field, despite a recent exchange on Twitter in which he revealed his ignorance of the most basic tenets of Islam by stating Muslims worship Jesus and Mary. I spent the rest of my time that evening talking to a couple of Arab-American students about Palestine, Iraq and American foreign policy in general.

Since Obeidallah’s original query came to my inbox at the newspaper, it is probable he was hoping for some free publicity; not knowing the paper had a circulation of a mere 7,000 and not realizing the distance between Greenville and Cleveland. I never did do a write-up on the show and never heard from Obeidallah again, even after I e-mailed him urgently requesting he not support the presidential candidacy of then Senator Barack Obama, who early on showed he was no friend to Palestinians.  Coincidentally, I ran into a Dayton-based comedian who had performed along with Obeidallah in the Axis of Evil show that night. He informed me that from his experience, Obeidallah would never continue communicating with someone unless he thought they could do something for his “career.”

Obeidallah evidently considers his career and public image to be of utmost importance; therefore it is understandable why he would swiftly respond to any hint of criticism. However, he leaves himself wide open when he goes so far as to assume he is suddenly an authority on Islam, Palestine and Arab culture simply by virtue of being biologically half-Palestinian—and that, only after 9/11, as he has stated in numerous televised interviews. Still more unacceptable is that he would attack someone who has, all told, lived a couple years among Palestinian refugees in the Arab World; yet according to him, has no credibility for being the wrong ethnicity.

The diverse body standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people must reject divisive racial overtones. It is imperative that the community endorse those who can do an effective job of educating the broader population as to the devastating consequences imperialist foreign policies have had on Palestinians and Arab peoples enslaved by western-backed dictatorships. We must not let mainstream media—a government tool—choose spokespeople for us.

*Ikhras friend and guest contributor Tammy Obeidallah was born and raised in the suburbs of Dayton, Ohio. She graduated from Eastern New Mexico University, earning a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science. She has traveled to 45 countries including Palestine, Egypt, Morocco, Syria and Pakistan and lived for over a year in Amman, Jordan.

Ibish does not walk around in the West Bank. He spends his time burnishing the bottoms of the lords of Washington, but not by walking. The last time I saw him he was unable to look down and see his feet. The American Task Force for Palestine (ATFP) is to AIPAC and the Zionist establishment what the Washington Generals were to the old Harlem Globetrotters, winning six games and losing more than 13,000, according to Wikipedia. They were on the court to give the audience a feeling that the Globetrotters had some competition although everyone knew the outcome in advance. (Before black basketball players were accepted in the NBA, the Globetrotters offered the only postgraduate opportunities for black stars to make a living, such as it was, on the basketball court.)

Before Ibish was with the ATFP he worked for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) which invited Colin Powell to address its national convention during the first Gulf War (along with Michael Lerner!). When the SF Bay Area chapter complained about the speaker selection, Ibish threatened to suspend the chapter from the national organization. No major Arab-American organization has had a leader committed to justice for Palestine since former senator James Abourezk and attorney Abdeen Jabarah were at the ADC and that was a long, long time ago..

Jim Zogby, for founded the Arab American Inst. was once among that group until he decided to play the same game as Ibish, only in a more sophisticated way. It was Zogby who advised Rev. Jesse Jackson not to raise the issue of Palestinian statehood at the Democratic Convention in 1988–the year of the Intifada– despite the fact that resolutions supporting Palestinian statehood had been passed by seven state conventions. When I wrote a critical piece on him in the Middle East Labor Bulletin in the 90s, entitled, “If you can’t beat them, join them,” Zogby complained that I was being unfair and that he had to feed his family.

*Jeff Blankfort is a radio program producer with KZYX in Mendocino. He is a journalist and Jewish-American and has been a pro-Palestinian human rights activist since 1970. He was formerly the editor of the Middle East Labor Bulletin and co-founder of the Labor Committee of the Middle East. He was also a founding member of the November 29 Coalition on Palestine and the Palestine Solidarity Committee. He won a settlement from the Jewish Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in February 2002 for its vast illegal spying against him, as well as hundreds of other progressive social, political, labor and environmental organizations and thousands of individuals (including anti-Apartheid groups/activists).