New Book by Hussein Ibish debunks myth of "one-state" agenda

Scholar and media pundit Hussein Ibish, one of the nation's leading champions of Palestinian rights, has published a new book called  "What's Wrong with the One-State Agenda?" The book, available for only $10 from the American Task Force on Palestine and free as an eBook download, details why the "one-state" agenda is designed to prevent peace and undermine the Palestinian national drive to establish a national homeland and state in Palestine.

Ibish, who writes a popular web blog at www.IbishBlog.com, argues with reason and common-sense to expose the fraud of the "one-state agenda" which in its fundamental premise actually weakens the battle against the Israeli occupation. The one-state agenda essentially assumes that Jews, Christians and Muslims can go back to a 1920's scenario where everyone lives together as equals, assuming that Israelis -- who have refused to return land or dismantle settlements, will simply extend "equal rights" to non-Jewish citizens.

The one-state agenda actually negates the suffering of Palestinians under Israel's oppressive military rule and ignores the decades of discrimination against so-called Arab Israeli "citizens," pretending as if those denials of rights ever existed.

Ibish discusses his precedent-setting book which advances the only solution to the conflict, creating a "two-state solution," during an interview on my national radio show (Radio Baladi).

Click hear to listen to the podcast of the interview.

Ibish argues that the one-state agenda relies on a fallacy that a one-state reality already exists, and that Arab population growth threatens to impose a one-state reality on Israel. In fact, the population growth has not threatened Israel's anti-Arab policies at all and in fact are leading to a situation where issues of apartheid-like scenarios have become more and more common practice.

Ibish also discusses the powerful agenda that President Barack Obama is pursuing which has taken the push for a Palestinian state durther than any other American president. Obama's speech to the United Nations (and past speeches including the speech to the Muslim World) have put enormous pressure on Israel's government, which has resisted peace.

Of course, the Palestine-Israel conflict is troubled by years of pain and suffering and that pain and suffering has been exploited by activists who argue calls to continued conflict and non-solutions like the one-state agenda. It's difficult for some to accept the reality of the only choice left to them, two states -- the majority of Palestinians support the Two-State Solution, although the one-state activists continue to exploit the suffering and fan the flames of rejection.

Ibish's book re-sets the fundamentals of Palestinian reality and helps those who desire the creation of a Palestinian State to actually see the possibility of it being achieved. It definitively exposes the flaws in the one-state agenda argument, revealing am agenda that will only mean more and more suffering for Palestinians who have suffered more than any people deserve.

It's time to end the conflict and create two-states and allow Palestinians to begin the process of nation-building and national salvation. The only way to do that is through the Two-State Solution which has found a powerful advocate in President Barack Obama.

-- Ray Hanania
www.RadioChicagoland.com

New documentary premiers on images and perceptions of ethnics in the news

With race and gender as her main interests of study, Geri Alumit Zeldes , an assistant professor in the School of Journalism at Michigan State University, is in the process of completing her first documentary on these very topics.

Called “Arabs, Jews, and the News,” the 30-minute film explores the often times tense relationship between the Arab and Jewish communities of both the Middle East and metro Detroit since the July 2006 war in Lebanon, and how the media have represented them.

“I’ve always been interested in how the media portrays people of color, because the media, as we know, is very powerful,” she said.

After almost two and a half years of working on the documentary, she recently entered it into several film festivals. It will premiere on MSU’s campus at 7:30 p.m., Sept. 21 in Room 147 of the Communication Arts and Sciences building.

“It’s always exciting to work so hard on something and it’s so exciting to share it with other people,” she said.

Alumit Zeldes will teach a new course this fall called “Reporting on Islam,” and will launch a Web site this spring called IMAJE, which stands for Islam, Muslims and Journalism Education.

For more information on the documentary “Arabs, Jews, and the News,” visitwww.arabsjewsnews.org/.

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Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People by Jack A. Shaheen

Author Jack Shaheen has been studying the impact of Hollywood on ethnicity and race for decades and his latest softcover book, "Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People" by Olive Branch Press is a comprehensive examination of the incidents of that impact. It is a Roger Ebert volume of every movie and film ever made and a short description of the films themselves, describing the impact, positive or negative, on the actuality of the Arab image. This huge collection of 574 pages covers every film from A to Z in essential detail with a powerful introduction.

Every Arab American understands the hate inspired against their culture from Hollywood films, some unintentionally and others by such notorious Arab haters as Canon Films (Golan-Globus) which is given a separate chapter entry, have vilified a people in the most vicious form of hate that in most countries is today a violation of existing laws. But hatred of Arabs is tolerated and is an industry in Hollywood, where hate is a common commodity. Films by notorious anti-Arab haters as Chuck Norris distort the reality that Americans have never had a chance to know the truth about the Arab World. The feeding of that vicious stereotype by Hollywood producers bent on political and selfish motives has perpetrated ignorance and misunderstanding that in many ways has laid the foundation for today's conflict, violence and terrorism.

Buy it from Amazon.com.