Ten Thousand Muslims Attend Three Los Angeles-Area Eid Services

By Pat and Samir Twair

For the second consecutive year, the Los Angeles City Council approved a motion to support the multicultural segment of the Eid al-Fitr celebration of the Southern California Muslim community at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The Islamic Center of Southern California paid a rental fee for use of the center for the Eid prayer service, but the city paid for the nonreligious portion of the annual event. Invitations were extended to more than 700 interfaith and civic activists for the multicultural observance. Displays included contributions from Yemen, Chechnya, Bosnia, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. City Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg was on hand to address her Muslim constituents.

Nearly 6,000 Muslims gathered at the Convention Center for the March 3 service marking the close of the fasting month of Ramadan. The number was down from 10,000 the year before because approximately 2,000 prayed at the newly opened Omar al-Kassam mosque near the University of Southern California campus and another 2,000 attended services at the new Islamic Center of Northridge.

A videotaped message of congratulations from President Bill Clinton was screened at services throughout southern California. "On this occasion for reflection, let us all rededicate ourselves not only to individual peace and spiritual growth, but also to the cause of peace between all the peoples of the earth," the president enjoined. "Through such devotion we truly can build a new and better future based on cooperation, understanding and mutual respect."

Likud's 'Pit Bull' Olmert speaks in L.A.

At a luncheon talk to several hundred members of the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, Jerusalem's Mayor Ehud Olmert lived up to his billing as "the pit bull of Israel's right-wing Likud party." He also made it clear the mission of his visit was to stress the indivisibility of Jerusalem.

While acknowledging that Jerusalem is important for Muslims and Christians, as well as Jews, he said that the Muslims and Christians had "purely and exclusively religious reasons" for making claims to the city. Jews, he said, also had political as well as religious reasons, making Jerusalem "the symbol of Jewish continuity as a people."

In fact, Olmert said, Muslims could have made Jerusalem their capital centuries ago, but didn't in deference to the status of Mecca. Instead, he said, Muslims at one time had made Ramallah their capital. Since Ramallah is a traditionally Christian town just north of Jerusalem, one puzzled guest inquired if he was implying Ramallah should be the capital of a Palestinian state.

"No," he said. "I was referring to the historical." Although he was speaking in English, something seemed to have been lost in translation.

Olmert also said Israel's "biggest commitment" is to protect religious freedom in Jerusalem. He pledged free access to their holy sites by members of the three Abrahamic religions. The people of Jerusalem shall live in "complete equity and justice," he exclaimed. The mayor also described elaborate plans for the city's 3,000th birthday in 1996, the same year the "final status" of Jerusalem is supposed to be put on the negotiating table under the Declaration of Principles of Peace.

Asked if the Likud Party would reverse the peace process if it wins the next election, Olmert declined to say. Instead he vowed security would be the highest consideration. In the event of Palestinian attacks on Israelis, Olmert said, there would be no restraints on "penetrating" Palestinian areas in search of "terrorists," nor would there be respect for boundaries.

As for the Israeli plan to build a fence to keep Palestinians from entering Israel, he said he would support it if it would keep Palestinians out. He scorned a query implying that Israel needed Palestinian workers or had an obligation to help them.

When asked about building corridors to Jerusalem so that Christians and Muslims living outside Israel could have access to the city, Olmert asked rhetorically: "Corridor, why a corridor? They have access now."

Pressured to explain further why there shouldn't be a corridor so that outsiders would not have to rely on the good will of the Israelis, Olmert once again baffled his audience by saying, "Well the Saudis come." Since Saudis have not visited East Jerusalem since it was occupied by Israel in the 1967 war, he left his audience still trying to interpret his remarks. He never made clear whether Palestinians living outside Jerusalem might again be granted the access presently denied even to Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza.

El Guindi Film at Festival

Anthropologist Fadwa El Guindi has completed her third ethnographic film, Ghurbal, which she took with her to Paris in mid-March for competition in the 1995 Ethnographic Film Festival at the Museum of Man. The film deals with the rural craft making of a sieve, ghurbal (from the Arabic gharbala meaning "to winnow"). The sieve traditionally was used to winnow grain, and is the symbol of a ceremony to "winnow" infants on the seventh day of their lives.

The 1995 film focuses on Na'ima, a craftswoman and owner of a frame shop, and Hoksha, the rural ghurbal craftsman. The viewer hears their life stories and observes the production of the ancient sieve. Hoksha tells how he kept this time-honored tradition alive by learning it as a child from his father, yet his son sits next to him making a modern flour sieve and acknowledging he has not learned the family tradition. Production of the ghurbal is traced from log cutting to making the frame and weaving animal skins for the instrument. This is El Guindi's first film in her Egyptian Ceremonial Crafts Series. She also has created El Sebou'and El Moulid for her Egyptian Celebration of Life Series

INS Official Admits "L.A. 8" Targeted

In a stunning Feb. 21 admission, the former district director of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service went on record in a court document acknowledging that the "L.A. 8" were "singled out for deportation" because of their alleged affiliation with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Ernest Gustafson who, as INS district director, signed the deportation-related orders in 1987 against the seven Palestinian men and a Kenyan woman, admitted the FBI had pressured him to authorize the action.

Gustafson, who retired in September 1989, stated in the document submitted by defense attorneys: "Based on my years of experience as an INS district director and my involvement with this case, it is my opinion that the eight individual plaintiffs were singled out for deportation because of their alleged political affiliation with the PFLP...Had it not been for those affiliations, the INS and the FBI probably would not have sought to deport these individuals."

David Cole, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights who is defending the eight, stated: "This evidence will ultimately be a linchpin in our claim of selective enforcement." He said the document proves U.S. authorities violated the constitutional rights of the eight by selectively enforcing immigration laws against them. Prosecutors never filed criminal charges against the eight, all of whom deny any involvement in terrorism.

Deportation orders have been served on Michel Shehadeh and Khader Hamide, who are permanent legal U.S. residents and parents of U.S. citizens. Another set of deportation orders alleged visa violations by the other six. The charges range from overstaying a visa to working without authorization and failing to carry sufficient college credits.

Gustafson further declared that such cases are rarely pursued by the Los Angeles INS office. He charged that since there were no criminal grounds for deporting Shehadeh and Hamide, the FBI alleged visa violations as a pretext to deport them. The case arose after the Los Angeles chapter of the B'nai B'rith's Anti-Defamation League alleged to the FBI that the eight were PFLP members.

Gustafson also described how prosecution of the ADL allegations strained relations between the INS and the FBI. He recalled that when, in September 1987, the FBI sent eight agents to his office to remove documents on the defendants, Gustafson refused entry to the FBI agents.

Pat and Samir Twair are free-lance writers from Southern California.