Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July/August 1998, Pages 103-106

Muslim-American Activism

New Islamic Roof Organization Becomes American Muslim Political Coordination Council (AMPC)

The new roof organization for national Islamic political groups in North America, organized at the beginning of this year, was formally named the American Muslim Political Coordination Council (AMPC) at its first regular meeting held May 30 at the Islamic Center of Southern California in Los Angeles.

Present at the meeting were Dr. Agha Saeed, Dr. Shabbir Safdar and Abdul Kunbargi of the American Muslim Alliance (AMA); Dr. Yasmeen Khan of the American Muslim Caucus; Mujahid Ramadan of the American Muslim Council; Nasif Majid of the Coalition for Good Government (CFGG); Omar Ahmad and Nihad Awad of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR); Dr. Maher Hathout, Dr. Aslam Abdullah and Mr. Salam Al-Maryati of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC); and Ghazi Khankan of the National Council of Islamic Affairs (NCIA).

At the meeting, delegates discussed, amended and adopted by-laws for the organization, originally conceived as the Islamic equivalent of the the 52-member Council of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Delegates elected AMA secretary-general Dr. Agha Saeed as the first AMPC national coordinator.

They also agreed to set up an office and a salaried staff, independent of its constituent organizations, which initially will be established in Fremont, CA, which also is AMA national headquarters. The AMPC plans to issue its first newsletter in November, before the national elections.

An agenda adopted by the council at the meeting includes: 1) Creating a unified action plan. 2) Getting candidates elected who support the interests of the council. 3) Political education and empowerment. 4) Voter registration. 5) Lobbying. 6) Creating think tanks. 7) Defending civil and human rights of Muslims. 8) Articulation of strategies to counter anti-Muslim propaganda and activities. 9) Coalition building. 10) Strategic action on Al-Quds (Jerusalem) and other important Muslim issues.

—Richard H. Curtiss

Pakistani Physicians Have a “Day on the Hill”

Some 60 members of the Pakistani American Physicians Public Affairs Committee (PAK-PAC) converged on the national capital from all over the United States June 3 for a “Day on the Hill” organized by PAK-PAC president Akram Choudhrey and executive director Jim Bates.

Members of the group assembled for breakfast with several members of Congress, an orientation meeting with executive director Bates, who is a former House member from California, and then a series of morning and afternoon appointments with their representatives and senators. In all, nearly 40 members of Congress and another 30 congressional staff members were contacted.

The event was one of several 1998 election-year programs arranged by PAK-PAC to acquaint members of Congress with the concerns of Pakistani Americans, and to foster better U.S.-Pakistani relations. On April 23, a fund-raiser was organized in Washington, DC for Rep. Bob Livingston (R-LA), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and a top-ranking Republican.

“It is time to repeal the Pressler Amendment,” Livingston told the group. Describing Pakistan as a long-time U.S. ally, he reiterated his support for resolving the issue of $600 million owed to Pakistan for F-16 aircraft it has paid for but which it has not yet received. The event has hosted by Dr. Nasim Ashraf and attended by Dr. Waheed Akbar, Dr. Parvez Shah, Dr. Shahnaz Khan, Dr. Aleem Iqbal, Dr. Anees Ahsan and other prominent Pakistani Americans in the Washington, DC area.

Other PAK-PAC fund-raisers this year have included events hosted by Dr. Hussain Malek in Pennsylvania for Senators Rick Santorum and Arlen Specter; in Las Vegas by Drs. Ikram Khan and Javed Anwar for House minority whip David Bonior (D-MI); and in Michigan by Dr. Raana Akbar for Republican congressional candidate Leslie Tooma (an Arab American) who is challenging incumbent Rep. Sandy Levin (D-MI).

In Connecticut, Dr. Arif Toor, PAK-PAC secretary-treasurer, invited Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-NY) and other regional African-American leaders to his home to meet other members of the Pakistani-American physicans group. Representative Towns, past chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, co-sponsored House Resolution 162 calling for resolution of the Kashmir dispute.

With the heightened awareness of Kashmir and other major unsolved South Asian problems that has followed nuclear testing by India and Pakistan, Bates is planning additional visits to Congress by other PAK- PAC groups prior to the congressional recess.

—Richard H. Curtiss

American Muslim Alliance Continues Phenomenal Growth

The American Muslim Alliance (AMA) has continued its phenomenal growth in 1998. On June 20 it opened its 72nd chapter in Houston, TX. In July it is scheduled to open a 73rd chapter in Orange County, CA on July 10; a 74th chapter in New Jersey on July 11; and a 75th chapter in San Francisco on July 12. The following weekend it will open a 76th chapter in San Jose, CA on July 19.

The AMA is a grassroots membership political action organization that does not charter a chapter until the chapter has at least 30 active, paid-up members. As chapters continue to increase in size, they are encouraged to divide, following congressional district lines. Thus some of the new chapters cited above result from the division of existing chapters.

Predicting a very active summer, AMA founder Dr. Agha Saeed said he hopes that by the end of August, AMA will have 80 active chapters. Because of the increased level of support activity required from AMA’s headquarters office in Fremont California, which until this year had only one part-time employee, the office is being expanded to provide full-time staffing.

—Richard H. Curtiss

CAIR Holds Northern California Programs Commemorating Al-Nakba

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) hosted a series of Northern California programs in May commemorating 50 years of Palestinian dispossession. The series began with talks by executive editor Richard Curtiss of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs at four Northern California universities under sponsorship of CAIR and various student groups. Speaking at Santa Clara University, Stanford University, San Francisco State University and San Francisco City College on “Morality and American Middle East Policy,” Curtiss listed negative consequences of the $84.8 billion in U.S. financial support for Israel over the past 50 years. He described the tactics of Israeli lobbying organizations that have made possible this enormous amount of U.S. assistance, which exceeds the U.S. foreign aid supplied to all of the countries of sub-Sahara Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean combined. He also cited the unwillingness of the mainstream U.S. media to give the American public unbiased coverage of the Israeli-Arab dispute, and the resulting loss of American international crediblity, damage to U.S. businesses overseas, and danger to American diplomats, military personnel, and Americans working or traveling in the Middle East.

Curtiss quoted French traveler Alexis de Toquevlle’s prophetic warning of some 150 years ago that “America is great because America is good. When America ceases to be good it will cease to be great.”

At the end of the same week, on May 16, some 1,200 Muslims of all ethnic backgrounds attended a CAIR-organized program co-sponsored by some 20 Bay Area Islamic organizations held at the Islamic Center in Santa Clara. Entitled Al-Quds (Jerusalem) conference, it was designed to acquaint Muslims with what they should know about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Speakers included four prominent Bay Area Muslims. They were American Muslim Alliance secretary-general Dr. Agha Saeed; Abdel Malik Ali, amir of an Oakland (CA) mosque; Muslim activist Abdul Qadir Al Amin; and activist Hatem Bazian, a Ph.D. candiate at the University of California, Berkeley.

—Donna Bourne

“Palestine Day” In Chicago

Chicago Muslims continued their remembrance of Al-Nakba on May 17 as the Mosque Foundation of Chicago became the site for “Palestine Day,” organized by the IAP. The all-day outdoor event drew roughly 800 people who gathered under two big tents to hear speakers, eat Middle Eastern and South Asian food, and enjoy presentations of Palestinian folklore. One could have mistaken the event for a celebration, but there were grim reminders that “Palestine Day” was a day of somber remembrance.

The program, titled “Fifty Years Under Occupation,” began just before noon. After recitations from the Holy Qu’ran there were speeches in Arabic by community leaders and by Sheikh Wajdi Ghuname, a Palestinian living in Alexandria, Egypt, who spoke about the responsibilities of Muslims to Jerusalem and to Palestine. Then Washington Report on Middle East Affairs executive editor Richard Curtiss spoke about American policy toward Israel. After the speeches, there were performances by the renowned Al-Nujoum Band.

Adjacent to the tents that held the main activities was “The Palestinian Corner,” a tent that displayed all aspects of life within Palestine. At the approach to the tent was a model of an Israeli checkpoint similar to those in the West Bank and Gaza. The center of the tent featured a replica of the sacred Dome of the Rock. Dummies representing martyrs were sprawled around the structure as a memorial to those who have fallen for the cause.

Visitors also saw a facsimile of an Israeli torture chamber. Inside was a dummy illustrating how prisoners are tied into painful positions for long periods, with its hands tied behind a chair and a musty burlap sack over its head. To the right of the torture chamber were lists of massacres committed by the Israelis and the number of people slaughtered at their hands. On the other side of the tent was a well-prepared exhibit of the typical things found in a Palestinian home, including furnishings, clothing, food and knickknacks.

The night ended with a big-screen projector displaying every village that was seized in 1948 by the Zionists. The crowd watched, some in tears, as each village was presented. Some were familiar only to those who actually lived there. As most of the Western world celebrated Israel’s “independence,” those who participated in activities held by the Islamic Association for Palestine mourned, and promised never to forget the occupation of Palestine.

—Raeed N. Tayeh and Aminah Salah

Following Atomic Testing, MPAC Leader Outlines Qur’anic Safeguards

“With nuclear testing in India and Pakistan, a new era has begun in the world,” according to Dr. Maher Hathout of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. “For the first time we have nuclear arms in two countries with a common border.”

Dr. Hathout made his comments before a National Press Club audience on June 18, as part of a series of meetings he held that day with members of Congress and at the White House, marking the opening of a Washington, DC office by the Muslim Public Affairs Council, headquartered in Los Angeles.

Confining his prepared remarks to the implications of a nuclear arms race in South Asia, Dr. Hathout noted that part of the common border between Pakistan and India runs through Kashmir, “where several million Muslims are suffering and where U.N. resolutions have not been heeded. So we definitely have the elements of a confrontation.”

“In this case, sanctions won’t work,” the Egyptian-born physician and Muslim community leader said. Noting that the only place they have worked is in Iraq, where the resulting devastation and death among civilians is deplored by world public opinion, Dr. Hathout said the powers that impose sanctions “are terribly lacking in credibility.”

“If we look at what will work, I think that a very important factor is religion,” he said. “In the area it shapes public opinion to a very great extent. On the Indian side I hope there will be some religious soul-searching, too. But what I am talking about is Islam.”

Dr. Hathout said that “there is no lack of textual direction in the Qur’an to make peace.” In fact, he noted, “In Islam there are rules of engagement.”

Number one is that fighting should be against combatants only. Number two is that mass destruction is prohibited. There must be no harming of the environment and no harming of generations to come. Number three is that no one or no group should take credit, or blame, for the actions of another.

This, Dr. Hathout explained, must also be applied to generations, meaning that people cannot be made to suffer for what their parents or forefathers have done in the past, nor should future generations be imperiled by actions in the present. And, fourth, the sanctity of human life is more important than land.

“Therefore, if we look to nuclear arms, we can easily conclude that any detonation directed toward people will violate the rules of engagement in the Qur’an,” Dr. Hathout explained. Further, “a nuclear detonation definitely destroys plants,” he pointed out, and “a nuclear detonation definitely destroys homes.” He noted also that nuclear weapons cause mutations “that will affect future generations.”

Anything that increases the mutation rate affects “generations to be born, which also have rights,” he explained. “These issues are very important in Islam and if we have an explosion we are hitting directly at the heart of it.”

Noting that all of these religious factors rule out the use of nuclear weapons by Pakistan or other Islamic countries except as a deterrent or in self-defense, Dr. Hathout noted that 149 nations have signed the non-proliferation agreement that Pakistan has said it will sign when India signs, too.

However, he continued, “Kashmir is a time bomb, and now it is a nuclear time bomb. Now people should care. The Kashmir issue should be addressed at full power and full speed. Representatives of the Kashmiri people who are elected legitimately should emerge as players at the table for the Kashmiri people.

“Nuclear war and nuclear danger is against the letter and the law and the spirit of Islam,” Dr. Hathout continued. “We are much closer to danger than we were before. Therefore the United States should take bold steps. When partition took place, Kashmir was declared disputed territory. But it has not been treated in this manner and the people have been subjected to a series of atrocities. Kashmir should have a high priority in American foreign policy.”

In response to questions from the journalists present, Dr. Hathout noted that there are 125 million Muslims in India, and that Muslims everywhere “condemn any act of violence against civilians anywhere, including in Israel or Lebanon, because it is contrary to the rules of engagement in the Qur’an.”

Asked by a journalist to address the problem of water shortages in the Middle East, Dr. Hathout said that “the next point of friction that can lead to drastic confrontation is water—water is a very hot issue with the potential to explode.”

—Richard H. Curtiss

IAAP Organizes New York Commemoration of 50 years of Palestinian Dispossession.

The first major activity of the newly organized Islamic American Alliance for Palestine was an evening program commemorating the 50th anniversary of the dispossession of Palestinians held May 24 at Brooklyn College in New York City. The program, co-sponsored by 13 Muslim organizations in North America, lasted for seven hours, during which participants listened to Muslim speakers from the United States, Canada, Jordan, and Egypt; viewed an exhibit of the photos of Jerusalem photographer Khalid Zaghari, and enjoyed Islamic and Palestinian national songs performed by al-Nujoum Band.

Dr. Amer al-Shawa, president of the Islamic Association for Palestine in North America (IAP), discussed the religious significance of Palestine to Muslims, referring to Prophet Muhammad’s teachings. Al-Shawa also introduced the new book Palestine, Whose Land Is It? published by the IAP as part of a larger IAP project to establish a curriculum on the Palestinian issue for Palestinian youth.

Dr. al-Shawa also encouraged the audience to read the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. “Though it does not have an Islamic background,” he said, “the WRMEA is rich in information that every Muslim should know.” Al-Shawa also congratulated organizers of the conference, whom he described as Muslims, Arabs, and Palestinians standing up to their responsibilities toward Palestine

Sheikh Abdallah Idris from Canada focused on the importance of unity among Muslims. He called upon Muslims to stand together against the injustice that is happening in Palestine. The first of its type in New York, the conference attracted more than a thousand people of different ethnicities.

Ahmad al-Khatib of the National Muslim Merchants Association, a co-sponsor of the program, praised both the turnout and the spirit of the conference. “It is a duty for Muslims to wake up and do something about the situation in Palestine,” he said. Asked by the Washington Report why there was not a larger media turnout for such a large gathering, he said that the media do not always respond to requests by Muslims for coverage. “There is a certain group of people who control the media, and they definitely do not want to relay our message,” he added.

Dr. Muhammad Shurouf, head of the New York chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), another co-sponsor of the event, said “one of the core Muslim issues is Palestine and the struggle that is going on there.”

Dr. Abdul Qudous Muhammad, director of the Muslim Foundation in America, which has organized annual Muslim parades since 1996, said that the conference shows that 50 years of Israeli independence has meant 50 years of occupation, persecution, and suffering for the Palestinians.

Ra’ed Zaghari, organizer of the exhibit of the photos of his brother, Khalid Zaghari, said that although the conference served as a crucial step in politically mobilizing the New York Muslim community, “it is more important to follow up and focus on other critical issues like the Senate and House elections.” (Khalid Zaghari’s photos included the picture of a small Palestinian boy crying on the ruins of his house after it was demolished by Israeli soldiers which was used on the cover of the December 1997 Washington Report, and which also was used as a poster at 50th anniversary observances all over the United States.)

The Islamic American Alliance for Palestine will continue to organize other activities, among which will be a parade for Palestine to be held in New York this September.

—Raja’ M. Abu-Jabr

New York AMA Chapters Endorsing Political Candidates

The American Muslim Alliance organized a fund-raising dinner for New York Senate candidate Morshed Alam (pictured at left) at the Islamic Center of Long Island on June 6. Mr. Alam, currently a member of the New York City school board and a champion of immigrant rights, is the Democratic candidate for the State Senate seat in Queens, NY. The committee to elect Morshed Alam comprises a spectrum of immigrants. Its chairman is Arthur Rojas, a Colombian immigrant, and it includes representatives from the Indian, Bangladeshi, Guyanese, Chinese and Jewish communities. For more information contact Mr. Rojas at (718) 465-0432.

On May 31 the New York State chapter of the American Muslim Alliance hosted New York State Comptroller H. Carl McCall, who is seeking re-election. In a lively question-and-answer session with AMA members, Mr. McCall described his experiences as an African American in this elected position. He emphasized the need for New York’s ethnic and religious communities to get involved in the political process, and the importance of getting to know politicians and holding them responsible for their actions, particularly at the local level.

—Farogue Khan

Chicago Muslims Remember Al-Nakba

The Chicago chapter of the Islamic Association for Palestine remembered the 50 years of Palestinian dispossession by sponsoring a May 15 rally in downtown Chicago and by converging on the grounds of a local mosque May 17 for “Palestine Day.”

The rally was started with Friday Jum’a prayers led by the outgoing national president of the IAP and current head of the Chicago chapter, Rafeeq Jaber. During his khutba (sermon) Mr. Jaber stressed the importance of Palestine for all Muslims. He also called on all lovers of peace and justice, regardless of faith or race, to support the Palestinians in their struggle for freedom.

The rally drew about 1,000 supporters to Daley Center which is directly across from City Hall. Of these, 418 demonstrators each held a black helium-filled balloon and a sign with the name of a different village that was destroyed in 1948 by the Zionists.

Young children lined the sidewalks carrying large posters for passersby to read with slogans like “Peace for Palestine” and “Free Palestine Now.” Pedestrians seemed most interested in the signs that suggested what the United States government could do for Americans here at home with the millions of dollars it gives to Israel every day.

Anas Othman, a student at Northwestern University, who had participated in a rally at the university the night before, enlightened the downtown crowd about the falsehoods of Zionism.

“How can Zionists claim that their cause is religious when Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern political Zionism, admitted to being an agnostic?” Othman asked.

Toward the end of the rally, the names of each of the 418 Palestinian villages that were destroyed in and after 1948 were read out as people in the crowd released their black balloons, one section at a time. It was a very emotional experience for many of the survivors of the 1948 war who were made permanent refugees by the terror campaign waged against them in Palestine 50 years ago.

Although the rally was intended to remember a “catastrophe,” it ended on a strong note with the hope that the youth of today will not be commemorating a century of occupation 50 years from now.

—Raeed N. Tayeh and Aminah Salah