Washington Report, March 2006, pages 56-57

Southern California Chronicle

MPAC’s Fifth Annual Convention Examines “Our Role in America”

By Pat and Samir Twair

ROLES Muslims can play in American society and politics were explored by a series of panels at the fifth annual convention of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) Dec. 17 in the Long Beach Convention Center.

A workshop entitled “Confronting Sectarian Division” was moderated by Dr. Nayyer Ali, and included panelists Dr. Mayer Hathout, spokesman forthe Islamic Center of Southern California, Zahir Janmohamed, founder of the Qanoot Foundation, and Sayed Moustafa Qazwini, director of the Islamic Educational Center of Orange County, based in Irvine.

Commented Sayed Qazwini: “God created diversity and didn’t want us to fight each other, but rather to coexist. The toughest challenge we face is not the PATRIOT Act nor Islamaphobia but sectarianism, the termite eroding Muslim unity.”

Saying he never thought suicide bombers would attack mosques, funerals and marketplaces in Pakistan and Iraq as is happening today, the Iraqi-born cleric condemned the passivity of the silent majority as contributing to the growing division between Sunnis and Shi’i.

“Let us present here be pioneers of Muslim unity,” he urged.

Janmohamed discussed results of a 2004 survey he conducted. Relations are good between Sunnis and Shi’i in Southern California, he said, but not in Washington, DC and New Jersey. “Even from a year ago, the situation is worsening for Shi’i,” he concluded, noting the need for more dialogue and surveys.

The new name for children of Sunni and Shi’i parents is “Sushi,” noted Dr. Hathout. He concurred that it is criminal for Iraqis to remain silent about the sectarian violence rocking their nation, and cited a verse from the Qur’an which says that whoever kills a Muslim is condemned.

“Somehow these bombers think their victims are not true Muslims,” he lamented. “We must stop analyzing what a Muslim is and recognize our similarities.”

All agreed that members of Sunni and Shi’i mosques should visit each other’s place of worship.

Mockbul Ali and Waqqas Khan, two British panelists scheduled to speak on “Comparing the American and European Muslim Communities,” were detained by Homeland Security officials at Los Angeles International Airport and were unable to participate in the convention. Ali is Islamic issues adviser to the Islamic World Group of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom. Khan is president of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies in the UK.

More than 500 guests turned out for the fund-raising banquet at which Ambassador Joe Wilson was the keynote speaker. The former envoy to Iraq during the 1991 Gulf war is the author of The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies That Led to War and Betrayed My Wife’s CIA Identity (available from the AET Book Club). His wife, Valerie Plame, is the first American spy to be outed by her own government, noted Wilson, who served in the U.S. diplomatic corps for 23 years, before retiring in 1998.

“The United States should be respected for its freedoms of assembly, the press and religion, and not remembered for photos of abused prisoners at Abu Ghraib,” he stated. “Our country can do better. It gives me no great pleasure to now be seen as an enemy of my own government.”

On the role of U.S. troops in the war in Iraq, Wilson declared: “Our contract with our armed forces is not to send them to war unless our national security is truly threatened.”

While George W. Bush used Iraqi weapons of mass destruction as a reason to go to war, Wilson said the president could have unseated Saddam Hussain for being in violation of the Genocide Convention.

“The Genocide Convention was the reason we went after Slobodan Milosevic in Bosnia,” he pointed out.

The consequences of starting a war without valid reasons are threefold, Wilson continued: American lives are lost; American troops are killing innocents; and America’s good standing in the world is hemorrhaging.

The former diplomat called for the Bush administration to stop putting Americans needlessly in harm’s way, to invite other nations to enforce the political solution in Iraq, and to convince Israel it will not be signing its death warrant if it makes compromises with the Palestinians.

“We must hold our government to account for what it says and does,” Wilson concluded. “If we go to war, we must stand by the facts. It is a citizen’s civic duty to hold his or her government to account.”

When the Washington Report spoke with Wilson after his talk, he asked rhetorically, “Is our government based on the Book of Revelation or the Constitution of the U.S.?”

ACLU Honors Wally and Suzanne Marks

Honorees at the Dec. 12 Southern California American Civil Liberties Union Bill of Rights dinner were Wally and Suzanne Marks, who spare no efforts to make Americans aware of the hardships Palestinians endure under Israeli military occupation.

Celebrities and politicians filled the Grand Ballroom of the Beverly Regent Hotel for the gala emceed by Jamie Lee Curtis and Christopher Guest.

In accepting the Eason Monroe Courageous Advocate award, Wally stated: “Suzy and I have made a commitment to fund two positions—one with the Progressive Jewish Alliance, whose executive director, Daniel Sokatch, is here, and the other with the Muslim Public Affairs Council, whose executive director, Salam al-Marayati, is here as well. The goal of our project is to foster positive and meaningful relations between participants of the Los Angeles and Orange County Muslim and Jewish communities. We hope to change perspectives with regard to Israeli and Palestinian issues such as fear, anti-Semitism and Islamaphobia, for these are the emotions at the core of each community’s reluctance to understand the perspective of the other.”

The ACLU presented its Freedom of the Press award to KTLK/Air America. Al Franken, who at the time was en route to the Middle East to entertain U.S. troops, addressed the crowd via a video message. The 84 radio stations carrying Air America aren’t promoting hatred, but humor, he said, adding, “Boy, do they [the Bush administration] give us material to talk about.”

Anglican Bishop-Elect of Jerusalem Visits L.A.

The Rev. Suhail Dawani, Anglican Bishop-elect of Jerusalem, paid a whirlwind visit to Los Angeles Dec. 6, meeting with the American Jewish Federation and addressing parishioners at the Cathedral Center in Echo Park.

The cleric sees the diminishing number of Christians in Palestine/Israel as his biggest challenge. There are only 5,000 Anglicans remaining in Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, he said. Noting that the community in Jordan is stable and very much connected, and that more than 1,000 parishioners live in Damascus, he warned that it is the Holy Land where numbers are dwindling.

In 1967, St. George’s Church in Ramallah had 600 members, but this has decreased by one-half, he said. A housing project was begun in Ramallah for young couples and it is succeeding.

Israel’s apartheid wall is a political, not a security, barrier, Rev. Dawani declared. Unemployment is as high as 65 percent on the West Bank, he said, where most of the people survive on food handouts. “If the Palestinians are forced to live in poverty, there can be no peace,” he averred. In an effort to stop tourism as an economic resource in Bethlehem, Reverend Dawani explained, the Israelis have encircled the city with its apartheid wall, with three fortress-like gates that all but suffocate entry and exit to the birthplace of Jesus.

Pat and Samir Twair are free-lance journalists based in Los Angeles.

SIDEBAR

Sawsan Abdin Kosi, Ph.D. (1955-2005)

Several hundred members of the Arab-American community gathered Oct. 15 for a memorial service in the Verdugo Hills Country Club for Sawsan Abdin Kosi, Ph.D.

The Damascus native was director of Point of Care at the University of Southern California and founded the Syrian American Women’s Association in 2000. She obtained her doctorate in public health care and management from LaVerne University.

With her husband, Dr. Mahmoud Kosi, she organized four trips in which American physicians traveled to Damascus to treat deaf children. From 2001 to 2004, 30 children underwent surgeries and another 200 youngsters received hearing aids and rehabilitation.

Plans are underway to name a rehabilitation center for the deaf in Damascus in her name. Her husband hopes to continue to arrange trips for medical teams to Syria as part of her legacy.—P.T.

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