HOW RAMADAN CAN SAVE GAZA!!

On Monday, more than a billion and a half Muslims worldwide started their fasting month of Ramadan, a month when Muslims unapologetically celebrate their traditions and religion.Through the years, Muslims in America have celebrated their holy month with family and friends, in community gatherings under tents, in restaurants and in mosques. Since the 9/11 tragedy, they’ve been in self-cultural exile. Living in America as a Muslim has been a challenging ride and a constant struggle, every day stumbling over the bumps of the Islamophobia landscape, racism and the MAGA version of domestic terrorism. Even so, Muslims have celebrated the holy month of Ramadan in Times Square in New York, the city most associated with the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Thousands of Muslims proudly descended on the iconic square to celebrate their tradition. They prayed the “Taraweeh” Ramadan evening prayer surrounded by flashy, gigantic Madison Avenue billboard ads. Muslims also have gone mainstream here in Minneapolis, with the call for prayer (adhan) now allowed to be broadcast from speakers from mosques, bringing the community together to pray freely. This Ramadan, however, comes under a cloud — the slaughtering of Palestinians in Gaza. For more than five months now, the people of Gaza have been enduring constant bombing, ethnic cleansing, massacres, disease, hunger and starvation masterminded by the Israeli armies and by its Western allies, especially the Americans, providing the weapons, ammunition and political coverage. The people of Gaza are trapped among a Zionist racist ideology establishing a jewish state that is trying to behead a nation of natives, and a Western world that is accomplice to the slaughter, and an Arab Zionist leaders that are sitting on the sideline waiting for the Israeli to finish the job and finish Hamas. However, these brutalities and human travesty didn’t stop the people in Gaza from celebrating their Ramadan traditions. If the world has abandoned the Palestinians, Ramadan traditions could help them to raise their spirits, to survive.
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ISRAEL, FROM A WATCHDOG TO A MAD DOG!!

The Palestinian majority at the time was 95%; however, according to Belfour’s declaration, the Palestinians were called the non-Jewish people, and according to the racist Zionist ideology, they didn’t even exist; with the myth, the Jews, people without land were given land without people, the Palestinians, according to the Western racist ideology, then and now.

I grew up in a small village in the heart of the delta in Egypt, Meet Swaid; my town has only one street, mosque, cemetery, river, and elementary school. The village students had to go to the city a few miles away for middle school. We walk to the train station every morning to go to city school. Every morning, the village dogs follow us to the train station. As the slow train takes off, going through the skinny railroad in the middle of the fields, the dogs start chasing the train, barking and racing to catch it, once they catch up with the train, the dogs look at each other, confused, not knowing what to do; they could not jump on the train, bite the train, or even take selfies for memories; they were not selfish then. The dogs stop, turn around, and slowly walk back to the village, disappointed and tired. Everyone on the train laughs at the village dogs who chased and caught the train but couldn’t do anything with it.

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WHY IS A NORTHERN IOWA TOWN NAMED FOR AN ARAB/MUSLIM HERO?

Why is a northern Iowa town named for an Arab/Muslim hero?

There are almost 20,000 cities incorporated in the United States. Elkader, Iowa, may be the only city in America named after an Arab Muslim.

Emir Abdelkader was a young Algerian hero who fought French settlers for almost 20 years in the mid-19th century. How did a small town in the northeast corner of Iowa get a name like Elkader, a name that in the post-9/11, post-Trump era could get you kicked off a flight? I have a friend who, after 9/11, changed his name from El-Kader to Randy to avoid trouble at the airport and the hassle of spelling it out every time he orders coffee at Starbucks.

The tale of Elkader, the farm town, started in 1845 when a British settler, Timothy Davis, was looking for a site for a new settlement along the Turkey River. Davis had learned the story of Emir Abdelkader in an American newspaper, which was sympathetic to the Algerian revolt against colonial rule. So Davis named his new town Elkader.

More than 170 years later (last month), Art in the Park, an annual art festival in Elkader, revealed for the first time Emir Abdelkader’s sculpture. While some Americans tear down old historical statues for their dark, criminal, racist histories, here in Elkader, Iowa, they’ve just erected a statue of a Muslim hero for his humanity and tolerance.

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