Arab

PHILADELPHIA -- Senators who want America to change course in Iraq should stop wasting their time on opposing the president's troop buildup. Whether or not we deploy a few thousand new troops to Baghdad won't make much difference. The only hope for creating decent conditions for a troop exit is shrewd regional diplomacy that prods Iraq's neighbors to help stabilize Baghdad. Thus far, the White House has rejected the diplomatic track - the main recommendation of the Iraq Study Group. Instead, the Bush team is intensifying its rhetoric against Iran, raising fears it will open a new military front against Tehran to distract from its troubles in Baghdad.

The clatter of hooves and clink of bells down a city street. The soulful voices proclaiming local cantaloupes and watermelons. For more than a century, Baltimore residents have associated these sounds with the street vendors they call "A-rabs," a long "A" followed by a short second syllable. But the name grates on the ears of some people of Arabic descent. "Arab-Americans like myself feel very strongly about this," said Bash Pharoan, the president of the local American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

The Pew Research Center recently issued what it called the first nationwide, random-sample survey of Muslim Americans and found them to be largely assimilated, happy with their lives and moderate with respect to many of the issues that have divided Muslims and Westerners around the world. Muslim Americans said that since the 9/11 attack, they found it has become difficult to be a Muslim in the United States and the government has singled out Muslims for increased surveillance. And almost half of them said they considered themselves Muslim first and Americans second.

JERUSALEM -- In the Magic Kingdom, Jerusalem is the capital of Israel -- which suits the Israelis, but not the Arabs.So the depiction of Jerusalem in the Israeli exhibit at Walt Disney Co.'s millennium celebration set to open in Florida Oct. 1 has Arab leaders and Arab-American and Muslim organizations calling for a boycott of Disney theme parks and products.Israel, which has contributed about a third of the at least $6 million cost of the exhibit, argues that the display is nonpolitical and portrays Jerusalem as the seat of the three great religions, Islam included.

MAALE ADUMIM, Occupied West Bank -- The Burger King in this Jewish settlement remained open for business yesterday, defiant in the face of a controversy that has bedeviled Middle East diplomacy for decades: Where are Israel's borders?On Thursday, the fast-food chain's corporate headquarters ordered the Burger King here to close because the franchise is for Israel and the restaurant is in the disputed former Arab territory that Israel has occupied since the end of the 1967 war.Israeli-American businessman Mishulam Riklis, the owner of the 46 Burger King restaurants in Israel, is taking legal action to make sure the Jewish settlement outlet remains open.

MUSCAT, Oman -- There once was a boy who was shunned by his wealthy and powerful father. He was sent to a foreign land to be educated. To support himself, he had to join a foreign army.When at last his father sent for him, the young man hurried home full of expectations -- only to learn he was to be kept out of sight.It was an unpromising beginning to an Arabian tale, but it has had a happy ending for the boy, now known as Sultan Kaboos ibn Said, supreme ruler of the Sultanate of Oman.There are few countries in the world that have come so far so fast under the rule of one man.At a time when many people think of the Middle East as unsafe, prone to violence, discriminatory toward women and minorities, chaotic and backward, Oman presents another picture.

IN THE United States, editorial cartooning is a dangerous profession -- for politicians. They suffer relentlessly at the sharp end of the cartoonist's pen. They see their faces distorted and their words ridiculed.Image consultants and spin doctors carefully construct a positive view of a politician, but a successful cartoonist can puncture that image with a few well-placed jabs of the nib. The American cartoonist enjoys a respected place in the local community. In much of the rest of the world, however, it is quite a different story.

WASHINGTON -- The resolution seemed innocuous enough.A bipartisan group of members of Congress, hoping to show goodwill to Arab-Americans and the nearly 5 million Muslims in the United States, sponsored a resolution condemning "anti-Muslim intolerance and discrimination."It called on Americans to acknowledge that "organizations that foster such intolerance create an atmosphere of hatred." Law enforcement agencies, it said, should avoid the sort of "rush to judgment" that followed the 1995 terrorist bombing in Oklahoma City, when Arab-Americans were initially singled out for suspicion.

JERUSALEM -- The new Miss Israel is a raven-haired beauty who works as a legal secretary.And she's an Arab.When a glittery, rhinestone crown was placed on the head of Rana Raslan at a Tel Aviv center Tuesday night, it was a first for the 1 million Israeli citizens of Arab descent. And Israel, a state of 4.8 million Jews, found itself with its first non-Jewish beauty queen in the 49 years of the beauty queen competition.Raslan, 21, is from Haifa, a northern Israeli city with a large Arab population.

WASHINGTON -- The travelers say they recognize it right away -- the suspicious questions, humiliating searches, hostile looks, inexplicably overbooked flights. Their offense, they say: Flying While Arab.When international airline disasters strike -- particularly involving Middle East travel, as the recent EgyptAir disaster did -- many Arab passengers say that flying anywhere on a U.S. carrier can become a dehumanizing ordeal.Just last week, an America West flight from Columbus, Ohio, to Phoenix was evacuated on a runway while two Saudi Arabian doctoral students were handcuffed and questioned for about three hours.

Monday's meeting between President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is critical for both nations. U.S.-Israeli relations are in danger of deteriorating to the lowest point since Dwight Eisenhower ordered Israeli troops to evacuate Sinai in 1956 - an event that contributed to the 1967 Six-Day War. The summit may define relations between these two democracies for the duration of the Obama administration and beyond. The White House seems to be intentionally slighting Israel in advance of the summit, even as it raises the stakes.

Founded on belief in the inherent dignity of everyone, Dignity Players begins its fifth season at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis continuing its mission of presenting plays that focus on social justice. This season's opening production of Arab-American playwright Yussef El Guidi's Back of the Throat illustrates the effects of the U.S. Patriot Act on Arab-American citizens. In this dark, sometimes comic drama examining post 9/11 attitudes toward Muslims, protagonist Arab-American writer Khaled is visited by two initially friendly but puzzling government officials, who become menacingly probing and later abusive toward an astonished Khaled, who discovers that he is the focus of a government inquiry into his alleged terrorist ties.

Push Israel to accept Arab peace initiative The article "Hamas acts to reassert control in Gaza" (Jan. 20) buried critically important information in the text that should have been in the headline: It reported that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia had warned Israel that a peace offer from 22 Arab countries that recognizes Israel's right to exist within its 1967 borders "will not always remain on the table." The initiative promises normalized diplomatic and economic relations with Israel in exchange for the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza along the borders that existed before 1967.

BAGHDAD - The Abdullah Restaurant was the kind of place Iraqis took their families on special occasions. It was the kind of place high-ranking officials in the northern city of Kirkuk chose for power lunches, where they dug into plates on tables covered with white cloth as water burbled from a decorative fountain. Yesterday, as families celebrated the Eid al-Adha holiday and Arab and Kurdish leaders talked reconciliation in the crowded dining room, it was the kind of place a suicide bomber decided was the perfect target.

Arab-Americans devoted to the nation Thank you for The Baltimore Sun's editorial applauding former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's courageous condemnation of Republican demagoguery against Arabs ("Decrying ethnic slander," Oct. 21). Sen. John McCain's inadequate response to a woman who recently complained she could not trust Sen. Barack Obama because "he is an Arab" was, "No, he is not an Arab; he is a decent family man." This implied that being a decent family man and being Arab are somehow mutually exclusive.

That's the question University of Maryland scholar and Brookings Institution fellow Shibley Telhami set out to answer through an analysis of Arab public opinion surveys he conducted in six countries with Zogby International. The countries were Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Morocco, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. How important is the issue of Palestine in your priorities? Eighty-six percent of non-Palestinians rated it the most important or within their top three priorities, compared with 73 percent in 2006.

SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt -- Wrapping up a five-day tour of the Middle East, President Bush told his Arab allies yesterday that expanding democratic reforms and isolating the "spoilers" - Iran and Syria - were crucial steps to a secure and prosperous future for the region. Bush spoke at the opening of the World Economic Forum on the Middle East in this Red Sea resort town, where 1,500 policymakers have gathered. More lecture than rallying cry, Bush's speech stuck to familiar themes: Iran's nuclear program, more civil liberties, a bigger role for Arab women, free trade and progress on a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by the end of the year.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraqi lawmakers approved a new flag yesterday, defusing a long-simmering dispute with the country's northern Kurds who had refused to fly the national banner because of its connection to Saddam Hussein. The temporary flag, a one-year stopgap until a more permanent design is selected, no longer will bear the three green stars representing the "Unity, Freedom, Socialism" motto of Hussein's Baath Party. The former leader's handwritten "Allahu akbar" (God is great) will be replaced with an old-style Arabic font.

CAIRO, Egypt -- The dwindling possibility of a U.S. attack on Iran is changing the dynamics of Middle East politics and raising Arab concern that Tehran now feels emboldened to strengthen its military, increase support for Islamic radicals and exert more influence in the region's troubled countries. Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations opposed military action against Iran's nuclear program. But they were privately relieved that Washington's threats kept Tehran preoccupied, despite its manipulation of politics in Iraq and Lebanon and its support of the militant Islamic group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Some eyed their fellow reporters warily, not as mere competitors but as international adversaries. Others struggled for something to do during the seemingly endless down time between media briefings. On an upper concourse, a British broadcaster repeated her dispatch over and over, struggling not to stumble over the words. And in a dark corner, an Asian journalist, succumbing to the monotony that dominated much of the day, caught a catnap. More than 700 journalists from an estimated 70 countries - Israel and Saudi Arabia, Russia and Japan, Britain and the United States - packed the floor of a basketball court at the U.S. Naval Academy's Alumni Hall.