YALLA VOTE ‘08 Our Voice. Our Future.

If you’re dreaming of getting away from it all, here’s a raffle that might help you get away in style. Far, far away.

$100 gives you a shot at two Pearl Business class tickets on Etihad Airlines from New York to anywhere they fly. You’ll be responsible for the taxes, but still.  Pearl Business class sounds like heaven. Worth just flying somewhere, turning around, and flying back.

But if you wanted to stop off and enjoy yourself for a bit, they fly to Abu Dhabi, Bangkok, Brisbane… click here to enter the contest. The odds are pretty good, as AAI is only selling 250 tickets to the raffle.

Thursday November 13 The Middle East Institute Presents:
HOME: The Aramco Brats’ Story
with special guest speaker
Ambassador Wendy Chamberlin

Doors Open- 6:00 p.m.
Screening Begins- 7:00 p.m.
E Street Cinema
555 11th St., NW
Washington, DC 20004
(202) 452-7672
Tickets are $5 at the box office
Reservations: Seating not guaranteed without reservations. Reserve your seats online by writing names in the “contact us” section on www.bratstory.com or sending your names to RSVP@ABMedia.org with subject heading RSVP. Parking:  Theatre will validate parking for parking garage on 11^th & E.  One block from Metro Center Station. Tuesday November 18 National Immigration Forum’s Ninth Annual Keepers of the American Dream Event Tuesday, November 18, 2008 * 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM
Harman Center for the Arts * 610 F St. NW * Washington, DC   Honorees:

• Keepers of the American Dream Award: The National Immigrant Bond Fund
• Golden Door Award: The Ya Es Hora Campaign
• Carvel Immigrant Entrepreneur Award: Majdi Wadi, CEO of Holy Land Bakery, Minneapolis
• Heroes of the American Dream Award: Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition,

To Purchase Tickets: Tickets for the event can be purchased for $250 per ticket. Tickets are tax deductible except for $75. For more information on purchasing tickets, contact Gina Gerson at (202) 383-5980, or ggerson@immigrationforum.org.

Wednesday November 19 Al-Hewar Weekly Forum 8:00 pm “Interests and Concerns of Young Arabs in the USA,” Featuring Dr. Hanna Hanania, Tariq Hariri, and Nadine Wahab (AAI Media Coordinator)
(in Arabic and English)   Al-Hewar Center 124 Park Street, S.E., Level B, Vienna, Virginia Call (703) 281-6277 or http://www.alhewar.com/newevents.html

Download the PDF of AAI’s Post-Election Analysis of 2008 U.S. Senate Races and Impact on Senate Committees:

2008-us-senate-races-and-impact-on-committees

On Sunday, the Arab Student Association of University of Michigan-Ann Arbor hosted a phone banking session in one of their computer rooms on campus. Kamelya Youssef, president of the association, and other students and members of the group participated in making phone calls.  The weekend before the election and we are making hundreds and thousands of phone calls to Arab American registered voters to encourage them to vote.

Our previous field organizer, Amir Eustice was there helping out, too. So many phone calls were made in just one day! Of course, drinks and more food were there to keep us energized to make more phone calls. It was great and the students had a lot of fun. We were using our voices to encourage other voices to be heard. That is what we are all about.

-Jana

David Ramadan down in Loudon County, Virginia, getting out the Arab American Republican Vote!

It was a busy Halloween for the Yalla Vote team.  On Friday, we gathered up volunteers to hang up Yalla Vote posters on every Arab American business in Dearborn. If you were driving in the area, you could see these posters on every business window and door. Samer, our office intern and I did this for 6 hours! Warren Avenue, Michigan Avenue, Greenfield Road, and Dix Road were all covered by our wonderful volunteers and our office staff. Moortadha, President of the Yemeni Association at Henry Ford Community College (HFCC) tackled the city of Hamtramck with posters as well.  It was a great day of hard work and enthusiasm for November 4th , 2008.

-Jana

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On Wednesday, the Yalla Vote team was making phone calls to all Arab Americans in Michigan to get out and vote! The phone banking session took place at the Dearborn Heights Caroline Kennedy Library. The library provided us all with laptops to access our call tool. It was really fun and great to see so many phone calls being made. Our volunteers were really happy, not just to make calls, but we had pizza and drinks there, too. What a great social environment to be in, right? We still have so many phone calls to make, people. LET’S GO EVERYONE, YALLA CALL!!!!!!!

-Jana

Hop on over to Kabobfest for an interesting article about the Arab American Vote… “A recent Zogby International poll suggests that Senator Obama leads Senator McCain by a three-to-one margin among Arab Americans in both the two-way match-up and the four-way match-up.

Obama earns the greatest support ever recorded for a Presidential candidate among Arab American voters. In the two-way race, Obama leads 64/23, while in the four-way race (adding Barr and Nader), Obama leads 62/22. The poll projects that 68% of Arab American voters will vote for Obama on Election Day. These findings may be significant because 30% of Arab American voters live in five battleground states - Michigan, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. (McCain in effect conceded Michigan by re-directing staff and ending television advertising.)”

The two polls, conducted by Zogby International on behalf of the Arab American Institute in September and October, can be found by clicking here.

Reading an editorial in the Washington Post this evening gave us something to stand up and cheer about…

The Washington Post, Harper’s, Juan Cole, Ron Kampeas at JTA, and countless other articles I’m too tired right now to dig up, have all refuted Andrew McCarthy’s weak claim that Rashid Khalidi is somehow a spokesperson for the Palestinian Liberation Organization, or a terrorist sympathiser, or anything other than a rich and complex academic mind and a foremost scholar of the Middle East.

Perhaps we need to give a brief history lesson… As of 1991, even the United States and Israel no longer considered the PLO to be a terrorist organization, not after the Madrid Conference. And all you have to do is read Ron Kampeas’s piece in the JTA to be convinced of the frivolity of any claim that Khalidi is anything more than an expert on a subject he holds dear: Palestine.

Let’s let this one drop, people. It truly is unbecoming. As the editorial quotes Khalidi…

Which reminds us: We did ask Mr. Khalidi whether he wanted to respond to the campaign charges against him. He answered, via e-mail, that “I will stick to my policy of letting this idiot wind blow over.”