YALLA VOTE ‘08 Our Voice. Our Future.

We’ve been out-and-about here in Michigan, spreading the Yalla Vote initiative to get out the vote and unite our voices under one declaration. This past weekend, we attended the American Federation of Ramallah’s 50^th Annual Ramallah Convention at the Dearborn Hyatt Regency. The huge event gathered some 2000 Palestinian Americans, many of whom trace their roots back to one of the seven major families of the Palestinian town of Ramallah, in the West Bank. Many of the attendees responded to the Yalla Vote campaign with enthusiasm and signed our National Declaration. On the Fourth of July, AAI’s Midwest Director Valerie Smith addressed the convention and explained how the Internet is revolutionizing grass-roots political activism, particularly in regards to the Yalla Vote campaign.

Meeting so many Arab Americans from all over the country on a monumental occasion such as this, and with many expressing great interest in this fall’s elections, it seems that it’s not too late for the larger Arab American community to make its voices heard come November.

WASHINGTON – June 25, 2008 – On June 19, the Arab American Institute (AAI), American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), and the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP) met with State Department officials from the Bureau of Consular affairs, and the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs to discuss the practice of denying entry to U.S. citizens of Palestinian or Arab descent into Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). Read the rest of this entry »

Students from Gaza who are the recipients of the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship have just found out, through an email, that the State Department is canceling their scholarships. The reason? They cannot obtain exit visas from Israel and are unable to leave Gaza.

The New York Times first published the story about these students in the front page news today, emphasizing the surprising lack of action on the U.S.’s part in helping them obtain exit visas from Israel. They have since published additional articles, the latest predicting that Israel will reverse its decision.

U.S. officials, including Condaleeza Rice, have expressed surprise and disappointment at their own decision to withdraw their scholarships. Rice has promised to look into the matter and has said that “If you cannot engage young people and give complete horizons to their expectations and their dreams, I don’t know that there would be any future for Palestine.” However, the State Department has thus far not made any progress in helping the students obtain the necessary exit visas from Israel.

One of the recipients, Abdulrahman Abdullah, neatly summed it up when he said, “If we are talking about peace and mutual understanding, it means investing in people who will later contribute to Palestinian society…But who will build that state if we can get no training?”

The Fulbright Scholarships, according to their website, are given to individuals “chosen for their academic merit and leadership potential” and are intended to promote international education and cross-cultural understanding.