Months of nauseating testimonies in the Lewinsky-Clinton sex scandal left many Americans crying uncle. In a colossal show of poor judgment, Republicans have ignored the most pernicious aspect of the sex scandal, national security. 

Israel's erratic actions in Lebanon are a sign that an Israeli leader is in deep electoral trouble. Two and half years ago, Israeli "dove" Shimon Peres was up against an electoral wall with Netanyahu gaining ground in the polls. Peres ordered a "mini"-invasion of Lebanon during which Israel killed over 100 Lebanese civilians when it bombed a United Nations safe haven.

Embracing Pollard would have been political suicide in the 1998 elections. Both parties have decided it's safer to sacrifice the Jewish vote in 1998 than to alienate the mainstream vote. Instead of a partisan race to win Pollard's release as the Israelis hoped for, both parties were racing to condemn any such moves. The shock of rejection and its aftermath still reverberates in the Jewish American community.

Since the dawn of the internet, web activists owned the day. The almost sudden decentralization of grassroots activism gave rise to a new genre of grassroots leaders. The traditional gatekeepers of national media and national organizations have been bypassed. With that came the pleasant discovery that the world of Arab American activism is much larger than once thought. In it, talent abounds. 

I have grown to like Oslo, but for all the wrong reasons. Perversely, there is a sense of sports-like adventure involved in Oslo not unlike bungee jumping with minimal energy loss. It's a matter of time before one stares the brink in the eyes again, and again, and again. 

While seemingly innocuous, the context by which the term "Judeo-Christian" has been used recently in the American right-wing intelligentsia is anything but benign. With the aid of Jerry Falwell,  Pat Robertson, and other prominent Christian fundamentalists the term has devolved into a political device of exclusion to separate "us" from "them" and to promote the distasteful politics of cultural superiority disguised as religion. 

He was a Jordanian terrorist, of Palestinian origin, trained at Bin Laden's terror bootcamps in Afghanistan, but financed by Iran, with weapons from Libya, made in China, with North Korean raw material, acting on the fatwa of sheik Abu, who is residing in New York, under the cover of a humanitarian organization, fronting for a terrorist fundraising operation, manned by shadowy figures who live next door to you, with accounts in the United Arab Emirates, etc. 

Over the last decade, it has become apparent that both Arab and Muslim Americans have been joined together by their unfortunate circumstances and shared experiences in the US. The sense of being besieged brought upon by negative media images, government-sponsored civil rights violations, and gross double standards in US foreign policy have all but united many political objectives of both communities.

The most annoying junk email variety is the X-rated. Typically, those emails arrive with a bogus From field and another fictional To field with a Subject field such as HOT! STEAMY! AND ALL YOURS! if you call a 900 number and charge it to your credit card. Last time I had the hot and steamy charged to my credit card, it was at Joe's Crab House.

Even a moderate defense of anything Arabic can incur scorn and ridicule from a new genre of young and educated but pathetically self-hating Arabs. "Arab Jarab," and other sweeping condemnations are often repeated as a ritual. The issue is not the private and "recreational" expressions of self-blame. Airing it repeatedly to the general public can be very damaging to the already battered Arab image. Neither the traditional self-censorship nor self-hate is the answer.

Repeating the Cuban opposition's blunder, the remarkably overt association between the CIA, the bogeyman of the Third World, and the Iraqi opposition is absurd. The traditional American politicians' flare for self-promotion and credit-grabbing is guaranteed to hamper any effort at secrecy considered necessary to launch and sustain an Iraqi opposition which can publicly distance itself from any foreign powers.

When our Founding Fathers declared "All Men Are Created Equal," little did they know how much pain their ideological progenies would endure to win legitimacy for the absoluteness of the All. For two centuries, the American ideology would be put to the test. And with much pain and sorrow, at each transformation, the circle of inclusion would be stretched farther. This is the American Paradox which continues to confound us today.

Many conservatives argue that PC is rapidly becoming passé. They are also advocating that America rid itself from the yolk of senseless self-censorship exercised in the form of political correctness. Bad call. In a society where certain segments of the population have demonstrated a troubling ineptitude when dealing with differences, calling for an end to PC can be unwise.

The US presently is the undisputed world hegemon. A strong Arab American grassroots can, over time, influence the outcome of both domestic and international policy. But it all starts at the grassroots. The grassroots is the collective effort of everyday people in our community who wish to make a difference. "Collective" is the magic word. When faced with constant squabbles and criticism, most activists opt to work independently depriving us from the much needed group effort.

Not to be outdone, I decided to jump into the fray but discovered my bold views were so out of sync with the interlocutors they ended up uniting to forcefully rebut my argument. I was loosing ground. Too much for playing a devil's advocate, I thought. I attempted to retreat gracefully to save face, mine of course. But a youngster who was honing her debate skills kept hammering at me and drumming up support for her position. 

This is the time to pursue and demonstrate an unwavering commitment to a shared Jerusalem along UN Resolution 242 and a return to 1967 borders. All levels of activism be it financial, intellectual, and grassroots should be primarily focused in the US and geared at producing a just settlement. The need for focus is dictated by the short time frame before the negations over Jerusalem's fate commence.

Over the decades, Jewish intellectuals in the US have framed the Palestinian tragedy in reductionist terms using elemental arguments such as fighting terrorism and security for Israel versus Palestinians' human and property rights. A settlement ignoring the complexity of the Jerusalem question with its Pan-Arab and Pan-Islamic aspects is bound to fail.

A decade ago, some would have described the serious erosion of our rights we are enduring presently as the work of an imaginative but very pessimistic mind. A tribute to the Clinton-Gore administration, and partly to our political procrastination, the loss is a reality our communities have to live with but must reverse.

The recent Jewish extremists campaign to discredit Deir Yassin as a fabrication reeks with hypocrisy when contrasted with Jewish ultra-sensitivity to Holocaust denials or revisionism. Not surprisingly, the litany of third-rate polemics meant to rebut the body of evidence accumulated along the years is finding an audience in the US amongst the religious right and parroted by beneficiaries of pro-Israeli moneys. 

In one masterful stroke by a self-serving Congress and calculating foreign lobbyists, Americans lost on three fronts: our tax dollars will be squandered to police fundraising activities of foreign militant groups; we are now forced to take sides in bloody struggles where we have no national interests at stake further endangering American lives abroad; worst of all our liberties have been crimped exposing us to serious governmental abuses.

In case we are destined to live a clash of civilizations between East and West or North and South, let it be a scholarly one and for the benefit of humanity. And if the West thinks of Islam as the successor to the communist threat, let it be a threat to exclusion, exploitation, and materialism but a boon to truly universal social justice.

Even the Palestinians' attempt to erect a memorial for the fallen in Gaza was denounced and blocked by Israel's Labor, the party of the New Middle East. The Israelis remind us they shall forgive but never forget. But they turn around and demand the Palestinians forget to be forgiven. This is not the spirit of peace. 

After spending many years living, studying and being active in the struggle for Palestinian rights I am more convinced than ever that we have totally neglected the effort-- the human effort -- required to demonstrate to the world the immorality of what was done to us: this, I now think, is the essential task facing us as a people now.

Why did the US, in contrast to the world body, seem so trigger-happy in its reaction to Iraq's violations of UN weapon inspection procedures? What thought process led US decision makers to corner themselves in a zero-sum negotiating position over a purely diplomatic issue? 

The strategy is simple and seems to have worked, for a while at least, in Palestine and other religiously and culturally diverse Arab states such as Lebanon and Iraq. And where irresponsible regimes and tribal cultures exist, the degree of success or near success seems to increase proportionally. 

"Us dis Arabi Amreekan beebuls in da city sink dis is so disastars much too bad" said a representative of a local Arab American community to a TV reporter. His atrocious English was being broadcasted to possibly hundreds of thousands of viewers around the state. He watched himself proudly on a rerun of the 6 O’clock news the following day and was proclaimed by some of his friends as an eloquent spokesperson of the Arab Americans in his community. 

Recently and in a very timely manner, a new realignment emerged within Arab America with the Egyptians surfacing as a political force ready to assert itself and assum a leadership role parallel to the role they are gradually evolving back into in the Arab World. 

Netanyahu's spat with bad luck seems to linger longer and longer. His foes inside and outside of Israel are having a field day and no doubt shouting "Encore Bibi!" In the meanwhile, his dwindling supporters are running for cover while waiving their "I Was Out of The Loop" banners. 

Make no mistake, the bungled Israeli assassination attempt in Amman on Meshal's life using nerve agents is a quantum leap for terror tactics in the Mideast.  It is also a horrifying indicator of the Israeli propensity to employ biochemical weapons offensively and for political purposes even in the absence of an imminent and grave threat to its security.

Where are ADC, AAI, NAAA, and the rest of what was once the bulwark of Arab-American activism?  Many factors have contributed to the changing terrain of Arab-American activism.  Primarily the Gulf War, Bosnia, Arab-Israeli negotiations, rising acceptance of Islamic ideologies, weakening of leftist ideologies, political disunity within the community leadership, disillusionment with the perceived unfairness of the American political system, and lackluster grassroots leadership. 

Next time a Chinese in Guangdong or a Japanese in Ishikawa who may know little of Islam watches "Operation Condor," the negative impressions of Islam and Muslims will linger in his or her mind and shape attitudes towards Muslims as backward and violent terrorists. This is unacceptable.