It was clear that the U.S. failed to understand the complexities of the extremists in the Middle East when terrorists attacked America on Sept. 11, 2001. Our country was taken by surprise.

Instead of focusing on doing professional criminal police work to understand and identify these killers, our failed leaders responded to the growing anger in America and turned to stereotyping and racism to drive their response, persecuting many innocent Arabs and Muslims.

Even a decade later, Americans still do not understand the complexities of the Middle East and our failed foreign policies there demonstrate it clearly. But worse is the continued reliance on stereotyping and racism to fuel our country’s anti-terrorism readiness.

We’re not ready to confront the terrorists and the extremists because Americans have chosen the route of hatred, stereotyping and bigotry rather than professional criminal investigation, intelligence based on facts and a strategy that taps the patriotism that exists among the majority of American Arabs and Muslims.

It’s far easier to hate and blame all Arabs and all Muslims rather than to conduct a proper investigation of a crime. It’s easier to claim to be “pre-emptive,” an Israeli term used to justify the unjustifiable, than to be “ready” to fight crime and protect Americans.

The most recent example of this failure in American security is in New York City where millions of taxpayer dollars have been spent to spy on all of the city’s Arabs and Muslims. Not only is it a violation of basic human and civil rights, the policy is a failure. Muslims are NOT the problem. Ineffective American policy is.

For example, rather than understand the clear and obvious distinctions between mainstream and moderate American Arabs and Muslims, the NYPD followed the failed lead of our national government. In mid-2007, the NYPD began a secretive campaign to photograph and violate the rights of innocent civilians by secretly taping their conversations.

The process reflects how the government in the 1970s monitored anti-war activists spending hundreds of millions of dollars to discover that the majority of activists were non-violent. Similar campaigns were directed against American Arabs and Muslims back then, too.

In 1975, after serving two years active duty in the United States Air Force, the FBI began monitoring my activities because I expressed views challenging American Foreign policy. The report began that the FBI “suspected” that I was a “terrorist,” and ignored the facts of my two years of honorable service defending America at a high security F-111 Air Force Base during the Vietnam War. The report covered a two year period, but concluded after expending many unnecessary resources that I was merely someone concerned about “bettering” the lives and involvement of American Arabs in American society.

They didn’t need to conduct that investigation. All they had to do was ask me to help them. All they had to do was ask the Arab and Muslim community to help them protect this country against extremists and terrorists. All they had to do was set aside their lack of knowledge and instead recognize that challenging American foreign policy is not a basis on which the government should build its national security.

And President Barack Obama is no better. He has helped fuel the stereotypes along with the extremists in the conservative American political movement. Obama has refused to reach out to the American Arab and Muslim journalists who know our community better than anyone. He’s concerned more about politics, than safety.

Here are some fundamental distinctions that even the brightest American strategists have failed to understand, causing this country great tragedy.

Muslims and Arabs are not one and the same. The majority of Arabs in America are Christian. The majority of Muslims are African American. Muslims are divided into several important sects, just like Christians and Jews. The largest are Sunni Muslims who are Arab, followed by Shi’ite Muslims who are predominantly non-Arab.
Iran is not an Arab country. It is a Shi’ite country.

Palestinian activists who have challenged Israel’s brutal oppression re not anti-American, even though we strongly challenge America’s blind support of Israel.

Saddam Hussein, though a brutal tyrant, was the bulwark against religious extremism and al-Qaeda in the Middle East. Destroying him in the manner that we did only strengthened al-Qaeda and allowed for extremist religious ideology and activism to spread throughout the Middle East.

The Syrian dictatorship consists of a handful of tyrants from one family who happen to be from a minority Islamic sect, Alawites. They have been oppressing Syrians for generations and the government’s extremism does not reflect the views of the population which we now see is under brutal siege.

The terrorist threat is not an Arab threat or a Muslim threat. The terrorist threat is a criminal threat. Muslims are not the problem. The lack of basic education is the problem.

American are the most educated people in the world but they are the least educated about the world. Understanding simple nuances could have helped build stronger alliances with Arabs and Muslims, rather than destroying those opportunities by supporting dictatorships and tyranny in the Middle East as we have.

There is a terrorism threat against America. But it is not an Arab terrorist threat. It is not a Muslim terrorist threat. It is a criminal terrorist threat. It may be that many of these terrorists are Arab or Muslim, but the failure to distinguish between the majority community which is moderate and concerned about larger issues of justices has made our defense against this terrorist threat ineffective.

Americans should reach out and work with Arabs and Muslims, not isolate them, spy on them or vilify them for political gain by fueling false stereotypes.

We’re American. We’re willing to help identify the criminals, who come from all races, religions and ethnicities because we want to protect ourselves, too.

But when American leaders can’t see the obvious differences that exist between everyday Arabs and Muslims here and in the Middle East, or understand the cries for justice and freedom demanded in the Middle East against Arab dictatorships and Israeli occupation and oppression, then all that is being done is to eliminate the one weapon that Americans have to fight the terrorist threat.

American Arabs and Muslims are an asset. This country should be working with them by treating them with respect, understanding and support.

Instead, ignorance and corrupt policies are driving our defense against terrorism, and that won’t work.
New York’s undercover spying on the Arab and Muslim community there has only made it easier for the few extremists to hide and harder to find.

The best way to fight terrorism is to use professional criminal investigative techniques that are not subject to political and racial and religious biases. Terrorism is a crime, not a lifestyle for an entire stereotyped people.

Those who directed the spying on Arabs and Muslim in NYC should be identified, arrested and prosecuted. They have done America a great injustice.

(Ray Hanania is an award winning columnist and Chicago radio talk show host. Reach him at www.RadioChicagoland.com.)

Yalla Peace: I’ve always asked where is the Arab-made version of ‘Exodus’?

Many say the pen is mightier than the sword, but today film is mightier than the pen. Every year at this time, our attention turns to the power of film at the Academy Awards, many times in a competitive way between Palestinians and Israelis.

Shadid went on to the Washington Post where he won two Pulitzer Prizes for his writing and then was hired by the New York Times where he covered Iraq and later worked as the bureau chief in Beirut.

He died Thursday in the Middle East reportedly of an asthma attack.

NAAJA expresses its deep condolences to his family. Anthony Shadid was a strong supporter of NAAJA and said he was proud to have his name among so many other great journalists who continue to strive to bring the voice of American Arabs to the world.

American Arab journalists suffer greatly in America.

They are ostracized by mainstream American journalism if they express their opinions too strongly. They are targeted by other American Arab media for their demand for true professionalism and honesty in reporting and for seeing the bias that exists against American Arabs in this country.

The Society of Professional Journalists has led this discrimination against American Arabs and many American Arab journalists have avoided association with the bigoted SPJ.

UNITY: Journalists of Color which supposedly advocates for the rights of minorities in journalism have also ostracized and excluded American Arab journalists because they do not want to share their power which is now divided among Black Journalists, Hispanic Journalists, Asian Journalists and Native American Journalists. They don’t want more minority groups sharing in what little they have as a group.

And the American Arab community is divided, as we see in how the community is responding to the brutality of the Syrian Government of Bashar al-Assad against the people of Syria and the murder of more than 7,000 Syrian Civilians. American Arabs come from a region of the world where free speech is challenged and suppressed. They are taught to avoid controversy and not “air the dirty laundry” so discussions about the need for change in the community evoke anger, animosity and even threats.

In this difficult environment, no wonder there are so few American Arabs in journalism as noted in the recent Columbia Journalism Review column by Justin Martin. (Click to read.)

Many American Arabs have avoided the profession of journalism to avoid all of these pitfalls, from the bias in the mainstream American media to the anger that often is evoked from the American Arab community when journalists address issues they do not like or they disagree with.

Anthony Shadid managed to navigate all of that. He was only 43 when he died. So young and so talented. He managed to rise above the community and return to the Middle East where he provided professional insight as a role model not only for young American Arabs seeking to enter the difficult field of American journalism, but also to Arab World journalists, many of whom work to represent the politics of their sponsor nation rather than strive for the purity of objectiveness that journalism is dedicated and that many great journalists seek.

Anthony Shadid was a great journalist and the American Arab community is greatly distressed by this loss to the American Arab community and to professional journalism.

On behalf of NAAJA and its members

Israeli and Palestinian leaders
refuse to take the steps necessary to make peace.

It’s almost become normal for Palestinians and Israelis who support peace to find themselves at the same old roadblock, going nowhere fast. The only things moving are the extremists who continue to pave the way to the mutual destruction of both sides.

Israeli and Palestinian leaders refuse to take the steps necessary to make peace.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has imposed several pre-conditions for peace talks to resume, including the demand for a one-sided end to violence. Palestinians must prevent their extremists from committing acts of violence but Israel can continue to not only attack Palestinian areas in the Gaza Strip with missiles but also to target Palestinians in the West Bank.

Netanyahu’s preconditions go way beyond what is acceptable. I call them his “no preconditions” preconditions.

The Israelis insist that Palestinian accept Israeli confiscations of West Bank land around east Jerusalem, and accept the expansion of settlements in the West Bank, too. Netanyahu has outlined that Jerusalem will remain undivided, merging east and west Jerusalem without any consideration of Palestinian rights.

Netanyahu has also imposed another pre-condition.

Palestinians have accepted Israel’s right to exist and recognize Israel as a state. But since the collapse of the peace process more than a decade ago Israel has demanded that Palestinians not only accept Israel as a “Jewish” state but also say the words.

Forget about the fact that when a state distinguishes between its citizens in a racial or religious way, that’s discrimination.

There are many words for it. Words that are destruction and words that try to keep the door open for reason and yet fail.

In the face of these preconditions, Israelis continue to declare publicly and with no shame that they are willing to enter the peace process with “no pre-conditions” but that the Palestinians refuse to make peace.

This bizarre claim of “no pre-conditions” consisting of a lot of pre-conditions was driven home to French President Nicolas Sarkozy recently during a meeting he had with the World Jewish Congress last week. Sarkozy was embarrassed when he was overheard at the G20 Summit in Cannes last Fall telling President Barack Obama that Netanyahu was “a liar.” Before that he offered strong words in support of the Palestinians, to encourage them to return to the peace table even without a settlement freeze.

It didn’t work and Sarkozy had to offer something to get the pro-Israel critics off his back. He has since softened criticism of Israeli settlement building, embracing one of the key points in Netanyahu’s list of “no pre-condition” preconditions.

And he told Israelis what they needed to hear, that France would stand with Israel in the face of Iran’s threats.

Maybe we can just accept that Sarkozy was “taken to the woodshed,” an American expression describing how a child is taken out back by a parent and spanked for doing something wrong to get them back in line. Sarkozy is gearing up for re-election and the “let’s make Jewish voters happy” strategy has overtaken the “let’s bring peace to the Middle East” strategy.

Even President Obama has dropped his push for Middle East peace based on compromise, barely addressing it in his recent State of the Nation speech. He’s running for re-election, too. So are we to be surprised as the moderate wing of the Palestinian movement continues to erode and the extremists continue to grow? Elections in the West, it seems, are not conducive to promoting Middle East peace.

In the short run, Israelis will find that the growth in Palestinian extremism is good for their goal of blocking statehood and continuing the expansion of Israeli settlements. Maybe all of the Arabs will just up and leave Israel and the West Bank? It won’t happen.

What will happen is that the moderates will become so weak that a return to violence and more conflict will only become an unavoidable reality. So is anyone surprised when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, finding himself in a corner in the face of Netanyahu’s “no pre-condition” pre-conditions, makes peace with Hamas? Israelis argue that as settlements only impact one percent of the West Bank land, they should not be such a stumbling block to peace.

Palestinians ask the same question. If they are not that important, why not freeze settlements? Isn’t peace that much more important? Sadly in Middle East mathematics and reasons are turned on their heads. The 1% and the extremist minority are far more important than the needs of the increasingly less active but larger majority of moderates.

The writer is an award winning columnist and radio talk show host. He can be reached at www.RadioChicagoland.com.

They have been accused of murdering families linked to pro-Democracy protestors in Homs and other major Syrian cities over the past months since protests to overthrow the Assad dictatorship began last year.

As the United States engages the Syrian dictatorship and sets the stage for a violent transition as they did through NATO In Libyan, Americans need to be concerned about the Shabbiha’s ties to extremist Arab groups in this country.

Shabbiha means “ghosts” in Arabic but the presence of pro-Syrian activism in the United States is no secret and they don’t take place in shadows.

The cause of defending Assad has been taken up by several major American Arab newspapers and American Arab and Muslim organizations in cities across the country where American Arab populations are sizable. Many of the pro-Assad rallies are backed by pro-Hezbollah sympathizers.

Not enough is being done to protect the voices challenging Assad’s policies.

Part of the problem is that the United States still continues to view the American Arab community through a single lense of suspicion. As smart as American “intelligence” is about terrorism threats overseas, they are uneducated about the threat right here in our own backyard.

So rather than distinguish between the good and the bad, they lump all American Arabs into the same pot of suspicion, together. But that policy only makes it easier for the activists to promote their agenda and build support for the Syrian dictator and other Arab world despots.

Unlike the politics that have brought American Arabs together in near unanimity for change in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Bahrain, the protests in Syria have divided the American Arab community as it has divided the Arab World.

The division is based on religious and sectarian ideology which drives much of the politics in the Arab World. Most Arabs are of the Sunni Muslim faith. A large segment are followers of the Shi’ite faith which is the pre-eminent religion in Iran, Syria’s neighbor. The Syrian despot Assad is Alawite, which is a minority group and spin-off of the Shi’ite religion, sometimes called Alawi Shias.

Naturally, they, Shi’ites have come to the defense of the Syrian regime in a way that Arabs did not defend dictatorships in Egypt, Libya or other Arab countries experiencing varying degrees of pro-Democracy protests. Syria itself is predominantly Sunni with a large Shi’ite population tied to Iran and the Alawites, the small minority sect that has the country in a fatal stranglehold.

That’s one reason why the Arab League, usually an incompetent fraternity of failed Arab World policy, has rallied against Syria. Until Syria’s people’s revolt, the Arab League was tongue-tied when it came to revolutions in Egypt and Libya but they are leading the charge against Syria.

That’s the religious foundation of the split which has a political character, too.

Syria is one of the “Confrontation States” that has challenged Israel in four major wars and dozens of minor violent skirmishes. Those “Confrontation States” included Egypt and Jordan, too. But Egypt and Jordan each sold out the Palestinian cause, signing empty peace agreements with Israel in exchange for billions in support from Israel’s sponsor, the United States.

Syria has remained militantly anti-Israel and championed the extremists in the Palestinian cause, arresting activists who have advocated compromise with Israel.

Syria is the home for the real leadership of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, although the protests have made it difficult for Hamas to maintain their presence there. And Syria is the fuel for the rise of Hezbollah, the Shi’ite mini-state in Lebanon. Hamas is Sunni but Syria’s uncompromising stand against Israel has won the hearts of Hamas activists.

Christians have been ambivalent about Syria because despite the brutality of the Assad regime, the Alawites have been far more tolerant of Christian activism in Syria than any other Arab country.

Most Christian Arabs are marginalized, especially in the era of the rise of Islamic politics. Arab Muslims always cite them as “brothers” who have spilt blood for the Palestinian cause, but when it comes to activism, the Islamic the rise of Islamic “nationalism” linking the Arab and non-Arab Muslim worlds have made Christians who don’t toe the line of the extremist agenda precarious targets. In fact, anti-Israel activists and many anti-Semitic groups are behind the rise of hatred against Christian Palestinian activists like myself who support the use of non-violence as a foundation for compromise with Israel.

This division between pro- and anti-Syrian groups in the American Arab community has flourished under the radar screen because of America’s chosen policy to ignore moderates and lump them all in as “extremists.” The extremists in the pro-Israel movement have helped to undermine Arab moderate voices, too, concluding that it is better to not have any Arab voices that moderate Arab voices who still criticize Israel. Those pro-Israel groups, like AIPAC, have helped define the American policy towards American Arabs.

So far, this growing pro-Syria movement in the United States has remained under this radar screen of uneducated understanding. Many of these pro-Syrian activists in the United States receive funding and political support from Assad’s regime.

As a result, pro-Assad activists have been able to openly hold their rallies, write columns cheering Assad in Arabic in local American Arab publications, and posting pro-Assad videos on Youtube, all mostly in the Arabic language to avoid easy scrutiny.

This disturbing but growing pro-Assad movement has stepped up their pressure on American Arabs who have challenged Assad and are monitoring anti-Syrian groups in the United States for the Shabbiha which hunts down and identifies their relatives in Syria.

In fact, you haven’t seen many anti-Assad protests in the American Arab community in part because of that fear. It’s no different than the activism that was funded through the end of the 20th Century by Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. Many of those activists were arrested while no such move has been made against the pro-Syrian leaders here.

The pro-Syria movement in the United States is a major threat not just to the American Arab moderate voices but also to America itself.

(Ray Hanania is an award winning Palestinian American columnist and radio talk show host. www.RadioChicagoland.com.)

But I have to say I am tired of the degradation of this great American institution.

Not that anyone cares, though.

Over the years, I have watched as the focus has steadily shifted from a great American football game to a celebration of Greed. Super Bowl Commercials costing $3 million each that include things like Viagra, Cialis, alcohol and worse. Celebrity entertainers who “accidentally” expose their breasts.

And this year, one entertainer who flips the audience the “bird” and sings lyrics urging murder, killing and death.

I don’t want any “gangsta rap” morons singing on my TV any more. I don’t want any fools who claim to be American who can’t speak English celebrity street gangs, violence and drugs.

In the 1960s when I was growing up, we did sing the mantra “sex, drugs and rock and roll.” And our parents hated it. They hated my long hair. They hated my musical choices and they hated the culture that promoted “sex, drugs and rock and roll” as virtues in the new America.

They’re not virtues. And as I got older, like most of us who lived in the paisley world of hippies, “revolution” and the hero-worship of terrorists like Che Guevara, we all recognized that it was a phase.

But when a phase becomes the pattern of our society and takes over the core of what we are supposed to be, then there is something wrong. Badly wrong.

The Patriots-Giants football game was great. And I say that as someone who really doesn’t care much about sports. I’m an “Easter Sunday” sports fan, in front of the TV only when the great moments of sports competition occur. Politics is the only sport I respect, and even that is not saying much in Illinois where the “culture of corruption” is an accepted lifestyle.

But the focus on the commercials and the half-time entertainment was so disappointing.

Yes, there were a few good commercials, like the one with Clint Eastwood walking through Detroit giving the public a pep-rally about reviving the American spirit and the auto industry.

But when Rap singer M.I.A. flipped her middle finger during her performance with Madonna and Nicki Minaj, it made me sick.

Is that what great football and Americanism has come down too? Seriously?

Madonna was a great singer. She sang five songs, the first and second old ones I loved, the three sandwiched in the middle were just so-so. But worse was the fact that she wasn’t really singing at all. It was a puppet show and she was lip syncing.

We don’t even get reality from the Masters of the Entertainment World anymore.

Sure, the stage settings were great. But that cost how much? Anything that costs $1 million would look great, or at least we would hope.

Maybe it’s time we should kill the Super Bowl before it gets worse. Because it is getting worse. End it on the memories of great football plays, not disgraceful and disrespectful controversies like flipping the middle finger at the public.

The NFL should be ashamed of itself. But worse, we should be ashamed of ourselves.

The only saving grace was that my son, when he saw what M.I.A. did, remarked in gleeful shock, “Inappropriate.”

This year’s Super Bowl was inappropriate, and not just because the Chicago Bears were not in play.

(Listen to Ray Hanania every Sunday on WSBC AM 1240 Radio from 8 am until 11. www.RadioChicagoland.com.)

It’s easier to argue incessantly than it is
to overcome our emotions and make compromises for peace.

Two of my “friends” on Facebook started going at it, as Facebook people often do, over my recent column analyzing the failure of Palestinian activists to achieve any of their goals.

The debate quickly got off-topic and started careening over the cliff of Palestinian-Israeli futility at a very high speed. It became obvious that neither was really listening to the other. Both were repeating the same old arguments that have muddled Palestinian-Israeli peace efforts.

It reminded me what the real problem Palestinians and Israeli face is: We don’t really care much about peace. We just like to argue. Arguing is a waste of time, of course. I know that when I write my columns “arguing” a “fact,” most Israelis won’t listen to me. They don’t listen to me period, based on the talkbacks to my columns here.

It’s a waste of time because the purpose of arguing isn’t to convince someone to change their mind. It’s a selfish exercise in ego and pride. We say things to each other to make ourselves feel as if we have struck a blow against the other. It’s a kind of twisted form of punishment.

No amount of arguing will change the futility of the failed peace process. We can blame each other, but it won’t matter. What will matter is if we decided to simply accept the reality of our circumstances. Palestinians believe something and Israelis believe something else.

And if we accept that, then we must also accept the realization that the only real option is to look ahead, not backwards. Arguing is about “looking backwards.” Looking backwards is not the same as “remembering” or “never forgetting.” I am not advocating that Palestinians or Israelis forget the atrocities that each have inflicted on the other. I am also not saying we should ignore the tragedies of history that have brought us to the edge of the abyss where most Israelis and Palestinians stand oblivious to the impending dangers that lie ahead of us if we fail to achieve peace.

I am saying that it is okay to accept the fact that Palestinians and Israelis basically live in two different realities. Palestinians believe something and Israelis believe something else. We could remain like this forever, teetering on the edge of disaster. The disaster could be a modern-day Armageddon. Personally, that’s the dark future I see for Israelis and Palestinians.

Palestinians’ heritage is being slowly and steadily erased by Israeli stubbornness and arrogance. Israelis refuse to show compassion to Palestinians. To me that is odd coming from a people who suffered so much. But someone once explained that people who suffer are less likely to be magnanimous or generous when power returns to them.

Israelis are living in a hallucination of peace. They feel a sense of victory as they watch the secular Palestinians who have argued for two states steadily vanish. What remains is the growing Islamic movement, which is far more powerful than Palestinian secularism ever could hope to be. The Islamic movement will soon have total control over the region, and they are very less likely to compromise.

Israelis are great at seeing the essence of the moment, but their vision becomes blurred when they have to look far down the road. This explains their long-term strategy, which is really a short-term strategy – Israelis take whatever they can get, and usually get “everything,” while Arabs demand everything and usually get nothing.

What we need is for both sides to start respecting each other again, instead of always trying to insult each other with arguments about “facts.”

When it comes to the Palestine- Israel conflict, there are no facts.

What we need to do is accept a foundation for peace. Palestinians recognize Israel and Israelis recognize Palestine. No violence, no expansion of settlements, and end to the hatred from both sides.

It sounds so simple, but as we know, it’s not. It’s actually easier to argue incessantly than it is to overcome our emotions and make compromises for peace.

Ray Hanania is a Palestinian American columnist and radio talk show host.

www.YallaPeace.com.

Russia says it will not support international intervention in Syria where pro-Democracy protesters have been battling with the brutal regime of dictator Bashar al-Assad.

With a Russian veto guaranteed, there is no chance that the UN Security Council will be able to adopt tough sanctions to pressure Assad.

That’s a shame on one hand. The people of Syria have been brutalized long enough by the Syrian dictator, although in truth every Arab country is governed by a dictator of various levels of brutality and oppression.

On the other hand, now maybe the United States knows what it’s like to have politics stand in the way of justice.

Since 1948, the United States has acted far worse than any other member of the UN Security Council in using its veto to protect its political ally. Why should Russia, based on the American practice, be any different?

The United States has used its veto to prevent the International World Body from adopting resolutions critical of Israel, America’s primary Middle East ally.

Since 1970, the United States has cast 44 vetoes to prevent the UN Security Council from condemning Israeli actions against Palestinian civilians living under Israel’s military occupation.

Don’t the Palestinian people have the same rights as any other citizen to freedom?

The US has even used the veto to block resolutions that have reflected American foreign policy. Last year, the US vetoed a resolution condemning the expansion and building of illegal Jewish-only settlements in the occupied West Bank even though official policy of the United States opposes the settlement building as an obstacle to peace.

In other words, even when American Foreign policy is at stake, the United States will contradict that policy to stand with Israel.

When the United States is willing to abuse its veto power to protect a guilty ally, why shouldn’t Russia do the same? Why is Russia now being excoriated by the United States and its allies because it is doing in the Security Council what American has done there, too. And has done far more often?

The issue here isn’t about whether or not Syria is brutalizing its citizens. It is and has murdered thousands since the protests began last year as a part of the chilly “Arab Spring.” I say chilly because despite the name, which suggests the Arab World will experience a new fresh era of Democracy, Arab dictators and military regimes have been manipulating the protests to their own advantage.

Some of the worst Arab dictators have been leading the charge against Syria and the Arab World protests have not been honest.

None of the Arab countries who support regime change in Syria are doing so to defend the rights of Syrians to freedom and an end to repression. Theya re doing it because of sectarian differences.

The Arab World is predominantly Sunni Muslim while the Syrian Regime is Alawite, an off-shoot of the Shi’ite Muslim sect. That religious difference ha spitted Saudi Arab and the Gulf States against Syrian for more than a quarter century. Only hatred of Israel’s brutality has united them and even then, the unity has been a mirage.

The Gulf Arab States want Syria to be ruled by a Sunni Government. And they won’t care if the Sunni Government is a Democracy or another brutal tyranny.

That religious unity is also behind the Gulf States unity against Iran, which is a Shi’ite nation.

Any idiot can see through the charade of how the Arab World leader are claiming to support Democracy. The United States can certainly see through the phony motives.

But the United States is more political than anyone. Their exercise of their veto Power in the UN Security Council has been cast more often against justice and freedom than it has been cast on the side of the defense of freedom.

This battle isn’t about the poor victims of Syrian brutality. It is all about power politics.

And it the United States wasn’t such a hypocrite in the UN Security Council already, maybe they would have been the perfect voice to point that out.

(Ray Hanania is an award winning Palestinian columnist and Chicago Radio Talk Show host. Reach him at www.RadioChicagoland.com.)

Last Thursday, President Barack Obama was crooning the line from a popular Al Green soul song, “Let’s Stay Together,” at a fundraiser he had at the Apollo Theater in Harlem.

This week, Mitt Romney sang “America the Beautiful” at a Florida Republican campaign rally giving it a Frank Sinatra-esque flare.

What’s going on? Are our presidents lining up for American Idol? Or, more likely, it’s just politics.

I have a feeling (Black Eyed Peas) that Obama was just being natural.

Al Green was in the audience and during his remarks, Obama, who is good at impromptu humor and staging his persona, broke into song.

Well, Obama didn’t really sing a song at all. He merely swooned out most of one line from the song, “Girl … I am so in love with you …”

In contrast, Romney belted out all of the words to America the Beautiful.

Now, it’s kind of like when Bill Clinton brought out his saxophone and started playing it during his 1992 presidential campaign. It was memorable, for sure.

But in Clinton’s case, he was very talented on the Sax, or did I mean Sex? Not sure.

Clinton won many awards for tenor saxophone while a student at Hot Springs High School, and sat “First Chair” in the state band’s saxophone section. He said in his memoirs entitled “My Life” that he wanted to be a musician but changed his mind. He considered becoming a doctor but decided on public service.

But while Obama may have just gone with the moment, you know for sure that Romney had seen Obama and the reaction and media coverage he received when he sang one line from the Al Green song. That’s why he decided to break into tune himself.

Except that Romney was far from being in tune. It was one of the worst renditions of America the Beautiful I have heard in a long time. So staged. So phony. And definitely not American Idol.

Neither Romney, not Obama for that matter, wouldn’t have a chance trying out on American Idol. In fact, Obama was smart enough to drop it after he made his way through one lyric.

Romney just wouldn’t stop.

I think the American people want someone as president who is natural and not fake. I’d rather hear them continue the national debate on what this country needs.

The Republican primary debates between Romney and Newt Gingrich have been phenomenal and full of ideas and substance, even if I don’t always agree with the hard conservative right.

Next thing you know, Rick Santorum is going to be out there with a Les Paul playing the Star Spangled Banner Jimi Hendrix style with his teeth (I can). Or maybe Ron Paul will be out there trying to play the theme from Rocky with an Oud, which is a Middle Eastern mandolin.

What will Newt Gingrich be playing? Well, the American people the way he has always been playing us for fools.

Please. I’ve had enough of presidential candidates pretending to be entertainers. They’re funny enough as it is. How about some substance?

(Catch Ray Hanania on Radio Chicagoland every Sunday morning from 8 am until 11 am on WSBC AM 1240 Radio. www.RadioChicagoland.com.)