"ISLAM AND THE WEST": A CHANNEL 5 (KPIX/CBS-TV) LOCAL TOWN HALL PANEL DISCUSSION

KPIX-TV, air broadcast Channel 5, in San Francisco will broadcast a local Town Hall discussion entitled

"ISLAM AND THE WEST"

Featuring a local panel discussion with

Artist & political cartoonist Khalil Bendib,

UC Berkeley Professor Beshara Doumani,

Prof. Abbas Milani of Stanford University,

Jane Wales, CEO of World Affairs Council

and

Norm Skales, a former US ambassador to the Middle East under Bill Clinton.


Among the 100 or so in the audience, are Soleiman Ghali, Allan Solomonow, Fouad Khatib, as well as other prominent members of CAIR and other community members.


This show will air

THURSDAY night, MARCH 23rd -- from 10:00 to 11:00 P.M.,

and will be *repeated*

SATURDAY night, MARCH 25th -- from 8:00 to 9:00 P.M.


Set your video recording devices!

And if you appreciated the program, please call 415-362-5550 or email at http://cbs5.com/contact and let them know! Thank them especially for having Professor Beshara Doumani and Khalil Bendib on the panel.

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For more information on Alan Solomonow...:


From: Jeff Blankfort

[veteran photojournalist, Bay Area progressive radio journalist, writer (google his name), anti-Zionist Jewish-American pro-Palestinian human rights activist]

To: [public comments, but list deleted due to length and privacy]

Re: The American Friends Service Committee & Alan Solomonow, Middle East director -- More "Damage Control"


"AFSC [Alan Solomonow] and Palestine: a bigger issue"

Since I have been included in this email exchange and since I have had considerable experience in the past with the AFSC and its Middle East director Alan Solomonow, most of it unpleasant, as you may be aware, only when it comes to the question of justice for the Palestinians are we told that we can't expect someone to have the correct line on every issue[.] Invariably, that seems to be the case.

As far as the Northern California chapter of the AFSC's record in behalf of the Palestinian struggle, I recall the exasperation of the Council of Presidents of the Arab-American Organizations who a decade ago refused to work with him after one slight after another and their frustration when after numerous meetings with AFSC officials at the very highest level (which I attended), were told, in no uncertain terms, that if they didn't like Solomonow, that was just too bad. He was keeping his job, a very strange decision considering that Solomonow, an admitted Zionist and a former Yeshiva student was supposed to be representing the entire Middle East and he had reduced a one thriving public program to house meetings in the living room of a Berkeley zionist.

In the mid-90s, Solomonow pulled the AFSC out of the Middle East Justice Coalition in protest over the decision of the group to purchase ad space in the BART system calling for suspension of aid to Israel until it ended the occupation. It was just part of the "damage control" efforts that Solomonow did and has done in behalf of Israel. Just last year when I had arranged to have Israeli professor Ilan Pappe speak to the Presbyterians in San Francisco in support of divesting from Israeli companies and sanctioning Israel, Solomonow tried to change the program and have a panel in which Pappe would appear with Jonathan Bernstein of the Anti-Defamation League and Yitzak Santis of the Jewish Community Relations Council (in order to get Jews to attend, said Alan), but this meeting was not for Jews it was for Presbyterians and I was able to stop that from happening. In the event, Alan was a no show.

Before he arrived on the scene, the AFSC Middle East program was run by Ali Ayami and it regularly featured very public events at UC Berkeley and elsewhere in which I assisted. When Solomonow arrived those events were over and the ME committee had not a single Palestinian nor Arab-American member. In fact, when Saber Kawash, a former member of the Palestine National Council, attended one of the committee meetings, he was not allowed to speak. The AFSC has done many good things, but when it comes to the issue of justice for the Palestinians, with few exceptions here and there, it has always pulled its punches and has much to answer for.

Jeff Blankfort