American-Arabs look
to future
By BRIAN ABERBACK,
northjersey.com from the Web, March 5, 2007
HASBROUCK HEIGHTS, Mar. 4 --
Members of the New Jersey chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee reflected on the past year and looked to the future at the
organization's ninth annual banquet Saturday.
"We've gone a long way, but we still have a longer way to go," said Hesham
Mahmoud, an ADC-NJ board member from Rutherford.
The group opened its first office last year, in Clifton. And Governor
Corzine appointed three of its members to government boards, commissions and
advisory committees.
Still, the organization does not want for calls from the Arab community
detailing instances of discrimination. Board members who attended the
event at the Hasbrouck Heights Hilton pledged to continue fighting prejudice by
promoting understanding.
This month the group will speak to state employees in Trenton about
Arab-American culture and relations.
Board member Bassima Mustafa of Hawthorne conducts diversity training with the
Paterson Police Department. The city has a large Arab-American community.
"We're Americans regardless," Mustafa said. "There's Americans of Italian
descent, of Irish descent, of every descent. We're no different."
Former U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., was the evening's keynote speaker.
Chafee is one of a handful of senators who opposed the Iraq war from the outset
and has called for renewed peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.
"The president has kept this vision of a Palestinian state living side-by-side
in peace with Israel," Chafee said in an interview before his speech. "But
there's nothing happening, to my frustration and bewilderment."
E-mail:
aberback@northjersey.com
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