“Don’t just do PR. Tell a compelling story”
I covered Chicago City Hall for nearly 17 years. City Hall is one of the most prestigious journalism assignments and I was proud to be there for so many years covering seven Chicago Mayors including Richard J. Daley, Michael A. Bilandic, Jane M. Byrne, Harold Washington, (acting mayor) Eugene Sawyer, and Richard M. Daley.
The years covering Bilandic, Byrne, Washington, Sawyer, and the first few years of the Richard M. Daley administration were turbulent. You had to be fast, accurate and vigilant in producing compelling copy that moved readers and became the Talk of the Town.
The circumstances of the writing were often challenging and difficult, but those difficult challenges helped me hone my writing craft making me one of the best writers in America.
I am proud to have won many journalism awards for my writing, for the news and feature stories, and for the political opinion columns and analysis.
After leaving professional journalism in 1992, I expanded my political analysis and also launched Urban Strategies Group to work with clients I believed were honest, fair and had the interests of the public in mind. I wanted to work with true public servants. Most were good and those few who were not I quickly left. But I learned much by working in that environment, understanding especially the strategic principles of crisis communication, and communications under siege.
You cannot deal with crisis communications simply by reading a book about the experiences of others. That is the challenge facing many of today’s media consultants who claim expertise but lack hands-on experience training in frontline journalism. Being there at the front lines of cutting-edge journalism and politics has given me insight and knowledge that few others share.
I continue writing because I am one of the best writers in the country. I write based on principle, ethics and fairness. I am not a populist and I often embrace the “underdog good causes.” It’s wrong that a good cause is beaten down simply for the lack of understanding of the fundamentals of good journalism.
I write about Chicagoland, Illinois and American government and politics. I also write about issues facing baby boomers, seniors, the health industry, and “slice of life” reality in everyday life, also using humor. And I also write about the Middle East, advocating non-violence and peace.
“I write about three topics, the Middle East, politics and life in general. I often take my life experiences and offer them in an entertaining way to readers, and I take on the toughest topics like the Israel-Palestine conflict and don’t pull any punches about what I feel is fair. But, my priority is always about writing the good story.”
My father is from Jerusalem and my mother is from Bethlehem. As an American Arab Palestinian, I also write about Middle East issues. I have an inner drive to be a fanatic for truth and for peace.
My views on the Middle East are principled and fair. I oppose the use of violence and I oppose the extremists who engage in violent rhetoric and conduct. I support the principle of Two-States, one Jewish (Israel) and one non-Jewish (Palestine). I attended and participated in the 1993 signing of the Camp David Accords between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Israeli Defense Minister Shimon Perez and Palestinian President Yasir Arafat. I often met with and spoke with Arafat at the White House and at the United Nations on how to make the peace process work. I was privileged to meet Rabin and Perez before Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli extremist and thus undermining the peace process.
Since then, the peace process has collapsed and many who once supported peace have been discouraged into embracing hopelessness that feeds selfish partisan politics and that empowers the extremists. I constantly write opinions challenging the policies of both the Israeli and Arab governments. The goal is to prevent extremism on both sides from growing. Extremism is the cancer and the real conflict is between the extremists who oppose peace (Israeli and Arabs) and the moderates who support peace (Israeli and Arabs).
In 2001, after the September 11 terrorist attacks, I launched a standup comedy career to use humor to break through the growing animosity and hate between Arabs and Jews. It was a difficult effort and I was confronted by many fanatics including when I was attacked by Jewish American comedian Jackie Mason simply because I was, in his words, “not just an Arab, but a Palestinian.”
I know that many Palestinians and many Israelis and Jews do not get along; but the worse it is, the more we must do to suppress the extremism and encourage hope and peace to save lives.
(I continue to reach out to Jackie Mason and urge him reconsider his opposition. I have challenged him to stand with me on stage and perform comedy for Israelis and Palestinians and all audiences to demonstrate that peace is not made between those who agree but between those who disagree.)
I also believe in supporting the growth of journalism and writing among American Arabs and much of m writing has addressed stories about Americans Arabs that have been ignored by the mainstream news media. Too much of the negative stereotypes of American Arabs have been fed by false assertions and inaccurate stories that have been written, unfairly, in the news media. The stories have been unbalanced.
I have never asked the American news media to be “pro-Arab.” I have only demanded that the American news media do it’s job and present both sides fairly and accurately. Cover the negative but also cover the positive. When you only cover the negative news, you are a biased media.
Currently, I write for TheArabDailyNews.com, the prestigious Arab News at www.ArabNews.com, TheDailyHookah.com, and for the Southwest News-Herald newspaper group and the news leading website SuburbanChicagoland.com
My columns have appeared in newspapers around the world including in Israel in the Jerusalem Post, YnetNews.com, Yedioth Aharonot, the Times of Israel and in the Arab World in the Arab News, the Saudi Gazette, and in many other newspapers. I cover the American Arab and Muslim community and publish many of those stories in The Arab Daily News. My opinions on Middle East and mainstream issues have appeared in the pages of the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Houston Chronicle, the Orlando Sentinel, Newsday, the Chicago Sun-Times, and hundreds of mainstream American publications.
I hope you find my writing to be informative, and I hope it helps you see through the fog of the conflict and recognize that this conflict is not about Arabs versus Jews, but about extremists versus moderates.
Publications I have written for:
- The Chicago Sun-Times
- The St. Louis post-Dispatch, August 15, 2001
- The Orlando Sentinel
- The Philadelphia Inquirer, August 28, 2001
- The Times Record, Zanesville, Ohio, April 29, 2005
- Newsday, New York
- The New York Daily News
- The Arlington Heights Daily Herald, Illinois
- The Houston Chronicle
- The Arab News, Jeddah Saudi Arabia
- The Saudi Gazette
- The Daily Yomimouiri, Japan
- The Jerusalem Post, Israel
- YNetNews.com (Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel)