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The a-Rab

a-rab.net/

The a-Rab is a magazine put together by Muslims in the USA, in order to highlight the ongoing issue of anti-Muslim hatred that's grown in this country since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. They describe themselves thusly: "The a-Rab is everyone recklessly slapped with a criminal label September 12th 2001; the folks who were already suspected and rejected: the dark-skinned and coarse, the multilingual with heavy scorned accents, the Muslims who pray to the East, the Arabs who sip heavily distilled grape alcohol, the Palestinians who forgot how to weep, the politically conscious, those who reject the system and won't accept its idea of good manners." They support the uprising against Israel and they describe the treatment of Palestinians as "Israeli Apartheid;" yet they also encourage support for political movements (and political prisoners) in Arab and Muslim nations as well.

What's especially interesting is their Intifada U.S.A. theme. Thanks to the Israeli-Palestine conflict, most people in the US equate the word "Intifada" with "violent uprising," which is what has been happening there. These folks are trying to encourage a newer, more patriotic definition of intifada that goes as follows:

in * ti * fa * da (n). An Arabic word for "shaking off," politically it refers to popular movements that seek to rectify an unjust situation, whether it be for affordable bread or equal political rights. The civil rights movement might have been called an intifada, if it happened on the other side of the world. Is that so bad?

They even sell "Intifada USA" T-shirts that equate the Boston Tea Party with an intifada. These days, you could find yourself getting beaten up if you dare to wear one of these shirts in public – but that's the idea. (Not to get beaten up…rather, to point out anti-Muslim hysteria and bigotry in the US.)