Think Palestine

About the Book

It is clearly obvious that, in the United States, limits are imposed on the Palestinians’ right to speak, on what the Palestinians could or should not say. Platforms for an impartial Palestinian discourse were extremely narrow to begin with, and when any was available, Palestinians hardly took center stage. For that purpose, Dr. Effarah kept writing weekly articles in Arabic and English for the last twenty-six years with one objective—“Think Palestine.” This third volume includes unpublished articles for the last three years (2012–2015); volume 1 includes the published articles from 2001 to 2006, while volume 2 includes articles from 2007 to 2012. Dr. Effarah believes that the media discrepancies are far more pronounced. The moral crisis in mainstream Western media on the subject of Palestine requires volumes, and much has indeed been written about it. His writings are based on developing events that took place in the last seventy years of his own experience since he was uprooted from his home in Haifa, Palestine, in 1948, along with his community; such change in his life caused him to be involved in the politics of the Middle East. Dr. Effarah’s articles on “Think Palestine” have a propensity to find solutions to the Palestinian dilemma while waiting for a form of a peaceful settlement between the Palestinians and the Israelis. The struggle in Palestine requires—and in fact, demands—global solidarity, a critical mass of a support base that is enough to turn the tide against the violent Israeli occupation, incorporating governments and companies that currently support, sustain, and bankroll Israel’s daily crimes against Palestinians. There were not enough Palestinian intellectuals around to speak for themselves and are capable of enunciating the Palestinian experience or that the struggle of Palestine is part of a larger battle against imperialism. Today, there’s a massive shift that the Internet and social media has brought about—a change in understanding the truth about Palestine being occupied by intruders coming from the four corners of earth to fulfill a fallacy of certain myth that a certain god promised the land of Palestine to the Jews. However, the frame of mind that neglected or avoided the Palestinian narrative has not been defeated completely in the Western world as long as the appreciation of the authenticity of the Palestinian narrative to the central discourse of the Palestine-Israel conflict at every available platform—be it political, academic, cultural, artistic, or in the media—is not comprehended. Dr. Effarah attempts to create a voice for Arab Americans to stand up and be counted and act as an integral part of the American society and help Americans understand the Palestinians’ situation as part of the Arab culture and heritage.

About the Author

Dr. Jamil Effarah has been a resident of Ventura County, California, since 1978. He is an Arab American from Lebanon, born in Haifa, Palestine. He is married to his cousin Mathilda Effarah and has two sons and six grandchildren. He obtained a BA degree from the American University of Beirut (AUB), a MEd from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge (LSU), an MS degree in computer science from University of Southern Louisiana in Lafayette (ULL), an MBA from California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks (CLU), and a PhD from University of Oregon in Eugene (U of O). He published his first book in Arabic in 1958, The Political Problems of the Sudan, and an updated second edition in 2000. He established, owned, and directed Kfarshima College in Kfarshima, Lebanon, in 1962. His dissertation “The Impact of Electronic Data Processing on Business Education in the Secondary Schools of Oregon,” is classified at the foundation level of the Mathematics Genealogy Project at North Dakota State University (NDSU) and is being taught as part of the Mathematics Subject Classification: 97—Mathematics Education at the University of North Dakota in Fargo. Dr. Borg and Dr. Gall quoted Dr. Effarah and added another chapter, “Evaluation Research,” in the third edition of their book Educational Research, 1979. Dr. Effarah has originated a baseline to measure the unmet needs. He has published over one thousand articles in Arabic and English in different newspapers and magazines in United States and in the Middle East. He published a number of books in English online through the Author House (www.authorhouse.com) and a number of other published books in English and in Arabic, and more written books are still waiting to be published.