By Hesham Tillawi, PhD
 

Headdresses have been a part of the human race since humanity first found itself on earth. Headdresses (or head coverings) have been used for protection from the elements, for ceremonial reasons, or to signify some sort of an official affiliation. Many headdresses worn today are often highly symbolic and deeply entrenched in tradition. The black and white Arab Headdress has, since the sixties, been identified with the Palestinian people even though it has been worn by many people in the Arab World. In the West, the Palestinian Keffiyeh became the symbol of freedom and resistance for many people fighting for many social, economic and, political issues.

Anti-Semitic reasons surround Duncan Donuts withdrawal of a commercial showing homemaking guru Rachael Ray wearing a scarf similar to a Palestinian scarf, even though in actuality it was not even a scarf. is the common pattern of the Palestinian Keffiyeh.  Why is the withdrawal of the commercial anti-Semitic?

The Palestinians are Semitic people. All Arabs, regardless of faith are Semitic.  To be Semitic, a person must be of Arab descent and speak on of five ancient languages which means all anti-Arab statements and racism is actually anti-Semitism. Being Semitic has nothing to do with faith and everything to do with race, thou the mis-use of the word beginning in 1882 has attributed Semitism to a religious group rather than its accurate definition of race and language.

“The keffiyeh, for the clueless, is the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad,” Malkins wrote. Mixing fashion with politics, she went further in describing it as “hate couture”. She and other bloggers (with similar small-minded-mindsets) thinking that they had found yet another way of kissing up to their Neocon masters threatened DD with a boycott. Sadly, DD–like so many other entities these days fearful of displeasing the Jewish lobby–found themselves ‘Malkinized’ and thus, succumbing to the brief reign of terror, pulled the ad down, rewarding Malkin’s lies and fear tactics.

In September 2001, during a joint session of Congress, President George Bush in answering the question ‘why do the terrorists hate us?’ said: “They hate our freedoms…our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech…” He went further by saying ‘We must find the terrorists and stop them…’ Well, my dear President, I hate to be the first one to tell ya, but the fact is this–we lost to the terrorists…they don’t hate us for our freedoms any more. When the bride of fear mongering–Malkin–terrorizes an American corporation and forces it to take down an ad just because the spokesperson appears to be wearing a scarf similar to a Palestinian scarf, we definitely lost the war on terror. Our freedoms you talked about that the terrorists hate us for? Gone, no more. For many years now many Americans used the Palestinian scarf, to mean freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and freedom period

Elitists, this small group of influential policy advocates decided that with the fall of the Soviet Union in the late 20th century, a new 'demon' was needed to justify military deployments.  Islam and the Middle East became the new villain, thus allowing the propaganda machine to focus on a new threat and convince the American public that the Muslim world is out to get them.  The neocons were and are the primary drivers behind the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and the push for military intervention and regime change in Iran, despite the fact that in its 100 year history, Iran has never attacked a nation that didn't attack it first. Like every non-nuclear nation in the world, Iran is at least 5-years off from a nuclear weapon. 

The only nation with nuclear weapons in the Middle East that has repeatedly threatened to use these weapons on its neighbors is Israel.  In 1993, it was estimated by a former Israeli government official that Israel possess over 600 WMD's.  Thou it has had a nuclear program since 1963, Israel continues to deny it and accuse all others of what itself is doing. --Couples Company