Dear Editor: Alan Hart is a writer, journalist and activist who has made it his life’s work to promote the truth about the core of the Middle East’s century-old state of conflict; That core being the Zionist propaganda machine’s campaign to portray Israel as a poor, helpless victim of worldwide anti-Semitism, which entitles it as the homeland of Jews for eternity, without regard to the rights of any other claimants, regardless of how legitimate

A few weeks back, the sensation-seeking Representative Michelle Bachmann did her best imitation of the late senator Joseph McCarthy. She and four of her Congressional colleagues released letters they had collectively sent to the inspectors general of the departments of state, justice, defense, and homeland security, and the Office of the Directorate of National Intelligence, calling on them to investigate whether "influence operations conducted by individuals and organizations associated with the Muslim Brotherhood" have "had an impact on the federal government's national security policies."

To The Editor: It is not unusual to find harsh criticism of Israeli government policies published in The Arab American News.  But Mazin Qumsiyeh's piece in the August 13th issue crossed the line into blatant stereotyping of Jews and should have been edited or excluded from the paper.

I read in the papers that my beloved alma mater, Wayne State University, has "retired" the Helen Thomas Spirit of Diversity in the Media award because of controversial remarks made by the award's namesake. In reading some of these remarks – at the time they were made, and again today – I find that, in every case, she has done no more than express her opinion, in fact, regularly using phrases like "in my opinion" and "I think that… " With all due respect to Helen Thomas' last professional job as an "opinion columnist" for Hearst Newspapers, I fail to see the controversy.

I am that which could be called a "standard-issue white guy." My mother was Irish, my father was French-Canadian. I live, and work, in Detroit, and I am married to a black woman, with whom I have two sons. I mention all of that to illuminate the fact that while I am, in some ways, "on the outside looking in" at racism, I am not so outside of it, after all.