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Hanania
Biography
Email Ray Hanania
Welcome to my web page. I have tried over the years to help audiences better understand the Arab American experience and also to better understand the moderate Arab viewpoint in the Palestine-Israel conflict. My writings seek to define the "moderate Arab and Palestinian voice" in these discussions, to promote non-violence and peace based on compromise, but more importantly, understanding between Israelis/Jews and Palestinians/Arabs.
About my views:
I believe in some fundamental principles:
If you can denounce Israel for killing a Palestinian civilian, then we Palestinians can also denounce our own who kill Israeli civilians. The principle of mutual respect for life is the most important principle that we can embrace. If you can denounce the killing of your enemy, then you can denounce with moral strength the killing of your own.
I believe that Palestinians and Arabs and Muslims must act with a higher moral imperative. That we must respect the Jewish people because they are also our people, too. We must NOT deprecate the sanctity of the Holocaust which was one of the worst human tragedies in our existence. It is a special event in the Jewish experience and we should respect it and honor it as principled people.
We cannot respond to violence with violence. And, we cannot allow our anger and our emotion to control our reason and seek to hurt someone more than we feel they have hurt us. In the face of violence, we must show understanding. The conflict is generations old and it causes many good people to do many bad things. Innocent people on both sides will be harmed, but we cannot allow that harm to determine our response. We must dedicate ourselves to peace and in the face of continued conflict, respond to tragedy with even greater dedication to peace.
About myself
I began in journalism in 1976 and have spent more than 30 years in all aspects of communications. Communications is a broad field that not only includes the "News Media" but also includes other forms of "media" such as television, radio, Hollywood movies, theater, public relations and public speaking.
What you will find on these pages appears to be a very broad range of activity. Some see all of the forms of communications I have identified as being separate and unrelated. In truth, public perception on any topic is molded through a mix of all of the above forms of communications.
I took a sabatical from journalism in 1992 and spent 8 years in professional media relations. I even ran for public office, in part, to understand firsthand how the communications process works in the United States. I covered politics from the outside as a journalist, and experienced the communications coverage of politics from the inside as a candidate for local legislative office. I have even worked for more than 50 elected officials, candidates and Fortune 200 corporations and clients managing election campaigns, defining messaging and crafting corporate communications strategies.
In the end, I discovered, it is all related.
The drive behind my standup comedy
After Sept. 11, I decided to add one more component of effective communications to my communications resume and I entered professional standup comedy. Humor is the most powerful form of communications, and applied properly can be the most effective, especially in combatting intensely emotional controversies and issues.
I perform comedy with the Israeli-Palestinian Comedy Tour because I believe that laughter and humor are the most powerful and fundamental forms of human communications. Laughter can help change the dynamics between two people and cause them to remember their humanity and recognize the fundamental good of all people.
I write columns on all topics from Chicago and Illinois politics -- my first love -- to Middle East and international politics, one that I have been forced into addressing to earn a living, and in response to public demand. I perform standup comedy around the world. I also speak on political topics, on the power of humor and on effective communications to audiences.
I also speak to mainstream American and Jewish American audiences on defining the moderate Arab and Palestinian voice. I speak to Arab AMerican groups ont he need to understand not simply respond to mainstream media biases and stereotypes.
If you are interested in bringing me or the Israeli-Palestinian Comedy Tour to your campus, organization, community group, church, mosque or synagogue, please don't hesitate to contact me. I will do whatever I can to help you make the program effective and educational and rewarding to your audience.
Thanks.
RAY HANANIA |
