It was one hundred years ago, that my father's oldest brother crossed a continent and an ocean to come to America. Habib Rashid Zogby, fourteen at the time, made the long trip with his uncle, leaving his mother, father and six siblings in Lebanon.

The Christmas story as it is told in the West, in scripture and tradition, contains timeless elements that have shaped our culture in significant ways.

Back in the early 1990's, at the end of Lebanon's civil war, together with a few other Arab American organizations, we requested and secured a meeting with then Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell to discuss both the situation in Lebanon and some unhelpful positions taken by the Senate that we felt might adversely impact the still troubled situation in that country. 

From the day the first batch of Wikileaks appeared in the international press, the Israelis were crowing "this is good for us". Seizing on documents demonstrating that some Arab leaders bear ill-will toward Iran, the Israeli spin machine went into action.

As I have read press reports of the U.S. offering massive incentives to Israel in an effort to secure a three month settlement freeze, I've wanted to give the U.S. peace negotiators the benefit of the doubt.

As I have been traveling around the U.S. discussing my new book "Arab Voices", attempting to shatter the myths that many Americans have about Arabs, I frequently get the question, "but do Arabs understand us?". 

Israel's announcement, last week, of a radical expansion of Har Homa (an already massive settlement community between Jerusalem and Bethlehem) makes a mockery of the so-called "peace process".

The partisan divide on issues related to Arabs and Muslims has become disturbingly wide. For example, when, in a recent poll, we asked American voters whether they had favorable or unfavorable attitudes toward Arabs and Muslims, the results were shocking. 

After decades spent trying to better explain the Arab World to other Americans, all too often I have found myself running up against the same mythologies and half-truths that, year after year, stubbornly maintain an alarming ability to shape thinking about the region.  

In " HYPERLINK "http://www.amazon.com/Arab-Voices-What-Saying-Matters/dp/0230102999" Arab Voices" I describe Lebanon as "a tinderbox, with too many groups still playing with matches".

A poll of Arab American voters completed just one month before the 2010 mid-term elections shows Arab Americans favoring Democrats over Republicans by a wide margin.

This past Thursday, I hosted Congressman Brian Baird on my weekly television program, "Viewpoint" (on Abu Dhabi TV, across the Middle East and Europe, and Link TV and Mhz Networks here in the U.S.).

For Muslim Americans, this year’s anniversary of September 11, may be the most stressful one yet, and possibly the most consequential. A confluence of events and political developments has produced a situation more volatile than any since the immediate aftermath of the horrific terror attacks of 2001.  

For Muslim Americans, this year’s anniversary of September 11, may be the most stressful one yet, and possibly the most consequential.

A few years back when Washington was preparing for the then highly touted Annapolis Peace Conference, I remember commenting that I was "hopeful, but not optimistic".