By THE MEDIA LINEAbdullah, Abbas walk in West Bank 370(photo credit: REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman)POLITICAL INITIATIVE OR AN ECONOMIC SUMMIT? Al-Quds editorial, Jerusalem, January 21 An important question is being posed at the third Arab Economic Summit in Riyadh that took place this week: When will there be an Arab desire and decision to create a united Arab economy that serves the Arab nation, makes its own independent political decisions, and shifts the Arabs from unemployment and consumerism to production? It is difficult to separate politics and economics from the various aspects of social life in any nation.Clearly the countries which respect human rights and the principles of democracy, transfer of power and pluralism, and earmark a portion of their gross domestic product for development of scientific research and technological development are moving toward prosperity and economic success.The concept of Arab unity or economic development has become a mere slogan of the Arab regimes, and the Palestinian cause and their suffering is an example of the helplessness of the Arab economic system. Palestine is not begging at the gates of Arab capitals and is not looking for some funds here or there, but is waiting for a strong political will and an Arab decision to invest all the Arab countries’ capabilities to solve the real issues.MOROCCAN LAWYERS AIM TO MAKE NORMALIZATION WITH ISRAEL A CRIME Maan News Agency, Bethlehem, January 18 Normalizing relations with Israel will be considered a crime and violators will be brought to justice under a new parliamentary law that a committee of Moroccan activists has proposed.Prominent lawyer Ahmed Weyhman, head of the Moroccan Committee to Condemn Normalization with Israel, accused politicians, youth, and economic and academic institutions of normalizing ties with Israel, adding that he would expose them to the Moroccan people, who he said consider the Palestinian cause to be a national one. Weyhman said the committee could help the Palestinian cause by besieging the Zionist entity as was occurring on an international level, and accused those normalizing ties of violating that policy.THE FIRST CIVIL MARRIAGE IN LEBANON Al-Quds al-Arabi, Beirut, January 21 Lebanese President Michel Suleiman tweeted that it was necessary to legalize civil marriage in his country as a way of denouncing sectarianism and encouraging coexistence. His statement came after a couple registered their marriage as the first civil marriage in Lebanon.The Council of Ministers had approved reforming the personal status law in 1998 allowing civil marriage, but the reform failed to get through the parliament, and religious and political figures opposed it.Those seeking a civil marriage usually head to Cyprus or Turkey, but not since a lawyer published a study proving civil marriage was legal in Lebanon, based on a French decision issued in 1936. The couple involved in the current case had to delete their religions on paper to be eligible to marry under the French law. The marriage’s legal documents remain in the hands of government institutions, still hesitant about how to deal with this new type of marriage.‘ARABIZED ENGLISH DIMINISHES ARABIC’ Al-Qabas, Kuwait, January 21 Academics have agreed that the use of Arabized English (writing Arabic with English letters) among teenagers and younger children diminishes the Arabic language and weakens Arabs’ writing and pronunciation skills. An anthropologist said Arabic was the language of the Koran, and constantly distorting it by writing in the English alphabet would create a generation that could not write or speak its mother tongue correctly.Arabized English is often used in text messages and chatting. As some English letters don’t have Arab phonetics, some numbers, like 7 and 5, are used to represent these letters. Some students said they approved of this new trend because it was easier, prevented spelling mistakes and was more modern, though they acknowledged it would affect their language in the future.
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