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“Riad succeeded beyond even his own imagination”

Archived by permission–gm

Note: The memorial for Riad attended by over 200 people from around the US was MC’d by Rev. Edward Hartwell of St. James Episcopal Church and included comments by Sheikh Mohammed Umar Ismail, Daughter Rita Hamad, lifelong friend Nina Glasgow, brother Omar Hamad, fellow Middle School Teacher Mark Kelly, Jack Prince of the IFCPR (who introduced me), a slide show presentation by son Abdullah Hamad, music performance by Lourdes Perez, and reflections by Diana HajAli Hamad. Reflections and stories of Riad are being collected. Please send yours to Riads.Stories@gmail.com

In the past few hours I kept contemplating what to say here. You can see from this sheet that my original talk here is all marked off, edited and changed and will likely be rambling. But I did hope I could preserve a few important things I wanted to say and add others but that has been difficult. Several things cross my mind the rather quickly the first few seconds of meeting Riad over 8 years ago:

• He talks too much !
• He is too good to be true
• and then (and this was mentioned by other speakers) I would like to know more about this guy.

The parking lot outside the Church has several cars with bumper stickers “Free Palestine”. Those are the stickers Riad made and for which I recall that the last time we talked he asked me if I have received the new batch that he sent me through a mutual friend. Like others here and as always, when people leave us, we always wish we had said a few more things to them. We wish we had told them more how we appreciated them. So here goes.

Riad was always on the run. When he did sit for a while like he did when he stayed at our home in CT, the conversations were always very interesting. They ranged from weighty matters like the future of the Arab world to the mundane (like why I am failing at growing the Palestinian faqoos plan in my garden when I could grow everything else).

The famous Lebanese American poet Khalil Gibran once said “you give very little when you give of your belongings, it is when you give of your self that you truly give.” Khalil and Riad will be remembered for giving of themselves. When I first met Riad before he started the Palestine Children Welfare Fund, he was most passionate about the deteriorating situation in Palestinians living under occupation and in refugee camps.

In life there are those who are doers and those who are talkers and Riad was definetly a doer so it did not take him long to figure out where he can personally contribute. His love of children was not just because 60% of Palestinians are under the age of 18. Every other sentence he uttered you would hear from Riad seemed to contain things like “for the Children”, how about the children etc.

Already, the year before he founded PCWF, over 200 Palestinian children were killed and hundreds were injured by the Israeli occupation authorities. But the impact on those not injured or killed was also devastating with unemployment reaching 60% , more than twice what it was in the hight of the great depression in the US. Riad’s solution was direct aid by selling Palestinian products, by collecting donations, and funneling money to those in need.

Some of us have thought he was going too fast and thus putting himself and his projects at risk. But Riad’s imaptience was in a context of a relentless war carried by Israel with the support of the US against the people of Palestine.

Riad always spoke fast and passionately that sometimes it was hard to keep up with him but I think his mind was running even faster, always thinking of new ways to do things. They were always practical things. As an example, when Riad read of my father’s death, he took initiative to ask that a tree be planted in my father’s honor and he sent me a picture of it. That picture had more value than any words of condolensces he could have sent. That was the Riad we knew, always thinking practical things, not mere words.

Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. stated: “Cowardice asks the question – is it safe? Expediency asks the question – is it politic? Vanity asks the question – is it popular? But conscience asks the question – is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right.”

We know Riad followed his conscience and acted because it is rigt not safe and as Ralph Waldo Emerson summed it well in his poem about What is success?

To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children;
to earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty; to find the best in others;
to leave the world a bit better, whether
by a healthy child, a garden patch
or redeemed social condition;
To know even one life breathed easier
because you have lived;
This is to have succeeded.”

I think Riad succeeded beyond even his own imagination. I think most of us humans are generally more afraid not that we are capable of changing things but afraid that we are capable beyond our imaginations. I think we have to learn to appreciate ourselves and the people around us more. To Riad’s wife Diana, his children, his family.. thank you for giving us Riad/sharing him with us and with Palestine. We know Riad would want us to take care of each other more and to say thank you more to those who give of themselves.

We know he would want us to intensify our work to help the oppressed. We know he cared about Palestine and recognized the centrality of its struggle for freedom. To continue Riad’s work is thus the right thing to do. I am thus grateful for ICPR, Jack and others who organized the events that will follow this service in Austin. Rest in peace my friend Riad. We will continue your work… “for the Children”.

ACTION: Speak out, silence is complicity
Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
http://qumsiyeh.org
http://justicewheels.org

From email, June 17, 2008–gm

Federal immigration prosecutions continued their recent and highly unusual surge in March 2008, apparently reaching an all-time high, according to timely data obtained from the Justice Department by TRAC. The total of 9,350 such prosecutions was up by almost 50% from the previous month and 73% from the previous year.

The spurt in the prosecution of individuals charged with various immigration crimes is the result of “Operation Streamline.” Under this recently intensified administration policy, according to news reports and interviews with federal public defenders, the government has charged a rapidly growing number of undocumented aliens with various federal criminal charges, almost all in selected districts along the Mexican border. “Operation Streamline” began as a pilot project in December 2005 in Del Rio, Texas.

The data further show that virtually every one of the individuals referred by the investigative agencies for prosecution — 99% of them — are then being charged by the U.S. Attorneys, and that the resulting median or typical sentence is one month.

To read the latest TRAC immigration report, go to:

http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/188/

Excerpt from Concurring Opinion of Justice Stevens in the March 25, 2008 ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in the matter of Medellin v. Texas.

In today’s breaking news, Mexico is renewing appeal to the International Court of Justice (or World Court) to halt the U.S. executions of five Mexican nationals until their cases are reviewed to determine what impact may have resulted from their not having been advised of their rights to assistance from the Mexico consulate offices.

So far, Texas is refusing to acknowledge that a review of the denied rights is appropriate, because procedural rules require issues to be raised earlier. In March, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that neither the World Court nor the President of the USA can order Texas to adjust its procedures in relation to Mexican nationals on death row.

However, in a concurring opinion, excerpted below (with paragraph breaks added for readability), Justice Stevens argues that Texas still has good reasons to want to do the right thing and reopen the cases to assess the impact that Consular representation may have had.

Even though the [International Court of Justice’s] ICJ’s judgment in Avena is
not “the supreme Law of the Land,” U. S. Const., Art. VI, cl. 2, no one disputes
that it constitutes an international law obligation on the part of the United
States. Ante, at 8. By issuing a memorandum declaring that state courts should
give effect to the judgment in Avena, the President made a commendable attempt
to induce the States to discharge the Nation’s obligation.

I agree with the Texas judges and the majority of this Court that the President’s
memorandum is not binding law. Nonetheless, the fact that the President cannot
legislate unilaterally does not absolve the United States from its promise
to take action necessary to comply with the ICJ’s judgment.

Under the express terms of the Supremacy Clause, the United States’ obligation
to “undertak[e] to comply” with the ICJ’s decision falls on each of the States
as well as the Federal Government. One consequence of our form of government
is that sometimes States must shoulder the primary responsibility for protecting
the honor and integrity of the Nation.

Texas’ duty in this respect is all the greater since it was Texas that—by failing to provide consular notice in accordance with the Vienna Convention — ensnared the United States in the current controversy. Having already put the Nation in breach of one treaty, it is now up to Texas to prevent the breach of another.

The decision in Avena merely obligates the United States “to provide, by means
of its own choosing, review and reconsideration of the convictions and sentences
of the [affected] Mexican nationals,” 2004 I. C. J., at 72, ¶153(9), “with
a view to ascertaining” whether the failure to provide proper notice to consular
officials “caused actual prejudice to the defendant in the process of administration
of criminal justice,” id., at 60, ¶121.

The cost to Texas of complying with Avena would be minimal, particularly given the remote likelihood that the violation of the Vienna Convention actually prejudiced José Ernesto Medellín. See ante, at 4–6, and n. 1. It is a cost that the State of Oklahoma unhesitatingly assumed.4

On the other hand, the costs of refusing to respect the ICJ’s judgment are significant. The entire Court and the President agree that breach will jeopardize the United States’ “plainly compelling” interests in “ensuring the reciprocal observance of the Vienna Convention, protecting relations with foreign governments, and demonstrating commitment to the role of international law.” Ante, at 28. When the honor of the Nation is balanced against the modest cost of compliance, Texas would do well to recognize that more is at stake than whether judgments of the ICJ, and the principled admonitions of the President of the United States, trump state procedural rules in the absence of implementing legislation.

The Court’s judgment, which I join, does not foreclose further appropriate action by the State of Texas.

We agree with Justice Stevens that Texas is behaving badly in its stubborn refusal to give hearing to the rights of Mexican nationals. And as Justice Stevens warned, here we go again. Texas stubbornness is the cause of another appeal to the World Court.

To all this we only have one thing more to say: Texas, of all states in the USA, should assume moral leadership when it comes to respecting the international rights of Mexico and Mexican citizens.–gm