The March

“The March” tells the story of one of the most dramatic and important times for the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. Washington, D.C in 1963 could be seen as a momentous but hectic time for the state of the Country as a whole. One could argue that the country was just getting back onto it’s feet, after the F.B.I dealing with the remnants of the Cold War, fending off communism at home, and John F. Kennedy just dealing with the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. After all of these important international events dealing with Russian communism, it was only a matter of time until a new problem would arise. “The March” shows the “heroic endeavors to fundraise, organize and execute the March by hundreds of committed civil rights activists across America”. It is incredible, the struggle that these citizens went through just to gain the rights that many of their white neighbors already had. I find it truly amazing that this movement, with me

morable speeches from leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., was a giant success, and led to the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

During The march, Martin Luther King gave his famous and iconic ‘ I have a dream’ speech where he said:  

“Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.”

Regents of University of California v. Bakke (1978)

In 1978, Allan Bakke was denied his application to the medical school at the University of California, despite his MCAT scores, GPA, and benchmark scores being “significantly higher” than those of some minority applicants who were admitted. The California Supreme Court ruled in favor of Bakke, and believed that a quota system discriminated against racial groups, whether they be white or black. The court ruled in favor of getting rid of the quota system, which the medical school appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Overall, the Court decided that a state may constitutionally consider race as a factor in its university admissions to promote educational diversity. I believe that this is a very difficult topic to discuss, especially if presented in front of a court, but, the U.S. Supreme Court has made the right decision. Denying the “quota system” that many colleges around the United States use would only cause more problems with race relations, and would also dramatically reduce the “fairness” of the free market, in regards to searching for a job, and would greatly decrease the educational diversity that many colleges fight for. 

Plessy V Ferguson Case

Homer Plessy was jailed of sitting in the white car of Eat Luisiana Railroad on June. Plessy, a 30-year-old colored man was required to sit in the “colored” car despite his light complexion. In 1892,  when Louisiana passed the separate “Car Act” a black civil rights organization decided to challenge the law in courts. PLessy intentionally sat in the white section and identified himself as a black person, he was then arrested and the case went to the Supreme Court.  Furthermore, Plessy’s lawyer argued that the Car Act has violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the constitution and therefore the Supreme Court heard the case and held Louisiana’s segregation status as “constitutional” in 1896 arguing  that "A statute which implies merely a legal distinction between the white and colored races, has no tendency to destroy the legal equality of the two races. 

The object of the Fourteenth Amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either.” as Justice Brown said. On the other hand, Justice Harlan said : "Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. ... The present decision, it may well be apprehended, will not only stimulate aggressions, more or less brutal and irritating, upon the admitted rights of colored citizens, but will encourage the belief that it is possible, by means of state enactments, to defeat the beneficent purposes which the people of the United States had in view when they adopted the recent amendments of the Constitution." 

A question of which is states could constitutionally enact legislation requiring persons of different races to use “separate but equal” segregated facilities was issued. From Justice Brown’s point of view, he think that yes states could do that. The Plessy decision set the precedent that spirit facilities for black and whites are constitutional as long as they aw equal, and that is what they mean by “separate but equal”. It was later on found that the doctrine has extended to cover many public areas like restaurants, schools and restrooms; however, it turned on that the doctrine was fiction where black facilities where inferior to those for white. The case was overruled by Brown V Board of Education in 1954 where Justice Warren wrote the opinion for a “unanimous  court” holding that “separate facilities which segregate based on race are inherently unequal.” 

Target In Canada

Market Failure is a situation where the allocation of goods and services in a specific market is not efficient. There are many types of market failure that are illustrated in inefficiency, monopoly power, missing markets, incomplete markets, De-merit goods, negative externalities, property rights, information failure, unstable markets, and inequality. Target is an upscale discount retailer that provides on-trend merchandise at attractive prices that a regular consumer could be able and willing to pay in clean, roomy and guest-friendly stores. Target has 1,795 stores and 38 distribution centers in the United States. The CEO of Target Brian Cornell launched some of their retail stores In Canada as a part of their international expansion. 

Two years ago Target opened 124 stores in one fell swoop, but their stores had empty shelves, dreary location and “unexciting” merchandise which failed to entice consumers in Canada. The international expansion caused Canada $5.4 billion where their total net loss was estimated at $2 billion which was enough for Cornell , who was busy with satisfying American consumer’s needs in the United States, to realize that he’s business can’t operate anymore in the Canadian Market. “Our Target Canada business had reached the point where, without additional funding, it could not continue to meet its liabilities. Simply put, we were losing money every day,” Cornell said; and therefore it was obvious that they had to shut down their market, but he question is: why did this happen ? what did they do wrong ?! 

Target bought in 2011 the store leases of the discount chain, Zellers, for $1.8 billion from HBC which give target an Immediate cross-country footprint and spared it the expense of building new stores and renting land , they thought they cut some of the costs but what really happened is that they didn’t know that Zellers stores were located in areas not frequent by the middle class customers which is the segment they are targeting.  Also, Target opened 124 stores within such a short period of time which have led to a huge destruction and havoc with inventory planning which have caused big problem with stock, disappointed consumers expectation that they would see while shopping at target stores across the borders in the United states. With bare and empty shelves, Canadian consumers couldn’t shop even if they wanted to do so.
Even though target was popular on being a treasure trove for trendy but affordable high quality merchandise but many many customers still saw not as compelling as Wal-Mart. speaking of which the aggressive Wal-Mart pricing was a factor that led to the failure of target in Canada as well where they found their selves having to compete with Wal-Mart Pricing, where Wal-Mart have been in Canada since 1994 giving it the advantage of protecting its Canadian market share.

Furthermore, I think that target should have studied the case of expanding their market internationally in a more careful way. Their poor location choice proves the lack of information they had on the Canadian market, when Target segment the middle class they should locate their markets in middle class living areas; Also, they should have done fewer stores, but better ones, a 124 stores are a lot to handle all at one but wouldn’t be better if they hand 50 stores that are full of products that could actually be sold to people who want to buy from target instead of consumers going to stores and finding nothing to buy there ? Lack of information and the direct connection between it and the failure of target was also represented with the competing and over compelling price that Wal-Mart was offering their Canadian consumers. How was it possible for target to go into a store without getting enough information about their competition such as their prices , their market share, their power and their customer base. It was obvious that Target’s CEO was enjoying the 3% increase in their sales during holiday season and forgot how to manage and plan expanding their store internationally. 

Abuse of Power ?

The F.B.I (Federal Bureau of Investigation) serves as both a federal criminal investigative organization and an internal intelligence agency. It has many important purposes to the United States of America, such as, being a counterterrorism agency, a counterintelligence agency, a security service, and being responsible for investigating crimes on sovereign Native American reservations in the United States. The F.B.I was established in 1908 as the Bureau of Investigation, but was later changed to F.B.I in 1935. The J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, D.C. is the F.B.I headquarters. J. Edgar Hoover was F.B.I Director from 1924 to 1972. Hoover was involved in almost every major case at the agency during his tenure. 

During the 1920’s and early 1930’s, known as the “War on Crime”, the F.B.I focused on apprehending or even killing many notorious criminals. Some of these criminals were John Dillinger, “Baby Face” Nelson, and George “Machine Gun” Kelly. These acts greatly boosted the popularity of the F.B.I, and put the agency more in the scope of the people. In other words, they were now more closely watched by the average population. During the 1920’s, Hoover used wiretapping during Prohibition to arrest bootleggers (Civil Rights). This caused some controversy throughout the country, but ultimately, the Supreme Court ruled that F.B.I wiretaps did not violate the Fourth Amendment as unlawful search and seizure. 

During the 1940’s through the 1970’s, one of the Bureau’s concerns were cases of espionage against the United States. Because of the Venona Project, the F.B.I was able to confirm that there were Americans in the United States working as Soviet Intelligence. This became known as an obsession to Hoover, and led to many arrests of suspected Soviets, and many arrests within the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA). During the Civil Rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s the F.B.I believe that many leaders of this cause were influenced by these Communistic values as well. One of the most well known leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King Jr. was frequently investigated by the F.B.I. It is known that the F.B.I at one point sent him an anonymous letter encouraging him to commit suicide (King). This should never happen from any countries Federal Agencies. 

Americans Under Israeli Violence

On Monday a US jury gave the Palestinian Authority the responsibility of the killing of a number of American citizens and ordered them to pay $218.5 million to american victims in six separate attacks in Israel between the years 2002 and 2004 blaming the Islamist movement Hamas and the Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigades. Both the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian Liberation Organization denied the attacks and refused to be responsible to any independent acts.

The PA expects the US jury to understand that neither the Palestinian Government nor the Palestinian people accept any act of terrorism and if the U.S. jury finds the PA liable and responsible of such acts then the PA finds the U.S. responsible for the terrorist attack that killed the three beautiful angles Deah, Yusor, and Razan in the Chapel Hill shooting, the PA also finds the U.S. responsible of every Palestinian killed since the U.S. is funding the Israeli Military Forces. 

This article doesn't really talk about who is responsible for killing who and at the end of the day killing a person is forbidden no matter what the reason is. However, finding the PA responsible for killing U.S. citizens made me think of the American precious souls that were killed by Israelis trying to defend the Palestinian right and why doesn't the U.S  investigate Israeli violence against their citizens. 

Tariq Abukhdeir

On July 2014; 15-year-old Tariq Abukhdeir, a US citizen from florida was beaten by an undercover Israeli police officer where he was kicked and punched in the face and head while lying handcuffed on the ground in Shuafat neighborhood of the occupied East Jerusalem. Abukhdeir was arrested without a charge and was released on bail after three days and was placed under house arrest. The U.S. department called " for a speedy, transparent and credible investigation and full accountability for any excessive use of force" in Tariq's beating and nothing happened after that. 

Rachel Corrie

On March 2003; 23-year-old american activist, Rachel Corrie, from Olympia- Washington was run over and killed by and Israeli Caterpillar bulldozer while nonviolently protesting against the demolishing of a Palestinian house in the Gaza strip. The Israeli government promised the US to have a thorough investigation in her death but Rachel's family was informed afterwards that the case "didn't meet the Israeli investigation standards". The U.S. didn't intervene and left the Corrie family appeal to the Israeli high court after a lower court voted against the family and blamed Rachel for her own death. 

Brain Avery, a 24-year-old activist from New Mexico was shot in the face by an Israeli solider in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin. Moreover; Tristan Anderson, a 37-year-old activist from California is suffering from brain damage after an Israeli Soldier shot him in the forehead during a protest in the occupied West Bank village of Nilin in March 2009. Non of their cases where taking into consideration and the U.S. didn't intervene at all and never asked for an investigation. 

Tristan Anderson

Brain Avery

Abukhdeir, Corrie, Avery and Anderson are not the only Americans that were injured or killed by the Israeli Military Forces. American activists that visit Palestine are heroes. They go there to see what the media doesn't want them to see, they go there and see Palestinians getting killed, kicked out of their houses, shot, injured, imprisoned , burned and much more for no reason. Israeli forces are "occupational" forces which means that they are there to occupy lands and therefore they don't discriminate between gender, nationality or age. They don't care if you're an American or a Palestinian, if you're a male or a female, if you're 5 years old or 80; they are on the Palestinian lands with one goal which is to build their own state, the state of "Israel" and anyone that stands in their way will simply get killed. 

The U.S. is fully aware that this is the case and even if they don't care if Palestinians are getting killed for no matter what the reason is, why do they care less about their people? why do they care less about Americans getting killed by Israelis? The U.S. invaded Iraq because they claimed that Sadam Hussien was killing his own people and they went there to "help Iraqis" and today we find the U.S. funding the military that is killing its people. Ironic right?

See story at : http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/23/us-plo-israel-attacks-trial-idUSKBN0LR1SL20150223

U.S. Supreme Court closely divided on Jerusalem passport case

The U.S supreme Court was divided on wether American Jews born in Jerusalem should list "Israel" as their birth country. In 2002 The congress passed a law of allowing American Jews list "Israel" as their birthplace on passports if they were born in Jerusalem, but the government never enforced it. The parents of a Jerusalem-born 12-year-old boy, U.S. citizen Menachem Zivotofsky are fighting through a long court battle to state that their son was born in Israel.

Jerusalem is considered holy to three major religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam; also, both Palestinians and Israelis claim the city as their capital however, neither claim is recognized internationally. Jerusalem is now controlled by the Israeli government, but in 2012, Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, proposed an establishment of an independent Palestinian state to the UN. 135 countries recognized the Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital and therefore the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 58/292 affirmed that " the Palestinian people have the right to sovereignty over East Jerusalem".


On one hand, Israelis claim that they are the chosen people and god gave them this land so they have a right to be in, live in and control Jerusalem and as a result in 1948 they established the state of Israel on the Palestinian territories and stated Jerusalem as their capital and had control over it since then. On the other hand, Palestinians are not giving up their right of having power over their own land by asking for a capital in East Jerusalem but rather trying their best to keep their hands on what really belongs to them in a sensible way since the Israeli side refuses to give Palestinians back what was stolen from them including the holy land of Jerusalem and therefore are forcing Palestinians out of Jerusalem and not allowing them to enter or cross borders and checkpoints.


The Fight over the land has been going on for almost 67 years now and therefore neither the Zivotofsky family nor the American Supreme court could do anything about it because it is not their fight. The supreme court and the american congress have no right to allow American- Jews born in Jerusalem to put "Israel" as their birth country and not allow Jerusalem -born U.S. citizens from Palestinian Heritage to put "Palestine" on their passports as well. If this law passes then this means that the U.S. is simply giving Israelis the land of Jerusalem and they have no right to do so and if it is in the congress power to pass and enforce such laws what is the point of having UN resolutions ? If this law passes this means the U.S. is taking the Israeli side in this conflict and therefore it'll be fair to say that this will become a Palestine - Israeli American conflict.

Lastly, It'll not be surprising at all if the U.S. Supreme Court passes this law and allow the family to state Israel on their son's passport, where it wasn't surprising at all when the U.S. raised the VETO card against the establishment of the Palestinian State; however, Palestinians will fight till the last drop of blood in their bodies even if that means fighting against their rights in International Courts.

See story at : http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/1.624444