Tarif Abboushi makes another appearance in the Chronicle, this time in a Chronicle puff piece on that known statesman, Yasser Arafat:
Houston businessman Tarif Abboushi recalls the recent visit of a cousin from the West Bank. The only thing the cousins argued about was Arafat.
“He was defending Arafat entirely,” Abboushi said.
” … His legacy in my mind will be forever tarnished by the mediocrity and corruption that he allowed to prevail to this day in the Palestinian Authority. I’m not saying he was per-sonally corrupt, but he knew it was happening and let it continue.”
He’s not just a Houston businessman. Last month Abboushi wrote an op-ed for the Chronicle which included a byline that said he is a Palestinian-American Houstonian. At that time, I pointed out that Abboushi was more than that:
Abboushi is a bit more than just a Palestinian-American Houstonian. He also appears to be a past director of the Houston chapter of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Now there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it should have been included in the byline. Abboushi obviously has a point of view, perhaps even an agenda, and many readers would appreciate knowing this after reading his op-ed.
The op-ed Abboushi wrote is no longer available on the Chronicle‘s website, but the same column appears at Counterpunch.org.
This does make one wonder how the Chronicle (and the rest of the media) find people to give quotes for stories. Maybe there’s a Rolodex somewhere that is categorized by topic: for Palestinian stories, contact Tarif Abboushi – average Palestinian-American Houstonian.
