Category Archives: Israel

Nobody with any knowledge of Texas politics is taking Democrat Farouk Shami’s run for governor seriously. For one thing his incumbent opponent, Republican Rick Perry, is too popular. For another, well, when was the last time Texas had an Arab-American Muslim governor? Exactly never.

On the other hand, Shami has ten million dollars of his own money to invest in his campaign. Consequently he’s getting a lot of media, free and otherwise. They all quote him saying he’s from Palestine, wherever that is. It’s not the Texas Palestine. Apparently he’s from the West Bank, though no one is sure because he doesn’t call it that.

He tells the American Task Force for Palestine, which seems to think he’s a Muslim though some Texans think he’s a Quaker, that he’s for peace and love and equality in the Middle East. Debbie Schlussel thinks he’s a clandestine Jihadi in an anti-Semitic package. She cites as partial evidence this column he wrote two years ago for the Houston Chronicle in which he implies that the nasty Israelis are forcing the poor Palestinians to ration water "while Jewish settlers cultivate lush lawns and fill their swimming pools." That’s libel enough for me to be glad that Shami’s chance of election is exactly nil.

UPDATE:  The daily’s Ken Herman did a job on Shami: "The downtrodden minority/victim role is particularly unattractive on a guy who lives in a 24,585-square-foot-home like Shami does."