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P0 Box 551
Ephrata
Washington State
U.S.A. 98823
Dr. Mohammad Said for U.S. Senate
509 787-4358
1-800-435-5637
June25, 1992
This is the letter and platform statement that I handed to the delegates
at the Washington State Democratic Party Convention held in Silverdale on
May 25, 1992 with minor changes.
My name is not a familiar name. It is not your next-door neighbor’s, it
is not Grandma’s apple pie. I am not the usual candidate in this very
unusual election year. My name is Mohammed, the most widely used among the
one billion Moslems on this planet. And thanks to the champ, Mohammed Mi,
it is also well known in the United States. My last name is SAID,
pronounced SAEED, which means in Arabic, happy, and indeed I am a happy
person.
My campaign will be an educational one, with lots of fun with a very
serious message. I was born in the port city of Haifa, Palestine, in
October, 1938, which is now part of Israel. In 1947, we had to flee our
home at Mount Carmel in Haifa, when hostilities broke out between Arabs and
Jews, to seek refuge with my three brothers at my father’s sister’s home,
my Aunt, in Burin - a small town 30 miles North of Jerusalem. Soon after my
father left for Saudi Arabia to work, where he re-married and never came
back. My mother died when I was 3 years old. This personal tragedy of my own
family and my people, created in me a sense of injustice which motivated me
throughout my life to work for the oppressed, the underdog, the displaced
everywhere. That powerful inner circle made me work very hard, in spite of
all odds, to excel and be a leader. My first political involvement was at
the age of sixteen, when I led demonstrations in the city of Nabuls, the
biggest city in the West Bank, against the British bases in Jordan. They
represented at that time, the evil empire, who were the culprits, the ones
who created most of the problems in the Middle East, as they followed their
philosophy, divide and conquer. They issued that famous declaration on
November 2, 1917, known as the Balfour Declaration, after they expelled the
Turks from Palestine and other countries in the Middle East. That
declaration was to establish a Jewish state in Palestine, and to protect
the rights of the indigenous Palestinians, the existing non-Jewish
communities (Moslem and Christian) then being 95% of the population of Palestine,
who owned more than 96% of the land. They betrayed the ruler of the city of
Mecca, Sharif Hussein, the grandfather of King Hussein of Jordan, who
rallied the Arabs against the Turks in World War I in exchange for the
Arabs being independent, under one flag. However, instead of that, they
created, with the help of the French, divisions and artificial borders that
made the region into states, such as Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait,
etc.. After I graduated from high school in 1957, I became a teacher for
two years in Jordan and for three years as a teacher and principal in Saudi
Arabia. In the early 60’s, I started my medical study in Grenada, Spain,
graduating on June 6, 1967, the same day that Jerusalem fell to the
Israelis. Instead of celebrating the fulfillment of my dream as a doctor, I
spent the next several weeks trying to find out what happened to my family
and relatives after the Israelis occupied the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan
Heights. During the mid 60’s, while studying in Spain, I established the
student Islamic Center in Grenada for prayers, gatherings and cultural
activities after 500 years of Arabs and Jews were expelled from Spain.
During the 60’s, I co-founded the Moslem Student Association in Spain and
Europe and became president of the Spanish Association for several years. I
co-founded the Islamic Medical Association in Europe and conducted the
first medical mission to help poor people in the north of Africa. In 1970,
after attending the International Symposium for Transplant of Organs, I
proposed that a bank be created for organ donation, particularly from those
who die on the highway, and make them available to everybody. That proposal
was adopted more than 20 years later.
Following that symposium, I left for the refugee camps in the Middle
East, working on my Ph.D. thesis entitled, “Sanitary and social problems of
Palestinian refugees living in the Arab countries.” During that year, I
survived a brutal attack in the Spring when the Israelis took our ambulance
in Southern Lebanon, and in the Summer we were attacked at Gabal Al Hussein
refugee camp in Aman Jordan by the Jordanian army. At that point I decided
once and for all to move to the west, first joining my brother in Canada,
then immigrating from Canada to the US in 1974. In the mid 60’s, when I
heard that Malcolm X, the famous black Civil Rights leader, was coming back
from a pilgrimage to Mecca and staying at the Islamic Center in Geneva, I
rushed to meet with him, though I missed him. In the 70’s, I continued to
work as a political activist in Arabic-Islamic organizations. I co-founded,
again, the Islamic Medical Association of the United States and Canada and
became secretary-general. In the late 70’s, I traveled to Iran to help
release the American hostages and met with the students holding them. In
the following year, due to the earthquake which devastated Iran, I went
back again to plead with the Iranians to stop the war with Iraq. I met with
the Speaker of the Parliament, at that time, Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani, who is
the President of Iran at the present time. In 1980, after I became a US
citizen in Bismarck, North Dakota, I started to get involved in American
politics, because I felt it was the best way to influence the American
policy regarding the Middle East. During the invasion of Israel to Lebanon
in 1982, I traveled as an American citizen, to help the victims of the war,
and that is the year when I decided with my wife to come and settle in the
State of Washington. 1984 was a turning point in my political life, when I
went to Iowa to campaign for Jesse Jackson who was an unknown at the time.
When I returned home from Iowa, I attended a caucus then ran for the
legislature for the first time. I was the only delegate in Grant County for
Jesse Jackson. In my platform I proposed among other things that our allies
in Europe, South Korea, Japan, etc. pay the full cost of our troops
stationed on their land. This is now being debated in Congress. Since 1984
and to the present time, I have been a State delegate, a Precinct Committeeman
and since 1986 a platform State member. In 1988, I coauthored the very
famous resolution calling for a Palestinian state alongside Israel. I
traveled to Algeria to attend the Palestinian National Council at the
invitation of the President of the Council. I felt I had a significant
influence at the convention, and I demanded the expulsion of the notorious
radical Abu Abbas during the Intifadah Session, which was reported in the
Washington Post. One month later, I was invited to be part of the Palestinian
delegation to the General Assembly of the United Nations in Geneva. I
carried a verbal message from our Ambassador, Vernon Waters, to chairman
Arafat, ~Thch contributed to the opening of the dialog between the US
administration and the Palestinian Organization. In 1988, I was elected as
a member of the National Platform Committee for Jesse Jackson or the
Rainbow coalition. For the last two years, I have been the Vice Chairman of
the Democratic Central Committee of Grant County. In 1990, as a platform
committee member I contributed to drafting and passing important
resolutions regarding foreign policy, health care and injured workers.
Among them an invitation to Chairman Arafat to come to U.S.A. and speak
out, holding aid to Israel pending acceptance of UN Resolutions 242 and 338
and the respect of Palestinian Human Rights, making the Middle East free of
nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, etc. In August, 1990, after Iraq
invaded Kuwait, I formed and became the chairman of Arab-American’s against
military intervention in the Gulf. I traveled to Kuwait in August and early
September, 1990, I was able to go to Kuwait and be the only one to make a
video using a CNN camera after I convinced the Iraqi Minister of
Information. I went back, again, in January, 1991 a few days before the war
started I talked briefly to Saddam Hussein at the Islamic Conference,
bringing a letter to his assistant, warning him that he was going into a
trap, and his country would be destroyed, and the only way would be to
declare his intention to withdraw from Kuwait. I again videotaped Kuwait,
one day before the war, and left Kuwait six hours before the war started,
reaching Baghdad and surviving three days of heavy bombardment. I led
demonstrations against the war, and held international press conferences in
Jordan, the Washington National Press Club, and at the United Nations.
Through my personal experience I found that the Gulf war was the mother of
all misinformation and cover-ups. “The Mother of all Miscalculations and
the Thyroid connection’ will be the title of my book, since I believe,
besides other factors which contributed to the war, that President Bush did
have an excess of hormone which contributed to his state of nmd to rush to
war. I challenged him, in my testimony before the International Inquiry
about the War crimes committed in the Gulf, to show his medical records.
This year, as a State Delegate, and as a State Platform member, I feel I
made significant contributions in many areas of the platform. Among them health
care, foreign policy, and particularly the passage of the resolution
regarding the status of Jerusalem as an international city for all faiths
opposing it’s annexation and use as the capitol of Israel. I am not a one
issue candidate, I do not have any political advisors, I do not rehearse my
speeches. I am myself and what I present to you, is a lifelong experience,
of deep study and encounters with diversified cultures, religions, and
nationalities from all over the world. I want to use my experience in service
for the people of Washington State. All my life I have followed my five
C’s, which stand for Charisma, Command of the issues, Courage, Compromise
and Commitment, I followed every single one of those C’s.
In order to complete my professional, personal, and political profile, I
would like to add the following points. I am a physician, American Board
Certified, (a specialist in Family Practice, Internal Medicine, and
Geriatrics) with a Ph.D. in Preventive and Social Medicine from the
University of Madrid and a Diploma in Public Health from the University of
Toronto, Canada. During my medical career, I worked in different areas of
the world, such as Europe, the Middle East, the United State and Canada. I
practiced with the VA system and through the HMO Health Maintenance
Organizations. For the last 10 years I have been in private practice in
Ephrata, Washington. I am a member of the American College of Physicians,
Academy of Family Physicians, American Medical Association, Washington
Medical Society, and Grant County Medical Society.
I am also a member and co-founder of the Islamic Medical Association of
North America, currently representing the
Western Region. A member of the Physicians for Social Responsibility,
the International Physicians for the prevention
of Nuclear War and the International Physicians Association.
I am a member of the Leadership Council of the Arab- American Institute,
National Association of Arab-Americans, member of the Arab-American
University Graduates, ADC, (Arab-American Anti-discrimination Committee).
Member of Amnesty International, American Civil Liberties Union, Rainbow
Coalition, Peoples for the American Way, HALT for Legal Reform, Elks Club,
Rotary Club (on a leave of absence) and Common Cause. My political
affiliation had been with the Democratic Party, being at the present time
the Vice Chairman of the Democratic Central Committee of Grant County, and
had been for many years, the Precinct Committee man of Block 71 of Grant
County, however, most important, I am a member of the Human Race, a child,
and with my ultimate devotion to Mother Earth, and its Creator.
My wife Nadia, daughter of my former teacher from our little town of
Burn in the West Bank, and our three children, Yasser - 15, Noor
Falasteen (Noreen) - 13 and Hashem - 11 say hello
This is my story a long way from the figs and olive trees of the hills
of Palestine to the golden delicious apple and sagebrush of the Columbia
Basin in Washington. It has been an adventure which symbolizes the flight
of a dove, the neck of a Giraffe and the endurance of a Camel.
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