Abkarius (Iskandar Agha ibn Ya‘qub) (d. 1885). An Armenian man of letters from Beirut. He composed anthologies of Arabic literature, and is the author of a narrative of the events in Lebanon from 1860 to 1869.
Iskandar Agha ibn Ya‘qub see Abkarius
James George Abourezk (b. February 24, 1931, Wood, South Dakota – d. February 24, 2023, Sioux Falls, South Dakota) was an American attorney and politician from South Dakota. A member of the Democratic Party, Abourezk served as a United States Senator and as a United States Congressmember for one term each, and was the first Arab American to serve in the United States Senate. He was also the founder of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
He was the first Greek Orthodox Christian of Lebanese Antiochite descent to serve in the United States Senate. He was seen as generally critical of United States foreign policy in the Middle-East and North Africa (MENA) area, particularly regarding Palestine and Israel.
Abourezk represented South Dakota in the United States Senate from 1973 until 1979. He was the author of the Indian Child Welfare Act, passed by Congress in 1978 to try to preserve Native American families and tribal culture, by arranging for the placement of Nature American children in homes of their cultures, as well as to reunite them with families. It gives preference to tribal courts with custody of Native American children domiciled on reservations and concurrent but presumptive jurisdiction in cases of children outside the reservation.
James George Abourezk was born in Wood, South Dakota, the son of Lena (née Mickel), a homemaker, and Charles Abourezk, an owner of two general stores. Both of his parents were Lebanese immigrants, and he was one of five children. Growing up on the Rosebud Indian Reservation, Abourezk spoke only Arabic at home and did not learn English until he went to elementary school. At the age of 16, he was expelled from school for playing a prank on a teacher, and left home to live with his brother Tom. He completed high school in 1948.
Between 1948 and 1952, Abourezk served in the United States Navy before and during the Korean War. Following 12 weeks of boot camp, he enrolled in Electricians' Mates School, after which he was sent to support Navy ships stationed in Japan.
Following military service, Abourezk worked as a rancher, blackjack dealer, and as a judo instructor. He earned a degree in civil engineering from the South Dakota School of Mines in Rapid City in 1961, and worked as a civil engineer in California, before returning to South Dakota to work on the Minutemen missile silos. At the age of 32, he decided to pursue law, and earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of South Dakota School of Law in Vermillion in 1966.
Abourezk began a legal practice in Rapid City, South Dakota, and joined the Democratic Party. He ran in 1968 for Attorney General of South Dakota but was defeated by Gordon Mydland. In 1970, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives and served from 1971 to 1973.
In 1972, Abourezk was elected to the United States Senate, where he served from 1973 to 1979, after which he chose not to seek a second term. He was the first chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. In 1974, TIME magazine named Senator Abourezk as one of the "200 Faces for the Future".
Abourezk's legislative successes in the Senate included the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, as well as the American Indian Religious Freedom Act. His signature legislation was the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA, 1978), designed to protect Native American children and families from being torn apart. Native American children had been removed by state social agencies from their families and placed in foster care or adoption at a disproportionately high rate, and usually placed with non Native American families. This both deprived the children of their culture and threatened the very survival of the tribes. This legislation was intended to provide a federal standard that emphasized the needs of Native American children to be raised in their own cultures, and gave precedence to tribal courts for decisions about children domiciled on the reservation, as well as concurrent but presumptive jurisdiction with state courts for Native American children off the reservation. He also authored and passed the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, which provided Indian tribes with greater autonomy. The BIA made grants to the tribes but they could manage contracts and funds to control their own destiny. That legislation also reduced the direct influence of the Bureau of Indian Affairs on the tribes.
Abourezk was an early supporter of a National initiative process. With fellow Senator Mark O. Hatfield (R-OR), he introduced an amendment to support more direct democracy. However, this amendment failed to receive sufficient support.
As a senator, Abourezk criticized the Office of Public Safety (OPS), a United States agency linked to the USAID (United States Agency for International Development) and the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), which provided training to foreign police forces. Officers they trained were used to suppress civilians in several countries in Central and South America during a period of military governments, dirty wars, and social disruption.
In 1973, Senators Abourezk and George McGovern attempted to end the occupation of Wounded Knee by negotiating with American Indian Movement leaders, who were in a standoff with federal law enforcement during a protest against the federal government’s treatment of Native American tribes.
Abourezk was also instrumental in the creation of both the American Indian Policy Review Commission and the Select Committee on Indian Affairs. Deeply interested in representing the tribes in Congress to work toward better federal relations, he chaired the Policy Review Commission the entire time it existed. He took the gavel as chair of the Indian Affairs Committee from its creation in 1977 to 1979, when he retired.
In 1977, Senators Abourezk and McGovern went to Cuba with a group of basketball players from the University of South Dakota and South Dakota State who played against the Cuban national men's basketball team.
In 1978, Abourezk chose not to run for re-election. He was succeeded in office by Republican Larry Pressler, with whom he had a long-running political feud.
Following his retirement in 1980, Abourezk founded the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, a grassroots civil rights organization.
In 1989, Abourezk published his Advise and Dissent: Memoirs of South Dakota and the U.S. Senate. He is also the co-author, along with Hyman Bookbinder, of Through Different Eyes: Two Leading Americans — a Jew and an Arab — Debate U. S. Policy in the Middle East (1987).
In 2007, Abourezk gave an interview to the Hezbollah funded news channel Al-Manar TV. In this interview Abourezk said that he believed that Zionists used the terrorists that perpetrated the 9/11 terrorist attacks as a way to sow Islamophobia, that Zionists control the United States Congress, and that Hezbollah and Hamas are resistance fighters.
After his retirement from the Senate, Abourezk worked as a lawyer and writer in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He continued to be active in supporting tribal sovereignty and culture. In July 2015 Abourezk spoke out against a suit filed against the ICWA (Indian Child Welfare Act) by the Goldwater Institute. It was one of three suits seeking to overturn the act. Some states and adoption groups, who make money off adoptions, have opposed any prohibitions on their placements of Native American children. Abourezk considered this his signature legislation and the new rules instrumental in protecting Native American children and preserving tribal families. He noted that the late Senator Barry Goldwater, his friend and colleague, had voted for the legislation in 1977 and had often consulted with him in tribal matters.
In 1952, Abourezk married his first wife, Mary Ann Houlton. They had three children. Abourezk's marriage to Mary Ann Houlton and his subsequent marriage to Margaret Bethea ended in divorce. Abourezk married Sanaa Dieb in 1991. They had one child from this union along with a step-child.
Abourezk lived in South Dakota for most of his life. He died at his home in Sioux Falls on February 24, 2023, his 92nd birthday.
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