Hanania’s columns: Dune review, Pekau’s disrepect in Orland, #AbandonBiden and Best Middle East Bakeries
By Ray Hanania
My new syndicated column at www.Hanania.com or www.RayHanania.com has touched on a lot of topics this past week. I write four to six columns every week now, driven by what provokes my mind and I share them through syndication.
You can easily subscribe to the columns for Free and also Paid if you enjoy them. No pressure just a hope you will support great opinion writing.
This week’s columns include an assortment of topics, not just politics.
Of course I look at the buffoonery of Orland Park’s disrespectful and vindictive Mayor Keith Pekau. Pekau is the controversial politician whose vicious personal attacks just keep on giving.
Recently, Pekau refused to respond to an Open Meetings Act letter request from the Illinois Attorney General, Kwame Raoul. Raoul was forced to send a second letter demanding information about his expelling an entire audience from the Feb. 5, 2024 village board meeting because he didn’t like some of the comments of people in the audience.
The question: is Kwame Raoul a pencil pushing bureaucrat bullied by political bullies, or a champion of the Rule of Law and the Open Meetings Act? Pekau snubbed his nose at Raoul refusing to respond to a OMA complaint and Raoul was forced to write a letter begging for Pekau to respond.
Click here to read that column.
And, I look at another failed leader, President Joe Biden. His weak leadership is what encouraged dictator Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine, and terrorist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to massacre more than 30,000 Palestinians in response to a terrorist attack on Oct. 7. Terrorism from both Netanyahu and Hamas has dominated the Middle East for several decades but Netanyahu does better propaganda and makes it look like he’s the victim, when he is not.
Biden’s failure to stop Israel’s carnage in Gaza and the destruction of mosques, Christian churches, schools, hospitals, homes and businesses — razing entire villages and cities — has provoked Arab American voters who gave him his edge over Donald Trump in 2020, to abandon him. It’s call the #AbandonBiden movement and it undermined Biden’s lead over Trump in Michigan and it will undermine Biden in several other “swing states” where he barely defeated the Republican president who is plagued by pettiness and a lack of focus on his fundamental policies.
Click here to read the column.
Not everything is politics.
I also write in response to many emails that I get asking me what are the best Middle Eastern and Arab restaurants and bakeries. (My mother is from Bethlehem — the real Bethlehem where Jesus was born — and my father is from Jerusalem, which is under occupation and violent government siege. No one knows Middle East or Mediterranean food better than me. I grew up with it.) You can even search my Arab food recipes that I have posted on Youtube.
Click here for the recipe for stuffed grapeleaves.
Click here to explore more on Google including on my Tiktok account.
There are many Middle Eastern bakeries in the southwest suburbs that make great Arabian foods that you can purchase in them m on your way to work. Here are my three favorite.
Click here to read that column.
And, I do movie reviews and entertainment columns, reviewing this week the remake of the 1984 classic Dune, remade in two parts Dune 1 in 2021 and Dune 2 just released.
I hate remakes that are based more on computer generated graphics rather than on great storylines that fuel the moviegoer’s imagination. The Dune remakes are failures in that sense. The CGI is great. But the storylines are so twisted and distorted they are poorer than the original storyline from 1984.
Click here to read that column.
I hope you visit my new Syndicated Columns page on Politics, government, entertainment, humor, veterans issues, senior issues, food and slice of life topics.
Go to www.RayHanania.com.
Thank you
RAY HANANIA
His award winning columns can be found at www.HANANIA.COM Subscribe FREE today
Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.
Email Ray Hanania at [email protected].
Follow RayHanania at Twitter
- Ray Hanania Radio and Podcasts - December 26, 2025
- After Mother’s Death, Child Finds Safety in Dad’s Home - December 24, 2025
- Author Charlene Wexler Earns International Impact Book Award for We Won’t Go Back - December 22, 2025
