User:Tiamut/Draft for new article on CAF president

Khaled Mouammar (b. January 13, 1940) is the current president of the Canadian Arab Federation. A longtime activist in the Palestinian-Canadian and Arab Canadian community, Mouammar has been the subject of much media controversy, particularly after he called Jason Kenney, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration a "professional whore" for supporting Israel's war on Gaza in 2009.

Early life
Mouammar was born in Haifa, Palestine on January 13, 1940, also spending some of his early childhood in Ghana. His father, Lutfi Boulos Mouammar, born in Nazareth in 1914, was sent to Egypt to study when he was 7, living under the care of his cousin May Ziade. When the elder Mouammar was 13, to help support his family, he went to the Ivory Coast to work with his uncle in the coffee trade. That trip that marked the beginning of a long career in trade that allowed him to live and work in more than a dozen countries in Africa, Asia and the Americas.

At the time of the 1948 Palestinian exodus, Khaled Mouammar was 7 years old and was living in Haifa with his grandmother and brother. He recalls that there were bombs exploding around their house in Haifa, a train had been derailed in an attack, and streams of displaced Palestinians were seeking water and food on their journey of exile to other Arab states. Of leaving, Mouammar told The Toronto Star, "We had to smuggle ourselves out of Palestine because all the other Arab countries closed their borders on Palestinian refugees and we had to take the donkeys through the mountains into Lebanon."

Education, careers, and community work
While in Lebanon, Mouammar studied at the American University of Beirut, obtaining a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics. The family then moved to Brazil, with Mouammar immigrating to Canada in 1965, and the family following in 1970. In Canada, his father ran both a clothing and convenience store, while Mouammar took up work with IBM as a Systems Analyst, also studying at the University of Toronto from which he received a Masters of Business Administration in 1984.

Mouammar served as the Chariman of the Arab Community Centre in Toronto and received an award from the Arab Palestine Association in 1974 for his services to the Palestinian community in Toronto. In 1978, he was awarded the Queen's Silver Jubilee Medal for his volunteer work in Canada.

Mouammar appears in Who's Who in Toronto (1984), "a book conceived in order to commemorate Toronto's 150th birthday". An excerpt from his personal statement reads as follows: "'I hope that Toronto becomes a model for all Canadian cities where people of all cultural backgrounds, races and religions can live harmoniously in equality, without discrimination and prejudice. The composition of Toronto's population has changed drastically in the last 20 years, and I am confident that by the end of this century, a member of the visible minorities will be elected Mayor of Toronto.'"

Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB)
Mouammar served as a sitting member on Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) from 1994 to 2005. In March 2009, John Ivison of the National Post raised questions regarding Mouammar's work at the IRB, alleging that his "public advocacy for terror groups should raise questions about how a known partisan could possibly pass the IRB's screening process."

Canadian Arab Federation (CAF)
Mouammar first served as President of the Canadian Arab Federation (CAF) in the 1970s and again from 1980 to 1982. He was elected to the post again in 2006 and 2008.

Jason Kenney controversy
After Mouammar called Jason Kenney, Immigration Minister, a "professional whore" for supporting Israel, Kenney announced that he had asked department officials to weigh comments made by groups when evaluating their government funding applications. He also said that the comments made by the CAF president would affect its contribution when the current one expires in March 2010.

http://www.canada.com/Life/Khaled+Mouammar+right+speak/1329509/story.html