Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 1998, Pages 78-80

Arab-American Activism

AL HEWAR CENTER PANEL EXAMINES U.S. AND ARAB WORLD

The rapidly rising impatience in the Arab countries with U.S. unwillingness to stop Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's deliberate destruction of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process was vividly depicted by four speakers at a heavily attended Al Hewar Center program on Oct. 12. The center, whose cultural and political programing in both Arabic and English is aimed both at the national capital area's large Arab-American community and, via the media, at the Arab world, is situated in Vienna, VA.

Speakers in order of appearance were Dr. John Duke Anthony of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations; Ambassador Clovis Maksoud, director of the Center for the Global South at American University in Washington, DC; executive editor Richard Curtiss of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs; and Washington, DC media specialist Dr. Edmund Ghareeb, who moderated the program. Laura Dorn Ghandour, managing editor of the center's bimonthly publication, Al Hewar, provided opening and closing remarks.

Discussing his educational work with university faculty members, students and also with members of Congress, Dr. Anthony said his organization has taken 81 senators, representatives and top members of their staffs to the Middle East. All but one of them confided to Dr. Anthony their discomfort and concern with the intimidation they experience from the Israel lobby. This intimidation comes not only from the lobbyists of the American Israel Public Affairs Commitee, Israel's Washington, DC lobby, but also from the media in Washington and in their home districts, and even from members of their own staffs. Dr. Anthony said congressional insiders estimate that 80 percent of the members of Congress now have former AIPAC interns on their staffs.

This situation has arisen, Dr. Anthony explained, because every year AIPAC brings into Washington congressional interns from campuses all over the United States. Some are able to stay on in congressional offices when their internships are completed, while others use the contacts they established as interns both on the Hill and in AIPAC offices to find full-time congressional positions after they obtain their degrees.

Dr. Anthony's organization also conducts intern programs which bring students concerned with the Arab Middle East to Washington to work with congressional offices and advocacy groups, and also sends journalism students to the Middle East to work with English-language newspapers there. But the difference in scale between such programs and the hundreds of internships funded by AIPAC and other pro-Israel organizations is disheartening, Dr. Anthony pointed out.

The results already appear in a significant reduction in congressional freedom of speech about Israel and the Middle East, Dr. Anthony said. He cited the frequent references to Israel as a working democracy by naive members of Congress when first- hand observations reveal that democracy there works only for its Jewish citizens. He cited also the attitude of "hubris" exhibited on the Hill that the U.S. and Israel "can get away with anything they want to and others have to like it or lump it."

He deplored the fact that people who are really experts on the Arab world and Islam now face real obstacles in reaching positions of influence in the government. This is particularly true under the Clinton administration, which he described as the most pro-Israel administration since the creation of Israel 50 years ago.

Ambassador Maksoud, who formerly was Arab League ambassador to the United Nations, elaborated on this theme, agreeing that the U.S. conveys to Arab governments the unspoken message that they have to accept American dictates "or you will lose."

Reaction among Arab states, unfortunately, is either to confront the U.S. without adequate preparation or simply to accede to U.S. wishes, he said. He described this as "immature confrontation or premature accommodation."

As for non-Arab states, Ambassador Maksoud said, "every single one of them seems to consider as a major concession whatever minimal compliance with international legality or decency" Israel chooses to offer. "Accepting the big falsehood of the Oslo agreement has become the criterion of whether you are for peace, or an enemy of peace," he said.

"What is the definition of an Arab moderate?" Dr. Maksoud asked rhetorically. "It is the Arab who is willing, even eager, to accommodate America's accommodation of Israel." This, he said, "is creating deepening resentment about U.S. policy."

Dr. Maksoud recommended that before undertaking "vertical relationships with Russia, Europe and the U.S." there first should be a "horizontal" common market among the Arab states themselves.

Washington Report editor Curtiss said the Israel lobby has come a long way since the days in 1947 when it successfully defied the American foreign affairs establishment by persuading President Harry Truman to put U.S. weight behind partitioning Palestine, and in 1948 when it persuaded Truman to recognize Israel before it defined its borders.

"Today the Israel lobby is America's foreign affairs establishment," Curtiss said. "Let's ignore Madeleine Albright, whom the Israeli press describes as Jewish because she was born to a Jewish mother, She was raised a Catholic and became an Episcopalian. In America you are what you say you are, so that's that. But she's secetary of state because she was appointed by President Clinton who, according to U.S. Jewish community newspapers, got about 85 percent of the Jewish vote in 1992 and perhaps 88 percent of the Jewish vote in 1996.

"Bill Clinton doesn't have to run again, but his loyal vice president, Al Gore, does. And Gore is not going to let Clinton, or Madeleine Albright, do anything to alienate the Israel lobby." Curtiss said. Naming the pro-Israel advisers in nearly every Clinton administration foreign policymaking position, including Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs Martin Indyk, Middle East peace talks "czar" Dennis Ross, his deputy, Aaron David Miller, White House national security adviser Samuel Berger, his deputy John Steinberg and even State Department spokesman James Rubin, Curtiss said:

"There's no reason why American Jews should not be involved in the Middle East peace process. But it's unseemly, to put it mildly, that every member of the U.S. Middle East peace team is Jewish, without even token Christian or Muslim representation...

"By contrast, there are no Muslims in foreign policymaking positions, in either the White House or the State Department, no Muslims on the Supreme Court, no Muslims in the Clinton cabinet, and no Muslims among the 535 members of Congress," Curtiss said. "Yet the U.S. Muslim population outnumbers the U.S. Jewish community and the former is growing steadily while the latter remains static or may actually be declining."

Moderator Edmund Ghareeb discussed the problems of U.S. media bias in reporting Middle East events. Agreeing with other panelists, he noted also that "Arab governments appear willing to accept that there is no alternative to accepting what the U.S. says."

—Donna Bourne

CENTER FOR POLICY ANALYSIS ON PALESTINE GETS NITTY GRITTY ON U.S. AID TO ISRAEL

The United States has provided Israel a total of $84.8 billion in grants and loans since 1949 at a cost to U.S. taxpayers of $134.8 billion, according to executive editor Richard Curtiss of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Curtiss, a retired U.S. foreign service officer, spoke on "True Lies About U.S. Aid to Israel" Oct. 21 at the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine in Washington, DC. The figures, he pointed out, do not include the $10 billion in U.S. loan guarantees provided to Israel, because the ultimate cost of these guarantees to U.S. taxpayers is as yet unknown. Nor have these figures been adjusted for inflation.

The editor's talk was based upon information he obtained from the USAID program and the Congressional Research Service for the September/October issue of The Link, published by Americans for Middle East Understanding in New York.¹ In the talk he covered the Israeli government's elaborate lobbying apparatus that has made this extraordinary transfer of U.S. wealth to the state of Israel possible.

Coordinating this lobbying effort is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Israeli government's principal lobby in Washington, DC, with a budget of $15 million, 150 employees and five or six registered lobbyists who personally visit all 535 members of Congress at least once a year. AIPAC in turn is backed up by the Council of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which coordinates efforts on behalf of Israel by 52 U.S. Jewish groups, some of which have budgets considerably larger than AIPAC's.

Curtiss also cited from his book, Stealth PACs: Lobbying Congress for Control of U.S. Middle East Policy,² some of the deceptively named political action committees founded by members of AIPAC's board of directors in various parts of the United States. Some 126 pro-Israel PACs have been active over the years, with never fewer than 50 available in every election cycle since the late 1970s to pour millions of dollars into campaign funds of members of Congress who support aid for Israel, and to fund opponents for those who do not.

The speaker also revealed that Israel and its 5.8 million citizens have received from Germany some $31 billion in restitution payments and various military assistance and research grants, for a per capita average of $5,345.

That figure is in addition to the $14,630 per capita Israelis had received from the U.S. government as of Oct. 31, 1997. Curtiss said that providing that U.S. funding to Israel has cost U.S. taxpayers $23,240 per Israeli, or $116,200 for every Israeli family of five.

—Lucille Barnes

FOOTNOTES

1. A copy of the Link issue may be obtained from AMEU by telephoning (212) 870-2053, or at no charge with a book order by telephoning the American Educational Trust, publisher of the Washington Report.

2. A copy of the fourth edition of Stealth PACs can be purchased from the AET Book Club at $11.95 for one or $14.95 for two. For details see catalog starting on p. 135 of this issue.

AAUG HOLDS 30TH ANNUAL CONVENTION

"Arabs, Arab Americans and the Global Community" was the theme of the 30th anniversary convention of the Association of Arab-American University Graduates (AAUG). This year's annual conference was held at the Georgetown University Conference Center in Washington, DC Oct. 31 through Nov. 2.

The convention opened with a roundtable review of AAUG's past 30 years led by board member Afaf Mahfouz and a reception hosted by Ambassador Mohammad bin Hussein Al-Shaali of the United Arab Emirates.

Saturday's events began with a plenary session entitled, "Globalization and the Arab World: Seeking Balance in a Turbulent World." George Abed, of the International Monetary Fund, chaired this session and addressed the changing global market and need for investment in the Middle East by Arab expatriates.

Also speaking in this session were Eileen Kuttab, Mohamed Sid-Ahmed and Michael Nojeim. Ms. Kuttab, founding member of the Women's Studies Program at Bir Zeit University, discussed the role of Arab women in their changing society. Mr. Sid-Ahmed, a political analyst from Cairo, said that a resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is necessary for significant advance to take place in the Middle East. Mr. Nojeim, an assistant professor of political science at Ohio University, delivered an informative lecture on the theory of globalization.

Following the plenary session there were two concurrent panels: "The Quest for Legitimacy, Democracy and Human Rights" and "The Communication Revolution: Information at the Expense of Knowledge?" The first panel was chaired by Elaine C. Hagopian, professor emerita of sociology at Simmons College in Boston. Other panelists were David Khairallah, adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center, and Mona Makram-Ebeid, professor of political science at the American University in Cairo.

The second concurrent panel on the communication revolution included: Mazen Abu Ghazaleh, co-founder of CyberCafé from New York; Issa Batarseh, a member of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Central Florida; Michael Hudson of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University; and Samer Jabbour, a senior fellow in cardiology at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. Nabil Khoury of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Henry Ford Hospital chaired this panel.

The luncheon lecturer, Ashok Swain, was introduced by William W. Haddad, director of the Program in Asian Studies at California State University. Swain, an assistant professor in the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Upsala University, examined the politics of water in the Middle East and the conflicts which will arise if water continues to become more scarce.

There were two more concurrent panels that day: "Issues Facing Arab Americans" and "Social and Economic Transformation: Risks and Benefits." Hala Maksoud, president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), led the first panel which included ADC media director Sam Husseini, ADC legal director Houeida Saad and Washington, DC media analyst Edmond Ghareeb.

The panel on social and economic transformation in the Middle East was chaired by AAUG president Nadia Hijab and included Rogaia Mustafa Abusharaf of the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women at Brown University; Moez Doraid, United Nations Development Program; Rosina Hassoun of Michigan State University; and Waleed A. Hazbun, Ph.D. candidate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The final panel of the convention was composed of rapporteurs reporting on the presentations, voicing their concerns about AAUG and discussing relations between Arab-American graduates of different generations. The rapporteurs, all from universities in the Cambridge, MA area, were: Mayssom H. Ali, Ra'eda Al-Zubi, Amahl Bishara and Alan Shihadeh.

Master of ceremonies at the banquet that evening was Clovis Maksoud, director of the Center for the Global South at American University. He introduced the keynote speaker, Huda Gamal Abdel Nasser, daughter of the late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who is currently a professor of political science at the University of Cairo. She called for closer relations between Arabs living in the Middle East and Arab Americans in the interest of future solidarity and mutual understanding among the Arab peoples.

The final event of the AAUG convention was a Sunday brunch at which Dr. Naseer Aruri, Chancellor Professor at the University of Massachusetts, introduced Edward Said, of Columbia University, as the keynote speaker. Dr. Said's address entitled, "Eighty years After the Balfour Declaration," is covered on p. 19 of this issue of the Washington Report.

—Stacy Tollison