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  • Arab-American Activism

    Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Middle East
    Jan 4 2005

    Washington Report, December 2004, pages 56-58

    Arab-American Activism

    NAAP Conference Seeks to Empower Arab-American Community

    Syrian Ambassador Imad Moustapha makes a point (staff photo S.
    Powell).

    THE NETWORK of Arab American Professionals held its second annual
    conference in Boston, MA over the weekend of Sept. 24 to 26. Founded
    to advance Arab Americans and Arab culture, as well as to promote
    full participation in U.S. society, the theme of this year's
    conference was `Empowering Our Community.' To that end, panels were
    divided into various areas of concentration including professional,
    foreign policy, civic education, and films and the media. Within
    those sections were panels on such varied topics as Palestine, Iraq,
    how to organize, Arab women's movements, the vote, and civil rights
    and non-profit law. The films `Selves and Others: A Portrait of
    Edward Said,' `Olive Harvest,' `Control Room,' and `T for Terrorist'
    were all screened.

    During the opening plenary, organizers emphasized empowerment, urging
    members to run for office, use their careers to impact policy, and
    establish their status as a minority group. The key message, they
    said, was to take action - which could be as simple as writing a letter
    or voting, or as complicated as starting an Arab American community
    center.

    The session on Palestine focused on numbers, ranging from `facts on
    the ground' to statistics on U.S. dollars spent on Israel, with
    discussion on what can be done in this country to change the
    situation. A moving and powerful session presented by Simon-Harak, a
    priest and activist with the War Resistor's League and Voices in the
    Wilderness, examined the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the ensuing U.S.
    occupation. Photographs never seen in the U.S., as well as infamous
    pictures that did find their way into the mainstream press,
    illustrated the vast chasm between Washington's stated goals, and the
    means used to accomplish them.

    The Syrian and Jordanian embassies helped sponsor the conference. A
    luncheon speech by Syria's ambassador to the U.S., Dr. Imad
    Moustapha, was inspiring. Every human with any decency should be a
    strong advocate of Palestinian rights, he said, `especially Arab
    Americans.' Discussing reform in his country, Moustapha said the
    Syrian expatriate community could and should participate, adding that
    there was to be an international conference in Damascus for exactly
    that purpose. NAAP attendees could `play a great role in the United
    States and make great contributions to their countries of origin,` he
    said. `You are the bridge.'


    Actor Sayed Badreya announces the first Arab American screenwriter
    award. See the NAAP Web site for more information (staff photo S.
    Powell).

    Acknowledging that U.S. -Syrian relations had been strained, Dr.
    Moustapha maintained they have improved. He concluded by addressing
    the issues of Iraq and Palestine, the ignorance and role of the U.S.
    in those countries, and the shared history and culture of the three
    Abrahamic faiths which allow for hope.

    NAAP solicited messages from each of the three major presidential
    campaigns to be delivered during the Saturday night dinner. The Bush
    campaign did not respond. The Hon. Judge William Shaheen spoke for
    Sen. John Kerry. Saying that Arab Americans had never been successful
    in politics, he urged `sticking together.' While noting that audience
    members agreed with Kerry on many issues such as health care and the
    economy, he did acknowledge that they had a right to demand more on
    the issue of Palestine. Arab Americans should vote for Kerry, Judge
    Shaheen concluded, but let him know they were watching him.

    Albert Mokhiber spoke for the Nader campaign. He told the crowd that
    they should not vote for Nader because he was also Arab American, but
    rather should vote on the issues. If everybody voted for the most
    intelligent and honest candidate with the best track record, he
    noted, Nader would win hands down. After dinner, award-winning
    playwright and poet Betty Shamieh read two of her moving poems, then
    Maysoon Zayid lightened the mood with her inimitable comedy.

    The conference concluded with by far the most controversial panel, on
    which representatives of Boston's FBI, Homeland Security and police
    offices seemed to spend a lot of time giving out phone numbers to
    call if one was a victim of a hate crime or suspected a neighbor of
    terrorism, but had no answers to problems of profiling. Lionel Bacon
    of the Boston FBI office said he could not comment on Arab and Muslim
    Americans being singled out for investigation or prosecution in
    general, but could only answer questions about specific instances.
    Audience member Merrie Najimy, president of the Boston chapter of
    ADC, rose to the occasion. Reeling off a list of examples from the
    1980s to the present, she evoked cheers. Bacon's response, however,
    was less welcome. He said he either did not know the case mentioned,
    or could not comment.

    More information on the Network of Arab American Professionals is
    available at its Web site, <www.naaponline.org>.

    - Sara Powell

    Georgetown Conference Scrutinizes Arab Media

    Thomas Gorguissian (l), Washington correspondent for Lebanon's
    An-Nahar newspaper, and Al-Jazeera's Washington bureau chief Hafez
    Al-Mirazi (staff photo L. Al-Arian).

    Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies held a
    conference Oct. 7 titled, `Uncovered: Arab Journalists Scrutinize
    their Profession.' Panelists representing various Arab news media
    outlets engaged in a lively, and at times heated, debate on the
    current state of Arab media, including the effects of satellite
    television and technological developments on the field.

    Thomas Gorguissian, Washington correspondent for Lebanon's An-Nahar
    newspaper, sparked a discussion with his first statement: `I wish I
    could announce that the state of the Arab media is strong...but,
    realistically speaking, that is not the case right now.' While the
    pan-Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera brought a new `momentum' in
    news coverage to the Arab world, Gorguissian noted, the network still
    has its limitations.

    `There is no free movement or access to officials,' he maintained.
    `Reporting will only come from the United States or Europe, not from
    Arab capitals.' Expounding on this point, the correspondent said Arab
    governments have a `constant desire to control' their journalists,
    specifically by closing newspapers and detaining journalists.

    On the latest trends in Arab media, Gorguissian observed that Dubai
    is considered a `hub of electronic media,' and said it will likely
    play a role in shaping pan-Arab media. He concluded by asking for
    more analysis regarding economics and the `role of giant media.'

    Focusing his remarks on `broad trends in the mass media,' Rami
    Khouri, executive editor of the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper,
    said the media is a `reflection of the wider political culture from
    which it emanates.' Arab media, he added, present `extreme
    expressions of political sentiments and polarization.'

    Khouri observed that there is a `great proliferation of media taking
    place' in the Arab world, including FM radio stations and off-shore
    press, with newspapers published in one Arab country now being
    distributed in others.

    There is `less government control, broadly speaking' of media
    outlets, he maintained, and the liberalization taking place is
    causing `much greater commercial impact across the board.' With few
    exceptions, Khouri explained, Arab media outlets are `market-driven
    institutions, not ideological.'

    Government-owned media are losing their audience share along with
    their credibility and legitimacy to private media, Khouri noted.
    Another interesting development he cited is the role of media as an
    `instrument of war.' With regard to the war on Iraq, for example, the
    U.S. government has made Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya an issue by
    publicly criticizing them and creating the State Department-run
    Alhurra, which Khouri described as `totally senseless and an
    extraordinary waste of money' to compete with them.

    In fact, he argued, given the vastly superior U.S. military
    capabilities in Iraq, the media represent the only `equal playing
    field' between Arabs and Americans there.

    Khouri cautioned, however, that while the media provide a mechanism
    for the release of tension in Arab society, they also reduce tension
    that could be channeled into political processes. With this
    restriction, Arab media will continue to be a `media of
    entertainment, not political transformation,' Khouri concluded.

    Salameh Nematt, Washington bureau chief for the pan-Arab newspaper
    Al-Hayat, was decidedly less optimistic than Khouri, as evidenced by
    his opening remark: `The Arab media is worse off today than in the
    `50s and `60s.'

    Criticizing government control of the media, Nematt noted that Arab
    journalists were not able to cover Iraq until the U.S.-led invasion
    of the country. Arguing that `a free Arab media does not exist,'
    Nematt charged that Al-Jazeera viewers are presented with only two
    stories: Israelis killing Palestinians and Americans killing Iraqis.
    `Media won't hold themselves accountable,' he suggested, `because
    they are the government.'

    Taking issue with Nematt's comments, Al-Jazeera's Washington bureau
    chief, Hafez Al-Mirazi, responded, `It's very easy to tell people
    what they like to hear, bashing Arab governments and media.'

    He disagreed with Nematt's argument that the United States created
    freedom of the press for Arab journalists, pointing out that
    Al-Jazeera's Afghanistan office was bombed during the U.S. invasion
    of that country, and its bureau in Baghdad has been shut down.
    `Thanks to whom?' Al-Mirazi asked rhetorically.

    Al-Jazeera provides extensive coverage of Palestine and Iraq because
    they are newsworthy, he countered, and `reflect what the audience
    cares about, the two occupations in their lands.'

    - Laila Al-Arian

    `We're in a Mess,' Zogby Warns

    AAI president James Zogby (staff photo S. Twair).

    `We're in a mess. Our leadership has failed us and enmeshed us in a
    war in Iraq with no exit.' So said Dr. James Zogby at an Oct. 12
    meeting of the Los Angeles World Affairs Council.

    The president of the Washington, DC-based American Arab Institute
    said that despite warnings not to invade Iraq when the consequences
    were unclear, President George W. Bush heeded only his
    neoconservative advisers, who predicted American troops would be
    showered with flowers and the conflict ended within seven days.

    `We are in a mess because there has been no real debate about our
    policies in the Middle East, and now we're part of its history and
    part and parcel of its other invaders,' Zogby told an audience of
    more than 200.

    Harking back to the end of World War I, he said U.S. President
    Woodrow Wilson apparently understood the Arab quest for
    self-determination, but the British and French overruled him and
    established their mandates in Syria, Jordan, Palestine and Iraq,
    while the national aspirations of the Armenians and Kurds were
    ignored.

    `After World War II, the U.S. inherited the mess left by the British
    and French,' he continued. `And because the U.S.S.R. supported Arab
    nationalism, the people of the Middle East became pawns of the Cold
    War.'

    Another development occurred in 1988, when Jesse Jackson ran as a
    Democratic Party presidential candidate and the Republicans
    retaliated with the Rev. Pat Robertson representing Christian
    conservatives. These fundamentalists, Zogby observed, believe in
    Armageddon, the ingathering of Jews into Israel until Christians rise
    in the Rapture and the world is destroyed. Millions of them support
    Israel politically and financially, to the detriment of the
    Palestinian population.

    `The neoconservatives,' Zogby averred, `are the secular idea of the
    same concept of good and evil. Their apocalyptic theory is to
    prevail. They had no plan - just shock and awe - and out of our will, we
    will prevail.'

    In the weeks leading up to Gulf War II, Army chief of staff Gen. Eric
    Shisheki warned it would take a minimum of 350,000 U.S. troops to
    take over Iraq successfully. But the neocons' `infantile fantasy that
    everything would fall into place' prevailed, Zogby stated.

    Despite the monumental failures in Iraq, he noted, public debate is
    stifled and the neocon machine continues to make excuses. `Iraqi
    dissidents are not all thugs and gangsters as [Iraqi Interim Prime
    Minister Iyad] Alawi calls them. The people are furious over what has
    happened, they have no electricity, water, jobs or security.'

    Zogby recalled the remark of an Iraqi who said, `Saddam was brutal,
    but at least we could walk outdoors.'

    Noting that the United States and its allies are at risk, the AAI
    executive emphasized that each Iraqi who is killed has a family who
    hates the occupiers.

    The U.S. must acknowledge there is a problem and that doing more of
    the same will not make it right, he said. Nor will becoming
    independent of Middle East energy resources solve the problem. `We
    may survive higher petroleum prices, but Europe will go down,' he
    warned.

    As for the Israeli/Palestinian morass, Zogby said a solution must be
    implemented to counteract the neocon claim that the road to Jerusalem
    is paved through Baghdad. For too long, he said, Congress has been
    controlled by Israel.

    `Clinton was elected on the basis he would never pressure Israel,'
    Zogby maintained. `In 1981, when he met with Perez and Rabin's widow
    instead of with Binyamin Netanyahu, 81 senators told him not to do
    that.'

    Another stunning example was when the current President Bush told
    Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to halt his invasion of the West Bank,
    and dispatched Secretary of State Colin Powell to Morocco, Jordan and
    Israel on a peacemaking mission. Right-wing gadfly Gary Bauer
    denounced Bush's actions and invited Netanyahu to condemn Powell's
    mission to the U.S. Congress.

    Zogby proposed that someone of the stature of former Secretary of
    State James Baker apply pressure to the Israelis and Palestinians and
    definitively state this is the only deal on the table. `Both sides
    must pay up,' he stated, `so long as we are willing to define what
    the price is and not allow any tweaking or deals on the side.'

    - Pat McDonnell Twair

    http://www.wrmea.com/archives/December_2004/0412056.html
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