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Al-Ahram Weekly 25 February - 3 March 1999 Issue No. 418 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 25 February - 3 March 1999 Issue No. 418
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Arab Americans on the move
By Aziza Sami
The key to influencing US policy on the Middle East rests, not with Arab diplomatic missions which have been largely ineffectual, and not with an intellectual discourse on the justice of the Palestinian cause, but with the overriding power of US domestic politics and the growing ability of Arab American voters to keep politicians in or out of office, argued two prominent Arab Americans who were in Cairo this week.
James Zogby,
head of the Washington-based Arab American Institute
Graphically illustrating his point, James Zogby, head of the Washington-based Arab American Institute, said: "When [former US President] Harry Truman was warned of the disaster which would result from America's recognition of Israel in 1948, he responded that 'I cannot lose the Jewish vote'."
This episode, according to Zogby, still sums up the workings of US foreign policy. "If politicians are not afraid of you, you don't count," said Zogby, underlining the fact that the particular nature of US domestic politics, and the increasing weight of the Arab American electorate in them, should be taken into account by Arab governments when they tackle the Middle East problem with US policy-makers.
At a symposium organised by Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies on Saturday, James Zogby and his brother, John Zogby, who is one of America's five top-ranking pollsters and has run polls for major news agencies and political institutions, spoke of the inroads made by the Arab American community in American political life by virtue of the fact that their voting power is increasingly beginning to count.
James Zogby said that a case in point is that the state of Michigan, with its large Arab American community, now constitutes a sizeable voting constituency. "Michigan is the heart of the Arab American community and is to Arabs what New York is to the Jews or California is to the Spaniards," he said. "Because of its Arab American community, it has started to count in national elections. In 1985, there were 700 registered Arab American voters in Michigan's state governor elections; today, there are 11,000 registered Arab American voters," said James Zogby. "We are building incrementally... Arab American opinion is becoming part of US public opinion. And so focusing on getting Arab Americans into American politics from the bottom up is the only way [US] policy can be changed."
According to John Zogby, who has done extensive research on American attitudes to the Middle East problem, American public opinion generally, and not only Arab American public opinion, can be mobilised in a manner more favourable to, or at least more informed on, the Arab side of the Middle East conflict.
"Americans who were polled on the crisis in Iraq were just as divided over it as Arab American opinion was," he said. "And, in fact, American public opinion is more advanced on Middle East issues than anyone would believe. If you poll people on who is to blame for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, you find that 40 per cent see it is Israel. And while Israel's popularity rates are high, Jordan is more popular, and Saudi Arabia's ratings have become more favourable over the past six years."
James Zogby refuted what he described as the widespread notion in the Arab world that Zionist propaganda has conclusively won American public opinion over to the side of Israel. "Zionist influence in the US pertains to a political process, rather than to public opinion at large. If this is true, then we can work on the way we Arabs can balance this Israeli hegemony over the political conflict," he said.
James Zogby was critical of Arab diplomatic missions in the US. "Americans are being educated on the Middle East by themselves, through things happening that have nothing to do with Arab embassies in Washington which actually do nothing," he said. "Most Arab missions do not have a function and they might as well not be there at all. A case in point is that when former Secretary of State George Schultz closed down the Palestinian [observer] mission in Washington, no one bothered. The Arab embassies in Washington are sometimes unable to provide basic information about their countries."
"There is an improvement in the flow of information and a change in American public opinion with no effort being made by the Arab countries," said James Zogby. "Imagine if there was an effort, what the results would be. It is not in the White House, but at the grassroots, by visiting several states and meeting with the American public, that an Arab leader would create a sea of press coverage, so that by the time he came to Washington, they would ask him what it is he wants them to do."
In response to comments from the floor on the US Jewish lobby's access to Wall Street and major US financial institutions, James Zogby said: "Then, we want to emulate their power and to beat them at it. If they give money in election campaigns, the money is not targeted on an issue, but on the lobby which is able to manipulate issues [later in Congress]."
