BY: Nisreen Eadeh/Staff Writer The Arab Center Washington, DC hosted Dr. Basel Ghattas, a Palestinian Member of the Israeli Knesset, on August 25 for a special discussion on civil liberties in Israel. Dr. Ghattas is a member of Balad, the Arab Israeli political party, which is part of the Joint Arab List in the Knesset. … Continued
BY: Alexa George/Contributing Writer Earlier Thursday morning, Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson embarrassingly admitted that he did not know what “Aleppo” is. For those unaware, Aleppo is Syria’s largest city and home to many refugees affected by the current civil war in Syria. MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” contributor Mike Barnicle asked the candidate what he would … Continued
By Zeina Azzam
The Hill
I am a Palestinian-American and part of a 3.6 million-strong community of Americans who trace their roots to an Arab country. Since I turned 18, I have participated in Democratic Party primaries and have usually voted for the main Democratic presidential nominee. My views generally can be described as supporting Democratic Party politics. This primary season, I was squarely in the Bernie Sanders camp. But now that Hillary Clinton has received the Democratic Party nomination, I am having trouble with the idea of voting for her in November.
For me it is not possible to choose to vote for a presidential candidate based on their views regarding the Israeli-Palestinian issue. This is because every major party nominee for president I’ve ever known has professed to be a staunch supporter of Israel, so my support for Palestinian freedom and human rights would have left me no one to vote for.
So I was heartened when Bernie Sanders made history during his campaign by bringing up the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during the presidential debate last April, criticizing Hillary for her lack of concern for Palestinian lives and rights.
The idea that the United States should view the rights of Israelis and Palestinians equally was new, especially in a national forum such as a presidential debate. In addition, Sanders was bold in affirming publicly that as it pursues justice and peace, the United States does not always have to agree with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. He also pushed Clinton regarding her barely mentioning the Palestinians in her AIPAC speech.
For her part, last fall Clinton wrote an op-ed, “How I Would Reaffirm Unbreakable Bond With Israel—and Benjamin Netanyahu,” in which—yet again—she painted Israel as a victim, with not one mention of Israel’s wars on Gaza or the nearly 50-year-old military occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. She also announced that one of her first acts in office as president would be to invite Netanyahu to the White House. Last year, Clinton wrote a letter to Israeli-American billionaire Haim Saban saying that she would make countering the grassroots Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights a priority and sought his advice for how to work together in this regard. Saban, of course, is one of the largest individual donors to the Democratic Party and has said, “I’m a one-issue guy, and my issue is Israel.” Hillary Clinton has been cozying up to Saban over the years; he and his wife contributed to her two Senate campaigns and are now the top donors to her presidential campaign.
Clinton’s unquestioning partisanship vis-à-vis Israel, embarrassing pandering to its supporters, and deliberate ignorance of basic rights for Palestinians upsets and alienates many of us, and not just Arab Americans. According to polls, Democrats and Americans in general are far more critical of Israel and its policies, and far more supportive of Palestinian rights, than Clinton and other members of the Democratic party establishment. According to a Pew poll released in released in May, more liberal Democrats (40 percent) sympathize with the Palestinians than do with Israel (33 percent). And according to a poll released by the Brookings Institution in December 2015, 75 percent of Democrats and 80 percent of independents want the United States to be impartial when it comes to Israel and Palestine. Further, fully half—49 percent—of Democrats would support sanctions or stronger measures against Israel over the construction of Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian land, which violates longstanding US policy and international law.
Many of us wonder, will Clinton strive at all to make Washington “an honest broker” during negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians? How beholden will she feel to the influences of her billionaire supporters? Will her narrow view of justice and fairness expand to consider the human and national rights of Palestinians? So far, her words have given us no reason to be optimistic.
Although I have learned not to base my vote for president only on a candidate’s views regarding Israel and Palestine, these issues remain very important to me and to the growing number of Americans who support peace in the Middle East based on principles of fairness, justice and equality. So why does Clinton portray herself as progressive in many social and political arenas, such as civil rights and women’s rights, but not when it comes to human rights for millions of suffering Palestinians?
I ask, does Clinton want my vote? I live in a swing state, Virginia, and I would guess that my vote will count in this upcoming election. But she is not making any effort to espouse policies that will win me over—and others like me—and in fact is ignoring us altogether. If she wants to win my vote, and to stand on the right side of history, Clinton must begin to demonstrate that she values the lives and rights of Palestinians as much as those of Israelis.
Source: thehill.com
The Times Editorial Board
The LA Times
The California Legislature had a busy final few days in August, passing about 800 bills, not counting the hundreds passed earlier in the year. Some are mundane, some profound. But all will go now to Gov. Jerry Brown for his approval. He has until the end of September to sign or veto them.
If history is any guide, the governor will allow most of the bills to become law, vetoing just a few. The following bills would do more harm than good, and so belong on his “To Veto” list.
Start with AB 2888 and SB 813. Two big news stories prompted these flawed proposals. The former stemmed from the outrage over the sentencing of Brock Allen Turner, the Stanford student found guilty of sexually assaulting a female student when she was unconscious. The judge gave Turner just six months for three felony convictions.
It was a shockingly light sentence, but AB 2888 is not the answer. It would eliminate judges’ discretion to place offenders on probation, rather than incarcerating them, when they’ve committed a sexual assault on someone who’s unconscious or too intoxicated to resist. Not only is this an ill-considered reaction to one headline-grabbing case, but it would reinstate a type of mandatory sentencing at a time when criminal justice experts and policymakers are correctly trying to move in the opposite direction.
SB 813 was a response to rape accusations against actor and comedian Bill Cosby last year. Because California’s statute of limitations for sexual assaults is 10 years, some of the alleged sexual assaults by Cosby could not be prosecuted. But statutes of limitations exist for good reasons. They can help victims see justice in a timely manner by setting a deadline for prosecutors to bring charges. They also protect the rights of the accused. It’s very hard to defend against accusations of crimes committed decades before. Besides, there is already an exception to the time limit for DNA evidence that turns up new suspects in old cases.
AB 2844 is a much-amended bill that in an earlier version would have prohibited the state from entering into contracts with companies that participated in a boycott of Israel. After 1st Amendment objections were raised, the bill was revised (and re-revised) so that now it prohibits would-be contractors from violating existing civil rights laws as part of “any policy that they have adopted against any sovereign nation or peoples recognized by the government of the United States, including, but not limited to, the nation and people of Israel.”
This legislation isn’t necessary to protect anyone from discrimination that is already against the law. It’s essentially a symbolic gesture designed to express disapproval of the so-called Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Public officials are free to denounce that movement as individuals, but they shouldn’t clutter the statute books with redundant legislation.
AB 717 and AB 1561. These bills would, respectively, waive the sales tax on diapers and on tampons, among other products used by menstruating women. Making such products less expensive for low-income people seems like an easy way to do a little good. Why not give harried parents of newborns a break on all those Pampers? And tampons are not luxuries for women either.
It’s a great headline, but in the end these waivers wouldn’t make much of an impact on a poor family’s wallet — while also extending an unneeded benefit to middle- and upper-income consumers. What needy families could really use are state credits and vouchers. Losing $56 million in tax revenue from the diaper and tampon exemptions would make it harder to fund such programs. The state’s tax policy could surely use an overhaul, but this is the wrong way to do it.
AB 2147 would authorize police to impound vehicles used in connection with soliciting prostitution. Although officers already have the authority to impound vehicles used in other suspected crimes, we oppose extending that power on the principle that people ought not to be punished or have their property seized before they are convicted of a crime.
This is not a comprehensive list. Surely there are more stinkers among the hundreds that slipped through with little notice. Here’s hoping that Brown will root them out and take appropriate action.
Source: www.latimes.com
by James J. Zogby
Arab American Institute
Late last year, as the primaries were just heating up, pundits and commentators were busy trying to make sense of the Donald Trump phenomenon. His stump speeches were more akin to the stream of consciousness rantings of an out-of-control id than what was expected from a serious presidential candidate. He frequently contradicted himself and, more often than not, told bold-faced lies. He insulted groups and individuals, making his party’s leaders squirm. And yet his crowds were huge and passionate and his poll numbers were high and getting higher. The political class was baffled.
One Sunday morning, the Washington Post and New York Times both ran what purported to be “analysis” pieces arguing that Trump might not be as right-wing as some feared. Their methodology was questionable, at best. Both authors argued that maybe the best way to discern the candidate’s real policy positions would be to take his contradictory pronouncements on any number of issues and attempt to reconcile them. Both concluded that maybe the candidate was indulging in his own crude form of triangulation and that the real Donald Trump was neither a true conservative nor a liberal, but a moderate, at heart!
The entire exercise was as amusing as it was wrong-headed. What they didn’t understand then, and what apparently many pundits still don’t get, is that policies, or even words themselves, don’t matter to Donald Trump. It’s the performance and the reaction it gets that counts. All the rest is misdirection designed to confound gullible analysts and garner more attention.
This game of misdirection was on full display during the past few weeks leading up to Trump’s big immigration performance on Wednesday. The speech had been scheduled and then cancelled a few weeks back—all of which made its delivery more anticipated. And so while Hillary Clinton was raising money, delivering serious policy addresses, and staving off more bad news related to her never-ending email saga and issues related to the Clinton Foundation, Trump was titillating the media with the possibility that his position on immigration might be evolving.
Was he moderating his views to appease Republican office-holders who needed their standard-bearer to moderate his positions? Was he attempting to broaden his own appeal to win Hispanic and African American voters? Was he finally making the long-awaited shift to becoming “a real presidential candidate?”
While television pundits bloviated and the columnists filled pages of newsprint speculating about his intentions, Trump gleefully led them all on a wild goose chase. Even the candidate’s supporters got caught up in the game. Some attempted to explain away a possible shift, arguing that “he never really meant that stuff about mass deportations or the wall”. Others worried that any softening would cost him dearly since his base support came from hard core nativists who believed that the wall would be built, Mexico would pay for it, and all “illegals” would be deported.
The day before his much hyped “policy speech” on immigration, Trump announced that he would fly to Mexico to meet with that country’s president. All eyes were now just where he wanted them—on him. The media frenzy grew. It was “all Trump, all the time”. One network even featured a countdown clock in the corner of the screen counting down the seconds to the “big speech”.
What was thought to be “a bold and risky” meeting in Mexico turned out to be a rather ho-hum affair. The wildly unpredictable controversial American candidate met with the wildly unpopular Mexican president and both said little that was of interest to anyone. It was left to the media to make the absence of fireworks into a big story. And then it was on to the speech.
What I always find intriguing about Trump policy speeches is the delivery. Whenever he attempts a major policy address he has taken to reading his remarks, rather awkwardly, from a teleprompter. But Trump, being Trump, can’t help but go off-script. He reads a line and then makes a comment—as if to agree with what he just read. The overall effect is a bit comical.
The speech was reported by Trump opponents to be “an exercise in hateful rhetoric” filled with misstatements of fact and by supporters to be a “restatement, with added details, of Trump’s hardline position” on immigration. In reality, it was both and more—it was a show, and, for Trump, that’s what matters.
Fact checkers had a field day pointing out that Trump misstated, exaggerated, or just plain made up statistics or claims contained in his remarks. To his already bigoted position on which immigrants would be allowed into America, Trump added new, deeply disturbing criteria—new immigrants must be shown to “share our values and love our people” and that they be selected on the basis of “their likelihood of success in US society”.
But the speech was also filled with Trumpian contradictions. At one point, the candidate reaffirmed that there would be no amnesty and that those here illegally would have to return to their countries, while in another place he suggested that those who are here illegally who have families and are working hard could stay—but then left that hanging without clarification. One network, falling for this misdirection, ran a lower third saying “Trump softens, hardens, softens stand”.
In the end, however, it’s important not to be carried away with analyzing what he said or attempting to discern what he meant. It’s a fool’s errand trying to make sense out of nonsense. Because for Donald Trump, the policy formulations don’t matter, neither do the misstatements, exaggerations or contradictions. What matters is that he built a “huge” audience in front of which he performed well. He appeared presidential in the afternoon and then reverted to hate-filled demagogue at night—and his folks loved the incitement and loved him. Like everything else he does, it was a show. All the rest was misdirection designed to confound and draw more attention—and he loved every minute of it.
Source: www.aaiusa.org
BY: Nisreen Eadeh/Staff Writer Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump gave his long-awaited immigration speech last night in Phoenix, Arizona after a meeting with President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico. During his visit, Trump spoke highly of Mexican officials and insisted that the country will work with him to combat illegal immigration across the border. His … Continued
BY: Nisreen Eadeh/Staff Writer Michel Temer was sworn in as Brazil’s president today, following the impeachment trial of Dilma Rousseff. Temer became Brazil’s interim president in May when the country’s Senate brought charges against President Dilma Rousseff for mishandling government funds. Today, 61 of 81 Senators voted Rousseff guilty of the accusations in the trial, … Continued
BY: Nisreen Eadeh/Staff Writer Democratic presidential nominee, Secretary Hillary Clinton, has developed an ethnic outreach effort to gain votes from various groups, including Arab Americans. Advising her campaign in Arab American outreach is Edward Gabriel, the former U.S. Ambassador to Morocco. Mr. Gabriel has been an active leader in the Arab American community for many … Continued
J.J. Goldberg
Forward
It’s becoming more and more obvious that there are some folks out there who simply can’t abide good news. Not just because they’re pessimists and get thrown when things are going well. No, we’re talking about the sort of people who find good news offensive. It outrages them. Their ranks are growing, and so is the level of outrage.
The mood has been in the air for a while now, but for me, at least, it really hit home in the last few days. What’s clued me in is the reader response to my August 26 column in the Forward. The one about that big new survey of Israeli and Palestinian opinion on peace negotiations and the two-state solution.
The survey (executive summary here, full survey here)found that most Palestinians, by a slim margin (51%-48%), and most Israelis by a larger margin (58%-32%), would like to see Israeli and Palestinian states living side by side. Majorities on both sides say they don’t want a single unitary state covering what’s now Israel and the territories. And that’s what I reported.
Well, you’d think I’d just called for Israel to adopt ham as its national food. Angry readers weighed in via comments on the Forward website, posts on Facebook and even personal emails, telling me I don’t know what I’m talking about. These four were typical, if somewhat mild:
“What nonsense. Palestinians are totally opposed to any solution which allows Israel to continue.”
“I read your essay about ‘but for this misperception.’ You didn’t mention the most important question of all: the ‘Right of Return.’ Palestinians, almost to a person, believe that the ‘refugees’ living in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Gaza should ‘return’ to their ancestral homes west of the Green Line. There is no deal to be made, there is no compromise here. I could point you to endless links to back this up…”
[Quoting from my column:] “ ‘Formal Israeli-Palestinian negotiations came close to agreement along the same terms in 2000-2001 and again in 2008. In both cases, however, Israelis presented what they called a ‘final offer,’ which Palestinian leaders declined to accept as final.’ I guess if we connect these dots, Israel should get more of the blame for the absence of a deal. Which still leaves this unanswered dot: Did the Palestinians ever make an actual offer, final or not?”
“The Christian prays for his daily bread; the Jew, for his daily illusion.”
Now, the truth is, I’m used to readers calling me names. Comment sections on news websites seem to attract grumps and trolls who like being able to talk trash and remain anonymous, or at least unseen. It’s part of the game, and sort of entertaining. So last week’s negativity was no surprise.
What did catch me off-guard was the nature of the objections. Usually readers weigh in to dismiss my opinions and insult my lineage. This time a fair number of readers wrote to tell me what the Palestinians actually believe. They seemed to think that the survey — conducted by two of the most respected research institutes in Jerusalem and Ramallah — was not a measure of public opinion but an expression of my warped personal outlook. That is, they looked at a piece of scientific research, saw that it doesn’t confirm their own prior beliefs and decided that it’s made up and that they know more than the experts.
If this sounds familiar, it should. It’s part of a growing tide of anti-intellectualism, anti-empiricism, science denial and conspiracy theory that’s swept the political right in the last decade, with particular virulence in America and Israel. In America it expresses itself in attacks on evolution, in the anti-vaccine movement and especially — and most dangerously — in climate denial. In Israel it’s exploded in the last few years in repeated attacks from the settler movement and religious nationalist right against the military and intelligence command. What the two countries’ denialists have in common is the belief that experts — the scientists who took us to the moon and cured smallpox, the generals who’ve protected Israel for 70 years — are a bunch of phonies.
And what of our critics — the ones who don’t like the new survey?
They raise three main points: First, that the Palestinians will never accept Israel’s existence; second, that they’ll never give up the right of return for Palestinian refugees; and third, that they never negotiate in good faith or agree to any concrete proposals.
It’s important to recall that there have been three rounds of formal negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993. The first was in 1995, between Israel’s then-economics minister Yossi Beilin and then-deputy chairman of the PLO, Mahmoud Abbas. They reached an agreement (text here) in mid-October. It was leaked to the press on October 28, embarrassing Abbas and his boss, Yasser Arafat, who promptly disavowed it. Whether the talks could have continued will never be known. Beilin never had a chance to show it to his boss, Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, because Rabin was assassinated on November 4, a week after the document hit the news. Shimon Peres, who succeeded Rabin as caretaker prime minister, didn’t believe he had a mandate to continue the final-status talks. He insisted on seeking his own mandate by callilng new elections and winning the job in his own right. He faced the voters the following May and lost to Benjamin Netanyahu, who rejected the idea of negotiating a final status agreement with the PLO.
Talks began again in 2000 under Ehud Barak, who defeated Netanyahu for the prime ministership in 1999. He famously met Arafat at Camp David in July 2000 for a two-week summit. As has been discussed endlessly, the summit ended badly when Arafat stormed out on July 25, having refused to accept various proposals that Barak had put forward but offering none of his own.
This version is partly based on a misunderstanding of the nature of diplomatic negotiations. Negotiators like to say that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.” A related truth is that there’s no such thing as a final offer. Negotiators present ideas to the other side, which then presents own ideas. Eventually they meet in the middle. The fact that Arafat didn’t accept Barak’s “final offer” simply means they weren’t done negotiating.
Largely lost in the fog of history is the fact that talks resumed in August in Jerusalem. Aides to Barak and Arafat began meeting to discuss how, where and when to reconvene the formal negotiation, picking up where they had left off in July. The reconvening took place at the White House in mid-December. After about a week of talks, on December 23, President Clinton met with the negotiators and presented his own proposal for a peace agreement, the so-called Clinton Parameters (text here). The two sides sat down in January at the Egyptian resort of Taba to go over details and work on a final agreement.
In the meantime, however, Barak was losing his government. On September 20, Arye Deri, the head of Shas, a key coalition partner, entered prison on a bribery conviction. Deri had been a strong ally of Rabin and a key coalition partner. The man appointed by Shas spiritual mentor Rabbi Ovadia Yosef to succeed Deri as head of the party was Eli Yishai, a radical rightist who would eventually join forces with Meir Kahane’s disciples. As soon as Deri entered prison, Yishai began organizing to bolt the coalition, leaving Barak with a minority government. Then, on September 30, the bloody Second Intifada broke out.
By the time the negotiators reconvened formally in Washington in December, Barak was hanging on by a thread. He called for a new election February 7, hoping he could present a peace agreement and turn the vote into a referendum. But time ran out at Taba. Talks were suspended on January 27, to be reconvened after Barak was reelected 11 days later. But Barak was in trouble. He was sponsoring historic negotiations while heading a minority government. He was, moreover, negotiating with an enemy while his nation was under fire. Both sides’ negotiators would later declare that they were closer than ever to a full agreement. But on February 7 Barak lost to Ariel Sharon. Once again, negotiations were cut short when the Israeli leader overseeing the negotiations was removed from office.
One of the best, most objective histories of the Camp David-Taba process is this essay by political scientist Jeremy Pressman, director of theMiddle East program at the University of Connecticut. It explains both the sequence of events and the positions of the two sides on the issues being negotiated. It’s only 39 pages and well worth the read.
A year later after Taba, on March 27, 2002, the League of Arab States held a summit in Beirut and adopted the Saudi-led Arab Peace Initiative (text here). It offered Israel full peace, normal diplomatic relations and a formally declared end of the Arab-Israeli conflict, if Israel would accept creation of a Palestinian state along the pre-1967 lines with East Jerusalem as its capital, as well as “an agreed, just solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees” — that is, a solution that’s agreed on between the two sides. The word “agreed” wasn’t in the original draft, but was inserted at the insistence of the Jordanians, who wanted to make sure the document was something Israel might at least consider.
The document was adopted unanimously by the 22 Arab states, including the so-called State of Palestine, which is a member of the league. The PLO had formally signed an international document accepting the principle of peace with Israel and a compromise on the refugees.
A year later, in 2003, a group of Israelis and Palestinians met in Geneva for an unofficial effort to draft a model peace agreement. The goal was to show that it was achievable. The Israeli delegation consisted of private citizens and was led by former minister, now opposition figure Yossi Beilin. The Palestinian delegation was led by a serving Palestinian Authority cabinet minister and close aide to Abbas, Yasser Abed Rabbo. The document they drafted (text here), known as the Geneva Initiative (sometimes called Geneva Accord, though that implies some official status it doesn’t have) is strikingly similar to the Clinton Parameters.
During the Geneva meetings, Beilin had a telling conversation over lunch with a member of the Palestinian delegation, Qadoora Faris, a prominent Fatah figure who is close to convicted terrorist Marwan Barghouti. As Beilin tells the story, he asked Faris why he was bothering discussing a Palestinian state on 22% of historic Palestine when they could simply wait 20 years until Palestinians were a majority in Israel and the territories. All they’d need to do is demand one-man-one-vote. “Yes, we could wait 20 years until we’re a majority,” Faris said in reply, as Beilin told it to me. “Then we could commence another 100 years of violent struggle until we won our rights. But I have children. I want them to have a life.”
In 2008 there was yet another round of negotiations between Israel and the PLO — this time a series of face-to-face talks between Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. Those talks climaxed on September 16, 2008, when Olmert showed Abbas a map of the Israeli-Palestinan border as he proposed drawing it. He also offered to absorb 5,000 Palestinian refugees as a sort of symbolic right of return.
What happened next has been the topic of furious debate ever since. The conventional Israeli version is that Abbas said no, just as Arafat had done at Camp David. In fact, Abbas met with his negotiations committee the next day to discuss how to respond to Olmert’s proposal. The two sides were still divided on several issues, including the settlement-city of Ariel, deep in the heart of the West Bank, that Israel refuses to dismantle and the Palestinians refuse to leave in place.
A larger issue was the refugees. Abbas reportedly told his committee that Olmert’s offer to absorb 5,000 was “a joke.” A leaked document that I was shown later, reliably described to me as minutes of that meeting, indicated that Abbas was going to insist on a formula that would add up to 150,000. To the average Israeli ear that sounds like a frighteningly high number of refugees to absorb, even though Israel would, under the Abbas formula, retain full right to pick and choose whom to admit. It’s also less than the 200,000-odd Palestinians who would be removed from Israel’s population rolls once East Jerusalem became the Palestinian capital. But Abbas never had the opportunity to discuss the number with Israel.
Another document, part of the so-called Palestine Papers leaked to Al Jazeera and The Guardian in 2011, quoted Abbas elaborating on his view of the refugee issue in a March 2009 meeting with the negotiations committee. “On numbers of refugees, it is illogical to ask Israel to take 5 million, or indeed 1 million,” Abbas was quoted as saying. “That would mean the end of Israel.”
The larger issue, though, was Olmert. When he and Abbas held their fateful meeting in September, he was already a caretaker prime minister. He had resigned in August, claiming that the distraction of the snowballing bribery investigation against him was preventing him from giving the job his full attention. He handed chairmanship of his Kadima party to foreign minister Tzipi Livni, who set about trying to assemble her own coalition within the existing Knesset. But she was unable to get the parties in Olmert’s coalition to stay on with her. On October 26 she gave up and publicly called for new elections, to be held the following February.
For the Palestinians, all this created a dilemma. Abbas and Olmert were, by both men’s estimates, about two months away from clearing up all the details and concluding a deal. But as a caretaker prime minister, Olmert’s authority to close a deal this controversial was unclear. Moreover, while Livni was still chasing her coalition in September, it was already evident that she wasn’t going to make it. If Netanyahu won the election, would he agree to implement an agreement concluded by a caretaker prime minister? An agreement that he fundamentally opposed in principle?
In the end, of course, Netanyahu did win the February 2009 election, returning to the office he’d left 10 years before. Abbas assumed that he would pick up the negotiations where they’d left off in September. But Netanyahu insisted on negotiating “without preconditions,” meaning without accepting the progress that had been made since 1995, but instead starting all over from scratch. And that’s been the argument ever since.
For a third time, negotiations were cut short when the Israeli prime minister was removed from office.
One of the best summaries of the events surrounding the Olmert-Abbas negotiation is this article by Canadian-Israeli journalist Bernard Avishai, published in the New York Times Magazine in 2011. Avishai interviewed both Olmert and Abbas for the article. It’s well worth a read.
And then you can resume calling me names.
Source: forward.com
By Luke Winkie
VICE
From the column ‘The VICE Guide to the 2016 Election’
According to the Council of Arab Islamic Relations (CAIR), about 70 percent of American Muslims voted for George W. Bush in 2000. Twelve years later, only 4 percent voted for Mitt Romney.
Those numbers underscore just how badly the Republican Party has estranged itself from what one of its natural constituencies. The industrious, fiscally conservative, family-oriented values of American conservatism should give the GOP a lot of in common with religious Muslims, but after the war on terror and more than a decade of having their faith demonized, not too many Muslims have decided to remain in the party of Bush. Donald Trump’s call for a ban on Muslim immigration may have put an exclamation point on the trend, but the Muslim exodus from the GOP started a lot earlier than that.
VICE tracked down a handful of Muslims who once identified as Republican but have leaned Democratic in recent elections. Here’s what they had to say about why they left the party—or why they feel the party left them.
Sarah Cochran
VICE: What’s your background like?
Sarah Cochran: I was born and raised in the Kuwait by expat parents from India. As a child, I always looked forward to moving to America because it was the place I could finally belong. I was 18 when I arrived—four days before Saddam invaded. I ended up staying here because I couldn’t go back, and there weren’t any universities in Kuwait anyway. My dad ended up losing everything because of the invasion, so I worked a graveyard shift and put myself through community college.
After that I had an arranged marriage and moved to Texas with my new husband, and spent about ten years sitting at home and having kids. But I had a change of heart, got divorced, and applied to Georgetown’s master’s program in conflict resolution. As I was graduating, I got a job on [Republican] Ed Gillespie’s campaign for Virginia’s Senate seat. That’s when my interest in politics started. I was in charge of his Muslim outreach. I worked really hard on that.
How did your parents vote?
My parents were both diehard Republicans; my dad even supported the party financially. I think he has gotten a little lost like I did, but he’s still hardcore. But I’ve become very critical, obviously. My criticism goes back to the Bush days. Navigating that space with my dad, I noticed that it was kinda like a frat house: a little racist, a little cliquey. I was like, Well, this doesn’t feel right. I think what’s happening right now is emblematic of what’s been happening for a while.
How has your relationship with the party changed since 9/11?
The party doesn’t really appeal to us anymore. I stuck to my guns because think there’s a congruence between Islamic values as Christian values, which the party is based on. But I draw the line when you start getting into the realm of injustice and racism. I do believe you can be magnanimous and a party for all people and still be conservative. When [Barack] Obama came along, it was the first time I voted for Democrat. At the end of the day, I want a leader who’s going to make sound, intelligent decisions under pressure.
What was it like to give a lot to the Republicans, then start to feel ostracized by that same party?
When I first joined the Gillespie campaign, I felt like the oddball. But very, very quickly I made myself a part of the team. I think they just grew to respect my allegiance to the campaign.
I do feel alienated right now because he’s running for governor next year, and he’s throwing his weight behind Trump. I respect his decision because it’s for the party, but I feel like this party is not supporting the right values and is trying to stay together like a club.
“It’s really hard to be a Muslim, a Republican, a woman, and a mother. It’s hard to be all those things at once.”
How do you feel about the Trump campaign?
It causes me a lot of anxiety because I am a mother of four, so I worry about my children’s safety and the opportunities they’ll have when they come out of school. I never thought I’d have to worry about these things in this country considering where I’ve lived in the past, where you couldn’t open your mouth. It’s really hard to be a Muslim, a Republican, a woman, and a mother. It’s hard to be all those things at once. When I go to the Muslim community, I don’t feel like I’m totally embraced because I’m a Republican, and when I hang out with Republicans, I don’t feel like I fit in there.
Have you decided who you’re voting for this November?
I haven’t. It’d be so disingenuous if I didn’t vote, so I’m either going to have to make a really hardcore decision the day of. I have been YouTubing [Libertarian Party candidate] Gary Johnson a lot. None of them look like presidents to me. None of them. I’m scared, actually, I’m not sure what I’ll do. If I vote for Hillary, it will be purely for the women power thing, because I don’t agree with her on anything.
Tariq Malik
VICE: When did you come to America, and how long have you been voting Republican?
Tariq Malik: I moved here from Pakistan when I was 17 years old. I’m 61 now, so it’s been a long, long time.
Who was the first president you voted for?
The first president I voted for was Jimmy Carter, then I voted for [Ronald] Reagan, and then for Bush.
And then you started voting Democratic after that?
Yes. I supported John Kerry and then Obama. For a while, the Republicans had a pretty good agenda. They were fiscally conservative, Reagan did some immigration reforms, they were focused on the Constitution, they believed in smaller government—and those are good things in my opinion. But on the other hand, I think the Republican Party has kinda lost their own party.
What’s it been like watching the Donald Trump campaign?
He’s just fear-mongering, which is not good for the tenor of our nation. One of the reasons I got my citizenship and stayed here is because I like the whole concept of America. I want to be part of it, I want to contribute to it. I run businesses and help people, and I think a lot of people are like me—Muslims, non-Muslims, whatever. At some point, everybody came here, and that’s what makes this country. That’s what we’re so proud of. I consider myself an American who’s loyal to this country as much as anyone else. To talk about segregation by faith—I’m not that religious myself—that’s against the Constitution. A presidential candidate creating those differences isn’t true to the country.
What does the Republican Party have to do to win your vote back?
I think they have to connect to the people. They have to go back to their original concepts of fiscal conservatism and put more emphasis on domestic agenda because we need to take care of our own people first. I like the idea of empowering state governments, so they can handle their own affairs. Those are all still part of the party, but they’ve been put on the back burner to issues that are more politically charged.
Ashraf Abou Elezz
VICE: What’s your background with Islam? Did you grow up in it?
Ashraf Abou Elezz: I’m a Muslim by birth, I was born in Egypt in 1960 and raised there. In 1991 I moved to the States.
Were your parents conservative?
Growing up in Egypt, it was a socialist one-party system. My mother had some liberal ideas, and my father was a judge and didn’t have strong views on politics at the time. They were both opposing the dictatorship, but not actively opposing it.
Who was the first president you voted for in America?
I got my citizenship in 2001, which was right after George W. Bush was elected. I was leaning more Republican at the time as I was getting my citizenship, because I found some of the moral aspects of the Republican Party were more consistent with my viewpoints. But after the war in Iraq, I changed my affiliation. My first registration as a voter was Republican but that switched very quickly.
“Right now, for Arabs and Muslims and minorities, to support the Republican Party is like cockroaches supporting Raid”
What do you think of this campaign?
Regardless of what [Donald Trump] says or what he is, as a person he’s not qualified to be a president. First, he doesn’t have the expertise in politics. While he may be a smart businessman, as a person, he’s not smart enough. The comments he’s making are showing he’s very superficial in the way he thinks. My main concern with Donald Trump is that professionally—as a professional politician—he’s not qualified. Maybe I like my barber very much, but I’m not going to him to get my gallbladder removed. My surgeon might not be the most morally acceptable person, but at least he does have the education and the training to do the job.
Do you know who you’ll be voting for this election?
Right now, I think I’ll be voting for Hillary Clinton. She’s not my number-one choice, but she’s the only alternative I can see that’s capable of being president for the next four years.
Nasser Beydoun
VICE: What’s your background?
Nasser Beydoun: I was born in Beirut, my parents came to America when I was five years old. I was raised in Detroit, went to college in San Diego, lived in Qatar for five years. I used to run the Arab-American Chamber of Commerce, and now I’m chairman of the Arab-American Civil Rights League.
How long have you vote Republican?
I’ve voted Republican in every presidential election except 2004, when I voted for Kerry.
What first drew you to the Republican Party?
I liked the Republican’s centrist worldview when it came to foreign policy, and I liked their fiscal conservatism. I like giving people the opportunity to move forward.
How did the party start to lose you?
My disillusionment started with the second Iraq war because I had a gut feeling that it was based on lies. And obviously since then we’ve learned that that was a war we never should’ve had.
You voted for John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012—those were both pretty centrist candidates. What do you think has happened to the party that’s made it so radical?
I think it started with the Tea Party, which was made up of uneducated white folks scared of losing their privilege. A lot of the pent-up racism in the United States was drawn out. Trump delivered a message that a lot of people wanted to hear but were afraid of saying it themselves. And also, Congress had a lot to do with it, with their “no-to-everything” policy they had with Obama. Anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, anti-Palestinian. Everything that was “anti” started to embody the Republican Party.
When you hear Donald Trump talk about things like banning Muslims from entering the country, do you get scared?
First of all, I don’t think he believes a lot of the things he says. He’s pandering to the 12 million ignorant Americans who support him. Trump doesn’t scare me; it’s the education system that allows him to exist that scares me.
Do you think the Republican Party realizes it could be doing a better job to reach that community?
The Muslim community is conservative, it’s family-oriented, it’s highly educated, and fiscally responsible. It’s very easy to reach out to the Muslims. But I think the Republican Party is going to be humiliated by Trump, and once they go through their autopsy, they’ll realize if they continue their racist ideology they’re just going to become the Whigs of modern times.
What does the Republican Party have to do to win your vote back?
On a local level, we have a great relationship with our Republican governor [of Michigan] Rick Snyder, but on a national level, I don’t think they’re ever going to be able to come out of the hole that Donald Trump has dug for them. Right now, for Arabs and Muslims and minorities, to support the Republican Party is like cockroaches supporting Raid.
Source: www.vice.com
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