 |
|
No real unified Arab or Muslim lobbying platform can be considered to be functional in the United States.
|
When John Mearsheimer of the University of
Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard published a report highlighting
the efficacy of the Israeli lobby in molding US domestic and foreign
policy, charges of malpractice and academic dishonesty were leveled at
the authors.
Their paper, "The Israeli Lobby and US
Foreign Policy," cited the organizational prowess of pro-Israel
groups in marrying the media, think tanks, and numerous politicians
into a unified front that muzzles criticism of the Jewish State.
However, in the vitriol exchanged by
supporters and detractors of the paper, an illuminating section is
overlooked.
Mearsheimer and Walt, in comparing the
existence of the Israeli lobby to the likelihood of the existence of a
similar Muslim or Arab grouping, say "pro-Arab interest groups,
in so far as they exist at all, are weak, which makes the Israeli
lobby's task even easier."
Although there is no national consensus
data on the number of Muslims in the United States, estimates put the
figure between six and seven million, equal to the number of Jews in
the country. Each religious group accounts for two percent of the US
population. While the global population of Jews is some 15 million,
there are nearly 1.2 billion Muslims in the world.
|
"There is a plethora of often competing Arab and Muslim groups and organizations, which do not adhere to the same agenda." |
If the logic of strength in numbers is
applied, why then is there no Muslim lobby to balance the strong
influence of other lobby groups?
There are multiple answers to this
question, often directly mirroring the status quo in Arab and Muslim
countries, but chief among them is the lack of a unified
socio-political platform.
Diverse Muslim Groups
Muslims in the United States are primarily
derivative of an immigrant community and belong to a number of diverse
ethnic groups. From a religious and sectarian point of view, American
Muslims comprise Sunni, Shiite, Ismaili, and Ahmadi sects, to name a
few.
Most sects do not see eye to eye and often
do not intermingle. The Ahmadi sect, for example, is considered an
apostate group by mainstream Islamic theologians, while other sects
have complained of repression in their home nations at the hands of
other Muslim sects.
As'ad AbuKhalil, professor of political
science at California State University at Stanislaus, says Arabs and
Muslims in the United States are far from being united and are in a
state of disagreement over many issues.
"Just as the Turkish lobby acts on
behalf of one Turkish government, the Arab or Muslim lobbies can't
mirror a single agenda that represents the interests of all Arab or
Muslim governments," AbuKhalil says.
"Arab and Muslim governments often
conspire against one another, and their rivalries, especially in the
1970s and 1980s, were mirrored in the competition and rivalries
between Arab and Muslim organizations in the United States," he
adds.
The deep divisions in the Arab world (along
sectarian and ethnic lines) only impair the effectiveness of those
groups. "In the case of the Arab and Muslim lobbies, there is a
plethora of often competing groups and organizations, which do not
seem to adhere to the same agenda," AbuKhalil remarks.
AIPAC's Shadow
|
The
Muslim community doesn't possess the required prerequisites to
make a difference in the US political arena. |
Mearsheimer and Walt's paper points to the
Jewish Americans' skillfulness in setting up an impressive array of
influential organizations, of which the American-Israel Public Affairs
Committee (AIPAC) is the most powerful and best known.
AIPAC operates in near unison with several
think tanks, such as the Washington Institute, the Heritage
Foundation, Project for a New American Century (PNAC), and others who
share a common denominator: pro-Israel policies.
They produce monthly reports culled from
"experts" in Israel as well as journalists on the ground.
These are then used in a unified assault on the US Congress to
influence policy to tilt in favor of Israel.
Similar media exercises from Muslim groups
are minimal to none.
Fawaz A. Gerges, who holds the Christian
Johnson Chair in International Affairs and Middle Eastern Studies at
Sarah Lawrence University in New York, and is a senior analyst for ABC
Television News, says the Israeli lobby is well-organized,
well-endowed, and well-recognized as a powerful influence by friend
and foe.
"It is taken seriously by the foreign
policy establishment," he asserts.
On the other hand, "[T]he Muslim
community does not possess the political, institutional, and financial
prerequisites to make a difference in the American political arena. It
takes time, organization, and institutional building to do so."
Coining the Term
If no effective organization resembling an
influential lobby represents Muslim or Arab interests in the United
States, where did the term Muslim lobby originate?
In researching the above question, the
author of this article came across several references to the term
specifically in news journals, publications, and blogs with a clear
pro-Israel, anti-Muslim slant.
In fact, the term Muslim lobby is an
artificial construct, with the word lobby being rather misleading.
"References to Arab or Muslim lobbies
occur only in the Arab and Muslim press, or in the propaganda of
pro-Israeli groups," says Abukhalil.
|
The
term "Muslim lobby" is an artificial construct, with
the word "lobby" being rather misleading. |
Worldnetdaily.com, a website that has
featured commentary by writer Joseph Farah urging the killing of 100
non-combatant Palestinian adults for every slain Israeli, regularly
uses the term Islamic or Muslim lobby to refer to advocacy groups
trying to combat Islamophobia through education and awareness
campaigns.
One such advocacy group, the Council on
American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), has been sufficiently targeted by
journalists and pro-Israel groups.
When CAIR contacted FOX network to raise
the issue of negative stereotyping of Muslims on the popular TV
thriller "24," journalist Cliff Kincaid accused it of being
a "lobby" attempting to intimidate the media.
CAIR says its mission is to enhance
understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties,
empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice
and mutual understanding. It does not lobby senators and congressmen
to affect pro-Muslim tilt in US foreign policy.
Compare that to AIPAC's mission statement
as follows:
Through more than 2,000 meetings with
members of Congress — at home and in Washington — AIPAC activists
help pass more than 100 pro-Israel legislative initiatives a year.
From procuring nearly $3 billion in aid critical to Israel's security,
to funding joint US-Israeli efforts to build a defense against
unconventional weapons, AIPAC members are involved in the most crucial
issues facing Israel.
Consequently, labeling CAIR and other
advocacy groups as "lobbies" is an exercise in journalistic
inequity and willful disinformation.
Yet, both John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt
have been accused by Ami Isseroff, executive secretary of MidEastWeb
for Coexistence, of being part of an Arab US lobby.
"The Arab and Muslim lobby and the
lobbies of Arab and Muslim countries, and the lobby of US oil
interests in those countries are together certainly far more powerful
than the 'Israel Lobby,'" she recently wrote.
Fueling Islamophobia
In his book Infiltration: How Muslim Spies
and Subversives have Penetrated Washington, journalist Paul Sperry
uses the term Muslim lobby to refer to an "Islamic
terrorist" conspiracy to infiltrate the US leadership and
influence policy.
Sperry links what he terms Muslim lobby
groups, faith-based charities, and a wide network of mosques
throughout the United States as a unified subversive front.
He stipulates that this grand lobby of
Muslim interests is connected to foreign groups like Egypt's Muslim
Brotherhood organization, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas,
and Al-Qaeda.
"It's a syndicate, a Muslim mafia, and
law enforcement is only starting to get their arms around it. The base
of their operations is in Northern Virginia, where I live — right in
the shadow of the nation's capital. I call it The Wahhabi
Corridor," he said in an interview with Frontpage Magazine in
April 2005.
Given that the term Muslim lobby is so
loosely used by pundits to elicit Islamophobia and wax paranoid of a
misconceived and undue influence of Arab and Muslim interests in US
policy-making, the term should be abolished from the Arab and Muslim
lexicon.
Not doing so would cater to a demonization
of all Arab- and Muslim-American political participation, a right that
is enshrined in the US Constitution.
To Build a Lobby
While no real unified Arab or Muslim
lobbying platform can be considered to be functional in the United
States, the need remains for such a group to be formed.
In late October 2001, former US ambassador
to Egypt and Israel Edward Walker urged Arab governments to set up
measures to counter Israel's influence in America's policy-making.
"But you, the Arabs, can no longer
afford to just ignore Washington. Arab governments and institutions
should start considering how to affect public opinion in the US,"
he told a political discussion forum hosted by the University of
Jordan.
However, 5 years later, Walker's advice may
have fallen on deaf ears.
What scant lobbying there is usually
depends on the behest of individual Muslim governments.
"One can say that there never was a
serious attempt to create an Arab or Muslim lobby, and that whatever
organizations that exist today under that umbrella of a name have only
succeeded in effectively representing the interests of ruling Arab
dynasties," AbuKhalil says of Saudi Arabian initiatives to
influence US foreign policy regarding the Kingdom.
"But those dynasties don't even rely
on those loyal groups and organizations when they wish to advance a
particular issue: Instead, they hire 'purely' American public
relations and lobbying firms in order not to allow the Arab or Muslim
stigma to hurt their lobbying efforts."
With individual Middle Eastern nations
opting to choose public relations firms to represent their interests
in Washington, the prospect of a Muslim lobby ever consolidating its
efforts in the future remains murky.
Gerges says that while an Arab and Muslim
lobby in the United States does not exist, Arab and Muslim voices are
laboring hard to be heard and recognized.
And those are steps in the right direction,
say many Arab and Muslim Americans.
"It has taken the Israeli lobby half a
century to arrive at this historical juncture," Gerges said.
"It will likely take the Muslim
community as long, if and when the community decides to organize
itself politically and institutionally."
"The key word is institutional
building, which is in its infancy." |
