Zogby says distaste for the Bush administration could easily bring moderate Jews and Arabs together

CAIRO, October 4 (IslamOnline.net) – Arab Americans in the battleground state of Florida are turning away from their traditionally favorite the Republican Party as they are furious over the Bush administration's post-Sept. 11 policies that unfairly targeted them, a leading American newspaper reported on Monday, October 4.

Gathered Sunday evening at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, some 150 Arab Americans, including businessmen, physicians and lawyers, agreed to give their votes to Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry in a meeting intended originally to be a bipartisan event, The Los Angles Times reported.

Ashley Ansara, president of a clinical research company in Orlando, said this would be the first presidential election since he moved to the US in 1973 that he would not be voting Republican.

"I thought Bush was another Ronald Reagan on a small scale for what he believed in," Ansara said at the meeting sponsored by the respected Arab American Institute (AAI).

"I found out he's no Reagan. Not even close."

Areej Zufari, the director of communications and media for the Islamic Society of Central Florida, says that most Arab Americans she knows no longer trust Bush.

"Most of them feel betrayed," Zufari told the American paper.

The AMI estimates that there are more than 100,000 Arab or Muslim voters in Florida — and that at least 45% of them backed Bush in 2000 and many others supported Green Party nominee Ralph Nader, who has Lebanese roots.

An AAI July survey showed that just 30% of the state's Arab Americans planned to back Bush and 48% favored Kerry. Thirteen percent supported Nader, who recently won a court battle to appear on the Florida ballot.

An even earlier poll in April showed that majority of Arab Americans in four battleground states would vote for the Democratic candidate.

That kind of turnaround could prove especially meaningful in this state, where the election was decided by 537 votes in 2000.

Trampling on Constitution

Sami Qubty, a financial planner and former president of the Arab American Community Center in Orlando, was once an avid Bush supporter who helped raise tens of thousands of dollars for his presidential run in 2000.

Now Qubty, a Christian who grew up in the Palestinian territories and moved here 36 years ago, has turned away from the president, he said, because of his policies.

"I think this administration is trampling on this nation's civil rights," Qubty said. "They're walking all over the Constitution."

AAI President James Zogby said distaste for the Bush administration's policies could easily bring moderate Jews and Arabs together.

Several Arab American activists said they believed that most Jews and Arabs in the U.S., despite differences over Israel, were united in their concern for protecting civil liberties.

"Both communities can be courted," he said.

Kerry has pulled ahead of Bush in a poll published by Newsweek magazine showing Thursday's television debate erased the lead Bush had enjoyed for the last month.

In a two-way contest, the Kerry/Edwards ticket in the Nov. 2 presidential election led by 49 percent against 46 percent for Bush/Cheney, according to 1,013 registered voters polled by Princeton Survey Research Associates International.

A May 2004 report released by the US Senate Office Of Research concluded that the Arab Americans and the Muslim community in the United States has taken the brunt of the Patriot Act and other federal powers applied in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Amnesty International said last month that racial profiling by US law enforcement agencies has grown over the past three years to cover one in nine Americans, mostly targeting Muslims.