With
less than one week to go and the countdown on for what every media
pundit in the US is terming the most critical presidential election
in decades, the onus falls on Arab-Americans to refrain from making
the same mistake they did in the 2000 elections.
Four
years ago, Arab-Americans were swayed by then Governor George
Bush’s pledge to remove racial profiling. On the polar end, they
were horrified by news that then Vice President Al Gore would
encourage and endorse moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, a city
that is highly contested and was supposed to be part of the final
negotiations as part of the Oslo Peace Accords.
In
2000, nearly two-thirds of Arab-Americans voted for Bush. Since that
crucial vote, the US has been tragically struck by a terrorist
attack on 9/11, which prompted the bombardment and occupation of
war-torn Afghanistan. Less than two years later, Iraq was
invaded—and it is still under occupation.
Never
before in US history has the administration included
neoconservative elements as in the Bush administration. |
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Since
that time as well, the Oslo Accords have been nullified (Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vowed long before coming to power that
he would not recognize any peace deal and would work aggressively to
unhinge it). Israel has re-occupied those parts of Palestinian
territory that just five years ago were celebrated with fanfare and
national flags as they came under the jurisdiction of the
Palestinian National Authority.
Israel
has carried out transgressions in Jenin, Jabalya, Bethlehem and many
other Palestinian cities. As the international outcry increased
against Israeli policies towards the Palestinians, Bush called
Sharon a “man of peace.”
When
the Bush administration was accused of having removed itself from
involvement in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it came back with a
lop-sided peace plan called the Roadmap for Peace.
Conditions
for the Roadmap included pressing the Palestinians to halt attacks
on Israelis and for Israel to withdraw from illegal colonist
settlements.
The
plan was a recipe for failure because it did not account for the
fact that two years of Israel policies in the wake of the second
Intifada had practically stripped Palestinian security forces of any
efficacy.
Secondly,
Israel did not cut back on any of the illegal settlements. Rather,
the Israeli government helped finance illegal settlements during
that period, according to the Israeli daily Haaretz.
The
Haaretz investigative report found that the education
ministry paid for nurseries and their teachers and the energy
ministry connected outposts to the electricity grid, while the
government also shelled out for the construction of roads.
On
average, about 20 Iraqis—police, civilians—die a day. |
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In
the four years since 2000, Israel has gone ahead with its plan to
build a separation barrier wall, claiming that it will prevent
attacks on Israeli civilians. However, a July ruling by the
International Court of Justice found that the barrier wall actually
swallowed up entire plots of Palestinian land and caused devastation
to Palestinian farmland. Under the guise of security, the wall
became a tool of annexation.
The
Sharon government is also planning to withdraw from Gaza in what is
being termed “the disengagement plan.” However, disengaging from
Gaza does not mean an end to Israeli occupation—Israel maintains
full control of the waterways, airports, electricity grid, and
security for the area. Furthermore, Israeli analysts believe the
plan will allow Sharon more free rein to occupy wholly the West
Bank, an area he has referred to as Judea and Samaria, the biblical
names for the area, signaling that there is an agenda there.
In
Iraq, all of the Bush administration’s portfolios of proof against
Iraq’s alleged threat to world security have been discredited.
Faulty intelligence, embellishment, exaggeration, and inconclusive
analysis are some of the adjectives used by successive intelligence
committees to describe the Bush administration’s handling of the
pre-war case for invading Iraq.
The
post-war (if you subscribe to the notion that the war ever ended)
scenario is far graver. Iraq has no discernable sense of security.
On average, about 20 Iraqis—police, civilians—die a day. Almost
1-3 US soldiers and other forces die every day, too.
Reconstruction
is almost non-existent; monies slated for such projects have since
been diverted to security concerns. There was even an “idea”
that floated in the US Congress that some of those funds be further
diverted to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in the western
Sudanese territory of Darfur.
More
than 13,000 Arabs and Muslims have been detained in the US
since 9/11. |
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The
idea of Iraq—as a sovereign nation—is itself threatened. During
the military onslaught on Najaf, Karbala, and Kufa in the south
(areas predominantly Shi’te) influential Shi’ite political
voices began to question whether there should be any connection
between the southern governorates and a centralized government in
Baghdad. In laymen terms, secession. Since early October, the Kurds
in the north declared that they would fight to ensure that the
disputed city of Kirkuk become the heart and capital of a new
autonomous Kurdistan. Some have called for outright independence
after elections are held in January.
The
prospect of elections is itself mired in murky dispute. As November
approaches, there are only 35 United Nations officials in Iraq to
assist in preparing the groundwork for these elections. In the East
Timor elections two years ago, there were 200 UN staff to oversee
the process. East Timor has a population of 1.1 million. Iraq has a
population of 25 million. You do the math.
Back
in the US, racial profiling surged to Orwellian levels. More than
13,000 Arabs and Muslims have been detained in the US since 9/11.
Only three have been charged with a crime. Almost none have received
due process. Up to 2000 are reported to still be remanded in
custody—whereabouts unknown.
Nevertheless,
latest poll figures indicate that 35% of Arab-Americans will vote
for Bush. When interviewed on Arab networks (US networks almost
wholly ignore them), Arab-Americans speak of how Bush removed the
tyrant Saddam. That’s all correct until one examines what has
effectively replaced Saddam in Iraq—chaos.
Arab-Americans
supporting Bush also wax rhetorical about the fact Bush is the only
US president to mention the idea of a Palestinian state. Either
these Arab-Americans have their heads in the sand or are working for
the Likud office of public relations. What Palestinian state? There
is no infrastructure in Palestine, no contiguity thanks to the
barrier wall. The Palestinian economy is non-existent, 60% of
Palestinian kids do not have access to food and water, and a further
80% of that figure must rely on handouts from international aid
organizations and the UN. The right of return of Palestinian
refugees isn’t even an issue to negotiate because there is no
negotiation process.
The
elected president of Palestine, Yasser Arafat, has been under house
arrest in his beleaguered compound (which has been repeatedly
surrounded and shelled by Israeli occupation forces) for three
years.
More
than 130 Palestinians were killed, 40% of them children, when Israel
launched Operation Days of Penitence as a punitive strike against
Palestinian fighters firing homemade Qassam rockets at the Israeli
town of Sderot. True, the strike came after two Israeli boys were
killed by the Qassam rockets. That is itself a tragedy and
deplorable, but to launch a strike that kills nearly 50 children in
retaliation? That is just plain criminal.
No
word from the Arab-American Republicans waving the flag of an
independent Palestine. Instead, they say Democratic candidate
Senator John Kerry is far more pro-Israel. They float erroneous
ideas that Kerry is Jewish or that he will move the embassy to
Jerusalem. The same fabrication and mistake of the 2000 elections.
But
Arab-Americans retain the intellectual crassness and naiveté of
their heritage nations. They point at Kerry; Kerry said this and
Kerry said that. Yet a democratic nation is comprised of much more
than merely a president. For starters, there is the type of
administration the president brings with him to the White House.
Never
before in its 228-year history has the presidential administration
included neoconservative and far-right extremist elements as in the
current Bush administration. It includes such figures as Douglas
Feith, under-secretary of defense for policy, and one of the
strongest advocates for invading and occupying Iraq.
Israeli
commentator Akiva Eldar observed in a Haaretz column on
April 26, 2002 that Feith was “walking a fine line”
between his loyalty to American governments and Israeli
interests.
“I
also noted his close association with the pro-Likud groups, the
Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) and his law firm’s
international work promoting the Israeli arms industry,” James
Zogby said of Feith in May 2001.
