Focus on Arabs and Islam

Arab American organizations focused their activity last month on efforts to stem the rising tide of anti-Arab harassment and vilification in this country. In testimony before a February 11 meeting of the U.S. Commission on Human Rights, American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) National Chairman James Abourezk noted that Arab Americans have become "scapegoats for tensions and violence half a world away with which they have absolutely no connection" and that federal law enforcement authorities have been more interested in conducting surveillance of Arab Americans than investigating incidents of harassment and violence aimed at them. James Zogby, executive director of the Arab American Institute (AAI), testifying before the same body, charged that pro Israel groups such as the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith (ADL) and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) have contributed to "an atmosphere of exclusion and vilification" of Arab Americans and their organizations. [Both AIPAC and the ADL have published lists of individuals (including many unhyphenated Americans) and groups they consider "pro-PLO" and "anti-Israel." Militant Jewish groups have used these lists as well as lists of their own to target individuals for harassment and violent attack.]

At an ADC press conference following the hearing, former ADC regional director Bonnie Rimawi told reporters that, after her name appeared on a list titled "Enemies of Israel" in a New Jersey Jewish weekly, the New York ADC office became the target of such severe harassment that she was forced to close it down and resign in fear of her life.

Earlier in February, Arab American organizations spent a frantic and frustrating week trying to convince NBC executives to modify the network's made for TV movie Under Siege, which depicted a future United States nearly paralyzed by "Middle Eastern" terrorist attacks.

Ordinarily, Arab American groups are only able to respond to media anti-Arab stereotyping after the fact. Thanks to some vigilance on ADC's part, the case of Under Siege was different. When the first reports appeared last year that three Washington Post staffers Christian Williams, Richard Harwood and Bob Woodward would co write a teleplay on the possible effects of widespread terrorist attacks in the U.S., ADC sent a letter to the writers expressing the hope that they could tell the story without the aid of the customary "Arab as terrorist" stereotypes. The letter pointed out that, according to FBI reports, other ethnic groups, particularly militant Puerto Ricans and Jews, had committed more attacks in the U.S. than Arab groups had.

ADC's request apparently fell on deaf ears. The film's final script features a French Algerian named Abu Ladeen as a terrorist leader who orchestrates a series of bloody and spectacular attacks on targets in the U.S., while hiding out among Dearborn, Michigan's large Arabic speaking community. Abu Ladeen is caricatured as a scruffy, sweaty, dark haired, comicbook Muslim fond of talking tough and spouting nonsense like "You cannot meet my demands because I have none."

In the week before the film aired nationally, Detroit area Arab American leaders attended a preview at the local NBC affiliate. In a statement to the Washington Post, Don Unis, president of the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services, said: "It is unfortunate that they identified Dearborn. We felt that was very unnecessary. It will only inflame anti-Arab feelings that already exist in the city." AAI Executive Director James Zogby concurred, pointing out in a February 6 press release that "NBC has it all backwards. Dearborn Arab Americans are under siege today." Zogby went on to add that Dearborn Mayor Michael Guido had played on existing anti-Arab sentiment when he distributed a brochure during the last election campaign alleging that the city had a serious "Arab problem." As a further instance of renewed anti-Arab hysteria, he cited the recent call of Americans for a Sound Foreign Policy, a Washington based "hate group," for immediate government deportation of "Shiite terrorists in Detroit."

In an attempt to soften the harmful impact of the film, both the AAI release and ADC's February 7 press release called on NBC executives to add disclaimers or present panel discussions before or after the film. ADC's National Chairman James Abourezk asked that NBC air at the film's beginning and after each commercial break the message: "This film is fiction and is not meant to reflect adversely on the Muslim, Iranian or Arab American communities in the United States." [When The Godfather aired on television, the network ran a similar disclaimer in order to address the concerns of Italian-Americans.] Zogby said he had taken up these concerns personally with several NBC executives, but to no avail.

In the days before the the television premiere of Under Seige both the ADC and the National Association of Arab Americans (NAAA) were busy informing their networks of activists about the film and urging them to make their concerns known to NBC and local affiliates. When the film finally aired unchanged and without a disclaimer on February 9, over 100 protesters marched in an ADC sponsored demonstration in front of WRC-TV, NBC's Washington affiliate.

Although Under Seige did have scenes depicting the ugliness of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim passions that overtake some Americans in the wake of terrorist attacks, they were few in number, brief, and somehow disingenuous. Closer to the overall tone of the film was the overtly racist outburst of the fictional FBI director: "These people have their own mentality but we insist on dealing with them as if they were the same as us." Fortunately, most TV critics came down hard on the film, echoing the sentiments of Washington Post reviewer Tom Shales that Under Siege was "entertainingly awful at times, but virtually never quite convincing."

The very real concerns for the safety of the Arab American community were repeatedly expressed by ADC spokespersons interviewed on WRC's 11 o'clock news, immediately following the film.

—Anthony B. Toth

Anthony B. Toth, of Arlington, Virginia, is a freelance writer specializing in US. relations with the Middle East.

Focus on Israel and Jews

The fiftieth plenary of the World Jewish Congress (WJC), which brought together in Jerusalem this month 800 delegates from 60 countries, proved to be an excellent forum for both Israeli and Diaspora Jewish leaders to address some of the most important issues facing world Jewry today the Mideast peace process, the plight of Soviet Jewry, and the racist ideology of Rabbi Meir Kahane.

WJC President Edgar Bronfman said that Soviet participation in Mideast peace talks is necessary if there is to be any progress towards a peace settlement. Bronfman told the delegates that "the road to peace runs not only through Washington, but also through Moscow," adding that "there can be no seat at any Middle East table for the USSR if it does not have full diplomatic relations with Israel." Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin disagreed with Bronfman, insisting that if the Soviets had been involved in Mideast peace negotiations during the last 12 years, there would have been no treaty between Egypt and Israel. Sadat decided to address the Knesset in 1977 precisely to keep the Soviets out of the negotiations, Rabin claimed.

Israeli President Chaim Herzog and Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek told WJC delegates that they should concern themselves not only with the rights of the Jewish minority in the Soviet Union, but also with the rights of Israel's Arab minority. Referring to the increasing popularity of Rabbi Meir Kahane among Jews, Herzog urged the Congress not only to worry about "disabilities suffered by Jews, but also about the proliferating menaces which are coming to expression within the Jewish people." Menachem Rosensaft, founding chairman of the International Network of Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, said Kahane "has spent more than a decade proving that it is indeed possible for a Jew to be both a racist and a fascist" and insisted that Kahane be "unconditionally and unambiguously repudiated once and for all by the international Jewish community."

While Jerusalem hosted the WJC plenary, Washington in February was the scene of the fifth annual National Prayer Breakfast for Israel, hosted by the National Religious Broadcasters and "The Lord's Airline," a fundamentalist Christian charter air service to Israel. According to the Washington Jewish Week's David Silverberg, the purpose of the breakfast was to "further Christian-Jewish understanding and evangelical support for Israel." An Israeli official, an American Jewish lobbyist, and several rabbis joined well known evangelical luminaries, including the Reverend Jerry Falwell, to "pray for Israel."

Silverberg reported that in a debate with Rabbi Joshua Haberman, Falwell said: "One of the reasons God has blessed America is because America has blessed the Jew." Falwell also made a point to criticize Jews, particularly "liberal" ones from the American Civil Liberties Union, an organization he accused of harassing Christians. Falwell also called for a "Christian Defense League" to defend Christians from "bigoted liberal Jews" a veiled reference to the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith (ADL), which opposes prayer in the schools.

The Washington Jewish Week expressed concern about the Prayer Breakfast, and what appeared to be a new alliance between some Jews and Christian leaders from the New Right. Disturbed about Christian evangelists "praying for the safety and strength of Israel in the name of Jesus Christ," the Jewish Week noted that the evangelical movement has "declared an aggressive war against the very constitutional principles which have made the United States such a hospitable place for Jews to live." The newspaper concluded that the "moral, political, and religious" price American Jews would have to pay to get support from the New Right is just too high to pay.

The Jews who attended the National Prayer Breakfast are not the only ones who appear to have deserted the traditionally liberal Jewish agenda. Tom Dine, executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Washington's major pro Israel lobby, testified in front of a Senate Armed Services subcommittee in support of President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), commonly known as "Star Wars." Dine was enthusiastic about Israel sharing in SDI research, saying that the new technology could help Israel defend itself against Soviet built ground to ground missiles, such as the kind that the Syrians deployed recently. Writing in the Jewish Week, Wolf Blitzer, Washington correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, observed that even some American Jews who oppose SDI in principle, understand and defend Israel's desire to participate in the program.

—Andrea Barron

Andrea Barron, a PhD Candidate in International Relations at the American University in Washington, D.C., is active in Washington Area Jews for an Israeli Palestinian Peace and writes frequently about the Middle East.