Arab-Baiting in the 1986 Elections

By James J. Zogby and Helen Hatab Samhan

The Middle East was an issue in the 1986 elections. It was not, however, debated as a substantive question of US foreign policy. Rather, it was most frequently used as a way to bait candidates, exclude constituencies, and raise money.

One of the ways the Middle East and Arabs were abused in the campaigns of 1986 was as a fundraising ploy. In a few instances, Jewish-Americans quite deliberately created an Arab "bogey man" to scare money out of their own constituents. For example, Rep. Larry Smith (D-FL), a Jewish member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who is noted for strident pro-Israel statements, warned constituents that "Arabs" had targeted him for defeat. Arab Americans, in fact, made no effort to defeat him, but Smith found this "Arab-baiting" an easy way to raise money.

Similarly, a national pro-Israel Political Action Committee, NatPAC, focused its major fundraising appeal on the increase in what it called "political anti-Semitism." NatPAC linked this with activities of the "Arab lobby," and cited by name each major national organization serving the Arab-American community. The appeal warned not only of the political power of the "Arab lobby" to undermine US-Israel relations, but also of the role of Arab organizations in spreading "hatred for Jews."

Perhaps the most frequent incidents of abusing the Middle East issue in politics involve exclusion of Arab Americans from electoral participation. Such Arab-baiting involves alleging connections between Arab-American activities or leaders and "terrorism," and can be traced to sources in the organized Jewish community.

An Arab-American candidate in a 1986 upstate New York State Assembly race sought the endorsement of the local Democratic party leadership. He learned that local leaders of B'nai B'rith's Anti-Defamation League had visited the party and falsely alleged that the candidate was a "Libyan agent." The ADL delegation threatened to withdraw local Jewish community support from the party if the Arab-American was endorsed. Although no party leader believed the charge, no one wanted to face a public fight in an election year. Party leaders endorsed no Democratic candidate for the race. That is how the baiting tactic achieves its purpose.

Arab-baiting in its most blatant form has occurred when campaign contributions from Arab-Americans are rejected or returned. Notable cases in past elections include funds returned to Lebanese-American businessmen by the Mondale campaign, and proceeds of a reception hosted by a Palestinian-American in Philadelphia returned by mayoral candidate Wilson Goode. In the case of Mondale, the rebuff was authorized by a campaign official, while in the Goode affair, the support was refused after his opponent baited him for accepting "Arab" money.

In 1986, Robert Neall, a Maryland Republican congressional candidate who was defeated by Thomas McMillen, returned a $500 contribution from the National Association of Arab Americans (NAAA) upon learning that a columnist in the Baltimore Sun had at one time called the NAAA a "pro-PLO" organization. Similarly, a Jewish campaign aide to Democratic Congressman-elect Joseph Kennedy returned a $100 contribution from former Senator James Abourezk, a long-time friend of the Kennedys, based on Abourezk's views on the Middle East.

In both cases, the support was rejected because of vague allegations of "support for terrorism" emanating from major Jewish-American organizations such as the ADL, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and the American Jewish Committee (AJC). These organizations routinely describe virtually every national leader and organization in the Arab-American community either as enemies of Israel or as pro-PLO propagandists.

Just as the pro-Israel community seeks to make acceptance of Arab-Americans financial support taboo, so too has its baiting created "untouchable" status for organized Arab-American constituencies.

An even more striking example of the stifling of substantive debate on the Middle East was the 1986 California Senate race between Democratic incubment Alan Cranston and Republican challenger Edwin Zschau. Cranston, once referred to by an AIPAC staffer as "our point man on the Hill," called his primary and general campaign opponents practitioners of a "Shi'ite brand" of politics. Two years earlier, in the 1984 Presidential campaign, Cranston publicly referred to one of the Rev. Jesse Jackson's Arab-American aides as a "crazy Ay-rab."

Zschau had entered his 1986 primary campaign supporting a balanced view of US Middle East policy. Upon winning the Republican nomination, however, he made what was called a "trip of atonement" to Israel and then renounced his former views, expressing support for Israeli occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights, and pledged to oppose any arms sales to Arab states.

Zschau's about-face followed crude threats from California's powerful pro-Israel PAC community. Upon returning from Israel, Zschau was summoned by real estate magnate Michael R. Goland, who spent $1.2 million of his own money to defeat Senator Charles Percy in the 1984 Illinois Senate race, and who was introduced by Senator Rudy Boscwitz (R-MN) to several Senators to intimidate them into voting against President Reagan's proposed sale of arms to Saudi Arabia. In one of these meetings, Zschau reportedly was asked to sign a position statement in support of Israel and was informed that $2 million was available for use against him if he did not cooperate.