Lobby Activities

By George F. Smalley

For Arabs:

To build upon the involvement of Arab Americans in the 1984 Presidential election and to further their participation in American politics in general, the newly-formed Arab American Institute sponsored a two-day leadership conference in Washington, D.C., for 165 Arab American leaders from across the U.S. Highlighting the conference was a private briefing on Middle East matters by Assistant Secretary of State Richard Murphy. And on March 1, the first full day of conference activities, several leaders of the new Institute were joined by representatives of five national Arab American organizations for a short meeting with President Reagan.

The purpose of the conference, according to co-coordinators James Zogby and George Salem, was to facilitate the entry of Arab Americans into the Republican and Democratic parties, thus making it easier for them to get elected to public office. Mr. Zogby, Mr. Salem and several others founded the Arab American Institute last year under the name "Arab American Political Project." Mr. Zogby, formerly of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the new Institute's executive director, said the new name was adopted earlier this year.

Mr. Salem, a Washington attorney and the former executive director of Ethnic Voters for Reagan/Bush 184 (see profile on page 7), arranged the 15-minute meeting with the President, who thanked Arab Americans for supporting his 1984 reelection campaign and congratulated the community as a whole for its involvement last fall in both political parties.

The Arab American leaders urged Mr. Reagan to begin a dialogue with the PLO and to try to ease suffering in Israeli-occupied southern Lebanon. Other participants in addition to Messrs. Salem and Zogby were Omar Kader, executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee; Casey Kasem, representative of the American Druze Society; David Sadd, executive director of the National Association of Arab Americans; Samir Totah, president of the Ramallah Federation; Susan Ziadeh, executive director of the Association of Arab-American University Graduates; and John Zogby, board member of the Arab American Institute. In a March 2 press release the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) expressed disappointment that the White House meeting did not include more substantive discussion of Middle East issues.

An outgrowth of the briefing by Assistant Secretary of State Murphy was a subsequent meeting at the State Department March 6 between Mr. Murphy and Mike Monsour, an Arab American from New Mexico who was imprisoned by Israel for 21 days last year during a visit to the West Bank. Mr. Murphy told Mr. Monsour that the State Department had been involved at the time in seeking his release. Mr. Monsour said he was pleased with the one and a half hour meeting.

Another meeting is being planned between Arab American leaders and an Administration official over a report published last year by the White House on alleged PLO involvement in Central America. Conference participants were angered when they noticed copies of the report—described by ADC as "Israeli-prepared propaganda"—on display outside the briefing room in the Old Executive Office Building. An Administration official already has apologized over the incident.

Conference goers also heard from John Svahn, Assistant to the President for Policy Development, and from seven members of Congress, including Senators James Abdnor (R-SD), Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ) and Majority Leader Robert Dole (R-KS). A private White House tour also was arranged for the group.

For Israel:

A group of Jewish American leaders told Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak that his new peace proposal calling for a Jordanian-Palestinian negotiating team to meet first with the U.S. and then with Israel would be a "non-starter." The Jewish group, which met with President Mubarak for one hour during his recent Washington visit, said that if any Arab delegation wanted to discuss Middle East peace it should talk directly with Israel.

Kenneth Bialkin, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and spokesman for the approximately 25 Jewish leaders who accompanied him to the meeting, said at a press conference afterward that President Mubarak's plan would "delay" the peace process. President Mubarak had defended it, according to Mr. Bialkin, by arguing that a meeting between the U.S. and a joint delegation of Jordanians and Palestinians would help achieve "a psychological breakthrough." The Jewish leaders said that in their view the peace process will advance "only when Israel meets directly with Jordan and a non-PLO delegation of Palestinian Arabs."

Mr. Bialkin said the group also urged the Egyptian President to give "genuine content" to the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. In this meeting, and in others President Mubarak held with members of Congress, he was prodded to return to Israel the ambassador he had withdrawn following the Sabra and Shatila massacres in Lebanon two and a half years ago. A letter urging Mr. Mubarak to return his ambassador was signed by 98 congressmen and given to President Mubarak on March 12.

In addition to this step, the Jewish leaders called on the Egyptian leader to start building trade and tourism links with Israel. The congressional letter to President Mubarak included a similar request.

However, not all Jewish organizations or those with predominantly Jewish membership responded unfavorably to President Mubarak's peace proposal. Representatives from three groups, the America-Israel Council for an Israeli-Palestinian Peace, New Jewish Agenda, and Washington Area Jews for an Israeli-Palestinian Peace, held a separate one-hour meeting with Egyptian Foreign Minister Esmet Abdel Meguid and told him they welcomed Egypt's proposal. "As Jewish Americans who care deeply for Israel's survival and for Palestinian self-determination," the groups said in a statement, "we encourage the U.S. to meet with a joint Palestinian-Jordanian delegation." They said that the negotiating formula agreed to in February between the PLO and Jordan, which recognized the principle of exchanging land for peace, "creates an opportunity for the United States to help broaden the peace negotiations to include Jordan and the Palestinians."

George F. Smalley is managing editor of The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.