Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March 1999, pages 15-16

Palestine Forum: After Wye, What?—Six Views

To Prevail or to Abdicate: Palestinian Americans’ Strategic Role In the Struggle For Justice in Palestine

By Issam M. Nashashibi

“[The] organizations and their respective leaders were emotionally as well as ideologically so absorbed in their internecine struggles, rivalries and efforts to achieve hegemony in the…community that the perception of the urgency of the [mission] was, if not ignored, at least greatly diminished.”

According to The New York Times’ March 21, 1984 edition, the above sentence was deleted from the published copy of a report on why Jewish-American groups did not do all they could to save the Nazi holocaust victims. The deletion was requested by the sponsor who, however, approved the report’s conclusion that the fundamental reasons for the organizations’ overall failure were that “they were disunited, financially limited and lacking political influence.”

Those were the late 1930s and early 1940s. Today, most U.S. Jewish organizations have two overriding goals: to be the most effective lobby for a foreign country in the U.S. and to define the Middle East problem in the minds of the American public. These goals in turn implement the Zionist strategy of maintaining U.S. support for Israel.

Zionism Not Invincible

The drive for a Jewish homeland has consistently relied on leveraging the might of the superpower of the day to implement the concept and then later to maintain Israel’s viability. In the first half of this century, Zionism leveraged the resources of Britain, the pre-eminent superpower of the period, to plan and carry out the establishment of a Zionist homeland in Palestine. Following WWII, Zionism courted Britain, the Soviet Union and the U.S. to maintain support for Israel. Since the 1960s, it has concentrated mainly on keeping and exploiting U.S. support.

Without it, Zionism cannot sustain Israel’s military strength and maintain its viability as a “Jewish” state in the face of local demographics.

A Strategic Role for Palestinian Americans

Therefore, attenuating Zionism’s hold on the U.S. must be an important part of any strategy to achieve justice for the Palestinians. Such a scenario requires a capability to influence U.S. Middle East policy. Because of the democratic nature of the U.S. system and their numbers, Palestinian Americans, backed by other Arab Americans and Muslim Americans, have a large potential of affecting their government’s policies. The success of Jewish Americans, who do not exceed 3 percent of the U.S. population, is a perfect example.

To shape U.S. policy, Arab Americans have concentrated on scholarly publications, academic and Washington-based presentations, and a reactive Washington, DC presence whose objective is to talk to sympathizers who are part of Congress or the administration. This approach was molded by three major factors:

1) The need to counter the glamorous presentation of Israel’s 1967 war victory.

2) The fact that the individuals leading Arab-American organizations were mostly academics and educators by training.

3) The Arabs’ political culture of taking a “top-only” approach by dealing with the political leadership and practically ignoring public opinion.

The Need for a Paradigm Shift

While this approach may have been justifiable in the late ’60s, it is not viable today because it ignores President Lincoln’s major political axiom: “In this country, public opinion is everything.” Yet, despite its lack of success in countering the Israeli lobby, the primary Palestinian-American approach remains unchanged.

An alternative approach is to duplicate the strategy adopted by Jewish-American organizations. This would involve following the “top-down” strategy of Washington-based lobbying adhered to by the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (aipac). This strategy has worked for Zionism but might not be as effective for the Arab-American lobby, because the resulting competition would prompt aipac to increase its spending and thus demand even more of the Arab Americans’ scarce financial resources.

Looking at it from a purely economic perspective, aipac’s lobbying brings in more than $3 billion in annual U.S. foreign aid to Israel. Assuming that this is achieved with an annual aipac budget of some $15 million, the resulting return is more than $200 in aid to Israel for every $1 dollar AIPAC spends. That’s a lucrative business proposition that no one would give up easily and would defend even if the annual expenses were multiplied many times over.

Another disadvantage of this strategy is that it ignores the most basic objective of institutionalizing the relationship with the U.S. public, while instead investing in individuals who may remain in Washington only a few years.

Therefore, Arab-American organizations should adopt a new paradigm with a “bottom-up” strategy that calls for approaching the U.S. political leadership through the other part of the electoral equation—votes. This calls for grassroots organization and mobilization as well as forging alliances with similarly minded organizations, such as religious, ethnic, peace and progressive groups.

Public Opinion’s Role

What President Lincoln concluded about U.S. public opinion being everything holds true today. For example, President Bush’s appeal to the U.S. public stopped AIPAC in its tracks during its heavy-handed lobbying in 1991 for $10 billion in U.S. loan guarantees to Israel.

On a more global scale, history provides examples of recent victories that could not have been won without struggle both inside and outside their countries. For example: The Algerians won French public opinion for their independence while losing militarily in Algeria.

Most recently, the African National Congress (ANC) won internationally despite its weakness inside South Africa.

A Grassroots Strategy

In the 1980s, the ANC realized that to achieve its goal of “one person, one vote.” it needed to delegitimize apartheid by aligning with progressive and principled forces around the world. The resulting anti-apartheid alliance is so cohesive it refused to dissolve after 1991.

The late South African leader Joe Slovo, in a meeting with Professor Edward Said, stated: “We organized in every major Western city. We initiated committees. We prodded the media. We held meetings and demonstrations, not once or twice, but thousands of times.”

Professor Said later quoted Mr. Slovo as saying that every small victory in London or Iowa City renewed the South African people’s determination not to give up the struggle.

Armed with that insight, Said’s article “Strategies of Hope” described how some Palestinians held a seminar to discuss adopting such a strategy. In the article he mentioned how a learned participant opined that “South Africa is different” and insisted on “talking behind closed doors to Oxford and Harvard intellectuals,” instead of “wasting our time trying to create a grassroots movement of support for Palestinian human rights.”

Over the past half-century, this “top only” approach has failed to produce an equitable U.S. policy. Palestinian Americans’ pursuit of this strategy in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary and in light of the success of the ANC’s grassroots-oriented strategy is in effect an abdication of their responsibility toward their people and justice in the Middle East.

U.S. Opinion Supports Palestinian Positions

According to an April 26, 1998 article in The New York Times, U.S. public opinion, since 1978, has a core sympathy for the Palestinians that reached 20 percent in 1993, but remains consistent at about 11 percent. That is just under 30 million people.

Other surveys conducted by Zogby International, the organization that most accurately predicted the results of the 1996 U.S. presidential elections, show similar results. The most recent such survey, which was conducted for the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine and the Council for the National Interest, indicated that more than 50 percent of the U.S. public approve of an independent Palestinian state.

The same survey showed that over 65 percent favor a shared Jerusalem. These are formidable numbers. They exist despite the continuing “dumbing down” of America.

In 1989, the late Professor Michael Emery found that only 2.6 percent of non-advertising space in the 10 leading U.S. newspapers was devoted to foreign news. Moreover, in the past two decades, TV, the primary source of news for most Americans, has drastically reduced the time it devotes to hard news. Enhancing these latent U.S. public opinion trends and bringing them into the open as a potent force in such a media environment presents a challenge to Palestinian- and Arab-American organizations.

Challenge for Change

It is clear that today’s challenge lies in changing attitudes not only outside but also inside the Palestinian-American community. Despite Professor Said’s 1991 conclusion that “our status had more weight as representative of a moral cause than as members of a diplomatic delegation,” the Palestinian- and Arab-American strategy has not changed much. Two noted exceptions are the ADC leadership’s recent intense efforts to expand the Arab grassroots groupings, build alliances and provide platforms for addressing America by non-Arab-Americans; and the Arab American Institute’s (AAI) effort to register and mobilize voters.

Yet there is a lot more work to be done. South Africa’s apartheid is no different from Israeli apartheid. It exists and is documented by eminent Jewish Israelis. Apartheid is anathema to all decent Americans. U.S. public support for the Palestinians exists.

Implementing a “3 E’s” Strategy

What is a practical strategy for the year 2000 elections and beyond? Implement a “3 E’s” strategy. Its components are: Empowering Palestinian- and Arab Americans, Enhancing American grassroots support, and Engendering a favorable change in U.S. policy.

It requires serious financial support and relentless hard work to register voters, train them to facilitate their involvement even at local levels, along with highlighting such basic moral issues as Israeli apartheid, the Deir Yassin massacre and Israeli plundering of Palestinian land.

While it may be true that the average American probably will not vote based on a candidate’s Middle East policy, elected officials listen to people who consistently volunteer and vote for their campaigns. They also heed petitions signed by voters within their constituencies. Such a petition calling for justice for the Palestinians and a shared Jerusalem has been completed by the indefatigable organization Search for Justice in Palestine/Israel.

Close your eyes; imagine Palestinian Americans spending 50 percent of the pro-Israeli lobbying budget to implement such a strategy. Smile at the anticipated success and get energized to help in every way you can.

AAI can be reached at (202) 429-9210 or aai@arab-aai.org

ADC can be reached at (202) 244-2990 or adc@adc.org

Deir Yassin Remembered can be reached at (315) 781-3418 or by visiting www.deiryassin.org

Search for Justice in Palestine/Israel can be reached at (508) 877-2611 or search25@aol.com

Issam Nashashibi is a Palestinian-American activist in California.

SIDEBAR

“Compensation” vs. “Restitution”: What’s in a Word?

As the pro-Israel effort continues unchallenged in defining the Palestine problem in the mind of the U.S. public, one has to remain constantly vigilant to avoid falling under its spell.

For example, when comparing lost Palestinian property to the Nazi holocaust victims’ Swiss bank deposits, it is important to use the word “restitution” instead of “compensation” when referring to the return of the lost asset, bank deposits.

Compensation indicates a financial payment for an asset. Restitution calls for the just return of the assets themselves—Swiss bank deposits and stolen Palestinian property—to their rightful owners.

By calling for restitution, we place the emphasis on returning the property to its rightful owner. Oftentimes, compensation gives the impression of opportunistic money grubbing. Using “compensation” for “restitution” when referring specifically to plundered Palestinian property is detrimental because it implies approval and acceptance of the concept of selling the Palestinian patrimony.

Such usage is counterproductive to efforts for the restitution of plundered Palestinian property by, amongst others, the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment (LAW) and Knesset Member Azmi Bishara.

While Israel today, with its superpower patron, is in virtual command of the terms of its relationship with the Palestinians, thus far it has been unable to abrogate the Palestinians’ title to their property in Palestine. In the absence of marshalling public opinion in America in support of the restitution of Palestinian rights to their property, the Zionist goal of resolving the real property title issue on the basis of government-to-government transfers is a distinct possibility.

By linking and trading Palestinian property for Jewish property in Arab countries, Israel would affect a net transfer of funds from Arab states to a Palestinian government. This is simply a devious way of forcing individual Palestinians to sell their patrimony and have other Arabs pay for it.

Jordan is reportedly heading in this direction. Moreover, pressure is being applied on the Palestinian Authority to accept the same conclusion. Such a solution is unacceptable and must be countered actively.

Therefore, just as the Palestinian- and Arab-American role is strategic, it is equally important to convey its justice when discussing the Palestinian cause. As we realize the power of words, we should remain vigilant about insisting on “restitution,” not “compensation”! —IMN