Peace Activist Sees Priority in Changing U.S. Middle East Policy

By Stephen Zunes

I was born not long after the creation of modern Israel and the expulsion of the majority of the Palestinian population. Like most Americans of my generation, I grew up with a rather romanticized view of Israel.

This did not come from my parents. Indeed, since they were graduate students at Duke Divinity School in the early 1950s, they had held serious reservations about Israeli policies. By the late 1960s, they had become committed anti-Zionists.

Still, the naively idealistic view of the Jewish national homeland permeated American society when I was growing up. It was difficult not to sympathize with what was portrayed in the U.S. media as a small, progressive democracy threatened by militaristic, authoritarian neighbors attempting to wipe it off the map.

For a native Southerner growing up in the midst of the civil rights struggle, issues of justice and social responsibility were hard to ignore, particularly as I witnessed my parents' courageous activism against racism. Indeed, once a young Southerner concludes that prevailing community attitudes about race are false, it is easy to start questioning the conventional wisdom. Nor did being part of the Vietnam generation discourage my skepticism of establishment perspectives on the world.

The 1967 Mideast war, therefore, shattered my youthful image of Israel. It became apparent to me that the conquest of Arab lands was not a temporary military expedient, but an expansionist land grab.

Perhaps I realized this sooner than many other Americans my age because my father was faculty adviser to the Arab student organization at the University of North Carolina. I got to know Arabs as individuals, and as a result the stereotypes which enabled many Americans to rationalize Israeli militarism did not blind me to the fact that gross injustices were being committed against the Palestinians. It also became clear to me that the United States was a party to these crimes. A visit to Egypt, Lebanon and Syria with my parents five years later crystallized what I saw as the dangers of U.S. military involvement in the region.

Still, the Middle East was not my primary political concern. In college and in subsequent years, I became involved in a variety of causes, including movements opposing nuclear power, the arms race, apartheid, and U.S. intervention in Central America. In my graduate work at Cornell University, I did not take any courses on the Middle East.

It was only after receiving my doctorate and while teaching political science at Ithaca College in upstate New York and, subsequently, at Whitman College in eastern Washington, that I became increasingly involved with Middle East affairs.

While taking a pro-human rights stand in the Middle East was a natural outgrowth of my personal stand on Central America and South Africa, I observed that this was not the case with many prominent liberals in Congress and in public life who rationalized Israeli repression. Similarly, it seemed both the churches and the peace movement demonstrated much less vigor in addressing the Middle East than in critiquing U.S. foreign policy elsewhere.

It bothered me that I could go to a rally against U.S. intervention in Central America and march side-by-side with a mainstream/liberal Democrat and a Marxist radical, but when it came to the Middle East these erstwhile colleagues were at polar opposites. I felt inspired to help end this polarization among socially conscious Americans that paralyzed efforts to change U.S. Middle East policy.

At the same time, I had trouble identifying with the positions of the far left or others who identified with the Arab cause. I was aware that there were many Jews who considered themselves Zionists who were also sincerely committed to peace and justice in the Middle East. In addition, as a result of frequent visits to the Middle East, I was painfully aware of human rights abuses in Arab countries as well. I oppose U.S. arms transfers to Arab states as well as to Israel.

A watershed event for me was my participation in a visit by student peace activists organized by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, an inter-faith pacifist organization, to Jordan and Iraq just prior to the Gulf war. We were on one of the last flights out of Baghdad before the bombing began. Afterward, I took a leave of absence from teaching to embark on a 40-city speaking tour. During those travels I discovered that, in large part, both supporters and opponents of the Gulf war were profoundly lacking in even the most basic information regarding the Middle East and U.S. policy there. This was even more apparent when the discussion moved to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

A Contribution to Make

The need for the kind of peace education to change U.S. Mideast policy, and the inevitability of another Middle East war if no such change is made, convinced me that I had a contribution to make. I founded the Institute for a New Middle East Policy (INMEP) in the summer of 1991. The goal is to encourage a U.S. Middle East policy based on support for human rights, international law, self-determination, and nonmilitary resolution to conflict. Located just outside Seattle, INMEP reaches a nationwide constituency including scholars, the religious community, peace and social justice activists, and the general public through articles, public speaking, and appearances in the media.

An important element in my current work is acknowledging that both Jews and Arabs have been oppressed historically. Therefore special sensitivity is required of those seeking to help them establish peace. Rather than solely criticizing Israel, I emphasize that some Israeli government policies, and U.S. support for them, ultimately are in no one's interest. Being of neither Jewish nor Arab background, I emphasize that I am simply pro-peace and pro justice.

The decision to leave a secure faculty position at a good liberal arts college was difficult. I am convinced, however, that working to change U.S. Middle East policy, particularly regarding Israel/Palestine, is the most important thing I can now be doing, particularly with the Clinton administration at times taking positions to the right of even the Israeli government. Rather than simply blame the pro-Israel lobby for America's shortsighted policy, we must see it within the context of our government's longstanding pattern of bankrolling violations of human rights and international law by its allies. These policies were altered only when mass movements rose up to challenge them. We must build just such a movement today.