September/October 1994, Pages 60-62

Arab and Muslim American Activism

By Richard H. Curtiss

Democrats Organize Arab-American Council

The Democratic National Committee has announced the formation of a Democratic consulting council for Arab-Americans as part of its effort to consolidate relations with them. The goal of the committee, announced June 16, is to activate Arab Americans who formed the Committee of Arab-Americans for Clinton-Gore in the 1992 presidential election. The group has a counterpart in the National Jewish Democratic Council, also organized by the Democratic National Committee from Jewish activists in the 1988 and 1992 presidential elections.

ADC Leads Protests Against Film "True Lies"

Demonstrators at the Uptown Theater in Washington, DC (above) and in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Indianapolis, Secaucus, NJ, Centerville, OH, San Jose, CA and other U.S. cities protested the opening of the film "True Lies" on July 15. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), which helped organize the protests, urged members to complain to 20th Century Fox, maker of the $100 million action film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. ADC said in its action alert that "racist depictions of Arabs in movies lead to real consequences for Arab Americans, including employment discrimination, religious persecution, and hate crimes."

ADC also issued a cautionary statement upon the signing of a non-belligerency agreement at the White House between King Hussein of Jordan and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel on July 25. Reiterating "its long-standing policy in favor of a comprehensive just and lasting peace and the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict pursuant to all United Nations resolutions," the statement expressed ADC's "great concern" at "the pressures placed upon the Jordanian government by the American administration to sign an accord today, however symbolic, in an apparent attempt to break Arab unity and the long-sought comprehensive resolution to the conflict." The statement concluded:

"We call upon the Arab parties to the conflict to maintain a unified approach and steadfast adherence to full implementation of all U.N. resolutions, which call, among other things, for the full and unconditional withdrawal of all Israeli forces from the occupied territories in Palestine, Lebanon and Syria."

"We call upon the Arab parties...to maintain a unified approach."

ADC also continued its nationwide media campaign urging the U.S. to lift its ban on travel by U.S. citizens to Lebanon. Following the death of eight Lebanese villagers in an Aug. 5 Israeli air attack, ADC President Albert Mokhiber also issued a statement demanding that "the United States government abandon its double standard and express the strongest possible condemnation of this action to the Israeli government." Mokhiber further called upon the U.S. government "to pursue this issue at the United Nations Security Council."

NAAA Supports Lebanon, Bosnia Legislation

Officers of the National Association of Arab Americans have been working with the American Task Force for Bosnia on legislation to lift the arms embargo and with members of Congress on legislation to lift the travel ban that prevents Americans from going to Lebanon. NAAA points out that since the National Conciliation Document (Taif Agreement) was signed in 1989, bringing to an end the Lebanese civil war, France, the U.K., Italy and other Western countries do not ban travel to Lebanon. Further, according to NAAA, 40,000 Americans defied the ban in 1993 and traveled safely to Lebanon.

Since the signing of the Taif Agreement, reconstruction has been booming in Lebanon. In a 12-month period between January 1993 and January 1994, the Lebanese government awarded some 100 contracts mainly to French and German contractors for $2.4 billion in development projects. The Lebanese government is undertaking a 10-year, $30 billion construction effort. The continued ban on travel to Lebanon on a U.S. passport, according to NAAA, is the single biggest impediment to U.S. firms bidding on these contracts.

AMC Hosts Arab Visitors

Nine Arab participants in a United States Information Agency project on the "Role of Religion in America" were briefed on Islam in America June 29 at the American Muslim Council. Invited by AMC Executive Director Abdurahman Alamoudi to discuss problems facing Muslims in their own countries, the academic and journalistic participants launched into a lively discussion that indicated the same diversity and wide range of opinions among them on such questions as secular and Islamic law, Islam and democracy, and the rise of Islamist movements as are found among the Muslims of North America. The visitors were from Algeria, Kuwait, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia and the U.A.E.

Islamic Circle of North America Convention Draws Overflow Crowd

Attendance at the 19th annual convention of the Islamic Circle of North America, held in Bloomsburg, PA July 1 to 3, almost overwhelmed conference organizers, who had arranged accommodation for 900 delegates in the facilities of Bloomsburg University. They received more than 2,700 requests for accommodation and sent many to hotels in Bloomsburg and nearby towns.

Newly elected ICNA President Abdul Malik Mujahid said during a subsequent visit to the Washington Report that the organization now has 65 chapters in the United States and is growing rapidly. Although many of the group's members originally stem from Pakistan, speakers at the convention stressed the necessity for American Muslims to reach across ethnic boundaries in the American environment.

"Everything is subject to change," said Algerian-American Mokhtar Maghraoui, a convention speaker who is professor of Islam at Saint Rose College in Albany, NY. Muslims must not only cooperate with fellow Muslims, but with non-Muslims in improving the "physical, social and political" environment in which they find themselves.

Another convention speaker, Imam El-Amin Abdul Lateef, an African-American Muslim cleric from Brooklyn, was even more outspoken on the same theme. "We [Muslims] sit down with Jews, Christians and atheists," he challenged the group. "But we don't sit down with each other."

Outgoing (and long-time) president Dr. Muhammad Yunus elaborated on this theme in his talk about efforts to bring about unity among North American Muslims. "ICNA, ISNA (Islamic Society of North America), the community of Imam Warith Deen Muhammad and the Jamah led by Imam Jameel Al Amin have formed the Islamic Shura Council, the national platform for American Muslims," he told the convention audience. Among other speakers at the conference was Washington Report news editor Greg Noakes.

Highlight for many of the children and teenagers who accompanied their parents to the conference was the appearance of Hakeem Olajuwon, Nigerian-born star of the Houston Rockets basketball team. After a talk at the conference, in which he deplored the decline in sportsmanship and brotherhood among athletes, he proceeded to a nearby basketball court to demonstrate for 1,000 youthful attendees the skills that won him the nickname "Hakeem the Dream" among Rockets fans.

Foreign Correspondents Hear Call To Lift Iraq Embargo

Three recent American visitors to Iraq all called for lifting of the United Nations embargo in a July 21 meeting with members of the Washington, DC Foreign Correspondents Association. Pictured from left are John Wallach, foreign editor of Hearst Publications; Faye Williams, a Washington, DC consultant (speaking); program chairman and Foreign Correspondents Association president Abdusalem Masarueh; and research director Laura Drake of the Council for the National Interest. The speakers asserted that the embargo has inflicted great suffering on the Iraqi people without weakening President Saddam Hussain's regime, which, they said, now is in compliance with U.N. terms for lifting the embargo.

American Task Force for Bosnia Praised in Congress

The American Task Force for Bosnia (ATFB) and its executive director, Khalid Saffuri, were commended by Senator Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ) and Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), co-chairmen of the Commission on Helsinki, for their "commitment to seeking an end to the armed aggression and genocide which have taken a tremendous toll on the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina."

The ATFB was founded jointly by the American Muslim Council (AMC) and the National Association of Arab Americans.

"The ATFB geared up and started working and we had a lobbying day on which 100 people came," said Abdurahman Alamoudi, AMC executive director who also is ATFB president. "I want to emphasize that one Jewish volunteer came from New York just to lobby for Bosnia. He left a full day of his job and came here to lobby. We lobbied about 100 congressmen."

The ATFB lobbied for support of Senate and House bills calling upon President Bill Clinton to lift the U.N. arms embargo on the legitimate government of Bosnia unilaterally if the Security Council refuses to lift that part of the embargo it imposed on all of the former Yugoslavia. That embargo, imposed in 1991 before the 1992 vote of the Bosnian Republic to leave Yugoslavia, is preventing only the Bosnians from obtaining arms to defend themselves from Serbs using heavy weapons secured from the former Yugoslav army.

With congressional sentiment hardening against Bosnian Serbs after rejection by Bosnian Serbs of an international peace plan accepted by Bosnian Muslims and Croats, the task force worked with a House-Senate conference committee seeking to reconcile the language in two bills calling for unilateral U.S. action. They are the McCloskey-Gilman bill adopted by the House by a 244-to-178 vote, and the Dole-Lieberman bill which was adopted by a 58-to-42 Senate vote. The ATFB can be reached on a toll-free number, 1 (800) 851-6006 or, in the national capital area, at (202) 842-1840.

AAI Campaigning for "Middle Eastern" Census Classification

The Arab American Institute is sending members an action plan and a sample for letters to government officials lobbying for a new "Middle Eastern" classification for persons from the Middle East and North Africa to be used in census and other U.S. government statistical surveys. At present, census respondents must choose among racial classifications of Black, White, American Indian/Alaskan Native and Asian/Pacific Islander and then between ethnic classifications of Hispanic or non-Hispanic.

Arguments for (and against) such a new classification (which AAI suggests may also lead to still another separate classification for Pakistanis and Asian Indians) may be obtained from AAI at 918 Sixteenth St. NW, Suite 601, Washington, DC 20006, telephone (202) 429-9210.

AAI also is circulating an "election preview" of the 1994 elections and 1996 presidential hopefuls by its president, Dr. James J. Zogby. While the booklet does not touch on Middle East-related concerns, a chapter on 14 Arab-American candidates for national or state office in the 1994 elections may be of special interest to readers of this magazine. AAI also is issuing Arab American Voter Guides covering major races in Michigan, California, Illinois, Ohio and Virginia, where Arab-American voters are concentrated, which are to be ready for distribution in September.

CAIR Calls for Prisoner Release, Palestinian Elections

The Council on American-Islamic Relations held a July 1 press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC on the day of Palestinian National Authority President Yasser Arafat's return to Palestine. Speakers Nihad Awad (right) and Ibrahim Hooper (left) expressed their happiness "when any Palestinian is allowed to go home." CAIR Executive Director Awad cautioned, however, that thousands of Palestinians remain in Israeli prisons. "Our first concern is that the [Palestinian] elections take place," he said. "We have deep concerns about the ways the elections will be administered."

American Muslim Council Executive Director Abdurahman Alamoudi (center) expressed concern that the committee responsible for conducting the Palestinian elections had been appointed by Mr. Arafat himself. The speakers also deplored the Palestinian National Authority's order that mosques in the West Bank and Jericho not be used for political activity.

In a July 26 statement, one day after the Washington Declaration signed by King Hussein of Jordan and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, CAIR held another news conference to express concern that the Hussein-Rabin meeting "lends legitimacy" to the Israeli occupation of Al Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock, third holiest site in Islam. CAIR also expressed concern for the right to return by Palestinian refugees to lands occupied by Israel in 1948 and in succeeding conflicts. "Are these people, making up more than half the Jordanian population, to be made permanent refugees?" the CAIR statement asked.

Task Force on Lebanon Honors Donna Shalala

White House press corps dean Helen Thomas (right) introduces Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala, who received the Philip C. Habib award for distinguished public service at a June 28 American Task Force for Lebanon awards dinner. Other speakers included former U.S. Ambassador to Morocco and ATFL Chairman Thomas Nassif, Asst. Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Robert Pelletreau Jr., Lebanese Ambassador to the U.S. Riad Tabbarah and West Virginia Democratic Congressman Nick Rahall II. Although the light-hearted banter by speakers at the gala evening was more like that at an extended family gathering than at a political event, nevertheless Ambassador Tabbarah and Lebanese-American speakers urged U.S. government representatives and elected officials present to lift the travel ban that still forbids U.S. citizens from traveling to Lebanon.