Focus on Arabs and Islam

By John P. Egan

PLO Office Closed; Arab American Groups React

On September 15, the State Department notified the Washington-based Palestine Information Office that it must cease its operations and vacate its offices within 30 days. At a press conference the next day, PIO Director Hasan Abdel Rahman charged that the order was unconstitutional and motivated by the narrow interests of the pro-Israel lobby.

"I challenge anyone to find one shred of evidence that any of our activities are violent, or criminal, or in any other way a violation of US law," Mr. Abdel Rahman, a US citizen, said in a prepared statement. He noted that the PIO's only function was to disseminate information about the Palestinian people and the Palestine Liberation Organization, and he vowed to contest the order in US courts.

To underscore the narrow political intent of the State Department order, Abdel Rahman said the Justice Department had repeatedly assured him that since the PIO had complied fully with the US Foreign Agents Registration Act, there was no legal basis for closing the PIO. Barry Lynn, legal counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, appeared at the press conference with Abdel Rahman and called the closure order "a naked assault on the fundamental right to free speech and right to associate." He said that "the PLO has a right to speak, even if a majority in America find it offensive. This is not yet Robert Bork's America."

Arab American groups and Middle East specialists reacted immediately to the closure order. Abdeen Jabara, president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said at the September 16 press conference that the order "works against peace." He pledged ADC support for the PIO and criticized "those members of Congress and the administration who place the interests of right-wing Israelis above those of the United States government." The recently-formed Ad Hoc Committee for Palestinian Dialogue, headed by Gail Pressberg, of the American Friends Service Committee, Dr. James Zogby, of the Arab American Institute, and the Rev. Don Wagner, of the Palestine Human Rights Campaign, will hold a series of events across the United States in October, where they will reach out to academics, clergy, and Black and Hispanic leaders concerned with free speech and Middle East peace.

Another ad hoc group organized by retired US Ambassador Andrew I. Killgore, president of the American Educational Trust, and composed of lawyers, retired diplomats and military officers, representatives of Jewish peace groups, and directors of American charitable and educational organizations active in the Middle East, obtained a meeting with Deputy Secretary of State John C. Whitehead, who had signed the closure order, to question both the legality and the rationale for the State Department's action.

NAAA Focuses on Free Speech and Aid to Lebanon

On September 17, 10 college students received $5,000 awards from the National Association of Arab Americans Foundation (NAAAF) for their essays on the topic "The Development of American Middle Eat Policy: Is Free Speech Threatened?" The 10 national winners received their awards at a banquet in the National Press Club. Syndicated columnist Carl Rowan addressed the banquet, noting that "the greatest perpetrator of injustice in silence." Rowan, a former State Department spokesman and director of the US Information Agency, ridiculed the State Department's contention that the closing of the Palestine Information Office in Washington, DC, would reduce terrorism, and suggested that a better way to curb terrorism would be to close the Soviet Embassy. Rowan also outlined the similarities between anti-Black, anti-Jewish, and anti-Arab discrimination. Urging the award winners to become involved in the political process, Rowan said that "Justice wins more friends that bombs or bullets ever can." Former US representative Paul Findley (R-IL), author of They Dare to Speak Out, a best-selling expose of the Israel lobby in the US, was the special guest of honor at the awards dinner. After noting that not all winners agreed that the Israel lobby threatens free speech, Findley said that America is best served by "a full and robust debate on US Middle East policy." Judging from the entries to the contest, the former congressman said, "a serious discourse on this topic has already begun on American college campuses."

NAAA is also organizing an American Task Force on Lebanon, to sensitize US officials to the plight of the Lebanese and to support existing relief efforts. Prominent Arab Americans on the task force include Senator George Mitchell (D-ME), Reps. Mary Rose Oakar (D-OH) and Nick Joe Rahall (D-WV), Ambassador Philip Habib, New Hampshire governor John Sununu, former Oregon governor Victor Atiyeh, and former US Sen. James Abdnor (R-SD), who is now director of the Small Business Association. Members are urging congressmen and administration officials to appropriate humanitarian aid to Lebanon and cancel some of Lebanon's debts under the foreign military sales program.

ADC Holds Candlelight Vigil Near Israeli Embassy

Some 125 people attended a September 18 candlelight vigil near the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC, organized by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) to honor the memory of Palestinians slain in 1982 in the Sabra-Shatila refugee camp massacre and to protest the continued presence in the US of General Amos Yaron as Defense Attache of the Israeli Embassy. An Israeli commission found Yaron indirectly responsible for the massacre, because he was the officer in charge of the camps during the three days it took place. Although Canada refused to accept Yaron's credentials, the Reagan administration accredited Yaron as Israeli Defense Attache in Washington.

Marcel Khalife and Al-Mayadeen Musical Ensemble's month-long US tour raised over $100,000 for two Lebanese charities, according to Faris Bouhaffa, spokesman for the American Anti-Discrimination Committee. ADC and the Middle East Philanthropic Fund co-sponsored the tour, which included concerts in Detroit, Washington, New York, San Francisco, Dallas, Houston, Boston, Cincinnati, and Portland, Oregon. The funds will be divided between the Center to Protect Mothers and Infants in Tyre and the Bekaa Maternity Clinic.

Rev. Alan Boesak Addresses PHRC Conference

In a powerful address September 19 before the Palestinian Human Rights Campaign's annual conference in Washington, DC, a leading South African anti-apartheid activist, the Rev. Allan Boesak, observed that "apartheid in Palestine is so very much like apartheid in my homeland," and that "the struggle black South Africans and Palestinians face is one struggle." The Reverend Boesak, president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, also said that black South Africans and Palestinians "must resist the temptation to adjust to the injustices and madness that has gripped Palestine and South Africa." The conference marked PHRC's 10th year of operation as well as the fifth anniversary of the massacre at the Sabra-Shatila Palestinian refugee camps. Columbia University professor Edward W. Said, delivering the conference's luncheon keynote address, urged PHRC supporters "not to become discouraged or lobotomized by the flow of recent events."

John P. Egan is the managing editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

Focus on Jews and Israel

By Andrea Barron

On September 11, day two of his second visit to the United States, Pope John Paul II held a long-awaited historic meeting with a delegation of American Jews in Miami, Florida. The pope said the Catholic Church would "promote mutual respect" between Jews and Catholics, "teach future generations about the Holocaust," and issue a document outlining the Christian roots of anti-Semitism. The Miami meeting followed closely on the heels of another meeting between the pope and Jewish leaders that was coordinated by the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultation (IJCIC) at the pope's summer residence outside Rome.

Some American Jews were displeased that the pontiff neither apologized for having received Austrian President Kurt Waldheim—who served as a lieutenant in a World War II German army unit which is alleged to have committed atrocities against Jews and partisans in Greece and Yugoslavia—nor gave any indication that the Vatican was ready to recognize the state of Israel. But Rabbi Mordechai Waxman of Great Neck, NY, chairman of the IJCIC and a member of both delegations, probably spoke for most of the American-Jewish community when he confirmed the symbolic importance of the two meetings and discussed how they signaled an improvement in Catholic-Jewish relations.

The Miami meeting was a landmark event for US Jews, who have become increasingly integrated and accepted into American society since World War II, particularly over the last 25 years. Before the war, according to Charles Silberman, author of the widely acclaimed A Certain People: American Jews and Their Lives Today, Jews found it difficult to enter certain occupations—like engineering—and were given only limited access to others such as medicine and journalism. But now they are represented in virtually all sectors of the economy and are considered one of the most successful ethnic groups in the country.

Despite their affluence, however, many Jews—especially those who were born after World War II—still feel insecure in a country where Christians comprise the overwhelming majority of the population. For example, in a 1984 survey Steven M. Cohen conducted on Jewish attitudes for the American Jewish Committee, over 75 percent of the respondents said they thought anti-Semitism could become a serious problem in the future.

Traditional anti-Semitism is more likely to thrive in times of economic distress and in societies where Jews are regarded as inferior because they have not accepted Jesus Christ. Jews blame the Catholic Church for much of the historic discrimination against them in the West. But it appears that John Paul II is following in the footsteps of John XXIII by reaching out to Jews in a public forum, trying to lay the groundwork for more positive interaction in the future.

American Christians who agree with John Paul II that "jews have a right to a homeland, as does any civil nation" and that the "Palestinians also have a right to a homeland" should welcome the pope's meeting with Jewish leaders in Miami. The more secure that Jews feel among their Christian neighbors, the less likely they are to view any criticism of Israel as a new form of the old anti-Semitism, dressed up in a more acceptable language. And the more comfortable they are with their own place in America, the more willing they will be to tolerate open debate about US policy on a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. But it will be when Jews are willing to hold this debate among themselves—not behind closed doors but in the public eye—that we will truly be able to say that they have finally come of age in America.

Andrea Barron, a PhD candidate in international relations at American University in Washington, DC, is a member of Washington Area Jews for an Israeli-Palestinian Peace (WAJIPP) and Jew Jewish Agenda (NJA).