Dr. James Zogby

Speeches

Posted on Sunday January 4, 2009

James Zogby's testimony to the DNC 2008 Platform Committee

I am Arab American. My family came to this great country from Lebanon almost a century ago. They, like hundreds of thousands of other Arab immigrants, came because of the freedom America promised, and the opportunity it provided.

To read the full speech, click here.

James Zogby Audio Recording

• The Stakes Have Never Been Higher: The 2008 Elections and US Middle East Policy

Address to the Arab American Anti Discrimination Committee of Massachusetts (ADCMA) Saturday, May 31, 2008.

Audio courtesy of 492 Café, and Jeff Manzelli

Click on titles below to read the entire speech (PDF).

• Commencement Address to the American University of Cairo, Class of 2008

We are all the products of the relationships that shape us and the opportunities we are given. It is around these two realities that I will frame my remarks to you today – what they mean to me and what, I hope, they can mean to you. By relationships, of course, I mean the families that rear us, the mentors who guide us, the communities that sustain us, and those whom we love and who love us, and who ultimately define the persons we will be. I would not be here were it not for the sacrifices and the commitments of others who made me the person I am...

• Parallel Conference to the Forum for the Future - Kingdom of Bahrain

I would like to thank you for the invitation and the opportunity to participate in the very important and, in some ways, historic gathering. Adulnabi and the other members of the preparatory committee, I salute your hard work. Having organized many similar efforts in the United States, I know the difficulties you had to endure. Your steadfastness, your continuing commitment to human rights and to the principle that the voices of the people must be heard is so important...

• The Difference

I thank you for the invitation and the opportunity to participate in this critical conversation. Tragic and terrible terrorist attacks in the past few years have brought to light to the urgency of addressing this issue of how we, in the West, are dealing with issues of integration and assimilation of Arab and Muslim communities in our countries. I speak to you as a practitioner, an activist and a scholar who has studied this issue. I am an Arab American. I know my community’s demographics and have polled the attitudes of both Arab American and American Muslims...

• The Stakes Have Never Been Higher: U.S. Middle East Policy in the 2008 Elections

When I spoke here four years ago, I delivered an address entitled "The Mess We're In: How Our Leaders Failed Us in the Middle East." What I noted then was that, despite our decades of engagement in the Middle East, on so many levels—the amount of foreign aid that we send, the weapons that we provide, the troops that we have sent into the region going back to the '50's, even the wars that we've fought, the lives that we've lost, the interests that we have and the friends and relationships that developed—despite all of this, we, as a country, have no understanding of the Middle East, of its history, of its evolution during the last century...

• The Important and Interesting 2008 U.S. Presidential Contest

Ever since I can recall, we have tended to describe each election as “this is the most important election in our lifetime.” While not dismissing the importance of past elections, or ignoring the penchant of every age to over-appreciate itself, I think it is fair to say that this one is important. The convergence of issues, both foreign and domestic, makes this year’s contest quite special...