Issues

Palestine

Secretary of State Rice urged to address plight of Palestinian and Iraqi refugees

Posted on Tuesday June 12, 2007

WASHINGTON – June 11, 2007 – A group of Arab American leaders met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and urged her to address several pressing issues. Among them were: the plight of Iraqi refugees, Israeli-dropped cluster bombs in south Lebanon, the treatment of U.S. citizens traveling to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and the Israeli-imposed strangulation of the Palestinian economy.

The group, which included Arab American Institute (AAI) Chairman George Salem and President James Zogby, also presented Rice with a letter co-signed by more than 50 Arab American community leaders and elected and appointed officials. The letter called for a more robust and active U.S. engagement in support of the Arab Peace Initiative, which calls for a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict that would see the establishment a Palestinian state alongside Israel in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.

Among the issues raised with the secretary:

• U.S. citizens continue to be denied or are given restricted and arbitrary access into Palestine. Rice was asked to create a taskforce to facilitate ongoing discussions between American citizens and the State Department on this issue.
• In 2005, at the time of the Gaza disengagement, Rice negotiated an agreement on the movement and access of people and goods. This agreement was to have facilitated the Palestinian economy. The agreement has not been implemented, and the group called on Sec. Rice to create benchmarks and push for implementation of this agreement.
• Unexploded cluster munitions continue to pose a grave and deadly threat to residents of south Lebanon. The secretary was asked to push Israel to disclose the coordinates of cluster bombs it dropped last summer so that a clean-up process can be undertaken.
• The situation of Iraqi interpreters who worked with the U.S. government and are now being hampered from getting U.S. visas. Specifically, the community expressed support for a bill recently sponsored by Senators Lugar and Kennedy and waiting for signature from the President which expands the number of special immigrant visas that can be granted to Iraqi and Afghan interpreters who have helped U.S. troops and embassies. Additionally, Rice was asked to create a taskforce to speed up the security approval process for these refugees, many of whom are awaiting Department of Homeland Security clearance.

In addition to AAI, organizations present at the meeting included the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, American Task Force on Palestine, Arab-American and Chaldean Council, Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services, American Task Force for Lebanon, El-Bireh Society and American Federation of Ramallah.