Press Room

AAI in the News

American Agenda: Foreign Policy Town Hall Meeting

CNN
Posted on Tuesday October 19, 2004

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: I want to bring in Jim Zogby. We’ve invited him. He’s out in the audience. A long time involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a leader in the Arab-American community.

Why isn’t this issue at all, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the so-called roadmap, Jim, an issue in this campaign?

JAMES ZOGBY, ARAB AMERICAN INSTITUTE: Frankly, I don’t understand. I think the American people would welcome it. I think Arab-Americans and American Jews would welcome it. And I know that the world would welcome it.

The total disconnect between the conversation we’ve just listened to and reality is so striking. And I know viewers all over the world right now are just scratching their heads and saying, is Israel more secure? What about the roadmap? Why can’t America be more balanced? Why can’t it protect its allies and its interests in the Middle East? So much is at stake, and yet we’re going back and forth here about who’s the best friend of Israel. And neither side are the best friend of Israel because more Israelis have died in the last four years than in any previous four-year period because we didn’t pay any attention at all.

And the Arab world today has no respect for America. Our numbers, already low, have dropped to single-digit favorable ratings. Why? Because our policy is unfair toward Palestinians and our leadership just doesn’t get it. We’ve failed.

BLITZER: All right.

(APPLAUSE)

BLITZER: I want to let Norm Coleman, Senator Coleman respond. But stick around. I want to ask Jim Zogby another question.

Go ahead.

SEN. NORMAN COLEMAN®, MINNESOTA: The fact is the president has laid out a roadmap, but a precondition, Jim, to that roadmap is an end to terrorism. That’s the first case.

The goal is a goal of a Palestinian state and Israel state living side by side. But you’ve got to accept the existence of Israel, and there has to be an end to terrorism before you can move to the next step. I actually have hope, by the way, that the Gaza withdrawal will set in play some greater opportunities in the Middle East.

BLITZER: Jim Zogby, why is it that if you take a look at the past 15 years or so, U.S. policy around the world, every single time the United States has gone to war and risked U.S. treasure and U.S. lives, it’s been to help a Muslim country, whether to liberate Kuwait or Somalia or Bosnia or Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq. And as a result of that, why is there so little appreciation of what the United States has done in Democratic and Republican administrations throughout the Arab world and the Muslim world?

ZOGBY: Frankly, you know, when we’ve polled on that, Wolf, that’s not true. There is a difference in our attitude toward the Israeli-Palestinian issue and what we’ve done in Bosnia and Kosovo, what we’ve tried to do in other parts of the Arab—liberating Kuwait, for example.

Where the problem is, is the core issue as understood by most people in the Arab world. And that is the fact that we’ve ignored the Palestinians.

We have a double double standard. We have too much compassion for Israel, none for Palestinians, too much pressure on Palestinians and none on Israel.

If you balance that out a little bit, I think we’d be a whole lot better off, and the region would look at us as being a credible negotiator. They don’t look at us as credible. You mentioned the roadmap. We put it on the table, and we dropped it.

President Bush said Ariel Sharon and Abu Mazen were partners and he’d send Condoleezza Rice to the region. She never went. And the result is people just continue to die and people look at us as firing blanks, not serious.

COLEMAN: And Arafat got rid of Abu Mazen. So we don’t have a reliable partner.

ZOGBY: Actually, Abu Mazen said that Ariel Sharon got rid of him. Because who did he give the prisoners to? He didn’t give prisoners to Abu Mazen. He gave them to Hezbollah in Lebanon, and everybody understood what that meant.