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AAI in the News

Candidates Invited to Talk About Issues Relevant to Arab American Community

By Tarek El-Tablawy
The Associated Press
Posted on Tuesday September 9, 2003

DEARBORN, Mich.—Arab Americans are gaining political muscle, with issues of relevance to them ones that should be equally important to Americans as a whole, a leading Arab American pollster said Tuesday.

The Sept. 11 attacks “had a terrible impact on the (Arab American) community. But it has not had an impact on our empowerment,” said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute.

“There’s no doubt we’re on the radar screen more than before,” he said.
Zogby’s comments came as he announced a national Arab American community leadership conference to be held in Dearborn in October.

Four Democratic presidential candidates—Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich, Richard Gephardt and Joseph Lieberman—are scheduled to speak at the three-day event that will group hundreds of community leaders. Organizers hope to draw at least two other candidates.

The aim of the conference, which will be bipartisan, is to allow Arab American leaders to talk with the candidates on key issues like U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, civil rights and immigration. A Bush Administration representative has not yet been determined.

Dearborn is the center of southeastern Michigan’s 300,000-member Middle Eastern community.

Of particular concern is launching a meaningful and substantive debate on Middle East policy—discussions Zogby says have be missing in the United States for decades.

“In the 30 years since the end of (the Vietnam War), we have sent more money, sent more weapons, sent more troops … lost more American lives and invested more political capital in the Middle East, and (there has been) no real debate about the policy,” Zogby said. “And the policy has been a dismal failure.”

Community leaders say the upcoming conference will provide representatives of the nation’s more than 3 million Arab Americans with a chance to drive home the message that these issues affect Americans as a whole.

Similarly, that four candidates have committed to attending reflects “the growing strength of the Arab American political presence,” said Ismael Ahmed, executive director of the Dearborn-based Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services.

He recalled there “were times when Arab American contributions were returned,” and the community was ignored by both Democrats and Republicans.

The last time a presidential candidate came to address the community specifically was in the 1984 and 1988 when Jesse Jackson reached out to Arab voters, Ahmed said, adding that Al Gore and John McCain also sought to win support during speeches at a 1999 Arab American Institute conference.

On the agenda for the conference, which is entitled “VOTE 2004: An Agenda for Peace and Justice” are workshops on reaching Arab American voters, building bridges with law enforcement, campus activism and civil liberties, as well as talks on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.

Zogby said two thirds of Arab Americans are concentrated in 10 states, with one third of the total alone in California, Michigan and New York, key states in presidential races.

The Washington-based AAI and the other groups have pulled together a voter guide to the Democratic primary candidates and posts on its Web site frequent updates on the candidates’ positions and speeches.

“This is a community that’s up for grabs,” Zogby said.

We can spell the margin of victory and defeat.”