We Are
Arab American.

AAI joins The Leadership Conference and 87 other organizations calling for the passage of the Jabara Heyer NO HATE Act

American democracy, as Abraham Lincoln said, is a government “of the people, by the people, [and] for the people.” Perhaps the most fundamental right in our democracy is the right to vote. Yet for far too long, suppressing the right to vote has been used as a tool to marginalize racial and ethnic minorities.

Washington, D.C. – The Arab American Institute Foundation (AAIF) is delighted to announce the launch of the first Moroccan cohort of the U.S. – MENA Experiential Partnership - an initiative pioneered by AAIF with support from the U.S. State Department Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI).

The Partnership pairs distinguished current and former Arab American public servants and policy practitioners with officials in Morocco, for an innovative, year-long, peer learning and exchange of practices around the themes of decentralization, participatory governance, and public private partnerships. The Experiential Partnership allows public servants in the Arab world to make meaningful and lasting connections with American elected officials, to visit the United States for intensive training in good governance, to attract and develop public private partnerships, and to develop and fund small policy projects to benefit their local communities.

Over the years, the approach of most American policymakers toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been Israel-centric with near total disregard for the suffering endured by the Palestinian people.

AAI joined over 330 organizations in a letter to members of Congress expressing deep concern regarding proposed expansion of terrorism-related legal authority.

The AAI team began 2020 with genuine excitement and planning for both the decennial census and the presidential election. Fate had other plans, but we were undeterred and remained focused on strengthening our democracy, protecting the civil rights and civil liberties of all, and standing for human rights.

White supremacist violence is a resurgent threat in communities across the United States. This threat is not a new one, and is in fact rooted in the deepest, darkest chapters of our nation’s history. From Oak Creek to El Paso to the violent insurrection in our nation’s capital on January 6th, 2021, and communities in between, the United States has in recent years experienced an increase of white supremacist violence, particularly mass shootings and other forms of mass violence.

The Arab American Institute (AAI) today called for a better response to hate crime after the FBI’s 2019 hate crime data again showed the deadliest year on record and the most violent since 2001, when a surge of incidents was reported in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. As with the 2016 and 2017 murders of Khalid Jabara and Heather Heyer, high-profile hate crimes went unreported in the 2019 data. Congress must exercise its oversight and legislative authorities to address these shortcomings.