Next week, Arab American leaders from a dozen key electoral states will convene in Washington to map out a political strategy for elections in 2016. Despite the very real challenges facing the leaders who will gather, this generation of Arab Americans can approach the future with some confidence given the progress that has been made over the past three decades.
Thirty years ago, the obstacles confronting the community were quite different. Back then, Arab Americans were excluded from mainstream US political life.
Just a generation ago, young Arab Americans felt the need to hide their ethnicity to run for office or to secure an appointment to a federal post.
In Washington, only a handful of Arab Americans worked in government or in organisations that focused on issues of concern to the community. As wrong as it would be to ignore the reality of the problems that remain, it would be equally wrong to ignore how much has changed.
Today, there are hundreds of proud Arab Americans working in the federal government, in Congress and in policy-formulating institutions in Washington. It is important to note that many of these public servants got their start as staff or interns working for Arab American organisations. In addition, there is now a network of Arab American elected officials that includes more than 400 current and former members of Congress and state and local officials from across the US.
In the mid-1980s, there was no recognised “Arab American vote”. Today, politicians know that Arab Americans matter. And Arab Americans now sit in leadership positions in the political parties on the national, state and local levels.
I recall back in 1985, the first challenge we faced at the newly formed Arab American Institute was the threat to the community in Dearborn, Michigan. They had been denounced by the leading candidate for mayor as the city’s “Arab problem”. Today, four of Dearborn’s city council members are Arab Americans, as is the council’s president, as well as the head of Dearborn’s Democratic Party.
Much the same could be seen in Paterson, New Jersey, where in 2012 an Arab American-backed Congressman beat challenges by two opponents, both of whom had been supported by pro-Israel groups.
Despite these real electoral gains, many will focus instead at the challenges Arab Americans continue to face and make the case that no progress has been made. They are wrong.
To be sure, the challenges have grown more daunting, but we are now more able to face them down. One of these critics once challenged me saying that I was guilty of saying “the glass was half full, when it was really half empty”. I responded by telling him that neither was the case since I could recall a time when Arab Americans didn’t even have a glass to fill.
Arab Americans don’t need to be reminded of the difficulties that have shaped the current landscape: the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 and the backlash that followed – the devastating impact of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the wars that have taken such a horrific toll, the unravelling of the Arab Spring, the nightmare conflict in Syria, the spread of extremist currents and the dangers they pose to the Middle East.
Arab Americans have been confronted by all of these challenges and more. Instead of cowering, those obstacles were faced head on.
Instead of being defeated, Arab Americans were able to defend their community, educate millions and win important precedent-setting cases against those who threatened Arab American rights, securing protection for Syrian immigrants in the US and expanding refugee status for Iraqis fleeing conflict in their country.
At critical junctures, Arab Americans were able to shape the official response to Israel’s brutal assault on Palestinians and Lebanese.
The community has also been able to challenge the disgraceful manner in which law-enforcement treated the community – which has forced the justice department to rethink their approach to how they deal with us.
And just this year, together with allies, Arab Americans were able to effectively block a Congressional measure that would have mandated that Israel be entered into the US’s visa waiver programme.
In response to appeals, the state department made it clear that as long as Israel continued to discriminate against Arab Americans they would not qualify for visa waivers.
So when a new generation of Arab American activists gather in Washington to lay the groundwork for their political work for the next two years, they will have the wind at the backs.
The community will want to make sure that candidates who run for office in 2016 understand the realities of the Middle East today and that they are sensitive to the concerns that our community will bring into the national debate.
They will do so with determination and confidence. Determination, because they know that the domestic and foreign policy issues for which they are advocating are important not only to Arab Americans, but to all Americans. And confident, because they have a proud record on which to build.
Dr James Zogby is the president of the Arab American Institute
Twitter: @aaiusa
