Bombs, threats, hate mail and the pro-Israel crowd

Those who reduce my decades-long record in Democratic politics to a single issue are wide of the mark, says James Zogby

Bernie Sanders speaks during a campaign event in Palo Alto, California, U.S (Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg)

I wasn’t going to write about this subject, but something happened yesterday that prompted me to reconsider. I was having a meal with my wife when two men sat down in the next booth. In loud voices they began to discuss the state of the presidential contest. At one point, the gentleman directly behind me said: “And Sanders picked that Cornel West and that guy who’s the head of the Arab League who has it in for Israel ...”

That did it. I spun around and said, in a polite but firm voice: “I’m that guy. I’m not the head of the Arab League and I’m asking you to change the subject.”

Shocked, the man responded: “You’re him!” and began asking me questions. I cut him off making it clear that I was having lunch and wasn’t interested in pursuing the matter. After we finished eating, I turned to the two men and explained why I found the crude description of me to be so aggravating.

In some ways I blame The Washington Post and other news outlets for having unleashed the mini-firestorm that followed my recent appointment to the Democratic party’s platform drafting committee. When I first heard that I was on the committee, I held my breath, fully expecting an attack from the usual collection of far-right, anti-Arab and hardline pro-Israel groups. Sure enough, they didn’t disappoint. I was called “a professional Israel-hater”, “a defender of terrorism”, “Bernie’s Svengali”, and it was claimed (falsely) that I had “accused Israel of committing a Holocaust”.

This, unfortunately, is what I have learnt to expect from that crowd. What I found most troubling was the headline that appeared in The Washington Post announcing “Sanders picks pro-Palestinian activist for Democratic platform committee”. With this, the die was cast. Other media outlets followed suit framing the entire discussion of the platform and my appointment around Israel-Palestine – culminating in a call I received yesterday, right after lunch, from a journalist who asked if he was right in assuming that Mr Sanders had appointed me as his hatchet man on Israel.

I am, of course, a strong supporter of Palestinian rights and so, according to a recent Gallup poll, are a majority of Democrats. But the crude effort to reduce the Sanders campaign and my life’s work to an effort to “get Israel” betrays an unsettling anti-Arab bias and a bizarre obsession to which I must respond. It does damage to Mr Sanders, to me and to America’s ability to have an honest conversation about an issue of importance.

By focusing exclusively on Israel and ignoring all of the other concerns that Mr Sanders has brought to this year’s campaign, the press does a grave disservice to his efforts to elevate the issues of universal health care, free college tuition, raising the minimum wage, investing in clean energy, rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and making Wall Street pay its fair share in taxes. This is a not so subtle attempt to demean the man and his candidacy.

The same is true for me. In response to the question as to why Mr Sanders may have appointed me, I recited a bit of my track record.

To be sure, I am the proud founder of a number of Arab American organisations, but I have also served on the Democratic National Committee for 23 years. I have been on its executive committee for the past 15 years, co-chaired its resolutions committee for the past decade and have chaired the party’s ethnic council since 2009. I served as adviser to both the Gore and the Obama campaigns. And Mr Obama has twice appointed me to two-year terms on the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.

When the mainstream media and the far-right groups converge in turning my life’s work into a one-dimensional caricature as a “pro-Palestinian activist” they are not complimenting me. They are setting me up.

Make no mistake, I am proud of my advocacy for Palestinian rights, but given the political climate, such reductionism lays the ground for political exclusion, violence and threats of violence. Over the years, Arab Americans have suffered from all of these challenges to our rights. I know, I’ve been there.

When I spoke in favour of a two-state solution in 1988, before this position became fashionable, I was told: “You’ll never have a place in this party again”. Following that year’s convention, Michael Dukakis rejected the endorsement of our Arab American Democratic Federation saying “it was too controversial”. When, in 1990, Ron Brown, then Chair of the DNC, came to speak at an Arab American event I was hosting, he told me that he was threatened with a loss of support “if you even go into the room with those people”.

And then there is the violence. The first time I received a death threat was 1970. My office was firebombed in 1980 and after 9/11 three men went to jail for threatening my life and the lives of my children. In every instance, the perpetrators claimed to be striking out for reasons to do with my ethnicity or Israel. Now, in the wake of the announcement of my platform committee assignment, the hate mail has started up again.

Even beyond this danger, by silencing my community and marginalising us because we might dare to advocate for Palestinians, there is the damage that this hysteria does to the national discourse. For example, I have been denounced for criticising Benjamin Netanyahu, but my writings on this subject are similar to those written by Israelis. At issue is not what we are saying, but that we are the ones saying it. We are accused of “singling Israel out”, while in reality it is our critics who single out this issue as one we can’t discuss.

Mr Sanders has brought the matter of Israel-Palestine into the national debate. It belongs there and deserves to be discussed without fear.

I am proud that Mr Sanders has demonstrated the courage to do this and I am confident that the platform committee can forge a new consensus that reflects the will of the majority of Democrats on all of the critical issues – including the way forward to achieve a lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Dr James Zogby is the president of the Arab American Institute

On Twitter: @aaiusa