Thank something, the choice is no longer a hard one.
We no longer have to choose between a black man and a woman for president, even if the latter is white. It seems like one of the candidate is actually an old reliable: Hillary has testicular fortitude. Those were the words of a male Indiana union leader as he endorsed the pantsuit-wearing senator from New York. I guess Pennsylvania voters were on to something.
So if your inner misogynist was clashing with your inner racist, you can retire one until 2012. But is it really smart to play up the importance of genitalia metaphors as a deciding factor in the presidential elections when you’re running against a black man? I’m not a racist; I’m just employing a stereotype.
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Henceforth, March 4th is a day that shall live in infamy. I have always respected Barack Obama, ever since he burst into the national spotlight, literally, on the stage of the Democratic National Convention in Boston. I esteemed him for his judgment on the Iraq war and admired his courage to speak out against the war when America was at its peak national hysteria.
While emasculated media organizations and frightened, disheveled Democrats tried to out-Rove Karl, Obama said, “I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income – to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.”
Yes, on October 2nd, 2002, a mere nine days before 77 senators committed our nation to a fight on the other side of the world against a secular dictatorship, hated by and itself at war with Islamists, a dictatorship with no connections to the September 11 attacks or AlQaeda, Obama said, “I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other arm-chair, weekend warriors in this Administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.”
Yes, even then I loved Barack Obama. More recently I am inspired by his talk of hope. I am heartened by his high-mindedness even amid the vitriol being unleashed by the Clinton campaign. I am moved by his quiet anger at Clinton’s mud-slinging style of politics.
And until last night, I felt that Obama was graced by God, himself. I admit it. Perhaps it is because the problems we face are so monumental and overwhelming. Because the injustice that we are provoking and incurring is so damning that we need a Moses, a Mohammed, a Jesus or a Buddha to extricate ourselves from burning Baghdad, bondaged Palestine, bottomless deficits, Chinese lenders, stagflation, overcrowded prisons and crumbling America. Obama spoke to us in the language of kindness. He preached hope and unity. He extolled African Americans in the Ebenezer Baptist Church, a shrine of Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement, for tolerating homophobia and anti-Semitism. He is a product of Christianity and Islam, of whites and blacks, of Old World and New World, he is God’s gift to a tried and tired nation.
That is, until March 4th when he lost Texas, Rhode Island and Ohio to a mere mortal and not a magnanimous one at that. It was easy to forgive him his early losses: he was an unknown battling against the heir to the throne. He was David battling Goliath and a redeemed Ishmael under Abraham’s knife. He was the disparate Arab Armies of Mecca that defeated the Persians and the Romans. He was the American pilgrims who won the revolutionary war against all odds. Yes, his wins in Iowa and Super Tuesday were miraculous, nothing short of divine intervention. Obama’s win was simply a matter of people acquainting themselves with him and falling under his baraka, blessings in Arabic.
On March 4th, Obama broke my heart. I thought of him as I thought of myself once; if someone got to know me and what I was about, he would not turn away. I was wrong on both accounts. Like a jilted lover I saw the illusion of destiny vaporized before my eyes.
I wanted so badly to believe and so I did but I forgot that I am not a believer but naturally a skeptic. I don’t believe in the prophets before Obama and I don’t believe in his prophecy. And so I will still support him, not as a Godsend but as the human that he is. He gets my vote because he understands that the war in Iraq is why our economy is on its knees, our health is poor and our infrastructure is crumbling. He gets my vote because in a field of presidential contenders whose byline reads “complicit in Bush’s war,” his reads, “I don’t oppose all Wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war.”
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As Arab Americans across the country eulogize Senator Barak Obama’s enlightened foreign policy positions and vociferously campaign for his nomination, we should understand that a president can only do so much. This is largely due to the fact that a monarchy-wary nation imposed formidable checks on the presidential powers of the executive branch. Our Congress can obstruct the president at every turn through purse strings, impeachments and, even, withholding declarations of war if it chooses to do so.
Past presidents who have been sympathetic to the Palestinian cause were severely limited by a Congress that simply toes the Israeli line, even President Bush’s aid to the Palestinians was often restricted by Congress to pay for Israeli expenditure such as building checkpoints in 2005. If Congress finds President Bush too pro-Palestinian, surely Senator Obama is in for a ride.
America’s one-sided support of Israel and the Israeli prism through which it views Middle Eastern policy are detrimental to American national interests, a fact that has been much debated, regurgitated, and confirmed by pundits and academics alike. The reason for the seeming contradiction is domestic policy. The pro-Israel lobby machine with all its think tanks, civil rights organizations, pro-Israel PACs, journalists, and politicians has a strong presence in Washington’s halls of power and even more impressively they put their money where their loud mouths are.
The combination of a strong lobby and an American public that is ignorant and uninterested in Palestine and, yes, Israel makes for a very pliant Congress, a good reason why you have probably never seen a senator or a representative of the House criticize Israel on national media. To do so would be political suicide. There are a few brave souls like James Abourezk who have paid a dear price and a few exceptions like Chuck Hagel of Nebraska who spoke out for Lebanon during the 2006 Israeli-Lebanese war.
Yet, still, we don’t see Chuck Hagel running for president. Despite Barak Obama’s strong pro-Israel stance during the Israel-Lebanon war in 2006 and his insistence that Israel has a right to defend itself as Gazans broke free from their oversized prison, Israeli media slaps him with the crippling label: “bad for Israel”, as if they ever knew what was good for her. The reality is an American president that is good for Israel must help wean the country off the Palestinian lands it occupies.
As it turns out, Barak Obama simply has to play the game if he is to win the presidency. His good intentions to the Palestinians are well known. He has recently commented that “no body is suffering more than the Palestinian people” and somehow still managed to stay in the race for the democratic nomination. When Howard Dean remarked that the United States should be unbiased in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during the democratic primary in 2004, the walls of his campaign collapsed right around him.
Mr. Obama is also refreshingly diplomatic about handling Iran and the nuclear threat that it poses. His understanding of foreign policy would make it unlikely that he plays the stooge for any set of advisers as has happened with the current president. Moreover, his stance toward Arab dictators may not be as conciliatory.
Our hope in the Man of Hope should not be overstated, however. This is still the same political system with the same players. A strong and credible Arab Lobby is sorely needed. There are a few Arab and Muslim civil rights groups like the ADC and CAIR, educational ones such as the AAI, but there is no political action committee that can lobby the US government on behalf of Arab and Muslim Americans, and indeed all Americans, to find a just solution for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and to reverse its more pernicious side effects: sclerotic Arab dictatorships and a deficit of human rights in the region.
At the end of the day, Barak Obama is the best possible choice for Arab Americans but he will not suffice. Or as he so beautifully put it, we are the change we seek!
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Think what you will of Ralph Nader (here's the Lebanese-American in his good-looking days) ... I think we can all agree that what he had to say on Meet the Press about Obama's flip-flopping on the Palestine issue is spot-on:
"But Senator Obama is a person of substance. He's also the first liberal evangelist in a long time. He's run a brilliant tactical campaign. But his better instincts and his knowledge have been censored by himself. And I give you the example, the Palestinian-Israeli issue, which is a real off the table issue for the candidates. So don't touch that, even though it's central to our security and to, to the situation in the Middle East. He was pro-Palestinian when he was in Illinois before he ran for the state Senate, during he ran--during the state Senate. Now he's, he's supporting the Israeli destruction of the tiny section called Gaza with a million and a half people. He doesn't have any sympathy for a civilian death ratio of about 300-to-1; 300 Palestinians to one Israeli. He's not taking a leadership position in supporting the Israeli peace movement, which represents former Cabinet ministers, people in the Knesset, former generals, former security officials, in addition to mayors and leading intellectuals. One would think he would at least say, "Let's have a hearing for the Israeli peace movement in the Congress," so we don't just have a monotone support of the Israeli government's attitude toward the Palestinians and their illegal occupation of Palestine."
Compare this to Obama's policy papers on the Mid-East conflict, which conspicuously make no mention of the word "Palestine", or even "Palestinian Territories". The section is merely called "On Israel", as if that was the be-all-and-end-all of the electorate's interest in the Middle East.
This morning, I was excited to see that the news-program Democracy Now! interviewed professor Samantha Power of Harvard University (who has a good chance of being appointed Secretary of State in the event of an Obama presidency). I was looking forward to a more substantive discussion of Obama's Mid-East positions. But again, the word "Palestine" was conspicuously absent. I really think it's odd that a journalist of Amy Goodman's caliber and aggression would not seize this opportunity to nail the Obama campaign on one of its most glaring about-faces.
See here, for the transcript and video.
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