Obama’s vehemently pro-Israeli speech at the annual conference of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) was not surprising. What was surprising was the shock and disappointment it provoked in the Arab World. Obama has made clear right from the beginning that he represents a new generation of black leaders who view the US and the world differently than the civil rights leaders. As far as Israel is concerned, this means he does not carry the same complex views or the mixed feelings of the older generation of African American leaders.
In the last segment of his speech before AIPAC, Obama referred to the fact that blacks and Jews fought together in the civil rights movement. It was the most heartfelt moment in the speech and received a warm response. What he did not mention, however, was the rift that occurred afterwards between Jewish and Black leaders. Many social economic and political reasons caused that rift. But very important among them were disagreements over Israel for its discriminatory policies and the reactionary dimensions of its world role from an African-American perspective.
African-American leaders took a strong position against the abhorrent Apartheid regime in South Africa. Israel’s close relationship with South Africa and the reluctance of Jewish-American leaders to criticize Israel’s position created a rift. At the same time, those African-American leaders could not fail to note similarities between the discrimination against Arabs in Israel and that against blacks in South Africa. And they did not fail to make these thoughts public.
In the meantime, African-American leaders took a stand supportive of liberation movements across the third World. They found similarities between those struggles and their own in America. The Palestinian liberation movement was no exception in that regard. This position added to the black-Jewish tension, especially when the pro-Israeli lobby started exerting pressure to oust from black organizations leaders who publicly supported the Palestinians. This tension reached new levels when African-American, Andrew Young was forced to resign his position as the US representative to the UN in 1979 because he met with leaders of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. In parallel fashion, when Reverend Jesse Jackson ran for president in 1984 and 1988, he was strongly criticized by Jewish organizations for his repeated meetings throughout the years with Yasser Arafat.
Since that time, the black-Jewish tension has ebbed and flowed. The pro-Israel lobby has continued to put pressure on black leaders who publicly sympathize with the Palestinians, no matter how mild or reasoned their positions. A notable instance occurred in 2002 when AIPAC helped defeat Cynthia McKinney and Earl Hilliard, two African- American members of Congress elected from majority black districts for their public statements sympathetic to the Palestinians. The pro-Israeli groups poured money from outside the districts and into the campaign coffers of the two African-American challengers of both McKinney and Hilliard. This telling episode opened old wounds of the paternal attitudes some Jewish American leaders practiced even during the civil rights era. Many black leaders publicly rejected what they described as “choosing for blacks who should be their representatives.
Obama’s “post-racial and “new generation themes jump over this history and policy agreements that divided the two communities. He makes clear he neither has the same wounds nor takes the same principled positions towards the world. In this sense, Obama represents a new era with new prominent black leaders, who benefited from the civil rights movement but are not an extension of all aspects of its rich legacy of support for struggles for liberation and justice in the world at large.
Without those principled positions, it is not surprising that Obama would simply do what other politicians do. Campaign strategy simply puts in the mouth of the candidate whatever positions that will help him win the election.
Ignoring the Palestinian plight and turning a blind eye to what is happening today in Gaza is a problem only if you look at it through the prism of your own battles for civil rights based on general principles of human rights, international law or humanitarian law. But, remember, the callous disregard of the Palestinian miseries costs nothing in electoral mathematics.
What is distressing, however, is that Obama’s positions on Israel which he expressed in that speech do not even represent the majority of Jewish Americans, or for that matter, the Israeli people themselves. AIPAC and some other Jewish organizations have been lately dominated by leaders who take the Likud right-wing positions which are unrepresentative of the majority of Jewish Americans. Polls have shown time and again that the majority of Jewish Americans support a two-state solution, talks with Syria, Iran and even Hamas, and would agree to dividing of Jerusalem.
The only hope is that Obama would align himself not only with the majority of Jewish Americans but with millions around the world who genuinely seek peace in the Middle East but recognize that for that peace to be sustainable it must be just for all parties involved.
The pressures of American electoral politics will never allow this message through. Surely, it can come from civil society groups and social movements, not only in the United States and Israel but around the world. International civil society must call on Obama to respond to the best humanitarian beliefs and commitments of the American civil rights movement that, after all, made his own success possible.
Dr. Manar Shorbagyis associate professor of political science. She is specialized in US politics and teaches at the American University in Cairo.
