25 June 2006
Virtually all Palestinian Americans agree that our task is to support the quest of the Palestinian people for freedom, independence and statehood, but a significant debate has emerged over how best we can do so.
But these have been compounded by what has slowly developed into an almost complete identification with Israel in America.
This is largely the result of determined work over many decades by the Jewish American community and its allies. They have debated each other, developed effective messaging and engaged elected officials and the media.
The undeniable success of this project has seriously diluted sympathy in the United States for the Palestinian cause.
No good reason
The absence of a serious and coordinated Palestinian American political voice in the US has greatly assisted this process. But there is no good reason for such a capitulation.
Palestinian Americans number in the hundreds of thousands and are a highly educated and successful community. They have exactly the same political tools in the American system at their disposal as any other group.
However, while the potential is there, participation is not. The laudable work of some rare individuals and organisations notwithstanding, the sad fact is that most Palestinian Americans have chosen to operate outside the parameters of the political process and mainstream discourse.
This lack of meaningful participation ensures that Palestinian Americans will not be influential. All too often the energy is misdirected against those organisations and individuals who have chosen to exercise their rights as American citizens and engage the system in the hope of affecting US policy on Palestine.
The most recent poll conducted by Bir Zeit University in Ramallah yet again shows that this goal is supported by an overwhelming majority of the Palestinian people, this particular survey showing 83 percent in favour.
Coupled with this approach is our view of the importance of seriously discussing all the issues related to a future Palestinian state. Some of the more sensitive of these issues, such as the Palestinian refugees and the borders of a future Palestinian state, have drawn their share of "hate mail".
This elicited a vicious email from a board member of a major Palestinian American organisation, accusing ATFP, its leadership and me of treason, "becoming increasingly complicit in the crimes of the illegal Israeli occupation" and working with "ardent Zionist pro-Israel/pro-Occupation lobby groups".
Minimal aspirations
This is what gets called "treacherous" and "criminal" by people who really ought to know better.
Much of it is based on hearsay and incomplete information combined with a disturbing willingness to believe anything negative and assume the worst.
But some of it also can reflect a deep-seated mistrust of mainstream American political institutions. These fears are basically paranoia, suggesting the political system is essentially closed to us because of one or more of these imagined obstacles, including: anti-Arab racism; anti-Muslim prejudice; "Jewish control" of the media and US foreign policy; the impossibility of challenging long-standings policies from within; that the system itself is part of the problem and to work within it is inherently corrupting.
Consequently, groups that choose to seriously engage are accused of having compromised everything in a vain effort to become "acceptable" to the American political establishment, along the lines of a Palestinian Uncle Tom.
This self-destructiveness and self-exclusion must end if Palestinian Americans are to gain any political clout. Name-calling and character assassination are completely unacceptable. There are important debates we must have, but they need to be conducted in a civil and decent manner.
It also means serving their community as engaged citizens, participating in the civic and cultural life of their locality, and making sure that people around the country know that Palestinian Americans are their fellow Americans and good neighbours.
The American system is structured to force its political institutions to listen to those who contribute their time, money, energy and ideas. At long last, let it hear our voice.
Rafi Dajani is the Executive Director of the American Task Force on Palestine.
By Rafi Dajani
Gulf News 2006. All rights reserved.
