In the 45 years since launching the Palestine Human Rights Campaign, I have witnessed more tragic wars than I can care to count and defended Palestinians against more heinous crimes than I can bear to list. During all this time, we have had American supporters who have embraced the cause of Palestinian rights and supported our calls for justice. But never have I witnessed the sea of change in opinion and its impact on the policy debate that is now taking place.
Five decades ago, there were a handful of members of Congress who would courageously speak out and there were some Christian churches, peace and civil rights leaders, and small progressive Jewish groups who would endorse our appeals for Palestinian human rights. For their efforts, they, like us, were subjected to intimidation seeking to silence their voices or punish their advocacy.
Change began with the first Intifada, as national television broadcast Israeli troops firing on stone-throwing Palestinian youth, and the horror that greeted then defence minister Yitzhak Rabin’s orders to his soldiers to break the bones of the young protesters. Building on this shifting opinion, the prominent political activist Jesse Jackson elevated the issue of justice for Palestinians during his 1988 presidential campaign. That year, we succeeded in having the issue debated, for the first time, at the Democratic convention. I will never forget the feeling I had as I mounted the convention podium to introduce our platform plank calling for Palestinian rights.
After the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991 and the Oslo Accords between 1993 and 1995, there was another observable shift in US opinion. On closer examination, however, the change was largely on the Democratic side. Then president Bill Clinton and the Democrats backed the “Oslo process", while Republicans, whose party had increasingly come under the influence of the right-wing Christians and Reagan-era neo-conservatives, embraced a hardline pro-Israel stance. Since then, this partisan divide has continued to widen.
As a review of current polling makes clear, this partisan split increasingly masks America’s very real ideological and demographic divide on a range of domestic and foreign policy concerns. On the Democratic side, the largest component group of voters are African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans, millennials and college-educated women. While on the Republican side, over 40 per cent of their voters are white, older, less than college-educated, or “born again” Christians. Their respective views on the Palestine-Israel issue are mirror images of one another. More revealing is the divide between self-identified liberals and conservatives.
Polls now show that the majority of Democratic voters hold deeply unfavourable views of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, oppose many Israeli policies, and favour conditioning US aid to Israel based on their treatment of Palestinians. Not only have attitudes changed, but progressive Jewish groups and organised Arab Americans have been empowered by this new political environment and have been engaging their elected officials. This has emboldened members of Congress to speak out. In response to both Israel's recent policies in Jerusalem and the bombardment of Gaza, this split is having an impact in Congress.
Activists and protesters march in support of Palestine near the Washington monument in Washington. AFP
The result: for the first time in 30 years, a dozen members took to the floor of Congress to denounce Israeli efforts to evict Palestinians from their Jerusalem homes and the killings of civilians in Gaza; more than one-half of the Democratic Senate caucus has called for an immediate Hamas-Israel ceasefire; and progressives in the House of Representatives are calling on President Joe Biden to stop a proposed US arms’ sale to Israel and a bill has been introduced calling for US aid to Israel to be conditioned on their treatment of Palestinians. Also noteworthy has been the muted responses of normally pro-Israel Democratic senators and representatives. They know where their base voters are on this issue and they, therefore, are treading carefully.
The American media has given extensive coverage to this development. I was so proud to see a New York Times front page story, which appeared on May 15, open with the sentence: "In 1988, when James Zogby ... pushed Democrats to include mention of Palestinian sovereignty in their platform they responded with a clear warning ... If the P-word is even in the platform, all hell will break loose." The article goes on to note how the issue we raised and lost back then, is now centre stage in the policy debate.
That’s the good news. More sobering is the fact, as I noted in the same story, that "the base of the party is in a very different place than where the party establishment is". We haven’t won this policy debate, not by a long shot. But what’s new and important is that we are forcing a debate. And that’s the first step on the road to change.
Dr James Zogby is the president of the Arab American Institute and a columnist for The National
Sole survivors
Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Technology expert in robotics and automation: Dh20,000 to Dh40,000
Energy engineer: Dh25,000 to Dh30,000
Production engineer: Dh30,000 to Dh40,000
Data-driven supply chain management professional: Dh30,000 to Dh50,000
HR leader: Dh40,000 to Dh60,000
Engineering leader: Dh30,000 to Dh55,000
Project manager: Dh55,000 to Dh65,000
Senior reservoir engineer: Dh40,000 to Dh55,000
Senior drilling engineer: Dh38,000 to Dh46,000
Senior process engineer: Dh28,000 to Dh38,000
Senior maintenance engineer: Dh22,000 to Dh34,000
Field engineer: Dh6,500 to Dh7,500
Field supervisor: Dh9,000 to Dh12,000
Field operator: Dh5,000 to Dh7,000
Essentials
The flights
Emirates and Etihad fly direct from the UAE to Geneva from Dh2,845 return, including taxes. The flight takes 6 hours.
The package
Clinique La Prairie offers a variety of programmes. A six-night Master Detox costs from 14,900 Swiss francs (Dh57,655), including all food, accommodation and a set schedule of medical consultations and spa treatments.
Tightening the screw on rogue recruiters
The UAE overhauled the procedure to recruit housemaids and domestic workers with a law in 2017 to protect low-income labour from being exploited.
Only recruitment companies authorised by the government are permitted as part of Tadbeer, a network of labour ministry-regulated centres.
A contract must be drawn up for domestic workers, the wages and job offer clearly stating the nature of work.
The contract stating the wages, work entailed and accommodation must be sent to the employee in their home country before they depart for the UAE.
The contract will be signed by the employer and employee when the domestic worker arrives in the UAE.
Only recruitment agencies registered with the ministry can undertake recruitment and employment applications for domestic workers.
Penalties for illegal recruitment in the UAE include fines of up to Dh100,000 and imprisonment
But agents not authorised by the government sidestep the law by illegally getting women into the country on visit visas.
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Date started: June 2016
Founders: Gregor Amon and Kevin Czok
Based: Dubai
Sector: Travel Tech
Size: 10 employees
Funding: $350,000 (Dh1.3 million)
Investors: five angel investors (undisclosed except for Amar Shubar)
'Brazen'
Director: Monika Mitchell
Starring: Alyssa Milano, Sam Page, Colleen Wheeler
When: The one-off Test starts on Friday, May 11 What time: Each day’s play is scheduled to start at 2pm UAE time. TV: The match will be broadcast on OSN Sports Cricket HD. Subscribers to the channel can also stream the action live on OSN Play.
