It’s time to wake up and smell the coffee
So many people issue have written so much in response to October 7 and its aftermath! It is difficult to imagine saying anything new or even interesting. But after much hesitation I will discuss one issue: the difficult choice Arab Americans face in voting this year.
It had seemed to me that Arab American voters would come around to my perspective, so there was no need. But polling suggests that isn’t happening in the numbers I’d like. So here are some unsolicited views on why Arab Americans should vote for Harris, not Trump.
The Trump record
The Trump record on Israel is unequivocal. He called himself “the best friend Israel ever had in the White House.” But that isn’t correct. He was a best friend to the Israeli right. He gave them a lot of what they asked for:
- withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal,
- approved annexation by Israel of Syrian territory in the Golan Heights,
- moved the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem,
- closed the Jerusalem consulate that functioned as an embassy to the Palestinian Authority (PA),
- cut funds for the PA,
- closed the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) office in Washington,
- rejected the claim that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal,
- cut the humanitarian and other assistance to Palestinians administered by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA),
- offered a take it or leave it pro-Israel peace plan,
- withdrew the US from the UN Human Rights Council because of its criticism of Israel, and
- sided with Israel against the International Criminal Court’s investigation of alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank.
Trump would do next what he did before
It’s hard to say for sure what Trump would do next. He hasn’t said much. He knows it would cost him critical votes in Michigan, Wisconsin, and elsewhere. But his advisers are the same people who established the record above. That suggests Trump would give unconditional support to Prime Minister Netanyahu to do whatever he wanted to do. A vote for Trump will condemn innocent people in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran.
Maybe all one really needs to know is that Trump is Netanyahu’s favored candidate. Israel’s Prime Minister has stiffed many of Biden’s efforts to moderate his offensive in Gaza and reach a ceasefire agreement. Netanyahu also rejected Biden’s pleas not to expand the war to Lebanon. That is not only because the Israeli Prime Minister wants the war to continue so he can stay in power. He also doesn’t want to give Biden any goodies before the election.
The Jewish vote
Trump is frustrated that his vigorous pro-Israel stance doesn’t get him more Jewish votes:
That’s at least in part because many Jewish Americans dislike what Netanyahu is doing as much as Arab Americans do. Many Jews were horrified at what happened October 7 but recognize that Israel is behaving unjustly. In Gaza, it has sought revenge rather than justice and ignored the civilian toll. It has also rejected reasonable proposals for a ceasefire and prisoner/hostage exchange. In the West Bank, Israel is allowing and even encouraging settler violence against Palestinians. In Lebanon, it is destroying civilian infrastructure and killing people who have nothing to do with Hezbollah.
Most Jewish Americans want what most Israelis want. That is a ceasefire in Gaza and an exchange of prisoners and hostages, as well as a Palestinian state. Sixty-eight percent of Jews voted in 2020 for Biden. I would guess more will vote for Harris this November.
Jews and Arabs should be voting together
Jews will vote for Harris agreeing more with Arabs right now than at many times in the past. Arab American supporters of Hamas and Hezbollah are few and far between. Many understand that Hamas’ brutality on October 7 gave Israel motive and opportunity to brutalize Gaza. Hezbollah has participated both in a corrupt Lebanese political system and a war against civilians in Syria. Its rocket attacks on Israel likewise gave Israel motive and opportunity. But Arab Americans, like American Jews, want the wars to stop.
What troubles Arab Americans most is that Biden has not compelled Netanyahu to agree to a Gaza ceasefire. It troubles me as well. But I am convinced that Harris will have a far better chance of succeeding than Biden. Netanyahu will know that he faces at least four more years of her. If Trump is elected, it will mean four more years of a license to kill.
It’s time we all wake up and smell the coffee. Some have already done so. Emgage Action has endorsed Harris in a thoughtful and comprehensive statement. Harris has not promised the squeeze on Israel’s military supplies many would like. But she is clearly more sympathetic to Palestinian needs than Trump. Not voting, voting for a third party candidate, or voting for Trump, would be a serious mistake. Jews and Arabs who want peace in the Middle East should vote for Harris.
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No to boycott, yes to Tunisia
I’m late to publishing this appeal from the Tunisian opposition, as the election is tomorrow. But there is still time to go vote:
After five years of President Kais Saied’s term, including three years of absolute and individual rule, and after an objective assessment of this period in which Tunisia has experienced its worst conditions since independence—marked by the sharp decline in citizens’ purchasing power, the increase in poverty from 23% to 33% according to official figures, the exacerbation of daily hardships in areas such as transportation, healthcare, water and electricity shortages, and the loss of essential goods like food and medicine, and mounting internal and external debt.
After three years of systematic destruction and dismantling of constitutional institutions that protect the state from disintegration and chaos, and safeguard citizens’ rights.
In the face of the current president’s, Kais Saied’s, inability to solve the economic and social problems, his failure in projects such as penal settlements and recovered funds allegedly meant for poor regions, his failed health cities initiative (Kairouan, Kasserine, and Sidi Bouzid), and the failure of his community enterprises to create jobs for the unemployed, which instead became a waste of public funds.
After he has monopolized all powers in the country since July 25, 2021, imprisoning most of his opponents from various political factions, mistreating them and their families, and attempting to impose a policy of silencing dissent by prosecuting all voices calling for freedom, democracy, respect for the constitution, and the law—politicians, judges, lawyers, journalists, unionists, bloggers, and ordinary citizens under the infamous Decree 54.
After the Electoral Commission rejected most candidacy files with unreasonable and arbitrary conditions, and after the Commission refused to comply with decisions of the Administrative Court’s General Assembly, which cannot be appealed, that ordered the acceptance of the appeals from candidates Mondher Zenaidi, Abdellatif Mekki, and Imed Daimi and required the Commission to include them on the list of presidential candidates.
Law professors, civil society components including organizations, associations, parties, and national figures, have unanimously agreed that the stance of the Electoral Commission constitutes a scandal and a reprehensible act punishable by law as it undermines the state of institutions and eliminates the last bastion protecting rights and freedoms, namely the judiciary.
Despite Kais Saied’s insistence on ruling, his pressure, and intimidation of judges to exclude serious competitors from the electoral race, and prosecuting them using a non-independent and non-neutral Electoral Commission fully under his command.
After observing that candidate Ayachi Zammal remains in the race for the October 6 election,
And given the risk that boycotting the elections could lead to the continuation of the current situation, worsening from bad to worse, and the possibility of the state’s collapse by renewing the current president for another five years,
And following in-depth consultations and a realistic assessment of the current situation and available options, we concluded that Ayachi Zammal is the only remaining viable option among the accepted candidates, in the hope of pulling the country out of its current predicament and freeing it from the nightmare of authoritarianism and populism.
In order to save our country before it’s too late, by peaceful means and through the ballot box,
We, the undersigned, declare:
First: We call on all Tunisians to seize the opportunity for peaceful change by participating in the elections in large numbers and not to heed the calls for a boycott, which only serve the current president whose popularity has recently plummeted to such an extent that some polls indicate he may not even pass the first round.
Second: We call for a massive vote in favor of Ayachi Zammal, after his commitment to turn the page on the past, release all political prisoners, restore state institutions, guarantee the independence of the judiciary, and restore Tunisia’s standing in the international community.
Third: We call on all presidential candidates who continue to be excluded from the race to urge their supporters to vote for Ayachi Zammal as a means of saving the country.
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A Balkans agenda for the lame duck
We are entering the final stretch before the US election. That means a lame duck period for lower priority parts of the world like the Balkans until January 20. Neither Kamala Harris nor Donald Trump is likely to say anything about the region before November 5. Even after Inauguration Day it will be some time before the new administration focuses on the Balkans.
We can guess their views
Harris’ views on the Balkans are unknown. But she has spent a career prosecuting criminals and defending equal rights. That likely tells you something about her attitude toward corruption and ethnonationalism. Trump is a corrupt white supremacist who tried to partition Kosovo while in the White House. If elected, he will no doubt empower Ric Grenell or his doppelganger to try again in Kosovo and Bosnia. Serbia has leverage on Trump. Jared Kushner has been looking for investment opportunities there.
What should the people at the State Department and in the White House do in this lame duck period? They should seek to correct the mistakes of the last three years, which have produced mainly diplomatic failure in the Balkans. The Biden Administration mistakenly focused on creating a statutory Association of Serb Majority Municipalities in Kosovo. In Bosnia, it rightly sought to disempower ethnonationalist politicians, but it succeeded mainly with Bosniaks. Those priorities condemned Biden’s Balkan policies to strategic defeat. They also alienated Kosovars and Bosniaks, America’s best friends in the region.
Here are a few ideas to correct course. Assuming that Harris will be elected, as I fondly hope, these thoughts aim to reduce the sway of ethnic nationalism. They would also increase the functionality of governance in still-fragile Kosovo as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Some ideas
- Consult with Kosovo Prime Minister Kurti on a joint plan to establish beyond doubt his country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. This should include an end to Belgrade intimidation of Serbs who join Kosovo security institutions and wider international recognition.
- Adopt as the official US stance conditional support for a nongovernmental Association of Serb Majority Municipalities. The municipalities themselves should form this Association consistent with the Kosovo constitution. The conditions should include Belgrade fulfillment of its obligations under the agreement in which Pristina agreed to the Association.
- Tell Belgrade publicly that it needs to produce accountability for the Serbian government malfeasance of last year. That includes the kidnapping of Kosovo police, rioting against KFOR, and the Banjska terrorist plot.
- Stop the bad-mouthing of Serbian environmentalists who oppose the Rio Tinto lithium plant. Start publicly criticizing corruption and growing autocracy in Belgrade.
- End the Bosnia High Representative’s intervention to reverse the European Court of Human Rights ruling in the Kovacevic case. The ECHR ruling promises a big step in reducing ethnic nationalist control of state institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
- Develop criminal charges in the US against the leading Serb and Croat advocates (Milorad Dodik and Dragan Covic) of ethnonational division in Bosnia.
There are some tall orders in this list. But the failure of three years of misguided US and EU diplomatic efforts suggests a dramatic turn is needed.
The resistance will be strong
Serbia’s President Vucic is committed to the “Serbian world” goal of governing Serbs in neighboring countries. He has succeeded in Montenegro. The government in Podgorica is under Serbia’s thumb. In Bosnia and Kosovo, only de facto partition can deliver success to Serbia. Belgrade will resist all the above moves, as will their proxies in the neighboring countries.
Belgrade is at risk of falling irreversibly under the influence of Russia and China. The US needs to counter that influence with sticks as well as carrots. The carrots only appeasement approach has failed. Here is the result:
The Americans will be far more effective at all of this if the EU and UK will act in tandem. The UK will likely follow a strong US lead. The EU may not follow right away, That makes another task for the lame duck interval: getting Brussels on board.
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The war Netanyahu wanted is at hand
Prime Minister Netanyahu has spent the 31 years since the Oslo accords seeking two principal foreign policy goals: preventing establishment of a Palestinian state and destroying the Islamic Republic of Iran. He is on the verge of getting a chance to achieve both. In the process, he is ending Israeli democracy, earning the enmity of much of the Arab street, and drawing the US into another Middle East war. I don’t like the result, but he is definitely stalwart.
Obliterating the idea of a Palestinian state
I recall in the mid-1990s a discussion at a mutual friend’s house with the then National Security Advisor to Vice President Gore. Leon Fuerth believed that Netanyahu would eventually come around to accepting a Palestinian state. I had my doubts. I still think I was right.
Netanyahu spent many years thereafter pumping up the idea that Israel was under siege, both by the Palestinians and the Iranians. The Second Intifada and the wall Israel built to isolate itself, successfully, from the West Bank boosted his credibility. Once Hamas took over Gaza from the Palestinian Authority in 2006/7, he worked hard to keep the two governing bodies separate. Dividing the Palestinians was one way to make sure they couldn’t get what they wanted.
Defeating Iran
Hezbollah is Iran’s most important ally/proxy in the region. Israel has now destroyed perhaps 50% of its rocket and missile supplies and killed an even greater proportion of Hezbollah’s leaders. The pager/walkie-talkie attack two weeks ago maimed thousands of its cadres. Israeli troops are now on the ground in southern Lebanon seeking to push Hezbollah forces north of the Litani River.
Netanyahu is imagining that regime in Iran is imminent:
He will be content with the results of yesterday’s 180-missile Iranian attack. Israel appears to have suffered little damage and no known strategic losses. Many of the missiles were destroyed before hitting their targets by US, Israeli, and other unnamed defenses.
Retaliation is nevertheless all but certain. Netanyahu has been looking for an opportunity to hit Iran for decades. The Israelis will likely aim for nuclear and oil production facilities. The nuclear facilities will be difficult to destroy, as vital ones are ensconced well under ground. The best the IDF can hope for is to block some of the access routes. The oil facilities are more vulnerable. Oil and natural gas are Iran’s major exports. If they don’t flow, the economy will deflate.
Restraint is not in the cards
The Americans and Europeans will be urging restraint on Israel. They don’t want a regional war. Netanyahu isn’t listening. His own political future depends on continuing the fighting and achieving a spectacular military success. Hamas has denied him that in Gaza. So far, Hezbollah has proven an easier target. Netanyahu knows President Biden will do nothing to Israel’s block arms supplies. And he wants to boost Trump’s chances of winning the presidency. So he has no reason to restrain an attack he has wanted to launch for decades.
Netanyahu’s governing coalition has only a thin majority in the Knesset. But his allies and his own Likud political party have given him a blank check in pursuing a regional war. The Arab states are protesting the war in Gaza but doing little to prevent Israel from attacking Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran. All of them are anathema to the Gulf monarchies. The Arab street is still sympathetic to the Palestinians, but it has little say. Restraint is not in the cards.
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Decent v indecent: you know what I mean
The choice in the American presidential election is a simple one. One candidate is decent. The other is indecent. This is true in many areas.
The economy
Trump mismanaged the COVID-19 epidemic and tanked the economy. Biden revived it. It is now growing more strongly than the pre-COVID rate.
The US economy is outpacing other countries:
Trump gave tax cuts to the rich that were expensive and did not deliver on his promises.
Biden has been really good for manufacturing:
If those aren’t enough reasons to vote for Harris, here’s another one for those in red states. Your economies depend far more on government programs than those of blue states:
Trump aims to cut those programs, give more tax breaks to the wealthy, and pay for them with tariffs the poor will shoulder more than the rich:
Immigration
Comparison of Trump’s and Biden’s immigration policies is complicated. But the numbers of illegal crossings surged during the Biden Administration as the COVID-19 pandemic receded:
The percentage of the US population that is immigrant is close to the earlier peak in 1890:
But deportations under Biden have been higher than under Trump:
More important: the US needs workers and entrepreneurs. Those immigrants Trump wants to deport open about a quarter of the new businesses in the US each year. The US has had more job openings than unemployed workers since 2018, except for the period of the pandemic:
Massive deportation would make the shortage of workers worse, reigniting inflation (along with the Trump tariffs). Immigrants have had lower crime rates than the US-born for at least 150 years. There is simply no moral, economic, or law enforcement reason for mass deportations, which would be violent and expensive.
Social issues
I can understand people who don’t like the idea of abortion. I don’t like it either. But that is not the issue. The issue is who should decide whether to end a pregnancy. I can’t imagine anyone more appropriate to do that that the pregnant woman herself, particularly if it is done before the fetus can survive. That was what Roe v Wade allowed. It should be allowed again, in all states. Anything less than that is bound to lead to confusion and strife. Governments should have a strictly limited role.
I don’t worry too much about the movement to ban books in libraries, even though the number of challenges is rising sharply:
I’m sure banning will guarantee books are read more rather than less.
But I do worry about the efforts to limit what schools teach, particularly about slavery and racism. Slavery was an abominable institution that tortured millions of people and killed many of them. No one should graduate from an American high school without that understanding. Students should also understand that enslavement of Africans was vital to America’s–and the world’s–economy for several hundred years before it was abolished. The wealth it produced is still in the hands of descendants of those who did not produce it. I’m not sure what we can do about that, but we should all appreciate the facts.
Foreign policy
The main foreign policy differences are all too apparent. Trump will back Israel to the hilt and surrender Ukraine (or part of it) to Russia. Harris will back Ukraine so long as the Ukrainians want to fight and try to restrain Israel. It is unclear what Trump would do about Taiwan. If he follows his own lead from Ukraine, he would hand it to China. Harris would likely follow Biden’s backing for the status quo against Chinese encroachments. On China, belligerence is bipartisan. Not much daylight between them.
More generally, Harris will back US NATO and Asian allies. Trump will try to wriggle free of alliance commitments.
In the past he has threatened NATO allies with letting them be attacked if they don’t ante up to 2% of GDP spent on defense by 2024. Today that means mainly Italy (where significant numbers of US troops are based), Spain, Portugal, Belgium (where NATO headquarters are located), Slovenia, and Croatia. The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine pushed the laggards over the 2% mark.
Trump has also suggested that Asian allies (South Korea and Japan) get their own nuclear weapons so that US forces can withdraw. That is a really bad idea.
Identity
Important as the issues above are, I suspect this election will come down to identity. The aging but wealthy heir Trump and the untested, fake hillbilly Vance are unabashed liars and fraudsters. They have tapped into a deep vein of white, especially male, supremacist feeling in the American population. It was always there, but they have allowed it to surface. Harris and Walz represent the opposite. The Vice President is an accomplished, well-educated Black woman running with an experienced white male as her second.
Many Americans won’t worry about the policy issues. They will vote on identity. Democrat v Republican, young v old, urban v suburban v rural, liberal v conservative, minority v majority, rich v poor. I hope they will also consider another dimension: decent v indecent. You know what I mean.
Please register and vote!
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It’s about Iran as well as the Palestinians
Israel is now conducting a different war in Lebanon than the one it has conducted in Gaza. As Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib (@afalkhatib) has noted, “Gaza is a war of revenge, not precision.” So far, the war in Lebanon has been far more precise and targeted, though of course it has also killed hundreds of innocent civilians.
The “precision” war
This is likely to continue. The Israelis know most Sunnis, Christians, and Druze in Lebanon do not trust Shia Hezbollah. There is no point in hitting them. Support for President Assad’s war against the (mainly Sunni) Syrian opposition and involvement in Lebanon’s corrupt sectarian politics have blotted Hezbollah’s copybook. Leveling communities that don’t like Hezbollah would make no sense.
Hezbollah opposes the existence of Israel, but it has done little for the approximately 200,000 Palestinians who live in Lebanon. The Israelis are letting it be known that they are contemplating a ground invasion, but that is likely to be unrewarding. The Israel Defense Force will prefer to continue to destroy Hezbollah large rocket and missile inventory from the air. Any ground incursion is likely to be limited to the south.
The Arab openness
The Jordanian Foreign Minister yesterday made the Arab and Muslim position clear:
This is not new for the Jordanians, who protect Israel’s security every day, in return for Israeli help with internal security. But “all of us are willing to right now guarantee the security of Israel” is a bold formula, even with the traditional conditions that follow. He was apparently speaking after a meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, whose 57 members include the non-Arab Muslim states.
There is more Muslim and Arab acceptance today of Israel’s existence than at any other time since 1948. But Israel isn’t paying any attention. Why not?
Two reasons
The first reason is the one Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi cites. Netanyahu wants to prevent the formation of a Palestinian state. He has devoted the last 30 years to that cause. He is not going to give it up now.
Just as important: for him, the fight with Hamas and Hezbollah is about Iran, not only Palestine. The IDF is well on its way to destroying Tehran’s best deterrent, which was Lebanese Hezbollah’s stock of rockets and missiles. Tehran’s Syrian deterrent is already in tatters. Hamas isn’t destroyed but will need time to recover. So Netanyahu is clearing the way for an Israeli attack on Iran, focused on its nuclear facilities. I find it hard to understand how Iran would use a nuclear weapon against a place as small as Israel without killing a lot of Muslims. But Israeli prime ministers have been willing to do some frightening things to prevent neighbors from getting nukes.
The consequences
With its deterrent gone and at risk of losing its nuclear assets, Tehran will likely amp up its nuclear program. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps will no doubt see production of nuclear weapons as a necessary deterrent against an Israeli attack. An Iranian sprint for nuclear weapons will ignite Turkiye and Saudi Arabia rivalry. That would make four nuclear or near nuclear powers in the Middle East, with many complicated relations among them. It is hard to see how that will serve Israeli or American interests.
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