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James Zogby: One day Lieberman and Hamas will sit at the same table.
Last update - 12:19 05/04/2009
'To Iran, Israel is not a goal, it's a tool'
By Natasha Mozgovaya, Haaretz U.S. Correspondent
Tags: James Zogby, Israel News 
James Zogby, founder of the Arab American Institute, believes that Iran nukes would not be a threat to Israel.

Dr. James J. Zogby, founder and president of the Arab American Institute in Washington D.C., would certainly like to see Avigdor Lieberman and Hamas sitting at the same negotiating table. In fact, he trusts Senator George Mitchell, President Barack Obama's special envoy to the Middle East, when he says that it will happen one day.

"George Mitchell is much smarter than anyone who has done this job before in the Middle East," Zogby tells Haaretz. "If you study how George Mitchell worked on the [Northern Ireland peace] plan - he works slowly and methodically, he changes perceptions and he knows that you have to have a holistic view as you move forward."

And how does Netanyahu government fit into this plan?
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"It doesn't matter. You could have said the same thing about 'bad guys' win, it's a setback - but it's also a necessary setback to move forward.

"At some point you have to have Hamas and Lieberman sitting at the same table together. They'll kick and scream and may not want to go to the table, but one represents maybe 20 percent of the population, the other maybe 40 percent, and if you don't have them at the table you're not going to move forward. Both sides' extremes have to be there, there is no way around it.

"Mitchell also says, the more preconditions you put on the negotiations, the less chance it's going to work. The only precondition should be: violence should stop. He didn't accede to the Irish Republic demand that IRA first have to give up their weapons, because then no one would be sitting down. So I don't think that everyone sitting at the table must agree that Israel is a sovereign and independent state, or that everyone from the Israeli side should agree that there should be an independent Palestinian state based on the '67 borders. They have to agree that we talk, not shoot - the rest is up for the discussion. Otherwise you will have Hamas continuing to cause damage and some Israeli groups that won't agree to withdraw from the West Bank. It's better to have them talking, even if it takes years to unwind these attitudes."

Don't you think that with complications like Iran, there is no luxury to waste time in endless talks?

"I think that Iran was inserted into the region, and they can be separated from the region. I don't think it's a fixed component of this issue."

And in the event that they get nuclear weapons?

"If they get the bomb, they're not a threat to Israel. They are a threat to the Gulf. Because Iran's goal is not Israel; Israel is a tool that Iran uses in order to export its extremism into the Gulf. From the days of the Shah, they wanted hegemony in the Gulf, and Israel is a game they play. So when they want to win support among Arabs, they start screaming about Israel; they simply play off frustrations and fears in the Arab world. And to some degree they've succeeded ? we've granted them a great victory with Iraq, we got the region upset, we turned the people against their governments, and the combination of the foolish policies of Bush and the foolish policies of Israel have handed the Iranians the great set of diplomatic victories in the region. Can you unwind it? Absolutely. You make progress towards peace and justice, and at the same time you open a door for a dialogue with Iran, but get tough with them."

And if Israel attacks Iran, before S-300 missiles are delivered to Tehran

"That would be really stupid. But I've been in this game long enough to know that people sometimes do really stupid things, like invade Iraq. If it happens, it would set back things for a long, long time to come. And it wouldn't serve Israel's goals at all, it will only exacerbate the asymmetric warfare.

"But I remember that when people where talking about whether Bush would invade Iraq, I said: 'It's so stupid he'll never do it'. And then he did. So I stopped making predictions."

George Mitchell held a conference call with the U.S. Jewish organizations, and on the same day he held a separate conference call with the Arab organizations. These organizations, representing about 3.5 million members of the Arab American community, are basically content with the first steps of the new Administration toward the Arab world.

"I think it has been brilliant," says Zogby of Obama's new direction. But he also misses the days of Clinton administration, when the representatives of Jewish and Arab organizations could sit together and discuss different issues.

"I think they could actually combine these calls. I think both communities have separate needs, but I offered Senator Mitchell that they should bring us together like Clinton did. This is not going to be easy and we'll have bumps on the road. But what happened during the Clinton years is that the Jewish leaders were able to call me or I could call them, and say: 'I don't like what's happening right now, can we do something to stop it?' It helped to keep the debate constructive rather than to take shots on each other.

"When you're sitting in the same room, it's harder to become one's opponent. If you meet with them both, they develop the sense of responsibility to have a civil discourse with each other."

So what did you discuss?

"Some people on the call talked about opening borders in Gaza, some were concerned about settlements, the situation in Lebanon. But mostly people were supportive of what the Obama administration has done so far."

Zogby refers to the years of Bush administration as a "disaster" and that alienated the Arab American population with its policies.

"We said that no terrorists were caught because of these policies - the airport profiling, the special registration [at] the Justice Department. All they did was waste FBI and Immigration manpower. If you're looking for the needle in the haystack, you don't want to add more hay to the stack. It alienated the very people they needed to win their support: the recent immigrant communities that became frightened of them. We tried to bridge the differences, but the government kept making it more difficult.

"But the FBI did at the same time work very hard to protect us. Three guys are in jail because they threatened my life. Without them we would still have these predators' threatening phone calls and emails. My hope is as we developed a cooperative relationship with the previous Administration after the couple of difficult years, that we can do it with the new one too."

The image problems of the Arab community in the U.S. still prevail, he admits.

"This one-dimensional portrayal of Arabs as a problem, sitting at home, watching all day Al-Jazeera and hating America and Israel - that's not who Arabs are," he says. "About quarter of the community is Muslim, the rest are Christians. It's a fairly successful community; within ten years they own their businesses, and bring their families and do very well. We want American policy to be different and better and respectful of the region and being respected more by the region, but we're not exiles in America, we're Americans. There are the exile groups here who want to support the Christians in Lebanon or Islam or whatever, but that's not how I believe the majority of this community operates.

"The generations born here usually don't identify specific issues and parties, they want Lebanon to be free and sovereign, they want the Palestinians to have a state of their own, secure and prosperous, so they can visit their families. They want a more generalized sense of progress, peace, normalized relations between U.S. and the region. I remember one time a Lebanese ambassador coming here to see me and asking: 'So how do you organize yourself? For example, that man out there - he's Shia, from southern Lebanon, right?' I said: 'I have no idea, I've never asked him - it's not an issue here."

Until the last elections, the community had five representatives of Arab origin in both Houses of Congress. This time, one lost and the other - Ray LaHood - joined President Obama's cabinet as Transportation Secretary.

"Every year there are three or four new ones who run, some will probably win in the next couple of terms. But some Jewish groups are pretty difficult to deal with, some are resolutely opposed to us even being involved. I know this because some of them said to me: 'Why should we ever let you into the Democratic Party? You just want to make trouble.' They actually made life difficult for us, and we had to break down some barriers.

"We had a situation when a mayor raised money from Arab Americans, and the Jewish community would attack him for taking money from Arabs. Finally he gave the money back, and it was very hurtful. And the politicians would come to me and say: 'I'm running for the Senate, I know you people have been friends of mine, but I'd like you to ask the community not to contribute to me, because AIPAC will hurt me if they do.' These were burdens that we seem to have overcome, but some of the people in the Jewish community haven't changed at all. They see it as a zero-sum game, either-or, and 'some of their best friends are Arabs,' just like the guys who say that some of their best friends are Jews...

"But at the same time we've built some very good ties with people in the Jewish community, and not just the peace groups. During the Oslo period, we [built] relations, and those friendships have lasted until today, though we don't necessarily agree on things. But the Jewish leadership is still pretty tough. I think they have to grow up a little bit."

Regarding your criticism of Israel, why should the Jewish organizations cooperate with you?

"Because we're here, and we are real, we're an American community, we have to be recognized and respected as that. We have contributions to make, and America has too many interests and involvements in the Middle East to have a zero sum game.

"We're partners in developing America's relations with the Middle East. It can't be just Israel and the United States. Can Israel be accepted in the region, if Arab Americans cannot be accepted in America? There are still some people on both sides who drive us all into the ditch. If we want to see this over and move forward, then all of us have to develop some new thinking on how to do this."

Zogby is confident that Israel won the public relations war in the U.S. during Gaza offensive.

"Israelis did what they had to do, it's a war, I'm not faulting them for doing that. They do propaganda well, and Arabs are horrible at propaganda, and they do it miserably. I was watching the networks, and CNN had their special analyst on, pointing to the area around Gaza and saying that Israeli people there are afraid every day because of the rocket attacks."

Isn't it true?

"It's true, there is no question that these rockets were terrorist, they were an abomination. Hamas and its leaders have done enormous damage to the Palestinians and to the Palestinian cause from the time they began back in the 90s. What kind of group trains young people to kill themselves and kill innocent kids? I've never supported them and never liked their tactics. The Palestine I knew people dreamed about was not a Palestine Hamas wants to create. The Palestine that I grew up and heard about and drew inspiration was of Mahmud Darwish, the poets and the painters, the people who loved their land and their villages, not these guys.

"I understand how angry people are because of the occupation but I think that the problem on the Arabs' side was that they believed that if their cause was just, it would be understood. And justice doesn't win. If justice won, the Indians would be running America.

"You have to make your story understandable to people. Israelis had their story understandable to people, but there has been no counter narrative coming through. 'We made a painful sacrifice and evacuated Gaza', but you didn't really leave Gaza, you kept it surrounded and closed off. What the U.S. wanted you to do was to leave Gaza cooperatively with the PA and allow the PA to take control. There was no Hamas to worry about. I believe that Hamas took power in Gaza mainly because Sharon left unilaterally."

So you wanted the Hamas narrative be heard during the Gaza war?

"I think there was a larger story to be told about how we got into this mess in Gaza in the first place and what can be done to unravel it. And the U.S. made a horrible mistake by not supporting the Mecca accord [for reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah]. There are two pathologies playing out there, two damaged peoples and no adult supervision, a classic situation where no one is right and everyone is making it 'wronger.'

"The Bush administration failed miserably in the last several years and left Obama with a more difficult situation. We knew back in 2000 that it was not going to be good, but I don't think any of us imagined how bad it would get."

Now, he says, when a future Israeli government might find itself in a stalemate, it's time for the countries in region to broaden the Arab peace initiative.

"It's nice that Arabs think that America can say to Israel: 'Get out of the West Bank' and it happens. But it's not going to happen. I believe the Arabs have to start doing which they didn't do 20 years ago. To begin to develop an alternative path, to create a vision so compelling people that will be drawn to it. I wouldn't suggest that sheikhs - given the opinion in the region - travel to Jerusalem and say: 'Let's have peace,' but they can talk about the possible future.

"While Netanyahu might not bite, he doesn't accept the end of the road... I wouldn't expect of Arabs to open their bank in Tel Aviv tomorrow [but] you can talk about what the trade benefits would be. It would be good to see the next elections in Israel to be about: 'Look at what we can get.' And at the same time do the same with the Palestinians. What has Abu Mazen [Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas] actually gotten? The prisoner exchanges happened with Hezbollah. And now they are talking about prisoner exchanges with Hamas. Abu Mazen got 300 people who were old men ready to come out of prison anyway.

"I've been [at] this work for 30 years, and every time there is talk about settlement freezes, at the end of the day they grow, and checkpoints have grown. Both sides are making irrational decisions, and somebody has to make it clear that there is a price to be paid for bad behavior and there is a reward for a good behavior. At this time, Israel gets rewards for good and bad behavior, and the Palestinians get punishments for both. In altering this dynamic, I think Arabs have a role and the U.S. has a role. Unfortunately, you can't get rid of Hamas ? they will be around - but what you can do is to alter public opinion to say: 'We know we lost people and we are angry, but we have to move forward'."
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  1.   Dr. James Zogby is one of my heros... 17:29  |  BBSNews 05/04/09
  2.   Miss Mozgovaya 18:04  |  Shoded Yam 05/04/09
  3.   what a fool--Christian Arab grovels before Muslims 19:19  |  bob 05/04/09
  4.   Arabs extortions are no human rights but lead to arabs war crimes 19:26  |  Joseph.E 05/04/09
  5.   Iran NO Threat To Israel 20:26  |  Heather 05/04/09
  6.   hating jews 21:21  |  Susan 05/04/09
  7.   About the Iraq invasion 21:56  |  Thanh 05/04/09
  8.   Let Arabs and Jews settle their issues. 01:15  |  Jeff 06/04/09
  9.   Israel-Iran 08:31  |  Fred White 06/04/09
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