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The driving force behind nearly every major conflict in the Arab and Muslim worlds, from Syria to Iraq and Afghanistan to Sudan, has been or is US foreign policy, in conjunction with individual American allies.
Washington leverages its influence over the Arab and Muslim worlds through billions of dollars in annual foreign aid, through trade including oil and through the manipulation of pro-American media outlets that have influence throughout the Middle East.
Foreign aid has long been provided to several Arab countries, including $1.3 billion per year to Egypt, $1.5 billion to Jordan, between $200 million and $1 billion to Iraq and more than $1 billion to help the Syrian people, to name just a few.
Mainstream American news media outlets — several of which receive direct US government assistance through massive subscription purchases and hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising — help advance America’s interest through propaganda that impacts how the rest of the world sees the country’s policies.
Only one Middle East nation has orchestrated a sophisticated, multilevel strategy to manage all that influence, define media reporting to reflect its narrative and secure America’s unwavering support. That is Israel, which has a record of killing and injuring more Arabs and Muslims than any other country.
So, why do the Arab and Muslim worlds not do what Israel has done through its lobbying apparatus to strengthen American support for its interests? Why have they not turned to Arab Americans to help make US politicians more sympathetic to their concerns, policies and needs?
Now is the time for Arabs in America and the Middle East to come together and set aside their differences
Ray Hanania
Arab and Muslim Americans played an important role in Donald Trump’s election victory last year, as acknowledged by the president himself. In the left-leaning and very pro-Israel mainstream American news media, however, Arab and Muslim voters are often blamed for electing Trump, whose recent policy announcements have riled the political establishment.
Media critics generally ignore the fact that, while Trump may make frequent shoot-from-the-hip policy announcements that anger or perplex them, his predecessor funded, armed and protected at the UN the 15-month Israeli genocide that took the lives of almost 50,000 Palestinians in Gaza.
On the face of it, American foreign policy and its double standards when it comes to applying principles and justice fairly are perplexing. But it is only thus because the Arab world and Arab Americans are estranged and do not work together.
Israel’s immorally excessive response to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack and American’s blind embrace of the false propaganda narrative Israel uses to justify its violent actions, which the International Criminal Court alleges can be described as “war crimes,” has created an opportunity for the relationship to be reset.
Now is the time for Arabs in America and the Middle East to come together, set aside their differences, speak with one voice and change the destructive pattern that has engulfed so many Arab countries. A partnership like that can refocus responsibility for the region’s troubles on the one country that claims to want to be “accepted” in the Middle East, but which seeks to redefine and control it: Israel.
Israel is most vulnerable to a powerful countercampaign to influence the American understanding of Middle Eastern events.
In 1973, Saudi Arabia demonstrated how powerful the Arab world was when it led the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries in imposing an oil embargo on the US in response to its one-sided bias toward Israeli violence. Israel claimed to be the victim but in fact it was the provocateur, initiating violence that it then redefined through US-driven media propaganda.
A few million dollars could shift the vote in Congress away from Israel’s narrow interests toward those of the Arab world
Ray Hanania
That moment created a major shift between the West and the Arab world. America went through a crisis. Since then, Arab world oil prices have been managed in a one-sided relationship with America, resulting in the lowest possible gasoline prices for Americans, who only pay a little more than $3 per gallon on average — less than half the cost in many other countries.
Israel has an equivalent to the oil power of the Arab world, but it is far less expensive. In the last national election cycle, pro-Israeli political action committees donated almost $5 million into the campaign coffers of candidates for some of the most influential American political offices, from state governors to members of Congress. These donations helped pro-Israel candidates win office, thereby giving Tel Aviv enormous influence.
Instead of fueling the anger of Americans by imposing higher oil prices, Israel’s campaign addresses a political need in a positive way, building political devotion to its needs.
The Arab world can easily do the same thing through the right Arab American activists. A few million dollars could shift the vote in Congress away from Israel’s narrow interests to embrace the interests of the Arab world. And a few million more to fund a pro-Arab public relations campaign via the media could significantly alter American public attitudes.
We are talking about a campaign through Arab American activists costing maybe $10 million to $20 million to alter America’s intrinsically anti-Arab, anti-Muslim policies.
It will not happen overnight. But the dynamics of today’s world and the increasing violence in the Middle East create an opportunity that must be grasped in order to stop the destructive spread of Western-backed violence throughout the Middle East and to undermine the growing anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia sweeping through the US.
It would cost so little, why would we not try?
• Ray Hanania is an award-winning former Chicago City Hall political reporter and columnist. He can be reached on his personal website at www.Hanania.com. X: @RayHanania