Dean Greeted Warmly by Arab Americans
Group Appears to Back Democrats
washingtonpost.com
By David S. Broder
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 19, 2003; Page A05
DEARBORN, Mich., Oct. 18 -- An assemblage of politically
active Arab Americans gave former Vermont governor Howard Dean repeated
ovations Saturday at the windup of a two-day meeting that marked
a clear shift of allegiance from President Bush to his Democratic rivals.
Dean got by far the warmest response of any of the seven
presidential hopefuls who addressed the 300 people attending the national
leadership conference of the Arab American Institute (AAI),
a Washington-based advocacy group. But every Democratic speaker was
applauded for criticizing the administration's policies in the Middle
East and especially for the anti-terrorism tactics of Attorney General
John D. Ashcroft, condemned by participants in a morning panel
as targeting immigrants from Muslim countries and routinely violating
their civil liberties.
The political tilt of the nominally nonpartisan gathering became
so evident that James J. Zogby, the president of the AAI and himself a
member of the Democratic National Committee's executive committee,
told the activists attending from around the country that he had
heard "some complain that there is an imbalance in the program."
He said that is inevitable when nine people are running on the
Democratic side and only one on the Republican.
But George D. Salem, chairman of the AAI board and an
active Republican, acknowledged in his remarks that "there is a war going on"
within the GOP and the administration, and that Arab Americans
"and other moderates" have an uphill struggle with conservatives who
support the anti-terrorism USA Patriot Act and align the U.S. government
with the policies of the Israeli government.
The apparent shift of sentiment in the Arab American community
could be of political significance. Polling by John Zogby, brother of the
AAI president, indicated that in 2000, Bush enjoyed an 8-percentage -point
lead over Al Gore among these voters. Numbering 500,000 to 1
million, they are concentrated in such battleground states as Michigan,
Ohio and New Jersey. Bush has been in Dearborn, the largest
community of Arab Americans, twice in the past 20 months,
but opposition to his policies has continued to grow.
Dean followed a half-dozen of his rivals who spoke in person
or by satellite Friday and lost no time in reminding the audience that unlike
most of them, he had opposed the war in Iraq from the outset.
He said that subsequent events have undercut the claims Bush made to
support the war, adding that as president, "I would never send your
sons and daughters . . . to a foreign land to fight without first telling
the truth to the American people."
He described himself as optimistic about the chances of a
peace agreement in the Middle East, based on U.S. support for separate Israeli
and Palestinian states, despite the current fighting and diplomatic stalemate.
He said that of all Arab peoples, the Palestinians "have the
best opportunity to create democracy," and said he had
met Palestinian leaders who are committed to that goal.
"But only an American president can bring peace," Dean said,
joining others' complaint that Bush had let many opportunities for personal
leadership slip. He was cheered when he repeated his earlier promise
that if elected, he would send former President Bill Clinton as his
personal envoy to the Middle East.
The cheers and ovations grew more frequent when he turned
to condemning the Bush administration's anti-terrorism tactics within the
United States, saying that its treatment of immigrants and roundups
of Muslims amounted to "ethnic profiling" and violated constitutional
guarantees -- reinforcing claims made by a battery of lawyers, scholars
and community service agency workers during the morning panel.
"Because John Ashcroft touts the Patriot Act around the country
does not mean John Ashcroft is a patriot," Dean said to rising cheers.
"That American flag over there belongs to every American -- not
only to John Ashcroft, Rush Limbaugh, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson."
In response to an audience question about the security fence
under construction to separate Israel and Israeli settlements from Palestinian
territory, Dean struggled. "The Israelis have a right to defend
themselves," he said, "but this is a very sad story," blocking even casual
contact between the two peoples. "The course of the wall,"
extending into disputed territory, "is a concern," he said, "as I have told the
Israeli leadership. But this is a short-term tactic for defense against terror.
The wall cannot be permanent."
That response was met by a moment of silence and then
scattered applause. On Friday, when Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) offered a
somewhat similar defense of Israeli policy, there were boos and shouts of opposition.
Throughout the meeting, Democratic speakers fared much better
than the few Republicans who accepted invitations to appear. Former
Republican National Committee chairman Marc Racicot, now chairman
of Bush's reelection campaign, ran into stony silence Friday, while
Democratic National Committee Chairman Terence A. McAuliffe was
lustily cheered at the evening banquet, where Rep. Richard A.
Gephardt (Mo.) delivered his standard stump speech to applause.
John Khamis of San Jose, Calif., a Republican activist, said
the combination of Bush's Middle East policy and Ashcroft's use of the Patriot
Act means that "the attractive parts of the Republican agenda,
our economic policies, are falling on deaf ears."
Asked if he thought Bush could regain support among Arab Americans
before next year's election, Khamis said, "I don't know. It's going to
take a real effort, and the odds are against him. I've had 30-year
Republicans tell me they are re-registering as independents."
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
washingtonpost.com |
