CHICAGO: Arab Americans have faced decades-long challenges to be recognized as a community, and while several hurdles continue to exist, they are making tangible progress on the political front and in elections, Jim Zogby, the president and founder of the Arab American Institute, said Wednesday.
During an interview on The Ray Hanania Radio Show, Zogby explained that although the advances may not seem so, they are certainly measurable, and have resulted in important changes that have strengthened the Arab American community.
Zogby noted that Arab Americans now have one national month, April, in which their culture is recognized and celebrated in most states. There is also progress in giving Arabs a presence in the next US Census, despite the continued slow pace on this issue over five decades of activism.
He said the appointment of Hady Amr — by President Joe Biden as the deputy assistant secretary of state for Israeli and Palestinian affairs at the department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, one year after Biden became president — has opened significant doors that are moving the interests of Arab Americans forward.
“Having Hady Amr as deputy assistant of secretary of state (as) an envoy is a huge thing. That was inconceivable. That position was always Jewish. Always Jewish. And now it is an Arab American,” Zogby said.
“And sure, he hasn’t changed Biden’s policy. He hasn’t changed (Secretary of State Antony) Blinken’s policy. But if you looked under the surface and see what little things Hady has been able to do that wouldn’t have happened had he not been there, it’s big.”
Amr is one of several dozen Arab Americans who have been given important positions both in the White House and in the US State Department that puts the community “at the table” where decisions are made.
“There are things that happen there that would not have happened had he not been there,” Zogby said.
“I look at the stuff that Hady has been able to do. It’s not great. Not perfect. But if it hadn’t happened those hospitals in East Jerusalem wouldn’t have gotten the money. UNRWA wouldn’t have gotten the money. The partnership program wouldn’t have gotten the money. There are things that he has actually helped make happen. It’s always better to have someone sitting in the room at the table than not being in the room at the table.”
Zogby has held many top tier positions with the Democratic Party and with past Democrat presidents.
In September 2013, President Barack Obama appointed Zogby to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom. He was reappointed to a second term in 2015 and concluded his service in May 2017 having twice served as the agency’s chair.
Zogby has also been personally active in US politics serving in 1984 and 1988 as deputy campaign manager and senior advisor to the Jesse Jackson presidential campaign.
In 1988, Zogby led the first-ever debate on Palestinian statehood at that year’s National Democratic Convention which was held in Atlanta, Georgia. And, in 2000, 2008, and 2016 he served as a senior advisor to the campaigns of former Vice President Al Gore, Obama, and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
Arab Americans, Zogby said, are often restricted by being stereotyped or “narrowcast” in US society. When they get into positions of influence, they are often forced to speak only to “Arab” or “minority” issues rather than to the bigger, national issues of concern to the public.
“When you get narrowcast you get typed. Coupled with the fact that being of Arab descent means that if you do get a chance to weigh in on something other than that (the Middle East) you’ve got the fear of the ADL or some group coming after you saying: ‘Do you know who he is?’ One of the first breaks I got to do something beyond the narrow scope was (with) the National Italian American Foundation. And (former executive director) Fred Rotondaro, a great friend of mine, called back in the early 80s and asked me to co-chair a group that Jeno Paulucci, the guy who founded Jeno’s pizzas, was creating to deal with ethnic issues across the board, things that effected ethnic immigrant communities,” Zogby recalled.
“And one of them was media stereotyping. Because Italians have got issues with that. We have issues with that. Lots of people do. He asked me to chair the group. The ADL went ballistic (saying): ‘If you include them then we will have nothing to do with you.’ Fred stuck by me, but it always was an issue. If you were in that box, they had you cornered. If you got out of that box, they tried to push you back into that box. It was damaging to a lot of folks.”
Zogby said that despite many decades of trying to get Arabs counted in the US Census going back to the 1970s and 1980s, progress is being made. He defended the use of the term “MENA” which stands for Middle East and North Africa rather than “Arab” which is being pushed by Biden for Census inclusion.
MENA is a broad definition on the Census but it doesn’t exclude being identified as “Arab,” Zogby insisted.
“Now that doesn’t mean we’re MENA Americans. Some people have latched on to that. But that is nonsense. There is no such thing as a MENA American,” Zogby said.
“We decided to create the category on the Ancestry one (in the Census). You would put down Ancestry MENA. But then under it they would say, which country. We would still get an Arab category but it would allow the Turks, the Iranians, maybe the Armenians, too, to get counted. And the Israelis to get counted in that. But it would not say there was a MENA group. It would say there is a MENA, simply a rubric under which these unique ethnic groups get counted. So we can pull up still a Lebanese number, an Assyrian number. And a Libyan number. But we could also pull up an Arab number by lumping them all together, which gives us a sense of number.”
Not doing so, Zogby said, would reduce the Census count by more than 60 percent, Census officials have told him.
“Progress,” Zogby said, “often comes in small steps” and the Arab American community is inching towards bigger successes.
Also appearing during the radio show was Republican activist and former GOP candidate for the Michigan legislature Paul Sophiea who discussed the challenges Arabs face in the Republican Party.
Sophiea said that Arab Americans are traditionally conservative but the largest populations of Arabs thrive in Democratic Party dominated regions like in Dearborn and Detroit.
The Ray Hanania Show is broadcast live every Wednesday at 5 p.m. Eastern EST on WNZK AM 690 radio in Greater Detroit including parts of Ohio, and WDMV AM 700 radio in Washington D.C. including parts of Virginia and Maryland. The show is rebroadcast on Thursdays at 7 a.m. in Detroit on WNZK AM 690 and in Chicago at 12 noon on WNWI AM 1080.
You can listen to the radio show’s podcast by visiting ArabNews.com/rayradioshow.
WASHINGTON: Joe Biden has tested positive for COVID-19 for a second time and is returning to isolation, his White House doctor said Saturday, attributing the result to “rebound” positivity from treatment the US president received. Biden “tested positive late Saturday morning, by antigen testing,” following four consecutive days of negative tests, and “will reinitiate strict isolation procedures,” presidential physician Kevin O’Connor wrote in a memorandum. “This in fact represents ‘rebound’ positivity,” O’Connor said, referring to a situation in which patients treated with the drug Paxlovid — as Biden was — clear the virus but test positive after completing their course. “The president has experienced no re-emergence of symptoms and continues to feel quite well. This being the case, there is no reason to reinitiate treatment at this time,” he added. In a tweet, Biden seemed to seek to minimize the situation. “Folks, today I tested positive for COVID again. This happens with a small minority of folks,” he wrote. “I’ve got no symptoms but I am going to isolate for the safety of everyone around me. I’m still at work, and will be back on the road soon.” In accordance with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, Biden will reenter isolation for at least five days. He will isolate at the White House until he tests negative. The agency says most rebound cases remain mild and that severe disease during that period has not been reported. Word of Biden’s positive test came — he had been negative Friday morning — just two hours after the White House announced a presidential visit to Michigan this coming Tuesday to highlight the passage of a bill to promote domestic high-tech manufacturing. Biden had also been scheduled to visit his home in Wilmington, Delaware, on Sunday morning, where first lady Jill Biden has been staying while the president was positive. Both trips have been canceled as Biden has returned to isolation. The second positive test came just three days after O’Connor said Biden had tested negative and no longer needed to isolate, which he had been doing since receiving a first positive result on July 21. Biden has for the most part been conspicuously careful about observing COVID protocols — in contrast to his predecessor Donald Trump, who sometimes mocked those who wore masks. “The President continues to be very specifically conscientious to protect any of the Executive Residence, White House, Secret Service and other staff whose duties require any (albeit socially distanced) proximity to him,” O’Connor said. As the oldest US president in history — he will turn 80 in November — Biden’s health receives constant attention. On Wednesday, he had ended his earlier five-day COVID isolation, appearing energetic as he told cheering aides that his quick recovery should inspire Americans to take advantage of free vaccines and treatments. He contrasted his seemingly quick recovery to Trump’s more serious bout with the disease in October 2020, before vaccines were available. “When my predecessor got COVID, he had to get helicoptered to Walter Reed Medical Center,” Biden said. “He was severely ill. Thankfully, he recovered. When I got COVID, I worked from upstairs of the White House.” He added that being fully vaccinated, taking preventative tests, then using the Paxlovid therapeutic prevents deaths and is available at no cost. “You don’t need to be president to get these tools,” he said. O’Connor had warned after clearing Biden from his first round of COVID that the president would wear a mask for 10 days when around others and continue to test regularly in case of a “rebound.” O’Connor says Biden is generally in good health. He has been fully vaccinated and received two booster shots against the coronavirus. (With AFP and Reuters)
EASTERN UKRAINE, Ukraine: Kateryna never takes pictures with comrades before going to the front line — its bad luck. Karina does not tell her mother she is going to the front. Iana uses social media to try and raise the morale at home. On another day of war in eastern Ukraine, the three are resting with their unit in a village before another rotation. They agree to talk about their lives on the front line of a war they were not expecting, which has lasted more than five months — and felt like years. Kateryna Novakivska, 29, is deputy commander of a unit in the Donbas, an industrial region in eastern Ukraine where fighting is raging. The 29-year-old comes from Vinnytsia in central Ukraine, and had just graduated from an army academy when the war broke out. Her role is to provide the troops with moral and psychological support. After speaking about the “satisfactory” morale among soldiers and the justness of Ukraine’s cause, she talks more personally about life on the front. “The hardest thing for them is losing comrades,” she said. For Kateryna, it is being able to distance herself from the soldiers’ horrific stories. “They talk more easily with me because there are a lot of things that they cannot tell their loved ones,” she said. Their biggest fear is being left behind on the battlefield — dead or wounded. She remembers one day, May 28, when 11 soldiers were killed and around 20 went missing. In the chaos of war, some troops disappear and nobody knows what has happened to them. Kateryna’s own greatest fear is being kidnapped by Russian soldiers, though she said she has “planned for everything.” She has a small scar on her nose — left by an explosion in March. The lotus flower tattoo on her forearm is a memory from her time in Volnovakha in 2017 — a town now in Russian-occupied territory that Kateryna said “no longer exists.” On social media, Iana Pazdrii plays on the stereotypes of being a soldier, showing off her perfectly manicured nails as she drives an armored vehicle or clutches a Kalashnikov. The 35-year-old has been fighting since the start of the invasion in Ukraine and, like all her comrades, has not seen her child for five months. “I volunteered because I am a patriot and I felt I could be useful here and I am,” said Iana, who speaks of the army as “a family.” Whenever she has time, she posts little glimpses of military life on Instagram or TikTok. “Some soldiers have to live on ‘line zero’ under shelling,” she said, using a term frequently used in Ukraine for the front line. “I try to show that we are keeping up morale despite everything, to tell people not to be afraid and that the army is doing everything to defend the country. “But to be honest, it’s hard sometimes.” Dozens of soldiers are killed every day on Ukraine’s eastern front, where Russian forces made major advances in May and June, taking over almost the whole of the Lugansk region. Since then, the front line has moved little, but ruthless artillery battles between the two sides have intensified. Karina, a former textile worker of Tajik origin who signed up to the army in 2020 on a two-year contract, drives her armored vehicle back and forth from the front line. “When we are in position, it’s hard thinking about fellow soldiers, hoping that nobody will be killed or wounded, that you yourself will not come under attack,” said the young woman, who is also a mechanic. Her husband is anxiously waiting for her at home — but she said “nobody tells me what to do.” When Karina calls her mother, she said: “I don’t tell her I’m at line zero and she pretends to believe me.” Karina has no illusions — she does not think the war will be over soon. “The Russians have already taken a lot of territory” in Ukraine, she said. Her sister-in-arms Iana insisted there was no option but victory. “Whatever happens, we will win. We do not have the right to lose,” she said. After the war, Iana wants to travel to the Caribbean and South America. “I need to fulfil my dreams. I think I deserve it,” she smiled.
LONDON: The UK government has acknowledged mistakes and admitted regrets over the evacuation of animal charity workers from Afghanistan. As Taliban forces approached Kabul last August, Nowzad charity chief Pen Farthing organized an evacuation of dogs from the Afghan capital after appealing directly to the UK government. The UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office was questioned afterward over the role that Prime Minister Boris Johnson had played in the reallocation of evacuation resources. The government denied that he had personally ordered the case to be prioritized. However, the Foreign Affairs Committee claimed earlier this year that several senior officials believed that Johnson intervened in the case to secure the evacuation, and that there was no “plausible alternative explanation.” The FAC’s report said that despite failing to meet the official criteria for evacuation, Nowzad charity employees were granted aircraft seats “at the last minute after a mysterious intervention from elsewhere in government.” However, Nowzad staff eventually ended up traveling to Pakistan. The FCDO admitted that internal communication mistakes caused some staff to believe that Johnson had intervened. A spokesperson said: “The government acknowledges again that the way the decision to call forward Nowzad staff for evacuation was made was exceptional. It agrees that, in this particular case, more care should have been taken within the FCDO in how the decision was communicated to staff. “It acknowledges again that an error in the way the decision was communicated internally left some FCDO staff believing that the prime minister had made the decision. “The FCDO agrees with the committee on the importance of accurate record keeping, even in a complex, fast-moving crisis such as this.”
MILAN: Police in Italy arrested an Italian man in the slaying of a Nigerian vendor whose brutal beating death on a busy beach town thoroughfare was filmed by onlookers without any apparent attempt to intervene physically. Video footage of the attack has circulated widely on Italian news websites and social media platforms, eliciting outrage as Italy enters a parliamentary election campaign in which the right-wing coalition has already made immigration an issue. “The murder of Alika Ogorchukwu is dismaying,’’ Enrico Letta, the head of the left-wing Democratic Party, wrote on Twitter, naming the vendor who died Friday. “Unheard of ferocity. Widespread indifference. There can be no justification.” Ogorchukwu, 39, was selling goods midday Friday on the main street of Civitanova Marche, a beach town on the Adriatic Sea coast, when the aggressor grabbed a crutch the vendor used to walk and struck him down, according to police. Video shows the assailant then wrestling the victim to the pavement as the victim fought back, eventually subduing Ogorchukwu with the weight of his body. Police chief Matteo Luconi told Italian news channel Sky TG24 that onlookers called police, who responded to the scene after a suspect had fled and attempted to administer aid to the victim. It was not clear if he died at the scene. Police used street cameras to track the assailant’s movements and detained a man identified as Filippo Claudio Giuseppe Ferlazzo, 32. Ferlazzo was being held on suspicion of murder and theft, the latter for allegedly taking the victim’s phone when he fled. Luconi told Sky TG24 the assailant lashed out after the vendor made “insistent” requests for pocket change. Police were questioning witnesses and have taken into evidence videos of the attack. They said the suspect has made no statements. Ogorchukwu, who was married with two children, resorted to selling goods on the street after he was struck by a car and lost his job as a laborer due to the injuries he suffered, said Daniel Amanza, who runs the ACSIM association for immigrants in the Marche region’s Macerata province. The accident left him with a limp, and needing crutches, Amanza said. Amanza gave a different version of what had preceded the assault, saying the aggressor became infuriated when Ogorchukwu told the man’s companion she was beautiful. “This compliment killed him,’’ Amanza told The Associated Press. “The tragic fact is that there were many people nearby. They filmed, saying ‘Stop,’ but no one moved to separate them,’’ Amanza said. Macerata was the site of a 2018 shooting spree targeting African immigrants that injured six. Luca Traini, 31, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for the shootings, which Italy’s highest court confirmed qualified as a hate crime.
LONDON: UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss cemented her place as front-runner in the race to replace Prime Minister Boris Johnson, winning endorsement Saturday from an influential former rival for the top job. Tom Tugendhat, who was eliminated from the contest in earlier rounds of voting by Conservative lawmakers, said Truss had the “resolution, determination, and passion” to be prime minister. The endorsement is a blow to ex-Treasury chief Rishi Sunak, the other finalist in the race for the next Conservative leader. The winner will be decided by votes from about 180,000 party members across the country. Polls give Truss an edge with Tory members, though Sunak is more popular with the general public, who don’t have a say in the race. The winner will be announced Sept. 5 and will automatically become prime minister, replacing Johnson, who stepped down as Conservative leader this month after three years in office following months of ethics scandals. Tugendhat, a prominent figure from the party’s centrist “One Nation” group, wrote in the Times of London newspaper that Truss had “the foreign-affairs experience to build alliances and keep our country safe.” Truss also secured backing this week from Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, who is highly regarded by party members for his handling of Britain’s response to the war in Ukraine. Wallace said Truss’s international experience as Britain’s top diplomat and commitment to increased military spending gave her “the edge.” Sunak, who was the favorite candidate among Tory lawmakers who whittled down the field of candidates from an initial 11 contenders, is struggling to gain momentum. He has accused Truss of peddling unrealistic promises, especially on the economy. Truss says she will cut taxes immediately to ease the cost-of-living crisis, while Sunak argues it is vital to get inflation under control first. Sunak said Truss’s tax cuts would give a “sugar rush” but ultimately pour “fuel on the fire” of inflation that is already at a 40-year high.