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| Arab Americans listen to a group of high-level Barack Obama presidential campaign figures in a meeting at a Southfield banquet hall Tuesday. |
Obama foreign policy advisor Susan Rice and national political director Patrick Gaspard addressed a crowd of about 30 at the Silver Garden of Southfield – a large banquet hall and former synagogue run by an Arab American.
Rice appealed to the community to help give Obama the opportunity to ensure affordable healthcare and new jobs under a new administration.
“He can’t do that without you. This is a vital moment,” she said.
Gaspard said he hopes to be able to quantify support in Arab American districts after the election and demonstrate the community’s role in electing a new president.
“We want to not only win. We want to win with you,” he said.
Rice described Republican nominee John McCain and running mate Sarah Palin as representing “more of the worst” of the Bush administration’s policy of “fear, division, demonization and hate.”
She cited Obama’s early opposition to the Iraq War and continued opposition to warrantless spying as examples of Obama’s potential to offer new direction.
“If we don’t succeed in making a change, we’re going to stay in this ditch that we’re stuck in domestically and internationally,” she said. “Barack Obama can help us out of that ditch.”
The meeting was cut short after a limited number of questions from the group because of time constraints as Rice scrambled to squeeze in time with women’s groups during her trip to Michigan. But the campaign offered a newly approved list of positions on various issues compiled specifically for Arab American constituents.
The fact sheet labeled “Barack Obama and the Arab American Community” promises tax help for small businesses, a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, immediate attention to Middle East conflicts and restoration of basic civil rights.
“Barack Obama strongly supports the bipartisan efforts to restore habeas corpus,” the sheet reads in a section on civil liberties. “He firmly believes that those who pose a danger to this country should be swiftly brought to justice, but those who do not should have sufficient due process to ensure that they are not wrongfully denied their liberty.”
Campaign workers said the list of positions, the product of a conference call held last week in which Arab Americans voiced concerns to Michigan policy director Jenna Pilat, will be available at www.arabamericans.barackobama.com.
The few questions that were asked at the Tuesday meeting all revolved around foreign policy and the plight of the occupied Palestinian territories.
Rice said that from the very early days of his administration, Obama, if elected, would begin working on the peace process through which “a democratic Palestinian state and a Jewish state can live side by side in peace and security.”
The general difference, Rice said, between McCain and Obama on policy toward resolving various conflicts in the Middle East is that “Barack Obama doesn’t think we can accomplish that by the barrel of the gun.”
She said the Obama campaign’s answers to some questions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may not be the exact answers Arab Americans want to hear, but that Obama, unlike, she suggests, the McCain campaign, wholeheartedly addresses the issue and at least listens to opposing sides.
“If the U.S. is disengaged, disinterested or worse, then nothing is going to happen,” she said.
In response to a question on the siege of Gaza, she said: “The people of Gaza are in an enormously difficult situation because of the siege that Hamas has brought upon its own people… The fact is that for every rocket there is a response.”
When challenged by a participant who described the siege as a brutal form of collective punishment, Rice said “I welcome that perspective and it’s one that we need to hear.”
Mohammad Abd-Elsalam, of Livonia, who asked the question, said he intends to vote for Obama, has donated money to the campaign and will continue to support the Illinois Senator.
“I wasn’t satisfied with her answer,” he said. “The Obama campaign can do more. One and a half million Palestinians are being collectively punished because of the ‘mistakes’ of Hamas… I’m not a supporter of Hamas, but give the Palestinian people a chance.”
But “It didn’t take away from my support.”
He said he’s confident there will be enough progressive people around Obama to ensure just policy if he is elected.
“At least he’ll engage in dialogue… We need change,” he said.
He said Arab Americans often vote based on their emotions rather than logic.
“We have to change. We can’t vote on everything based on our hearts. We have to vote with our minds,” Abd-Elsalam said.
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