Last weekend, the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS) held its 43rd annual dinner in downtown Detroit at the Renaissance Center.  Much was to be celebrated at the event, including the announcement of a $2 million endowment to be awarded to the Arab American National Museum from Arab American philanthropist Russell Ebeid.

For over 20 years, at this annual event, ACCESS has presented certain individuals with an award titled “The Arab American of the Year.”  This year’s gala saw two members of our community receive the honor; Ray LaHood and Fawwaz Ulaby.  The choice of Ulaby was one to be celebrated.  He is a distinguished professor of electrical engineering a the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor, he has been named Founding Provost of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia, and he has even testified in front of Congress.  He is highly respected in his field, and he makes us proud.  He is an example to younger Arab Americans.

But the choice of LaHood left much to be desired.  ACCESS has bestowed the honor upon Arab American politicians in the past, awarding it to Republican congressman Charles Boustany in 2008 and Democratic congressman Nick Rahall in 1994.  Rahall has been a frequent champion of Arab American and Palestinian civil rights throughout his entire tenure in the House of Representatives.  He has stood up for our values in the face of tough anti-Arab lobbies.  Boustany has cast some troubling votes in regard to Arab and Palestinian issues, but in all fairness to ACCESS, those votes became a part of the record after the group honored him back in 2008.

Conversely, LaHood’s entire congressional record was available to ACCESS before it decided to honor him.  And his record is troubling, especially from an Arab American point of view.  During the 2006 war in Lebanon between Hizbullah and Israel, in an interview with National Public Radio, Lahood stated, “I don’t fault Israel for going into the southern part of the country.”  In October 2002, he voted in favor of authorizing military force by the Bush administration against Iraq, a country that had not attacked the United States at all and was later found to have none of the weapons of mass destruction the administration told the American public it possessed.  In 2008, he voted to strengthen sanctions on Syria through the “Syria Accountability and Liberation Act.”

And in a move perhaps most hurtful to Arab Americans, in 1995 he cosponsored “The Jerusalem Embassy Act,” a bill that declared it to be U.S. policy that Jerusalem remain an undivided city, that it be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel, and that the U.S. Embassy in Israel be established in Jerusalem.  He did not simply vote in favor of this bill, he sponsored it.  The positions forwarded in this legislation could have been taken directly from the playbook of Benjamin Netanyahu.  LaHood’s sponsorship of this bill is a legitimization of the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, a circumstance that almost no Arab American accepts, and a state of affairs that the United Nations and international law still deem illegal.  If for nothing else, the choice of LaHood to receive the award could have been rejected on this ground alone.

We have many Arab American heroes.  But just because a member of our community reaches an important post does not mean that he is worthy of our reverence.  Ray LaHood has achieved much in his political career, but some of it has been done at the expense of casting votes and voicing opinions that are detrimental to our community’s causes.  Honoring someone is not only a recognition of his accomplishments, but it is also an approval of his path and record.  ACCESS could have done much better by its community and its own mission than to honor Ray LaHood.