James Zogby
Author's Posts
The recurring struggle for the soul of America
October 31st, 20250 You Have Your America, I Have My America: Lessons from Gibran and the Struggle for Democracy A century ago, Khalil Gibran wrote a love poem to Lebanon, "You have your Lebanon, I have my Lebanon." He spoke of his affection for the Lebanese people’s generosity and hospitality and Lebanon’s beauty in contrast to its bickering...
Trump’s Gaza “peace plan” falls short: vagueness, distrust, and the illusion of progress
October 17th, 20250 If President Trump hopes to earn a Nobel Peace Prize, he’s going to need to do better than his 20-point “Comprehensive Plan to End Gaza’s Conflict.” Characteristically exaggerating, Mr. Trump called the plan’s release “one of the greatest days in human history”, but poring over Arab, Israeli, and U.S. press reveals that...
How using religious language muddies up politics
October 3rd, 20250 On September 10th, conservative Republican political activist Charlie Kirk was murdered while speaking on a college campus in Utah. The reactions to his death have reflected the deep divisions that plague American society today. While most critics of Kirk’s extreme views on race, women and gender issues were respectful in their...
Poll shows being tough with Israel is what voters want
September 19th, 20250 What to do or say about Israel’s war on Gaza has establishment Democratic consultants and the elected officials for whom they work in a tizzy. One recent news account reported that Senate and House Democratic leaders are worried about the “Mamdani effect” — that a Zohran Mamdani win in the 2025 New York City mayor’s race...
The Hague group’s proposals, not hollow recognition of Palestine statehood, are the way forward
August 23rd, 20250 We’ve reached a tipping point in Western political leaders’ reaction to Israel’s genocidal assault on Palestinians in Gaza. It’s maddening for two reasons: how long it took to get an official response from Western capitals; and how decidedly ineffectual their responses are. The nightmare in Gaza has been unfolding for 22...
History didn’t begin on October 7th
August 15th, 20250 Our understanding of an historical event’s meaning is a function of two factors. The first is what we choose to identify as the starting point leading up to the event. The second is the lens through which we view it. This should be obvious, but unfortunately it is not, and the failure to acknowledge or understand it has consequences in...
Trump and Netanyahu: Masters of duplicity
July 18th, 20250 Meetings between President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are more akin to a master class in posturing and duplicity than in diplomacy. Last week’s meetings were no exception. Both men are master manipulators, products of our media age. They create illusions that they insist are real. They repeat a lie over and...
Mamdani’s authenticity was key to his victory
July 6th, 20250 In 2006, shortly after Tim Kaine won the Virginia gubernatorial election, I attended a meeting at Democratic Party headquarters. One party official opined, “One lesson we should learn from Kaine’s victory was that we need to talk more about our religion. Kaine did and he won. We should do it too.” After seeing that same official...
What did Pope Francis do for American Catholics?
May 2nd, 20250 For American Catholics, Pope Francis was elected to lead the Roman Catholic Church at a time of crisis for both the institution and the faithful. The church in the United States was reeling from the aftershocks of continuing exposés of widespread sexual abuse by priests and the growing rift separating the church’s leadership from...
Three months later: Still no lessons learned
January 5th, 20240 One day last week, the New York Times printed two separate articles describing Israeli and Palestinian reactions to the ongoing war that, together, paint a disturbing portrait of where we are three months after October 7. The piece about Israelis was headlined “Oct. 7 Is Forcing Israelis to Rethink Their Identity,” with the subhead...
For Arab Americans, blue is not blue
July 25th, 20230 News last week that the U.S. and Israel were about to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) advancing Israel’s entry into the U.S. Visa Waiver Program (VWP) shouldn’t have caught us by surprise. But it did. For months, we had been assured by various Biden administration officials that Israel could not meet the requirements of the...
No Visa waiver for Israel until Arab American rights are protected
January 12th, 20220 Last week the Jerusalem Post ran a story under the headline “Palestinian Americans to be allowed to land at Ben Gurion Airport.” Israeli officials are now saying that instead of only permitting Palestinian Americans to cross over the Allenby Bridge from Jordan, they will allow them to fly into Israel’s airport and proceed from...
Americans have the right to hear from the leader of BDS movement
April 19th, 20190 I awakened early Wednesday to listen to a voicemail message from Omar Barghouti, a leading member of the Palestinian movement to Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) Israel. In the message, Omar told me that he was at Ben Gurion Airport and despite holding a valid U.S. visa and a boarding pass for his flight to Washington, D.C., the...
The shameful attack on Ilhan Omar that backfired
April 2nd, 20190 What happened to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar was troubling. On the one hand, because she dared to challenge the way supporters of Israel have worked to silence debate on U.S. policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, she became a victim of incitement and the target of legislation meant to shame her. At the same time, however, the...
Israel’s supporters are panicking: The game is over
February 22nd, 20191 Hardline supporters of Israel are in panic mode. It was in evidence earlier this week with the all-out assault on the first Somali, African-born immigrant, refugee, Muslim woman elected to serve in the U.S. Congress. Her crime was that she dared to point out, as a leading New York Times columnist and so many others have in the past, the......
The struggle to advocate for Palestinians has never been easy
November 24th, 20180 It has never been easy for Arab Americans to advocate for Palestinian rights; and while we have made real progress, the challenges continue to grow. I learned early on that this was not ever going to be a fair fight. In their relentless effort to silence our voice, supporters of Israel waged a relentless campaign to delegitimize...
Preventing Palestine: A must read history of failed peace-making
October 1st, 20180 Seth Anziska’s Preventing Palestine: A Political History From Camp David to Oslo is a deeply insightful and profoundly disturbing book that traces the tortuous path of Middle East peace-making during the past four decades. It was quite painful to read. Having been a close observer and sometimes participant in many of the......
Thank you, Ireland
July 22nd, 20180 In Ireland on Wednesday morning, I watched an amazing debate unfolding in the Irish Seanad (Senate), as members spoke for and against a bill to prohibit the importation of Israeli goods produced in settlements in occupied Palestinian lands. The legislation in question is the Control of Economic Activity (occupied territory) Bill 2018,...
The anti-Semitism Awareness Act is back: Free speech is at risk
June 18th, 20181 Back in 2016, without debate or an actual vote, the U.S. Senate stealthily passed a disturbing and dangerous piece of legislation called “The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act of 2016” (AAA). The bill would have required the Department of Education (ED) to apply a State Department (DOS) working definition of anti-Semitism in evaluating...
Democrats should have debated U.S. invasion of Iraq 15 years ago
March 2nd, 20180 Fifteen years ago this week, while the Bush Administration was busy beating the drums for an invasion of Iraq, I submitted a resolution calling on the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to oppose this rush to war. The resolution, which was also endorsed by then Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., who served with me on the DNC, warned that...
U.S. invasion of Iraq: Fifteen years later
February 23rd, 20180 Over the next few weeks, I want to take a look back to February and March of 2003, to those fateful days leading up to the Bush administration's disastrous invasion and occupation of Iraq. I remember all too well the lies that were told, the hysteria that was created, the bullying tactics that were used to silence debate and the mass......
