As a democrat myself, I've found these last 13 months in the realm of politics to be extremely exciting. I've watched every debate and have generally been fascinated with each little tidbit of "breaking news," especially since the primary and caucaus elections began. I've supported Sen. Barack Obama from the beginning for a variety of reasons, and I feel like I'm watching a very close basketball game, biting my nails hoping my team wins. The most recent Democratic debate was, of course, held this past Tuesday and it was chalk-full (as is usually the case) with policy as well as drama. I've heard all the policy before and definitely enjoy when things heat up a bit between the two senators. This time however, I heard something new, which I found quite shocking – a 100% support of Israel, hand-in-hand with a complete shun of the Muslim- and Arab-American populous.
When Tim Russert first posed the question of Minister Louis Farrakhan's (former leader of the Nation of Islam – NOI) support of Sen. Obama, Obama barely let him get the question out of his mouth before he was explaining that his view of Farrakhan has been made quite clear. Russert goes on to say that, "The problem some voters may have is, as you know, Reverend Farrakhan called Judaism 'gutter religion,'" to which Obama responded that he does not approve of Farrakhan's anti-semitic remarks made in the past, and even finds them "reprehensible." Russert then adds that even Obama's own minister, who Obama is known to hold in high esteem, supports Farrakhan and has "said that Louis Farrakhan 'epitomizes greatness.'" After further research on this issue, I found that Farrakhan actually made this statement more than 20 years ago (in 1984) and has since made numerous apologies and retractions of his anti-semetic statements.
I thought that Obama fielded these questions well, but I did find myself extremely disappointed that he did not take this opportunity to reach out to the Muslim community as a whole. Maybe he felt that drawing any connection between the NOI and the larger Muslim world would have been considered insulting to Muslims, but I don't think so. I think he was more concerned with distancing himself from Islam because of the right-wing conservative suspicions throughout his campaign that he is really a Muslim himself, just waiting to get into the White House so that he can hand the U.S. over to Muslim extremists. These suspicions are ridiculous on top of showing extreme prejudice. I am disappointed that Obama is succumbing to this pressure by distancing himself from the Arab/Muslim world. Many people, myself included, support him mainly for the idea that he will be the candidate most open to all sides of issues in the Middle-East and deal with world issues as a whole in a balanced way.
From Obama's support of the Jewish community and his hopes to bring the Jewish and Black communities back together, the debate moved naturally to Israel itself. Obama endorsed Israel 100%, leaving no room to question Israel's policies. Senator Clinton echoed this sentiment, a sentiment which sounds uncritical and uniformed. I think that anyone with a little information on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict can see that both sides have validity and that Israel has been less than fair in its dealings with the Palestinians. I think this speaks to who holds more power in this country, and more than the Jewish vote itself, the power lies in the Israel lobby. One of Obama's advisors is considered anti-Israel, simply because of his support of a book that explores the power of this lobbying group. This speaks to a climate in which politicians are unable to deeply explore all sides of this issue without being labeled anti-Israel and persecuted for it.
I still support Sen. Obama but this leaves me wondering if he can help U.S. relations in the Middle-East in the way I was hoping. The fact that the Arab/Muslim world was left completely out of this discussion was a bad move and will likely result in his losing votes in these communities. But who can they turn to now, besides Ralph Nader, who is pro-Palestinian but clearly doesn't have any chance of ever being elected president.
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