BEIRUT: In the midst of the renewed violence that has erupted in the Middle East, a new organization has emerged that will try to harness political and diplomatic power in Washington to bring about an equitable solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
The American Association for Palestinian Equal Rights (AAPER) is the first pro-Palestinian lobbying group in the United States devoted solely to the Palestinian cause.
Started on June 10, 2003, in Washington, AAPER is the brainchild of George Naggiar, an attorney who graduated from Georgetown University Law School, where he specialized in the international law of human rights and armed conflict, and Clayton Swisher, who is finishing his master’s degree at Georgetown’s Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.
In an interview with The Daily Star, Naggiar and Swisher emphasized their different roles in the organization, with Naggiar focusing on the human rights aspect and Swisher on the “harm” caused by the US “biased and unqualified support of Israel’s military occupation policies and practices.”
They said they hope to educate the American people about the harm inflicted by such policies through publications, a website, speaking tours and engagements, advertisements and opinion pieces in the US media.
Swisher’s personal experience with the Middle East peace process and the devastating attacks on New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001 enhanced his desire to actively change US policy. Swisher served as a special agent with the US State Department working in Camp David, Ramallah, Jerusalem and Paris at the end of the Oslo peace talks. He was in law enforcement when the Sept. 11 attacks took place.
“On Sept. 11, 2001, I was investigating crimes by day and studying Islam and the Arab world by night,” said Swisher. “Many of my law enforcement colleagues placed the blame for Sept. 11, 2001 on Islam. I knew this to be false. Others, many of whom I agreed with, saw the events of that day as partly the result of our government’s Middle East policies, which for years have contradicted our American ethos abroad.”
To this end, AAPER will focus not only on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but also on working for Israeli peace with Lebanon and Syria, an often neglected aspect of the Middle East peace process despite the more than 1.4 million Palestinian refugees living in those two countries. With calls by Syria and Lebanon for their own “road map,” AAPER appears to have the perfect opportunity to educate the American public and advocate for policies that support UN resolutions 242, 338 and 194, dealing with peace on all fronts of the conflict.
“At this point in American history, there is no cause more overdue than to fairly address the Palestinian question. By showing the Arab world what the American people stand for ­ liberty and justice ­ AAPER seeks to strengthen US security interests at home and abroad,” said Swisher at the organization’s opening.
AAPER seems to fill a need that has not been met by other pan-Arab or Muslim lobbies, as it seeks to provide a Palestinian voice to counter the powerful Jewish lobby on Capitol Hill, epitomized by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Yet comparing the two is in many ways like pitting David against Goliath.
The Jewish lobby has an established and well-funded presence in America, and AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) was ranked the most powerful foreign policy lobby in America for the fourth consecutive year in 2001 by Fortune magazine. With an annual operating budget of about $34 million, 150 staff and 80,000 members, AIPAC is a powerhouse on Capitol Hill.
Lobbying groups that deal with Palestinian issues, however, have had a much smaller presence and influence. According to AAPER, there is no nonsectarian group that lobbies exclusively on behalf of Palestinian issues. AAPER, the first lobbying group seeking to do so, has just two staff and less than a two-week history.
But while AIPAC’s operations dwarf those of the nascent AAPER, it may be more important to look at the organizations’ roots than its current operating ­ AIPAC wasn’t built in a day. Founded in the 1950s by one man with a vision of influencing US policy, AIPAC has slowly expanded its influence over the past half-century. This does not appear to daunt AAPER’s founders, whose decision to create the pro-Palestinian lobby seems to have been born from the idealism of youth coupled with first-hand experience.
“I decided to form the organization when I was a law student at Georgetown University soon after the second intifada began,” said Naggiar. “I began to study and understand the cause and effects of the absence of a Palestinian narrative on Capitol Hill.”
Billing itself as America’s pro-Palestinian, pro-peace lobby, AAPER’s mission is to advance human rights and represent Palestinian interests in domestic and international policy.
American diplomacy on the Middle East conflict has tended to follow Israel’s lead. At the same time, Washington plays the role of big brother when it comes to issues like military cooperation. Israel is the largest recipient of US aid, receiving some $3 billion annually. In addition, the US has wielded its veto power on some 30 UN resolutions dealing with the Middle East and Israel since 1972. In the diplomatic realm, the US recognized the Palestinian Liberation Organization as the representative of the Palestinian people only after Israel did; American backing for a Palestinian state came only as recently as 2001.
Naggiar stressed that the organization is not only for Arabs or Muslims. It seeks to represent both Arabs and Muslims, who constitute 4 percent of the American public, as well as the other 96 percent of the American public. AAPER will lobby on behalf of all American groups and citizens that support Palestinian rights, initially allying with progressive Jewish and Arab-Americans, church groups, and other peace and justice movements.
AAPER’s “mission is to shape a US foreign policy that recognizes and seeks to advance human and national rights of the Palestinian people,” said Naggiar. “The focus of our work will be lobbying, but we will also work to educate NGOs, the national media, and the public at large.”
AAPER is divided into two distinct nonprofit organizations with complementary missions: one focused on education and the other devoted to lobbying. By providing direct lobbying, legislative research and writing and political campaign support, the organization hopes to support the “great cause of Palestinian rights to freedom and equality.”
The educational arm of AAPER will seek to reframe public discourse on Palestinian-Israeli issues from Arab/Muslim versus Jew, to discrimination and occupation versus equality and freedom.
The legislation AAPER advocates, according to its website, includes an immediate end to occupation, dismantling of settlements, nonviolent freedom and peace movements and a role for international peace keepers in the Palestinian territories.
Israel, however, has refused to accept a role for international peacekeepers.