President Barack Obama should use his momentum after the passage of the health care bill to promote peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a speaker said Monday.
In a lecture and book-signing sponsored by the Arab Student Association at Boston College, Dr. Gregory Orfalea, a professor at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University, spoke about the current political climate of Middle Eastern relations and read excerpts from his books “Angeleno Days” and “The Arab Americans: A History.”
Orfalea said he hopes Obama will use his recent domestic momentum from his health care accomplishment to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and “buy peace” in the Middle East by pressuring the Israeli and Palestinian governments with incentives for U.S. aid.
“I have to believe that Obama’s great victory with health care may embolden him to become brave and to settle this problem between the Israelis and the Palestinians and therefore to give us in the United States a great deal more breathing room with regards to our relations with that part of the world,” he said.
Orfalea also spoke about the politicization of Arab-American life within the past few decades and the problems facing Arab-Americans in Los Angeles, the setting for his book “Angeleno Days.”
“To show you how sped up the sociology of Arab-American life has been and how politicized it has been, the phrase [Arab-American] didn’t even exist until the 1970s,” Orfalea said. “You were either Lebanese-American, Palestinian-American, et cetera and often times you were identified by your religious sect.”
Orfalea addressed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a key issue – a “moment of truth” for determining America’s relationship with the Middle East.
“If we can’t back what we say with action, I fear that our relationship with the Middle East, particularly the Arab Middle East, and perhaps with the entire Muslim world, which is one-fifth of the population of the world, will deteriorate beyond repair,” he said.
Orfalea said the resolution of the conflicts over the settlement of the West Bank is crucial to the eradication of terrorism in the Middle East.
“Steal the oxygen of their message and I think you will steal the oxygen of the extremist element in Islamic fundamentalism,” Orfalea said. “I think one way to do it is show you mean business about the West Bank settlements.”
BC senior George Somi, who attended the event, is the president of the Arab Student Association and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies Student Association president.
Somi invited Orfalea to speak about “The Arab-American” and read excerpts from “Angeleno Days” after they met at the Middle Eastern Studies Association Conference.
Somi said the Arab Student Association, which has 15 active members and is in its third year of existence, injected diversity into the BC community by means of lectures, book-signings and film screenings.
Sean Talia, a sophomore at BC, said he attended the event because of his origins.
“I’m part of the organization because I’m half Iraqi so I’m interested in the issues and trying to get a sense of my own identity,” Talia, also a member of the Arab Student Association, said.
It is important for students to take the initiative to inform themselves about Middle Eastern issues beyond the issues presented by mainstream news organizations, he said.
“It is sad how people are not interested in enlightening themselves,” he said. “People can be completely ignorant to what is going on in other parts of the world besides Iraq.”
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