Two weeks ago I flew to Qatar to take part in the Doha debates. I was traveling halfway round the world for a two-day visit but it was worth it to me because I’m eager to learn more about the Arab world, including the westernizers in the Persian Gulf.
On the plane out I was filled with nerves. The proposition was, "Obama is too weak to bring about Middle East peace," and I was arguing the affirmative, and my main line was going to be that the Israel lobby has too much power in American politics for Obama to operate freely, and I felt certain that I would wind up talking about Jewish wealth and influence before an Arab audience. Having been trained at some deep level in tribal allegiance, I knew that I would be betraying the Jews for the sake of what–intellectual honesty? Add to that, my mother had sent me a note before I left, saying, Don’t be seduced. I kept wondering if I could couch my argument in a criticism of the Arab world over the poor status of women– as if to say, you have problems, too.
Before the debate I was interviewed by a group of journalists, including Lara Setrakian of ABC News, who gave me the best advice I would get from anyone. Don’t bash Obama. People out here like Obama a lot, they want to believe in him. I had been prepared to bash Obama but I took her wisdom, and only echoed Roger Cohen, who was on the other side, when he praised the president. That and saying "my country" a lot seemed meaningful to the audience. Another journalist who interviewed me was Taufiq Rahim. He worked at McKinsey and Company till recently and he was altogether charming. He wore a dark brown pinstriped jacket and a coordinated purple pinstriped shirt. He told me that he had recently seen some Gulf government official reading Israel lobbyist Dan Senor’s book, Startup Nation, about Israel’s technology boom—So this is how they do it. We laughed about that, but later Taufiq wrote that my debating partner, Ahmed Moussali, and I are living in the past. Presumably because Moussali mentioned the right of return and I spoke of Palestinian dispossession since the Nakba.
Rahim is a modern, but there can be no question that the audience was pro-Palestinian. I got the first applause of the night when I spoke about Palestinians reduced to a shred of the land promised to them by the world 60 years ago, and I hammered on Palestinian conditions in East Jerusalem all night. My thrust was that the political scene in the US is so straitened that Obama has no room to run. I cited the congressional letters that hammered Obama for even asking for an end to Jewish settlements in Jerusalem, and I got the last word in the debate when I pounced on something Roger Cohen had said, about Obama being too much of a politician to try and withhold the huge amount of aid we give Israel, to say, Roger has just described the political conditions in the U.S., and that is the problem; this mighty country is not free to use its powers. Afterward I was interviewed by the Qatar Foundation about the debate; and I said that I was moved by the fact that it even happened: in the U.S. this debate is not taking place on prominent stages.
Oh and as for my anxiety, I didn’t mention Jewish wealth or influence at all. Nor did any of the many questioners. Though I did inject religion, saying that Roger Cohen and I are both liberal Jews and our opinions are not widely represented in the U.S. political scene.
Beside the stunning architecture of Doha, including the Zigzag buildings, the main impression I carried away from the experience was that shocking awareness I have every time I am in Arab company, these people are part of the human family. In this case I saw the great diversity of Arab opinion and experience in the Gulf. And I hope that Taufiq is right and I am wrong– though some how I doubt it. There is a profound mistrust of the west even in the Gulf. I spoke with one Muslim who said that she had lived in America and loved it till 9/11 when she was made to feel that her children were aliens. I spoke with an Arab newsman wearing jeans who said that I had a journalistic obligation to talk openly in the United States about the composition of the Israel lobby and neoconservatism so as to help my own people, the Jews, forestall another wave of anti-semitism. I spoke with an old friend who drove in from Saudi Arabia and who, after changing out of his traditional dress for a dark suit to go to dinner, wanted to ask me about Elizabeth Eisenstein’s history of print.
And yes, I spoke with Sami Abu Roza, of the Palestinian Authority, who had debated the other side and who described both the vigor of Ramallah and the terrible cordoning off of Jerusalem; and of course he was the only one on the stage who is living in Palestine. It was easy for me to say what I said. He needs to believe in Obama.
I will save you the lecture about women’s role in the Arab world. I’m always dismayed by the non-presence of women in Arab public life, and Doha is no exception—the restaurants, the market. The people I met want more than anyone to try and put globalism’s misunderstandings behind us. But the Gulf is representative, too, they care about Palestinians. What I saw most of all was the tremendous diversity in Arab and Muslim intellectual life. We have the power to grow that diversity– if we can only grow our own.
