The fear factor in the campaign
A FEW weeks ago, I received an e-mail with the subject line: "Excited about Barack Obama? Read this."
The e-mail contained a copy of a Jan. 22 Senate memo, signed by the presidential candidate, in which he asked the American ambassador to the United Nations to "ensure that the Security Council issue no statement and pass no resolution" about the situation in Gaza unless it included a full condemnation of Hamas.
At the time the memo was sent, Gaza had been closed by Israeli forces for several days, its only power plant had ceased operating, and its 1.5 million Palestinian inhabitants had little or no access to food. The e-mail was sent to hundreds of Arab- and Muslim-Americans, and it ended with a bold, highlighted line: "Think again before you cast your vote for another AIPAC puppet," referring to the pro-Israel lobby, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee.
As a state politician, Obama broke bread with the late Palestinian intellectual Edward Said at a community fund-raiser. At the Democratic National Convention in 2004, he did not shy away from talking about the wave of arbitrary detentions in the Arab-American community.
"If there's an Arab-American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process," he said, "that threatens my civil liberties." Last year he gave a speech in Iowa in which he stated, "Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people."
But as his candidacy gained traction, his sympathy for Palestinians seemed to disappear. He explained his Iowa comment by saying that the Palestinians suffered from their own leadership, leaving out the Israeli occupation from that equation.
When Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai threatened to unleash a "bigger Shoah" on the Palestinians, there was not a word from Obama - or, for that matter, from Hillary Clinton or John McCain.
Those who are disappointed by Obama's seeming change of heart would do well to remember how the candidate has had to deal with questions of race. His comments on that subject are always carefully worded; paradoxically, white candidates can speak forcefully on the issue without fear of being branded "angry."
For instance, when Clinton was asked at the Howard University debate last June, "Is race still the most intractable issue in America?" she spoke with righteous indignation about the government's disgraceful treatment of African-Americans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the cradle-to-prison superhighway, and segregation in classrooms.
When his turn came, Obama talked about "healing the brutal wounds of slavery," but he also added, "there are going to be responsibilities on the part of African-Americans . . . to rise up out of the problems that we face."
He was the only candidate to stress personal and institutional responsibility, while the other (white) candidates could wax lyrical about Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy. The same careful balance between responsibility and reassurance came up again last month in Obama's speech on race.
That an African-American candidate must, if he has any chance of winning the presidency, look toward the future without dwelling on the burden of history is illustrative of our national discourse on race. It is also a reflection of this nation's discourse on the Middle East that a candidate with a Muslim name must wear his commitment to Israel's security on his sleeve. He can't even say "not that there's anything wrong with that" or he'll reinforce allegations he's a secret Muslim. This is the nation we live in. I don't know who originated that chain e-mail about Obama being an AIPAC puppet, but it's clear that it was meant to scare away Arab- and Muslim-Americans - that is to say, millions of American voters.
In 2000 George W. Bush made successful pleas for these same votes by pledging an end to racial profiling. Look how that turned out.
After eight years of Bush's disastrous policies, we need more than indignation about the mess we're in. We need change. John McCain offers more of the same. Hillary Clinton has tried to scare voters, with her red phone ad and her campaign's comment that Obama's lucky to be black.
To breach the serious obstacles that lie ahead, whether in domestic or in foreign policy, we need less fear, and more hope.
Laila Lalami is a fiction writer based in Los Angeles.
