Warring Worlds
Outspoken critic of Israeli occupation Nadia Hijab speaks in Monterey.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Protests surging in the Middle East don’t surprise Nadia Hijab, who views Arab antipathy toward the U.S. as something the West has earned by supporting dictators in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
“Despite the U.S.’s professed respect for freedom of association, they are allied with these regimes that people are beginning to rebel against,” she says.
Hijab, an author and director of Palestinian policy network Al-Shabaka, brings her foreign policy message to Monterey on Tuesday, Oct. 2.
She thinks world powers should agree to a ceasefire in Syria: “We’ve gone back to a game where the U.S. says one thing, and Russia and China say another.”
Larry Levine, president of the local United Nations Association, views the Monterey Peninsula population, dotted with foreign policy institutions, as uniquely tuned into world affairs.
“People in the Middle East tend to look at the facts because they’re not bombarded by TV,” Hijab says. “They actually read a lot.”
That means Mitt Romney’s appeal to pro-Israel voters by portraying President Obama as ambivalent isn’t reaching the Arab world, Hijab says. “[Obama’s] administration is viewed as a stronger ally of Israel than the George W. Bush administration,” she says.
NADIA HIJAB speaks at 7pm Oct. 2 at the Monterey Institute’s Irvine Auditorium, 499 Pierce St., Monterey. Free.
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