African-American US presidential candidate Barack Obama is a phenomenon but is doing what American politicians do: supporting Israel. Amira Howeidy asks if the Arabs should care , the Democratic African-American senator and US presidential candidate has been a boon for American media the past few months. Everything about him screams for TV attention: from his melting-pot roots (son of a Muslim Kenyan immigrant, white American mother, born in Hawaii, childhood in Indonesia with Muslim Indonesian stepfather, adolescence with white American grandparents, growing up to become a Christian Black American) to his charisma, good looks, eloquence and youthful age (45). With such a profile it is little wonder the American media has been obsessed with Obama long before he made his presidential candidacy announcement 10 February. And importantly -- at least in Obama's view -- he demonstrated foresight when he opposed the war in Iraq in 2002, in contrast to his two Democratic presidential opponents Senator Hillary Clinton and former Senator John Edwards who voted for the war. But Obama's appeal extends beyond his roots and his consistent anti-war stance. This is a man who knows the power of words and demonstrates great skill in addressing the public. In his 2004 keynote address at the National Democratic Convention, Obama made his impression by not only questioning the war on Iraq but also calling for national unity in America. Widespread media coverage of his speech won him immediate celebrity status. It hasn't faded since; indeed, continues to grow, becoming what is now known as "Obamania". And with Obamania comes debate that appears certain to make the 2008 American presidential elections the most exciting in decades. Whether or not Obama will make it to the primaries, let alone the Oval Office, is questionable, but what is known is that this is the only presidential candidate who says: "the ways of Washington must change" -- something that many of us in this part of the world would like to believe possible. And yet the US presidential race, which at this early stage is already centred around an issue of crucial importance to Arabs -- the war on Iraq, has had absolutely no resonance in the Arab world. Meanwhile, debate on the website of the Israeli daily Haaretz continues to rage on the pros and cons of Obama. Is he emotionally attached to Israel? Why should American Jews vote for him? How can Jews trust him given his Muslim heritage? The debate was triggered by Obama's statements to Haaretz on how the US is obliged to support Israel in defending itself against "enemies sworn to its destruction". "Obama will soon make the case that he'll be as strong on Israel as anyone," Haaretz US correspondent Shmuel Rosner explained in a 16 February commentary. "Let's just say it: Jewish voters are major donors to the Democratic Party and its nominees," Rosner added. Obama's speedy assurances to Jewish voters only a few days following his presidential announcement comes as no surprise, says Gamil Mattar director of the Arab Centre for Development and Future Research. "[Pledging loyalty to Israel] is key to entering the primaries. This is what every American politician has to do and then 20 years later he can write a book like [former US President Jimmy] Carter saying what he really thinks [of Israel]." In his column, Rosner tried to explain why panellists in the Israeli Factor Project -- a Haaretz project that rates potential presidential contenders in the 2008 race for the White House based on their attitudes towards Israel -- weren't giving Obama, a "bright, charismatic and viable candidate", high marks. It's because they need more "time to trust him", panellists told Rosner. In the "About the Israeli Factor Project" section of Haaretz online, the paper explains its interest in the US presidential elections. "As the US is the sole world superpower, the influence wielded by the American president impacts way beyond the borders of the US. As a major recipient of US aid and political support, Israel is one country for whom the positions and policies of the American president are crucial. Like the rest of the world, Israelis closely follow the race for the presidency, acutely aware that the person who inhabits the White House will influence their future more that any other world leader -- perhaps, even more than their own leaders." Although this should hold for the Arabs as well -- perhaps more now than at any previous point in modern Arab history -- both the Arab media and governments don't appear to be paying attention. True, Arab media was ecstatic when the Democrats won control of Congress last November. The Arab world, indeed, is fed up with Republican President George W Bush and his foreign policy failures that have proven damaging primarily to Arabs. Similarly when the House of Representatives voted 16 February 246-182 to pass a non-binding resolution criticising President Bush's plan to send more than 20,000 additional US combat troops to Iraq, the most popular Arabic TV station Al-Jazeera -- in clear schadenfreude spirit -- kept flashing the result on its screens all evening as "breaking news". Clearly developments in Washington matter to us. So why is Arab media ignoring the most important election in America? Isn't this the election that will augur big decisions on Iraq, the Palestinians and soon-to-come political changes in the Arab world's most populous country, Egypt? Isn't the entire democracy issue in Egypt hinged on who will be sitting in the Oval Office next year? "Absolutely," says former Egyptian ambassador to the US Abdel-Raouf El-Ridi. "It's of vital importance for us in the Arab world and we really ought to pay attention to the presidential race. But then we really don't pay attention to a lot of important issues, even when they matter to us." According to Manar El-Shorbagi, a specialist on American political affairs and professor at the American University in Cairo, this apathy results from only looking at US politics through the lens of the Arab-Israeli conflict. "If it isn't related to us we look away. We never pay attention to issues like immigration and other American domestic issues. But then there is no such thing as foreign policy in the US -- its all local. You can't understand whatever is going on until you follow the discourse and if it's going left or right," El-Shorbagi told Al-Ahram Weekly. Although Obama's chances of winning are shaky, El-Shorbagi thinks Arabs ought to pay attention to all presidential candidates, even at this early stage of campaigning, not least because those who fall in the first stages of the campaign will likely resurface four years later. "President Richard Nixon ran for president against John Kennedy and lost early, then surfaced as president later... This could be the case for Obama." But why would the Jewish lobby in the US be interested in Obama? And why aren't we, despite his Muslim and African roots? "The Israelis are doing their homework and we're not. They take all candidates seriously," says El-Shorbagi. But there's another side of the story. Although black-Jewish relations in the US are generally marked by tension, Obama is a winning case argues El-Shorbagi precisely because of his Muslim-African background. "He avoided it completely in his presidential announcement," she said. "The pro-Israel lobby in the US is looking for people who can be won by them. Obama is a winning case because of these different traits in him. Because he wants to win mainstream Americans, and as anti-war he's a winning case... Because he is black he has to prove he's not anti-Semitic; because his father is Muslim he has to overdo that element. The Arabs, on the other hand are doing the opposite, and not playing up the sides of him that make then relate to him." In fact, the Arabs aren't doing anything at all although Obama's history is replete with political stands that -- if they remain unchanged -- will be of great service to Arab interests should he become the first black American president. In a remarkable speech at an anti-war rally organised by the ANSWER coalition in 2002, Obama predicted that "an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al-Qaeda." Obama also challenged Bush to fight, with vigour if not violence, to ensure American "so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies." He further challenged Bush to wean Americans off Middle East oil through an energy policy that doesn't simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil. That was over four years ago and much has changed in American politics since. "We're witnessing some very unconventional scenes in the US," says Mattar. "We're seeing the first woman presidential hopeful against a black presidential hopeful. In the years to come we might even see the first Hispanic presidential candidate." For now, just how such dramatic internal changes in the world's sole superpower will impact a Middle East made incendiary by recent US policies remains to be seen.
