Lecture Entitled “The U.S Presidential Elections and its Impact on the Palestinian Case”

On Tuesday November 6, 2012 the Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Institute of International Studies held a lecture on “The U.S Presidential Elections and its Impact on the Palestinian Case”, in which Dr. Samir Awad and Dr. Lourdes Habash, from the Department of Political Science, spoke about the current presidential elections in the U.S.

Based on the fact that one cannot understand the U.S presidential elections without understanding the political and electoral system of the U.S, Dr. Lourdes discussed the federal and bipolar nature of the U.S system, and referred to the saying “the winner takes it all.” She further discussed the absences of proportional representation and the absence of holding reelections, which does not give a chance for a third party to join the electoral competition. Dr. Habash also noted the importance of the balances game in the U.S’s  political system. Later on she spoke about the emergence of the democratic party, which is liberal in nature and supportive of minorities and workers. The democratic party calls for the importance of the government intervention, in order to support these classes. On the other hand, the conservative republican party is supportive of the rich class and elite, it also refuses the government intervention. And this explains why tax issues was at the apogee of the U.S election debates. Regarding the complicated electoral system, Dr. Habash discussed the electoral college and the voting system which goes through two stages: the first preliminary and the second is the last general election. Near the end of her discussion, Dr. Habash referred to the role of the Zionist lobby and its impact on the electoral process. In addition to their generous donation to finance the electoral campaign, the votes of American Jews is counted near  80%, whereas other Americans’ votes is an average of 50%.

On the other hand, Dr. Samir Awad began by explaining that the Israeli/Palestinian struggle is not a central issue while speaking of the U.S elections. It was merely mentioned during the campaign out of courtesy or to please the Jews, besides that the U.S elections have no effect whatsoever on the Arabs, Palestinian or even on the basic principles of the competing parties. According to these two parties, the economic situation is at the premise of the current U.S elections, in which both candidates boasted on their accomplishments on the economic arena. Moreover, the result of the election depends on the political affiliation of the voters, where some states, such as California, and New York are considered democratic. Whereas other states, such as the center states, are considered republican. Dr. Awad then referred to the three main pillars of U.S foreign policy which is manifested in protecting the persistent flow of oil with affordable prices, protecting Israel which is considered its only ally in the Middle East, whereas other Arab countries are divided to “dependent” countries or “source of threat”; and the last pillar addresses the issue of terrorism. Dr. Awad concluded by stressing that as long as the Israeli narrative dominates the American stage, in addition to the notion of terrorism, Palestinians will remain defeated. Thus we must work on promoting and enforcing our narrative so as to confront the Israeli narrative. Regarding the U.S elections for this year, Dr. Samir Awad predicted that the democratic candidate Obama will win.