The AAUG: aspirations and failures.

• Author: Jabara, Abdeen
• Position: Association of Arab-American University Graduates - Organization overview

THE AAUG WAS BORN OUT OF the rubble of the defeat of Arab nationalism caused by the June 1967 Arab Israeli War and the attendant rise of a popular Palestinian guerilla movement of resistance to Israeli occupation.

For many of the Arab-American scholars who initially met in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the fall of 1967 to discuss the calamity of the 1967 war, the main focus was on the question of what they might do to address the utter lack of understanding or sympathy in the United States on the elite and popular levels for Arab grievances in what was then known as the Arab-Israeli conflict.

There was a resolve among this small group that Americans were basically fair minded people, who, if they only knew the true facts about what had happened to the Palestinians, would not support Israel's continuing displacement and occupation of Palestinians and aggression against the Arab countries. One of the things that was missing, according to this analysis, was a voice or vehicle by which Americans from all walks of life could be educated about the Arab world and the justness of the Palestinian cause. The conclusion in these discussions was that educated Arab-Americans had a special responsibility since they were living in a country that was becoming Israel's chief sponsor and supporter. In that they had a degree of understanding and knowledge, Arab-Americans therefore could provide a voice that had heretofore been silent.

This, then, was the rationale for both the creation of and then the programmatic work of AAUG. There was, however, the undefined and unspoken need of those who felt a sense of abject failure by the post-colonial societies to protect the independence of the Arab world and to advance a common Arab interest. We hoped that the AAUG would become a place where these like-minded individuals, many of whom had come to the U.S. for education and remained on to teach, to work, and to raise families, could have a second home in a society that so often seemed simultaneously welcoming in its freedom and opportunity and hostile in its exercise of great power politics.

The stated goal of the AAUG was to provide accurate and scientific information about the Arabs, their history, culture, politics, and aspirations, to the American people. Through this, the organizers of the AAUG reasoned, the one-sided American support for Israeli and Zionist narratives could be corrected. The goals would be accomplished by educational efforts aimed at the general populace, academics, and American elites. The program included hosting academic conferences both in the U.S. and abroad, individual lectures, university conferences and teach-ins and trips to the Middle East for select groups...