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A SERVICE OF OHIO'S PUBLIC BROADCASTING STATIONS
A SERVICE OF OHIO'S PUBLIC BROADCASTING STATIONS
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Arab American Affairs
Since 1985, Dr. Zogby and AAI have led Arab American efforts to secure political empowerment in the United States. Through voter registration, education and mobilization, AAI has moved Arab Americans into the U.S. political mainstream.
For the past three decades, Dr. Zogby has been involved in a full range of Arab American issues. A co-founder and chairman of the Palestine Human Rights Campaign in the late 1970s, he later co-founded and served as the Executive Director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. In 1982, he co-founded Save Lebanon, Inc., a private non-profit, humanitarian and non-sectarian relief organization which funded health care for Palestinian and Lebanese victims of war, and other social welfare projects in Lebanon. In 1985, Zogby founded AAI.
Middle East Peace
In 1993, following the signing of the Israeli-Palestinian peace accord in Washington, he was asked by Vice President Al Gore to lead Builders for Peace, a private sector committee to promote U.S. business investment in the West Bank and Gaza. In his capacity as co-president of Builders, Zogby frequently traveled to the Middle East with delegations led by Vice President Gore and the late Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown. In 1994, with former U.S. Congressman Mel Levine, his colleague as co-president of Builders, Zogby led a U.S. delegation to the signing of the Israeli-Palestinian agreement in Cairo. Zogby also chaired a forum on the Palestinian economy at the Casablanca Economic Summit in 1994. After 1994, through Builders, Zogby worked with a number of US agencies to promote and support Palestinian economic development, including AID, OPIC, USTDA, and the Departments of State and Commerce.
US Politics
Dr. Zogby has also been personally active in U.S. politics for many years. In 1995 DNC Chairman Don Fowler appointed Zogby as co-convener of the National Democratic Ethnic Coordinating Committee, an umbrella organization of Democratic Party leaders of European and Mediterranean descent. He held that position until 2008 when he was elected secretary of the NDECC and chair of its DNC caucus. On September 24, 1999, the National Democratic Ethnic Coordinating Council (NDECC) elected Dr. James Zogby as its representative to the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) Executive Committee. In 2005, and again in 2009, he was appointed co-chair the DNC's Resolution Committee.
Public Affairs and Policy
A lecturer and scholar on Middle East issues, U.S.-Arab relations, and the history of the Arab American community, Dr. Zogby appears frequently on television and radio. He has appeared as a regular guest on all the major network news programs. He also hosts an award winning weekly call-in program, "Viewpoint," on Abu Dhabi Television. His guests on "Viewpoint" have included Heads of State of Arab countries, Vice President Al Gore, Cabinet members, and over two dozen Senators and Members of Congress. Since 1992, Zogby has written a weekly column on U.S. politics for the major newspapers of the Arab world. The column, "Washington Watch," currently is published in 12 Arab countries. In 2002 he authored What Arabs Think: Values, Beliefs and Concerns, a landmark study of Arab values and political concerns, which took the first-ever probing look at Arab values, identity, political concerns and attitudes toward other countries of the world. And in 2000, he authored What Ethnic Americans Really Think, a comparative study of the political and social attitudes of five American ethnic communities.
Dr. Zogby has testified before U.S. House and Senate committees, has been guest speaker on a number of occasions in the Secretary's Open Forum at the
January 14, 2011