L'Affaire Salam
By Nayyer Ali, MD

Salam Al-Marayati, the Executive Director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), was tarred with the brush of terrorism two weeks ago by the campaign director for Congressman James Rogan, who finds himself in a tight re-election campaign. The story is quite interesting.

For those who might have forgotten, Congressman Rogan is a leading Republican who served as one of the House Managers in the impeachment trial of President Clinton in 1999. It would be fair to say that the Democrats would love to unseat him. His challenger is Adam Schiff, who is Jewish, and a state Senator for the same Glendale region that Rogan represents in Congress. Of note, Rogan has had support in the past from the local Pakistani community. The campaign is very tight and will probably go down to the wire.

Well it just so happens that MPAC was co-sponsoring a community event on the topic of “Alcohol and Violence.” Adam Schiff attended, and was therefore sharing the stage with Salam Al-Marayati. After the meeting, Jason Roe, who is Rogan’s campaign director, told the LA Times that Schiff’s appearance, “raised some questions about the associations he planned to keep” if elected. He then went on to say, “It seems to me odd that Sen. Schiff would feel comfortable, especially as a Jew, to be participating in this event.” What raised these red flags for Mr. Roe? Was it that Salam is a vocal and leading Muslim? Was it that Salam vigorously puts forth the case for justice for the Palestinians? Was it that Mr. Roe supports alcoholism and violence? And why should Mr. Schiff’s being Jewish make him less likely to participate in a conference on alcoholism and violence?

Well according to Mr. Roe, Salam is an apologist for terror. The sources for these allegations were certain Jewish organizations that vigorously opposed Salam’s nomination to a Congressional Anti-Terrorism Committee last year and got Richard Gephardt’s office to drop Salam’s nomination. Most prominent of these was the Zionist Organization of America, and judging by the name alone, they would not think well of anyone who supports the Palestinian cause. Mr. Roe decided to dredge up these ridiculous charges from last year, and smear both Mr. Al-Marayati and Senator Schiff.

His thinking clearly was that in a close race, it was important to erode Mr. Schiff’s natural support from Jewish voters in the district. The only way to do that was to show that Rogan was better for Israel than Schiff, who could not be trusted because he pals around with a terrorist. Smearing Salam with pure libel was certainly going to be painless, because there is no cost whatsoever to shafting the Muslims.

Well, Mr. Roe miscalculated. His comments set off a firestorm, as the local MPAC chapters bombarded his campaign with protests. The resulting controversy made front-page headlines in the local newspapers, including the Valley Edition of the LA Times. After a few days of this, Congressman Rogan met personally with Salam and offered a pseudo-apology in a letter whose main thrust was that Rogan was a great supporter of Israel and then went on to blame the media for what happened. In general it was a condescending letter in which Rogan passed judgment on whether Salam was or was not really a terrorist (e-mail me if you would like a copy of it).

It is important that the Muslim community in the United States get as involved with the political process as we can. Apparently Mr. Roe did finally apologize personally to Salam Al-Marayati, an apology that Salam accepted. This episode is a sad reminder of how easily dismissed the Muslim community is by politicians and their staff in the present environment. We must work doubly hard to overcome this. Men like Mr. Roe are trying to keep Muslim leaders in America from even sharing the stage with others, and we must not let that attitude prevail.

Comments can reach me at Nali@socal.rr.com.