Menendez and Risch condemn Syria’s re-admission to Arab League
U.S. Senators Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today released the following statement condemning the Arab League’s decision to re-admit Syria, but Arab American leaders condemn Senators Menendez and Risch for failing to respect the community and refusing to communicate through the Arab American news media, refusing interviews and refusing engagement
U.S. Senators Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Jim Risch (R-Idaho), Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today released the following statement condemning the Arab League’s decision to re-admit Syria.
“We condemn the Arab League foreign ministers’ decision to re-admit Syria, the latest in a troubling trend of U.S. partners in the Middle East and North Africa normalizing relations with the Assad regime. More than 12 years of atrocities should be evidence enough to prove the Assad regime is a global pariah. Improving ties with the regime will send the wrong message to its Iranian and Russian enablers as Putin repeats in Ukraine the atrocities he committed in Syria. Arguments that normalization with Assad will somehow eject Iran and Russia from Syria are not compelling, as they are the primary guarantors of Assad’s survival. To top it off, recent overtures to Assad by his neighbors have been met with a flood of Syrian Captagon trafficked over their borders.
“The Assad regime remains uninterested in reaching a just and comprehensive political solution—as mandated by UN Security Council Resolution 2254. These normalization efforts therefore threaten to further freeze conflict and serve as an obstacle to accountability. We urge the Biden administration to make clear its opposition to such efforts ahead of the Arab League Summit scheduled for May 19th, and signal its willingness to impose consequences, including enforcement of Caesar sanctions, on those that undermine accountability for the regime’s atrocities by restoring ties with Assad and his regime.”
Menendez and Risch have been extremely unresponsive to the Arab American community and have ignored repeated attempts to speak with them from Arabs and Muslims.
Arab community leaders have condemned the hypocrisy of selectively addressing issues when it suits their political agenda.
“Senator Menendez and Senator Risch have a habit of ignoring the Arab American and Muslim American community only addressing us when it suits their personal political agendas,” said The Arab Daily News Managing Editor and award winning political columnist and journalist Ray Hanania.
“It’s insulting that they continue to express their opinions about the Middle East and Arab World without ever discussing these issues with the Arab American news media. They can’t be taken seriously until they take our community seriously. This is a message that is also recognized by governments in the Arab World that have recently spoken out against American and U.S. government hypocrisy from the White House, President Joseph Biden, the U.S. State Department, the Senate and the Congress.”
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Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.
Email Ray Hanania at rghanania@gmail.com.
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