Sep 16th 2014

Ted Cruz: The Dangers of Not Listening

by James J. Zogby

Dr. James J. Zogby is the President of Arab American Institute

My mother was fond of saying "if you want someone to hear you, you must first listen to them"—know them, understand the questions they are asking, and be sensitive to their concerns. If you do this, she would say, "you will be able to speak with people and not at them".

What happens when you don't follow this simple rule of communication was on display during the "In Defense of Christians" conference that was held in Washington from September 9th to the 11th. 

Addressing an audience of 900 mostly Arab Christians, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) launched into a passionate defense of Israel arguing that "Christians have no better ally than the Jewish State". The audience booed. Undeterred, Cruz continued, to more booing, "those who hate Israel hate America" and "those who hate Jews hate Christians". When the audience would not stop, Cruz cut short his remarks charging "some here are so consumed with hate...if you will not stand with Israel and Jews, then I will not stand with you". He then walked off the stage.

It is generally known that Ted Cruz can be a demagogue, a quality that makes him immensely disliked by his colleagues. He is also considered to be quite bright and calculating. And so as I have attempted to understand why he did what he did, two distinct scenarios come to mind. It is possible that he went to the IDC conference to provoke a "Sister Souljah" moment—which he could then exploit with his supporters on the fundamentalist right as evidence of his political courage. It is more likely that he had no clue about the reaction his taunting remarks would receive and was, therefore, stunned by the audience reaction—and that it was only mid-stream that he decided that he could use the audience reaction to his political benefit.

In either case, Cruz displayed a shameful insensitivity to the concerns of Middle East Christians and a total lack of awareness of their history and current needs. Like too many of his colleagues, he can only see the Middle East through then lens of what is good for Israel. Because he comes out of the Christian fundamentalist world and now operates in the bubble of Washington politics, he simply had no understanding of his audience and no desire to listen to them and learn from them.

Immediately upon leaving the event, he issued a statement to Breitbart (a far-right website) calling the audience reaction "a shameful display of...ignorance and bigotry". He lamented that while he had wanted to lay out a litany of examples of Christians and Jews persecuted by "Islamic radicals", his efforts to do so were upended by "bigotry and hatred" and "the corrosive evil of anti-Semitism".

In fact, in this entire sad and sordid affair, the only ignorance and bigotry on display was that of the Senator, himself. He cared not a bit for the feelings of Arab Christians. Blinded by his own lack of understanding and concern, Cruz appeared to be more interested in scoring political points with his conservative base, than in taking the time to know what Christians in Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, and Iraq really feel and want. 

If he had listened to the six Patriarchs of Eastern churches (as President Obama did in a lengthy meeting with the prelates on Thursday), all of whom also addressed the conference, he would have heard them speak of their history of coexistence with Muslims. They, of course, are deeply concerned with the rise of extremism and horrified by the brutally violent excesses of those who are using a distorted Islam to create the terror they use to consolidate political power. But far from wanting to pour fuel on the fires of a "clash of civilizations" that pits Jews and Christians against Muslims, the leaders of these Eastern churches seek the defeat of extremism and the creation of a social order that can build societies based on equal rights for all and reconciliation among all faith traditions.

But Cruz wasn't listening. He came to the event with preconceived notions and prepackaged message. He was speaking at Middle East Christians, using them as a prop to promote his own agenda. Unfortunately, he is not alone.

For decades now, American politicians have paid scant attention to the realities of the Arab World and the history and needs of its people. Their awareness of the region has been framed by Israel and oil. One, they felt was necessary for their electoral ambitions, the other was important for our economic well-being. Seeing the world through this narrow lens produced a "willed ignorance" about broader regional realities. It was not just that politicians did not know about what Arabs were saying or what they wanted, they did not want to know—since they felt that there was no benefit in knowing.

This has created a dangerous state of affairs. In the past four decades since the end of the war in Viet Nam, we have spent more money, sent more weapons, fought more wars, lost more lives, and have more interests at stake in the Middle East than anywhere else in the world, and yet we still have too little understanding of its people, their history and culture, and their needs. Because we have had no understanding of Egyptians, Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, and Iraqis, we have engaged in tragic and costly foreign policy blunders that have taken a terrible toll in human life and the prestige of our country across this critical region.  

In my polling, I find that Arabs like our values and culture, our science and technology, our products and our people. What they hate is our policy, because they see its impact on their lives and the insensitivity it demonstrates to their concerns. They want to like us, but feel that we reject them. 

It appears that policymakers want to have it both ways. They want to pass insensitive anti-Arab legislation and make outrageous statements about Arabs and Muslims—all for politically expedient ends—and yet they are confounded by the Arab reactions to these taunts and insults.

So it was with Ted Cruz on Wednesday night. Despite his reputation, he was set to deliver a speech with which I am certain many of his congressional colleagues would have concurred. After all, they might say, what could anyone find offensive in praising Israel and denouncing radical Islam—especially to an audience of fellow Christians? But it was not the message this audience needed or wanted to hear, precisely because they are suffering—and because many of them have suffered at the hands of Israel. Because he didn't really want to help them, or care to know them or to listen to them they booed and booted him off the stage.

There is a lesson in this, for those who care to learn. And it's not only about the importance of communicating. With the Israeli-Palestinian conflict simmering on low boil; with violent extremists gaining ground in the heart of the Arab East; with Lebanon on the brink, overwhelmed by refugees and in danger of being engulfed the sectarian conflict brewing next door; and with ancient Christian churches threatened with extinction—the President has announced that we are now about to reengage militarily in Iraq and Syria. Before we do, it is important that we not repeat the mistakes we made in Iraq and Afghanistan. We need to be certain that we understand the people and the cultural and social dynamics at work in each of these countries before it's too late and our efforts to help become yet another in a series of fatal errors that have marked our history of involvement in this region about which we know so little.   

Browse articles by author

More Current Affairs

Putin's Brezhnev Moment 
by Aryeh Neier
Feb 6th 2023
EXTRACTS: "Brezhnev, in power from 1964 to 1982, signed the 1975 Helsinki Accords, together with the United States, Canada, and most of Europe. Eager for formal recognition of its borders at the time, the USSR under Brezhnev, together with its satellite states in Central and Eastern Europe, underestimated the potential impact of the Accords. That is probably why it agreed to include commitments to respect human rights, including freedom of information and movement, in the agreement’s Final Act." --- "Putin’s regime is turning its back on the legacy of Soviet dissent. Worse, it is replicating the despotic practices of Brezhnev and Soviet totalitarianism. If it continues on this path, it risks ending up in the same place."
The Necessity of Morality in Foreign Policy
by Chris Patten
Feb 5th 2023
EXTRACT: "....when countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and, above all, China flagrantly violate their citizens’ human rights, liberal democracies must unite to constrain their behavior. Ultimately, it is up to those of us who believe in the universality of human rights to expose crimes against humanity and to uphold liberal-democratic values in the face of authoritarian threats" --- "....liberal democracies have a shared responsibility to support the Ukrainians fighting to defend their homeland and to protect their rights to self-determination and statehood in the face of Russian aggression."
Ukraine war: the bloody battle for Soledar and what it tells us about the future of the conflict
by Stefan Wolff
Jan 14th 2023
EXTRACT: "On balance, then, the events in and around Soledar over the past week illustrate that no matter the outcome of the current fighting, this is not a turning point. It’s another strong indication that the war is likely going to be long and costly."
Through the Russian Looking Glass 
by Michael Marder
Jan 14th 2023
EXTRACTS: "Russian President Vladimir Putin has long regarded the collapse of the Soviet Union as a “geopolitical catastrophe.” The invasion of Ukraine, now approaching its one-year anniversary, could be seen as the culmination of his years-long quest to restore the Soviet empire. ..... "With Russia’s economy straining under Western sanctions, some of the country’s leading economists and mathematicians are advocating a return to the days of five-year plans and quantitative production targets." .... "The logical endpoint of a planned economy today is the same as it was then: mass expropriation. Stalin’s collectivization of Soviet agriculture in the late 1920s and early 1930s led to millions of deaths, and the post-communist 'shock therapy' of privatization resulted in the proliferation of 'raiders' and the creation of a new class of oligarchs. Now, enthralled by imperial nostalgia, Russia may be about to embark on a new violent wave of expropriation and redistribution."
China's Autocracy in Crisis 
by Ian Buruma
Jan 11th 2023
EXTRACT: "These developments suggest that Indian economist Amartya Sen was correct when he famously argued in 1983 that famines are caused not only by a shortage of food but also by a lack of information and political accountability. For example, the Bengal famine of 1943, India’s worst, happened under imperial British rule. After India gained independence, the country’s free press and democratic government, while flawed, prevented similar catastrophes. Sen’s thesis has since been hailed as a ringing endorsement of democracy. While some critics have noted that elected governments can also cause considerable harm, including widespread hunger, Sen points out that no famine has 'ever taken place in a functioning democracy.' --- China’s system of one-party, and increasingly one-man, rule is couched in Communist or nationalist jargon, but is rooted in fascist theory. The German jurist Carl Schmitt, who justified Adolf Hitler’s right to wield total power, coined the term “decisionism” to describe a system in which the validity of policies and laws is not determined by their content but by an omnipotent leader’s will. In other words, Hitler’s will was the law."
No More "Chicken Kiev" for Ukraine
by Yuriy Gorodnichenko, Anastassia Fedyk, and Ilona Sologoub 
Dec 29th 2022
EXTRACTS: "On August 1, 1991, a little more than three weeks before Ukraine declared independence from the Soviet Union, US President George H.W. Bush arrived in Kyiv to discourage Ukrainians from doing it. In his notorious 'Chicken Kiev' speech in the Ukrainian parliament, Bush lectured the stunned MPs that independence was a recipe for 'suicidal nationalism', 'ethnic hatred', and 'Local despotism.' ----- ....the West’s reluctance to respect Ukraine’s desire for sovereignty was a bad omen, revealing a mindset among US and European leaders that paved the way to Russia’s full-scale invasion in February. ----- .... Western observers, ranging from Noam Chomsky to Henry Kissinger, blame the West for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade, or have urged Western leaders to provide Putin a diplomatic off-ramp by compelling Ukraine to give up territory. Policymakers, too, seem to view Ukraine’s self-defense as a bigger problem than Russia’s genocidal aggression. ----- ..... despite the massive material and military support the West has provided to Ukraine, the fateful logic of appeasement lingers, because many Western leaders fear the consequences of Russia’s defeat more than the prospect of a defeated Ukraine. ----- This war is about the survival of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. In the words of the Israeli leader Golda Meir, born in Kyiv, 'They say we must be dead. And we say we want to be alive. Between life and death, I don’t know of a compromise.' "
A China Optimist's Lament 
by Stephen S. Roach
Dec 29th 2022
EXTRACT: "China’s flexible, blended, increasingly dynamic private sector could do all that and more. ----- Then came Xi Jinping. "
COVID and the Chinese Social Contract 
by Joschka Fischer
Dec 29th 2022
EXTRACTS: "For a few years in the late 2010s, it seemed to be only a matter of time before China would replace the US as the world’s largest economy and overwhelmingly dominant technological superpower. Then came the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan in late 2019. " ---- "How could China’s seemingly all-powerful autocrat understand so little about the social contract on which his power rests? For all its difficulties, liberal democracy – with its transparency and self-imposed limits – has once again proved more efficient and resilient than autocracy. Accountability to the people and the rule of law is not a weakness; it is a decisive source of strength. Where Xi sees a cacophony of clashing opinions and subversive free expression, the West sees a flexible and self-correcting form of collective intelligence. The results speak for themselves."
Andy Warhol Comes to Kyiv
by Alexander J. Motyl
Dec 12th 2022
EXTRACTS: "Next time you’re in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, don’t bother looking for Dostoevsky Street. It’s been renamed: it’s now Andy Warhol Street. ..... because many Ukrainians regard Andy as Ukrainian. Was he? The evidence is mixed." ---- "Warhol remained a committed Greek Catholic all his life. He regularly prayed, both at home and in church, and frequently attended Sunday Mass. His bedside table contained a crucifix, a Christ statuette, and a prayer book. After he died on February 22, 1987, he was buried in St. John the Divine Byzantine Catholic Cemetery, some twenty miles south of Pittsburgh, in a simple grave next to his parents." ---- "When it comes to objective cultural affiliation or subjective ethnic identification, the United States—with its diverse Slavic heritages—has the greatest claim on Warhol and his art."
New food technologies could release 80% of the world’s farmland back to nature
by Chris D Thomas, Jack Hatfield and Katie Noble
Dec 12th 2022
EXTRACT: "Cellular agriculture provides an alternative, and could be one of this century’s most promising technological advancements. Sometimes called “lab-grown food”, the process involves growing animal products from real animal cells, rather than growing actual animals. If growing meat or milk from animal cells sounds strange or icky to you, let’s put this into perspective. Imagine a brewery or cheese factory: a sterile facility filled with metal vats, producing large volumes of beer or cheese, and using a variety of technologies to mix, ferment, clean and monitor the process. Swap the barley or milk for animal cells and this same facility becomes a sustainable and efficient producer of dairy or meat products."
Disrupting the Disruptors 
by Roger McNamee
Dec 5th 2022
EXTRACT: "After a decade of unconstrained growth – when it seemed that a new billionaire was minted every day – the tech industry has finally hit a rough patch. Elon Musk’s erratic behavior following his takeover of Twitter has left the financially leveraged platform in a precarious state. The crypto exchange FTX’s sudden implosion has vaporized a business that was recently valued at $32 billion, taking many other crypto firms with it. Meta (Facebook) is laying off 11,000 people, 13% of its workforce, and Amazon is shedding 10,000. What are we supposed to make of these setbacks? Are they isolated incidents, or signs of structural change?"
The Unavoidable Crash
by Nouriel Roubini
Dec 3rd 2022
EXTRACT: "Just looking at explicit debts, the figures are staggering. Globally, total private- and public-sector debt as a share of GDP rose from 200% in 1999 to 350% in 2021. The ratio is now 420% across advanced economies, and 330% in China. In the United States, it is 420%, which is higher than during the Great Depression and after World War II."
Rishi Sunak's Daunting Challenge
by Chris Patten
Dec 3rd 2022
EXTRACT: "The Conservative leadership must stand up to the party’s extremists, and it must do so sooner rather than later. If moderates cannot defeat the hardliners by the next election, and the outcome turns out to be as bad for the Tories as recent polls suggest, they will find they have the same fight on their hands in opposition. --- Conservatives must never underestimate the importance of their moderate supporters. If the Party continues to disregard centrists whenever the Brexiteer right stamps its feet, it may find itself out of power for a long time to come."
US midterms: why gen Z and millennials came out to vote and why it marks a generational shift
by Dafydd Townley
Nov 24th 2022
EXTRACT: "....young voters did reach the polls they voted overwhelmingly for Democrat candidates across the country. According to reports, 63% of 18- to 29- year olds voted Democrat and 35% voted Republican in the House of Representatives elections. Voters between 30 and 44 split their vote between the two parties, while older voters tended to vote Republican."
Nouriel Roubini on stagflation, debt distress, financial innovation, and more
by Nouriel Roubini
Nov 24th 2022
Nouriel Roubini: "Central banks are in both a stagflation trap and a debt trap. Amid negative aggregate supply shocks that reduce growth and increase inflation, they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. If they increase interest rates enough to bring inflation down to 2%, they will cause a severe economic hard landing. And if they don’t – attempting instead to protect growth and jobs – they will be left increasingly far behind the curve, leading to a de-anchoring of inflation expectations and a wage-price spiral. Very high debt ratios (both private and public) complicate the dilemma further. Raising interest rates enough to crush inflation causes not only an economic crash, but also a financial crash, with highly leveraged private and public debtors facing severe distress. The resulting financial turmoil that intensifies the recession, creating a vicious cycle of deepening recession and escalating financial pain and debt distress. In these circumstances, central banks will blink. They will wimp out in the fight against inflation, in an effort to avoid an economic and financial crash. But that will lead to a higher permanent inflation rate, while only postponing the arrival of stagflation and debt crises. In other words, central banks in the United States, Europe, and other advanced economies have only bad options."
Disquiet on the Western Front
by Sergei Guriev
Nov 13th 2022
EXTRACTS: "Today’s autocrats wear staid business suits and pretend to be democrats, and that has been sufficient to grant them access to high-level meetings in Davos or at the G20, where they actively recruit former Western politicians, lawyers, public-relations consultants, and think tanks to make their case in the West." ---- "....whatever the weaknesses of Western democracies, they still command a degree of soft power that their autocratic competitors could only dream of. Democracy remains popular around the world – among citizens of both democratic and nondemocratic countries. That is why modern dictators pretend to be democrats." ---- "....there is no shortage of criticism about how the US and Europe function. But that itself is a product of the press freedom and political opposition that one can find only in democracies. But actions speak louder than words: Immigrants from around the world are eager to come to Europe or America, whereas few are trying to get into Russia or China."
Stephen S. Roach on US monetary tightening, China's growth sacrifice, the Sino-American rivalry, and more 
by Stephen S. Roach
Nov 9th 2022
EXTRACT: "In conventional macroeconomics, an economy’s longer-term growth potential is determined by the sum of labor-force and productivity growth. If one of those factors slows, the other must accelerate. Otherwise, long-term growth suffers.  China is in serious trouble on both fronts. An unsustainable one-child family-planning policy –subsequently changed to a two- and now three-child policy – means that the working-age population is declining, and Xi’s speech at the 20th Party Congress suggested that already-strong productivity headwinds are likely to intensify. "
Could Russia collapse?
by Matthew Sussex
Nov 1st 2022
EXTRACTS: "First and most obvious – it has happened before. And in an historical sense, it has happened relatively recently, with the collapse of the USSR in 1991 rightly considered a seismic event in world politics. The rub is that nobody predicted the end of the USSR either. In fact, it was confidently assumed in the West that Mikhail Gorbachev would go on ruling the Soviet Union, until the hard-line coup that failed to topple him (but left him mortally wounded in a political sense) made that view obviously redundant." ---- "So is it speculative to talk about a future Russian collapse? Yes. Is there evidence it is imminent? No. But in many ways that’s the problem: when authoritarian regimes implode, they tend to do so very quickly, and with little warning."
Xi's Conflict-Prone China 
by Stephen S. Roach
Oct 25th 2022
EXTRACT: " But in celebrating the CPC centennial, he [XI left little doubt of what those challenges might portend: “Having the courage to fight and the fortitude to win is what has made our party invincible.” A modernized and expanded military puts teeth into that threat and underscores the risks posed by Xi’s conflict-prone China."
The ECB Has Been Driving EU Inflation
by Hans-Werner Sinn
Oct 8th 2022
EXTRACTS: "Recent inflation news from the eurozone’s largest member, Germany, is particularly alarming. In August, producer prices – which measure what is happening at the preliminary stages of industrial production – were a whopping 46% higher than in the same month last year. Given the long-term correlation between the growth rate of producer and consumer prices, this suggests that the latter could soar to 14% in November. Price stability – which is supposed to be the ECB’s uncompromising goal, per the Maastricht Treaty – is no longer perceptible" ----- "Since the 2008 global economic crisis, the ECB has allowed the central-bank money supply to increase twice as fast, relative to economic output, as the US Federal Reserve has. Of that growth, 83% was the result of the ECB’s purchases of government bonds from eurozone countries. With those purchases – which totaled an estimated €4.4 trillion – the ECB pushed interest rates on government bonds to around zero. This spurred countries to disregard European debt rules and accumulate debt at a breakneck pace."