Lebanese Dual Citizens Support Barack Obama
Here are highlights from an article from the Lebanon Daily Star entitled, "Battered Bint Jbeil has no shortage of Obama supporters":
- Like many other Lebanese-Americans in Bint Jbeil, a town near the border with Israel where Hezbullah enjoys strong support, Hussein al-Sayyed speaks fondly of the American way of life and says he plans to cast his vote for Democrat Barack Obama.
- "I'll vote for Obama, that's for sure," Sayyed, a Shiite 48-year-old restaurant owner and fan of the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini, told AFP ahead of Tuesday's US presidential election.
- Although many agree with Khomeini's description of the United States as the "Great Satan," they also admire America and are grateful for the good lives they have been able to build for themselves there.
- "I am nothing without the United States. I could not have built this," said Sayyed, a portrait of Khomeini hanging on his restaurant wall.
- "In the US your rights are protected and your freedom of expression is respected," said the father of six. All of his children have dual citizenship.
- According to the US Census Bureau, at least 3.5 million Americans are of Arab descent, with Lebanese-Americans the largest group at 39 percent and many of them concentrated in the midwestern state of Michigan. Most are Christians, Ali Berri, who runs a supermarket in Detroit, also plans to vote for the Democrat.
- "Obama is the only one worth anything," said Berri, 60, who was on holiday in his hometown of Tibnin near Bint Jbeil for the hunting season.
- Municipal officials in Tibnin say the town is practically deserted in winter because so many of its residents live in the United States.
- "Obama's father is Muslim and black, so he will understand the region better and will be less arrogant than [Republican candidate John] McCain," said Berri, also a Shiite. "I admire America because it is a free country," he added.
- Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center, explained that people in the Arab world in general are intrigued by the candidacy of Obama, for obvious reasons: "Because he is an African-American, his father is Muslim, his middle name is Hussein - he's not the typical white American. This has caused a lot of interest at a general cultural level."
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