LONDON: Despite pressing domestic concerns in the US — including the economy, the cost of living and racism — the plight of the Palestinians emerges as the biggest issue for Arab Americans of all generations, according to a survey conducted for Arab News by YouGov. 

Asked to place six key issues in order of priority, 26 percent said the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is their chief concern. 

However, the US economy and the cost of living are not far behind — each of these issues are the chief concerns for 19 percent of respondents.  

They are followed by racism and discrimination (12 percent), the state of the jobs market (8 percent) and crime (6 percent). 

Day-to-day pressures of life might well play a part. Seventy-two percent of respondents are in employment — 59 percent full-time and 13 percent part-time — with 10 percent retired, 5 percent homemakers, and 4 percent describing themselves as unemployed.  

Economics aside, however, the apparent disconnect in the poll between this dominant concern for Palestine, and the intention of 45 percent of respondents to vote for the clearly pro-Israel Donald Trump, is understandable, said Firas Maksad, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington. 

“Gaza and events in the Middle East clearly weigh very heavy on the mind of the average Arab-American voter,” he told the Arab News podcast “Frankly Speaking.”  

He added: “But at the end of the day, they’re American Arabs rather than Arab Americans. They have to vote based on bread-and-butter issues — the wellbeing of their families, the issues that impact them at home — rather than issues that have an impact overseas. 

“To me, that’s not surprising when you look at the profile of that community. So many of them are third- or fourth-generation American. Some of them don’t even speak Arabic anymore — they’re American first and foremost.” 

Although Palestine ranks as the issue of most concern across the board in the survey, “it didn’t surprise me, but was interesting to see, that the issue of Palestine isn’t as prevalent among Arab-American voters as one might think,” Joseph Haboush, a former non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute and Washington correspondent for Al Arabiya English, told the Arab News-sponsored “Ray Hanania Radio Show.” 

One reason is the community’s diversity — Palestinians, Lebanese and Jordanians are the largest groups. 

“I was born and raised in the US, of both Lebanese blood and heritage, and as a kid you’re just immersed in Lebanese politics,” said Haboush. 

“You always hear about the civil war and the role the Palestinians played, with some people casting blame on them, others not. 

“So it’s interesting to know that (Palestine) might not be as high a priority among Arab-American voters as anybody outside the Arab-American community might think.” 

Whereas the plight of Palestinians is the chief concern for 29 percent of Arab Americans aged 50 or over, only 21 percent of those aged 35-54 rank the issue first.  

For them, this still makes Palestine concern No. 1, but overall only 2 percentage points above the economy and the cost of living — perhaps reflecting the day-to-day domestic concerns of working people bringing up families. 

Palestine appears to be of most concern to Arab Americans in lower income brackets – 37 percent of those earning under $40,000, falling to 22 percent among those paid $80,000 or more. 

It is clear that the flames of indignation and empathy toward the Palestinian people still burn bright among Arab Americans. 

Overall, 36 percent said they, or someone from their family, have taken part in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, although there are some clear differences among age groups. 

Only 6 percent of those aged 55 or older have taken to the streets, while the largest percentage of protesters is found among those aged 35-54 (53 percent) and 18-34 (44 percent). Fewer women (31percent) than men (41 percent) have taken part in protests. 

Palestine and domestic economic concerns aside, 43 percent of Arab Americans said they have experienced racism, harassment or hate attacks related to their ethnicity, religion or origins. 

In another finding that makes overall support for Trump seem puzzling, when asked which of the main presidential candidates they considered to be more sensitive to the national needs and problems of Arab Americans, 39 percent said Kamala Harris and 31 percent said Trump.  

Eight percent opted for Green Party candidate Jill Stein, 12 percent did not know, and 10 percent said none of the above. 

WASHINGTON: The global war against inflation has largely been won — and at surprisingly little cost to economic growth, the International Monetary Fund declared Tuesday.
In its latest assessment of the global economy, the IMF predicted that worldwide inflation will cool from 6.7 percent last year to 5.8 percent this year and to 4.3 percent in 2025. It estimates that inflation will fall even faster in the world’s wealthy countries, from 4.6 percent last year to 2.6 percent this year and 2 percent — the target range for most major central banks — in 2025.
The slowdown in inflation, after years of crushing price increases in the aftermath of the pandemic, led the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank to cut interest rates this year after they had aggressively raised them to try to tame inflation.
“The battle against inflation is almost won,″ Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, the IMF’s chief economist, told reporters Tuesday. ”In most countries, inflation is hovering close to central bank targets.″
Inflation had accelerated when the world economy recovered with unexpected speed from the COVID-19 recession, leaving factories, freight yards, ports and businesses overwhelmed with customer orders and creating shortages, delays and higher prices. The high borrowing rates engineered by major central banks, along with the end of supply chain logjams, brought inflation dramatically down from the four-decade highs it hit in mid-2022.
And to the surprise of forecasters, the economy — especially the largest, in the United States — continued to grow and employers kept hiring despite higher borrowing costs.
“The decline in inflation without a global recession is a major achievement,” Gourinchas wrote in a blog post that accompanied the IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook.
The IMF, a 190-nation lending organization, works to promote economic growth and financial stability and reduce global poverty. On Tuesday, besides sketching a milder inflation outlook, it upgraded its economic expectations for the United States this year, while lowering its estimates for growth in Europe and China. The IMF left its forecast for global growth unchanged at a relatively lackluster 3.2 percent for 2024.
The IMF expects the US economy to expand 2.8 percent this year, down slightly from 2.9 percent in 2023 but an improvement on the 2.6 percent it had forecast for 2024 back in July. Growth in the United States has been led by strong consumer spending, fueled by healthy gains in inflation-adjusted wages.
Next year, though, the IMF expects the US economy to decelerate to 2.2 percent growth. With a new presidential administration and Congress in place, the IMF envisions the nation’s job market losing some momentum in 2025 as the government begins seeking to curb huge budget deficits by slowing spending, raising taxes or some combination of both.
The IMF expects China’s economic growth to slow from 5.2 percent last year to 4.8 percent this year and 4.5 percent in 2025. The world’s No. 2 economy has been hobbled by a collapse in its housing market and by weak consumer confidence — problems only partly offset by strong exports.
The 20 European countries that share the euro currency are collectively expected to eke out 0.8 percent growth this year, twice the 2023 expansion of 0.4 percent but a slight downgrade from the 0.9 percent the IMF had forecast three months ago for 2024. The German economy, hurt by a slump in manufacturing and real estate, isn’t expected to grow at all this year.
Now that interest rates are coming down and likely to aid the world’s economies, the IMF warned, the need to contain enormous government deficits will likely put a brake on growth. The overall world economy is expected to grow 3.2 percent in both 2024 and 2025, down a tick from 3.3 percent last year. That’s an unimpressive standard: From 2000 through 2019, before the pandemic upended economic activity, global growth had averaged 3.8 percent a year.
The IMF also continues to express concern that geopolitical tension, including antagonism between the United States and China, could make world trade less efficient. The concern is that more countries would increasingly do business with their allies instead of seeking the lowest-priced or best-made foreign goods. Still, global trade, measured by volume, is expected to grow 3.1 percent this year and 3.4 percent in 2025, improving on 2023’s anemic 0.8 percent increase.
Gourinchas also suggested that economic growth could end up being weaker than expected if countries take steps to reduce immigration, which has helped ease labor shortages in the United States and other advanced economies. And he said armed conflicts, like those in Ukraine and the Middle East, could also threaten the economic outlook.
India’s economy is expected to 7 percent this year and 6.5 percent in 2025. While still strong, that pace would be down from 8.2 percent growth last year, a result of consumers slowing their spending after a post-pandemic boom.
The IMF predicts that Japan’s economy, hurt by production problems in the auto industry and a slowdown in tourism, will expand by a meager 0.3 percent this year before accelerating to 1.1 percent growth in 2025.
The United Kingdom is projected to register 1.1 percent growth this year, up from a dismal 0.3 percent in 2023, with falling interest rates helping spur stronger consumer spending.