Muslims Criticize the Governor

Muslim leaders on Tuesday called Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger disrespectful and insulting for ignoring their request to meet about the war in Lebanon so he could explain his appearance at a rally supporting Israel that was attended by thousands.

Schwarzenegger and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa spoke at the July 23 event in front of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles building on Wilshire Boulevard.

On Aug. 6, two days after Muslim leaders held a news conference to complain that the mayor and governor had ignored several requests to talk, Villaraigosa met privately with 10 Muslim leaders and apologized for initially disregarding their invitation.

Schwarzenegger and his aides have not returned repeated phone calls asking him to explain his appearance and get the “other, equally important side” of the Lebanon-Israeli conflict, said Shakeel Syed, executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California.

“It’s insulting and extremely disrespectful,” Syed said. “What is appalling and disturbing is that repeatedly, public officials for the state of California and city of Los Angeles seem now to be pledging their allegiance to the state of Israel.”

Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said Schwarzenegger has an obligation to meet with Muslim groups if he wants to understand the conflict in the Middle East and speak publicly about it.

Al-Marayati said the governor’s recent actions appeared designed to appeal to pro-Israel donors during the reelection campaign.

“He is pandering,” Al-Marayati said. “This is political pandering. They believe they are serving a special-interest group when they exclude us, and they need to understand that their pandering is to the detriment of California.”

Schwarzenegger aides acknowledged that nothing had been scheduled as of late Tuesday afternoon. After being contacted by The Times, spokeswoman Margita Thompson said the governor had asked his staff to “identify key leaders in California’s Muslim community and to set up a meeting.”

“The governor has always said he represents all California, and when he went to the rally last month, he called for peace for all people in the Middle East, including in Lebanon and for the Lebanese people,” Thompson said.

Syed said the governor’s office called him about 6:30 p.m. Tuesday and told him the issue was being reviewed.

This is not the first time Schwarzenegger has waded into foreign affairs. When asked about the Iraq war on “Meet the Press” in February, he said President Bush’s decision to invade should not be second-guessed, and he compared the current hostilities to the Vietnam and Korean wars.

“So I think the trick is we’ve got to get out as quickly as possible, but also in a sensible way,” he said.

At the pro-Israel rally last month, Schwarzenegger devoted two sentences to expressing sympathy for Lebanon, saying he had prayed for its people to “recover their country and live without war and violence or strife.”

Except for that, the speech concentrated on expressing support for Israel and its right to defend itself against terrorist attacks. The governor, who is Catholic, said that he had “long felt a special bond” with the Israeli people.

“I started in the ‘70s as a bodybuilding champion when I went to Israel for the first time,” Schwarzenegger said at the rally. “I went back in the ‘80s as the Terminator. I went back in the ‘90s to open up our Planet Hollywood restaurant. And, of course, Israel is the first country that I visited after I became governor of the great state of California.”

Schwarzenegger thanked Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and a longtime friend, for inviting him to “this rally, this pro-Israel rally. Of course I didn’t hesitate, and I said, ‘I’ll be there; no two ways about it.’ ”

Throughout his life, Schwarzenegger has supported Jewish causes. Many of his closest associates, including longtime friends in Austria, are Jewish. He has donated a reported $1 million to the Wiesenthal Center. The governor asked the group to research the World War II record of his father, a member of the Nazi Party.

In early August a group of Wiesenthal Center rabbis, along with Los Angeles Councilman Jack Weiss, visited Israel, where their activities included visiting war-zone hospitals. There they handed out hundreds of T-shirts donated by Schwarzenegger and emblazoned with the words “Terminator 3.”

Syed, whose group represents more than 75 mosques and Muslim organizations, said that after an initial telephone call two weeks ago failed to produce a meeting, he requested one in an Aug. 7 letter. He said an aide in the governor’s Los Angeles office was respectful and promised to get back to him. Follow-up calls elicited the same response but no meeting, he said.

“We are not aware of any efforts that your office has made in listening to the Lebanese, Arab & Muslim perspective on the tragedy,” Syed wrote the governor. After Schwarzenegger learned more about the conflict, Syed wrote, he would “feel the pain” of Muslims as much as he feels for innocent civilians killed in Israel.

As he campaigns for reelection, Schwarzenegger has paid special attention to a variety of groups requesting meetings.

In the last two weeks, he has appeared with a Vietnamese group in Orange County, and at the Farm Bureau in Fresno, a firehouse in Redding, a high school in Carlsbad, a funeral in Concord and technology training centers in Salinas and Los Angeles.