Do we persist in complaining about the lack of communication, as we did in our first story, “Michael Bloomberg: Too busy or just too prejudiced?” [Dec. 2, 2003] about [the mayor’s lack of attention to Arab-American communities], or do we take an opportunity, when extended to us, to create a positive and productive relationship?

The article we wrote wasn’t pretty, borne as it was from the community’s sense of exasperation and isolation, but it received a positive response from community members and a number of officials. It also resulted in a phone call from the Mayor’s Office.

They were unhappy with what we had written, but were still open to developing a relationship with us and arranged, quite rapidly, for us to interview Mayor Bloomberg.

We were met at City Hall by Chris Coffey, the Mayor’s Director of Advance, whose job it is to communicate with the city’s community newspapers. Members of the Mayor’s staff, which included Lee Hudson and Omar Mohammedi from the Commission on Human Rights, Sayu V. Bhojwani, Commissioner of Immigrant Affairs, and Jonathan Greenspun from the Community Assistance Unit, arrived for our “briefing."

They wanted to give us facts we didn’t have about the Mayor. We wanted to give them facts about the community’s perceptions that had resulted in many Arab Americans feeling out of touch with the Mayor. They were angry and wanted the opportunity to refute the errors we made in our story. We were angry too and wanted to address the reasons why we wrote the story in the first place.

Commissioner Bhojwani, concerned about the community’s perception of the mayor, focused on what actions could be taken to rectify this situation. Commissioner Hudson expressed surprise, as she spread out on the table many issues of Aramica, which had press releases and advertisements from the Commission on Human Rights aimed at reaching the Arab American community.

Commissioner Greenspun and Mr. Coffey cited several facts—the mayor’s pre-Ramadan meetings with the community last October, the more than 10 visits made to Bay Ridge by the mayor, a reception for the King of Jordan at Police Headquarters, and the mayor’s steadfast defense of Arab communities on his weekly radio program—refuting the claims we made about Mayor Bloomberg’s relationship with the Arab American community.

When Mayor Bloomberg entered, he greeted us briskly. Whatever anxiety we felt at the beginning of our “briefing” was momentarily magnified at the prospect of interviewing this highly accomplished and powerful man, whom we had just thoroughly criticized two weeks earlier. His straightforward attitude, low key demeanor, and strict time limits helped to calm us.

Why does the Arab American community believe there is no relationship between you and them?

I don’t know if they do or don’t. I can’t worry about what people think. I’ve just got to do what’s right, particularly for the Arab-American community. Being Jewish, I have a particular responsibility to stand up against any discrimination, but particularly for the Arab American community. I’m in a unique position where nobody can criticize me. If you had a Christian Irish or Italian mayor... it’s not quite the same thing. I’m the one who can stand up better to anybody who wants to discriminate against the Arab-American community, because I come from an ethnic group that has certainly had prejudice against it.

I try to go to mosques — not as much as I’d like to —particularly when there is an incident that it is time to stand up. As you get ready for Ramadan, I make sure the Police Department does exactly the same thing as when you get ready for the Jewish holidays. We talk to the local community leaders about how we provide extra security at mosques or at temples, and make sure you can go about your lives, practice your religion, and share in the Great American Dream. So if we have an outreach problem, we should look at it and do something about it, but my first concern is: Is this administration doing everything it can internally and externally to insure there is no discrimination?

What do you think the Arab American community should do to get your presence?

Invite me. I go to those places where people ask me to go. The mayor gets 2,000 requests a month to speak, cut a ribbon, attend a service, whatever. You can’t do them all.

How would you describe your relationship with the Arab American community?

When I’ve been in an Arab neighborhood, people seem as friendly as when I’m anyplace else. At the mosques I’ve gone to, people are more than friendly. The leaders, not just the Imam, everybody talks to me. I don’t know that I’ve been to any Christian churches that are predominantly Arab, maybe one or two of them. I can outreach more, but they have to as well. You have to be careful here, also. There’s discrimination against Muslims and there’s discrimination against Arabs. They’re not one and the same thing, and you have to make sure you fight against both—there are lots of non-Arab Muslims who feel threatened. After 9/11 we’ve seen people get discriminated against based on just how they look.

I am the luckiest person in the world. I am living in a country where they don’t haul me out in the middle of the night and send me to a gas chamber. It would be pretty ridiculous if I didn’t value those freedoms and understand that if you allow terrorism or discrimination against the other guy, eventually, it will get you. Turkey just discovered that. Saudi Arabia just discovered that. We are all in this world together and we just have to learn to live with that.

In [New York], the city of equality where you have the Statue of Liberty, we have a particular obligation to make sure we have no discrimination. I will stand up anytime, I don’t care what the politics are, for anybody being discriminated against, period. Particularly in the case of the Arab community—whether they’re Muslim or not—and the Muslim community—whether they’re Arab or not—as a Jew, it’s easier for me to do it. It means more. It shouldn’t, but it does.

You mentioned you’re the luckiest person because nobody is going to wake you up and drag you to a gas chamber. There have been many instances where people have been woken up and taken for many months and never been accused.

It’s a disgrace, an outrage.

What’s your take on that?

I hope [they weren’t apprehended] by the NYPD. With the Federal government there’s not much I can do about it, although I’m certainly happy to stand up and scream about it. I’ve got a Police Department of 37,000 men and women with guns and police powers and I’ve got to make sure they don’t discriminate. Ray Kelly, I think, is pretty sensitive. Generally, discrimination in this city starts out with discrimination against the African-American community because they’ve been much more vocal, but discrimination on any basis is equally bad. Kelly understands that. He understands the need to reach out, whether it’s based on religion, ethnicity, orientation, gender, anything else. You can take a look at our Police Department. It’s pretty impressive as to how good a job they’ve done. Are there cops who will discriminate against somebody? Of course there are, but we have zero tolerance for it and the procedures in place to stop it are probably pretty good.

Do you believe Arab Americans are not being vocal or vociferous enough?

I don’t know if that’s true or not. What is true is if we had an incident of discrimination against Jews or African Americans, the press and the outrage would be greater than when the same incident takes place against an Arab. Why is that? Maybe not being organized ... maybe people don’t understand ... I don’t know quite how to explain it. There are a variety of things, but it’s certainly true that a case of discrimination against Arabs does not get the media attention, and that’s my job to some extent, to go and say we will not tolerate this.

Are you giving equal attention to those who are more vociferous and those who are not?

I would like to tell you that you give equal attention but the practical reality is, given the time constraints, you probably go quicker and spend more time where there’s more outrage. That’s just the real world. I think there are probably a lot of discrimination cases that are not reported and then you don’t get people’s attention. It comes back to, should the Arab community be better organized and more vocal. The biggest problem the Arab community has is the connection of the terrorists here to Saudi Arabia. It’s a fact and that’s in the minds of a lot of people, which is all the more reason why I’ve got to speak out.

How will we be able to clear this misperception?

I don’t know if you can clear it overnight. What I can do is stand up and say we will not tolerate discrimination at all costs. But I don’t know if I can change the world. The world is a dangerous place and, at the moment, we certainly have terrorism in lots of parts of the world. I would have told you that some of these problems were intractable in Ireland. [Yet,] the Protestants and Catholics stopped killing each other; it’s a good example. The Arab community here in New York City is not going to change the world political scheme. What we’ve got to do is make sure everybody is accepted here and that there is no discrimination, whether it’s in our laws, or in policing, or in the rental of an apartment. There are some things government can do and some things it can’t. I can’t tell an employer who to hire, but we have discrimination laws here and we enforce them. It gets back to what you said: you have to demand your rights. Democracy is phenomenally responsive.

You have to ask and you have to know where the levers of power are. That’s why some groups have a disproportionate impact, because they know how to play the press, how to play the political process, where to stage their protest. And a little bit of that is just learning.

What do you mean when you say the Arab community in NYC isn’t going to change the world political scheme?

I think you can change the scheme here. There are a quarter of a million [Arab-American] people here. Whatever the number is, it doesn’t mean any more than a quarter of a million of anybody else. We are one city, we are small compared to the rest of the world, but I don’t think the Arab community here is going to have a lot of impact on what the U.N. does, what the U.S. Federal government does overseas, or on the politics of Arab countries.

Why not?

Because they’re a quarter of a million people and they have to worry about making a living. And in the end, people worry about their own families. I’m not suggesting they shouldn’t try.

So Arab Americans are not going to change the world?

I didn’t say that. I said the quarter of a million Arab Americans here, like the 1.2 million Jews in the city, are not going to change the world. They have five times the number you do, so maybe they have five times the impact, perhaps even a little more because they’re more skilled at playing the machine.

How do you feel will be the impact of what’s happening in Iraq?

I’m not privy to all the intelligence. I don’t know if I were President, whether I would have started the war. The President did it. Do I think the world is better off without Saddam Hussein? It’s hard to argue that it’s not. This is a guy who gassed 10,000 people. He’s a bad guy. Is his demise going to really change the landscape of the Middle East? I’d like to think so, but I’m not sure it will. Iraq is far away from a lot of other countries. There are some really destabilizing things going on in lots of countries, not just the Arab world. Take a look at Southeast Asia, the India-Pakistan border. There are some real hotspots around the world and the intelligence community would tell you that it’s really dangerous. My interest, plain and simple, is to worry about this city. Eight million people and every single one of them has a right to have a life here without being discriminated against.

I’m a capitalist. I think if you want to work harder and she doesn’t want to work hard, I hope you get luckier. I’m a believer that being in charge of your

own self interest gets you the best and gives the people that really want something the chance to have it. Your child should be able to go to school and not be discriminated against. You should be able to get a job and not be discriminated against. You should also not be able to break the law and have the law not apply to you. You should not get any breaks in the other direction, either. Can I give you that perfect world overnight? No. But I can certainly take us very far in that direction.

There was a threat issued recently from a fanatic organization with ties to Al Qaeda asking Muslims to leave New York, L. A., Washington, D.C. Is New York still a hot place for terrorist activities?

We have 1,000 of the 37,000 NYPD devoted to intelligence and counterterrorism. We spend an enormous amount of time on it. Someone told me about that, but it’s about as credible as any other crazy thing. The truth is, for most terrorists, so far, New York has been too hot. They

haven’t come here... you know, you hate to say anything because tonight, some terrorists could strike here, but I think we’ve done a good job of doing the kind of intelligence that would stop organized terrorism. Do I think New York is a safe place to live? In a dangerous world, New York is both the most likely target in America but also, I think, safe. The biggest thing you as an individual have to worry about is not terrorism. It’s getting mugged on the street. Most people will never see a terrorist. They will see a criminal.

Do you see the PATRIOT Act as having violated constitutional rights?

Nobody is a bigger believer in the Bill of Rights than I am. Freedom of speech and the press keeps us from totalitarianism. It is the obligation of the government to prove you’re guilty, not you to prove you’re innocent. It may sometimes put some bad guys back out on the streets, but it has kept this country a democracy for 235 odd years. I personally think we’ve got enough police powers. I’m always erring on the side of the courts that protect us and the ACLU. In the end, you always want to make a mistake of letting some bad guys out before you incarcerate someone who’s innocent. I’ve always been opposed to the death penalty. Not on moral grounds because if you kill somebody, I don’t have any moral problem in us killing you. But I don’t believe that we as a society can ever enforce that law without making a mistake. I’m not sure what the PATRIOT Act is going to be, but I think we have enough laws on the books. I don’t think we need more. I think you cannot go around and incarcerate people ... preemptive incarceration is just an outrage. You’ll find me pretty far on the left of civil liberties.