Ever since I spoke to comedian Dean Obeidallah about how his Arab-American ethnic identity influenced his political views, I've been very interested in Arab-Americans' opinions on U.S.-Middle East relations. I decided to check back in with Dean here in New York after he returned from performing with the Axis of Evil Comedy Tour in Ottawa, Canada. I wanted to know about Middle Eastern-Americans' reactions to the current triad of candidates.

He told me, "Middle Eastern Americans overwhelmingly are supporting Barack. They want change too. They think he is someone with a multiracial, multicultural home and he might be respectful of other cultures."

I asked Dean what he thought of the different candidates' views on U.S.-Middle East relations.
"That's probably one of the only areas where Clinton and Obama slightly differ," he said. "Barack says he would speak to [Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] and try to negotiate. Hillary and McCain say we will never speak to him. We don't speak to the enemy—I guess we just blow them up."

Dean mentioned remarks Hillary Clinton made the April 22 episode of ABC's "Good Morning America." ""I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran [if it attacked Israel]," Clinton said. "In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them." [Source: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/04/dems.election/index.html?iref=mpstoryview]. In response, the government of Iran filed a formal letter of complaint with the United Nations.

And while he expressed disapproval of Clinton's words, Dean wasn't uniformly anti-Clinton in the arena of Middle East relations.

He added that he thought Hillary Clinton would actively engage in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, "especially considering former President Clinton's track record. He was really trying to resolve it, and he was getting closer, but then Bush was elected."

Palestinian-American activist and actress Maysoon Zayid spoke to me via phone from Los Angeles, where she was attending a film premiere. Maysoon appears in the upcoming Adam Sandler feature "You Don't Mess with the Zohan," a politically incorrect tale of a former Mossad [Israeli Secret Service] agent who fakes his own death in order to realize his dream of becoming a New York City hairdresser. Maysoon plays Nadira, an Arab-American woman who work in the salon where Sandler's character eventually finds a job [the film is written by Robert Smigel, Sandler, and Judd Apatow].

Maysoon will also be a delegate to the Democratic National Convention this summer. Unlike Dean, she supports Hillary Clinton for president.

"I'm pissed off at Barack Obama," she said. "He yelled at Jimmy Carter for talking to Hamas, but Jimmy Carter is the only person who ever brokered a peace deal with Israel." She conceded that Hillary Clinton's comment about obliterating Iran "wasn't very tasty either," but added, "If anyone's going to make the peace process move forward it's Bill Clinton, because he's so invested in it."
Because Maysoon is relatively well-known in activist circles for her staunch support for Palestinian rights (she runs a foundation, Maysoon's Kids, for Palestinian children with disabilities), I was surprised to hear her say that the candidates' respective approaches to Middle Eastern policy don't matter to her as much as other issues like healthcare and the economy.

She explained, "All the candidates are going to say the exact same thing. Nobody's going to acknowledge the crimes against humanity that are going on in Gaza and the West Bank…I've made my peace with the fact that we [Palestinians] are a last-year, second-term issue."

For more on Maysoon and Dean, check out this Sunday’s PBS special, “America at a Crossroads: Muslim-American Comics Come of Age."