Rep. Roskam has Gadhafi’s autograph on a map of Libya, and you don’t
WASHINGTON — When it comes to Middle East politics, getting Israelis and Palestinians to agree on how to draw up a map seems nearly impossible. But getting the two sides to draw on a map of the Middle East? That took just one congressman — Illinois Republican Rep. Peter Roskam. And he did it twice.
One is a map that includes Israel and the Palestinian territories.
“To Peter, in deepest appreciation for your steadfast support,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scrawled across the Mediterranean Sea, just off the Gaza City coastline, in August 2015. “To Peter, with friendship and love from Jerusalem,” wrote Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, who circled the entire city. Former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s autograph stretched across the West Bank.
Another, from 2008, is a map of Jerusalem and the surrounding area. In Roskam’s telling, he took no chances in getting autographs from Fayyad and Israel’s prime minister at the time, Ehud Olmert.
The lawmaker got the Palestinian leader’s signature without any difficulty at a breakfast with other American representatives.
Slideshow: Gadhafi, Netanyahu, the Dalai Lama — all signed this congressman’s maps
“And then the next day or a couple days later, we were with Prime Minister Olmert, and I thought, ‘I’ve got to go for this,’ so I folded the map up, and he signed it,” Roskam said with a laugh during an interview with Yahoo News. “So that may be the only map those two brothers ever signed.”
But Roskam’s biggest coup may have come in March 2008 when “there was about 15 minutes” when the United States and Libya attempted to smooth over decades of rough relations and he and other lawmakers met with strongman Moammar Gadhafi.
“There was a delegation that went over, and I had a map of Africa, and I said, ‘Hey, colonel, would you sign my map?’ and he signed it,” Roskam recalled. “Laughed out loud when I asked him to sign the map.”
A dozen framed maps with some of his best signatures adorn a long wall on his spacious, high-ceilinged office. These include a map of Tibet autographed by the Dalai Lama; one signed by both Burma’s democracy champion, Aung San Suu Kyi, and the country’s previous military ruler; a map of India signed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi; and one of the Ukraine signed by Petro Poroshenko days before being elected president.
Roskam traces his lifelong fascination to his parents’ decision to wallpaper his older brother’s room with classic National Geographic maps. “When you were in there, you just found yourself getting drawn in, looking,” he explained.
Roskam doesn’t remember where he went on his first “co-del” — as congressional delegations overseas are known — but recalls that he was annoyed with himself for forgetting to bring a map. The hunt for celebrity autographs began on his very next trip, a stop in Iraq. “We had dinner. I had this National Geographic map of Iraq, and I said, ‘General, would you mind signing my map?” And he signed it, dated it, and I thought, ‘Oh, I’m on to something here.”
The collection now holds a couple dozen signed maps, on display in his office in Washington and the one in his home state. He’s never lost his nerve when it came time to ask for an autograph, and no one has ever turned him down.
Roskam generally asks people to sign their names close to where they grew up or in a place that holds special meaning for them. One map of Kyrgyzstan is dotted with signatures, titles and dates from lawmakers.
“They are proud to show where they’ve grown up, where they went to school, and what the issues are,” he said. The result is often a crash course on regional concerns about the economy or security that deepens his understanding of a place he visits.
At the end of his interview with Yahoo News, Roskam walked around his desk and rummaged in a folder, triumphantly pulling out a map of Sri Lanka — his next stop.
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