By: Khalid Amayreh

There is no doubt that the United States is at least morally responsible for the scandalous election joke which took place in Egypt on 28 November.  The brazen falsification of the Egyptian people’s will would not have occurred had it been for America’s unethical embrace of Mubarak’s regime.

With a turnout not exceeding 10-15% of eligible voters, the elections have been described as “brashly fraudulent” and “probably the most fraudulent in Egypt’s history.”

The elections were marred not by a small number of irregularities. On the contrary, the regime has employed every conceivable illegal, even criminal, method to intimidate and scare away voters suspected of intending to vote for the opposition, especially the Muslim brotherhood.

According to independent sources the regime resorted to widespread fraud, barring independent monitors from polling stations, ballot-box stuffing and vote buying to ensure victory for pro-regime candidates.

In some areas, government candidates were seen passing cash and food to voters near polling stations.

Moreover, the voting on Sunday saw more than sporadic violence. Pro-regime baltagiya or gangs of intimidating young men were seen hanging around polling stations to scare off brotherhood supporters. One woman was quoted by the Associated Press as saying that “people are scared to leave their homes. Everyone is afraid of the thugs.”

Another Cairo man said “it would be an insult to language to call what is happening elections.”

According to a coalition of local and international human rights observers, the elections “lacked any transparency and were marred by widespread fraud.”

In addition to the atmosphere of fear and terror fostered by the security forces and the regime’s civilian thugs, independent monitors from human right groups were barred entry. Some were arrested.

One human rights monitor, who had obtained accreditation from the election commission, was quoted as saying that “the security is running the show.

In fact, one could go on and on and one, describing the dirty game of raping the collective will of 80 million Egyptians who tried but failed to restore their dignity and freedom, usurped by an autocratic and corrupt regime.

In his landmark speech in Cairo on 4 June, 2009, President Obama undertook to repair the troubled relations between the United States and the Muslim world. He said “I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect.”

The American president made numerous other remarks which promised good will toward Muslims in general. He also invoked the spirit of democracy, saying people everywhere should be able to have a say in how they are governed.

“But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere.”

In truth, the Egyptian regime wouldn’t have reached this level of depravity, corruption, tyranny and repression were it not for U.S. support, acquiescence and silence.

U.S. officials often claim they are encouraging despotic governments in the Arab world to initiate democratic reforms and respect human rights and civil liberties. However, everyone, including the repressive regimes themselves, knows well that the U.S. doesn’t really mean it and that all the reluctant and half-hearted public statements about democracy and human rights in countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the rest of America’s puppet regimes in the Arab-Muslim region are only meant to mislead and deceive  the masses.

One actually wouldn’t indulge in far-fetched prognostication if one presumed that the U.S.  itself privately asks these repressive regimes not to take its human rights-related criticisms too seriously since these criticisms  were meant only for propagandistic reasons.

In the final analysis, the U.S. has never ever demonstrated a real, absolute and consistent commitment to democracy and human rights anywhere in the world.  This ugly portrait of America’s moral duplicity is illustrated by the long standing relations between the big empire and a long list of tyrants, including filthy tyrants, around the world. The list is too long to confine to a few lines.

The American-funded and American-backed tyranny in Egypt is very much reminiscent to US backing of the Shah’s regime in Iran prior to the Islamic revolution in 1978. The US gave the Shah all sorts of state-of-the-art weapons, hoping to maintain and perpetuate his grip on power. The notorious Savak was given a free rein to kill, torture, and rape Iranians while the regime made sure to suppress every gesture of public dissent.

Even as the Shah’s regime was showing signs of morbidity and fatigue, President Carter continued to describe the shah’s Iran as “an Island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world.”

We know the rest of the story.

To be sure, today’s Mubarak’s Egypt is not exactly  a carbon copy of the Shah- era Iran. But the similarities are striking.  Today, in Egypt as was then in Iran, repression is rife, corruption is rampant, poverty is shocking, and political repression is prevalent.

There is so much frozen rage and too much police state. People are routinely arrested, mistreated and even tortured for merely expressing their thoughts. The regime itself is increasingly insecure and it often tries to make up for this insecurity by stepping up repression of political activism or anyone deemed a threat to the regime.

An in the midst of this  lugubrious atmosphere, President Mubarak is  in the process of grooming his son, Gamal, to succeed him as Egypt, mainly thanks  to Mubarak’s  absolute autocracy, has been  effectively transformed into  a republic  in name but a kingdom in reality. It is a republic kingdom!

May God shield Egypt from the evils of its enemies, internal and external. Amen.

Khalid Amayreh is a Journalist living in Dura, Hebron District, West Bank, occupied Palestine . He  has BA in journalism: University of Oklahoma ,  1981 MA in journalism, University of Southern Illinois , 1983

Dr. Franklin Lamb,

Shatila Camp

President Ahmadinejad in Lebanon. Photo: EuroNews.ne

“The only solution to the Palestinian issue is for the invaders (Israelis) of the occupied Palestinian land to leave, and give the Palestinians their rights and return all the Palestinian refugees to their original land.  Iran supports Lebanon’s bitter struggle in confronting Israeli assaults. We demand with all seriousness and insistence the liberation of all occupied land in Lebanon and Syria”.  President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bint Jbeil 10/15/10

In the days since Iran’s president Ahmadinejad completed his visit to Lebanon, and given the continuing lively discussion across the local and international political spectrum evaluating the impact of his historic appearance, one thing appears fairly clear.  US State Department official Jeffrey Feltman who came to Beirut quick from Saudi Arabia on orders from the White House to “do something!” to offset the Iranians unprecedented  reception, may have been a bit wide of  the mark in his evaluation. Feltman repeated this past weekend the March 14 pro-US and Saudi prediction that: “ I don’t think Ahmadinejad’s” visit will have a lasting effect.  It’s not something extraordinary. Its impact will remain for a couple days and that’s it.”

Jeffrey Feltman - US diplomat

One  largely unnoticed achievement of the Iranian President’s visit remains among the Palestinian refugee community in Lebanon.  Close to a quarter million of whom are “ living in cages” to  borrow  President Carter’s description during his meeting this week with Hamas leader Khaled Mashall in Damascus,  to describe how their sisters and brothers are forced to exist in Gaza.

Apart from the Shia community, the largest number of the approximately 750,000 who, waited at various events to greet and hear Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, were Palestinian refugees. It is the Lebanese Shia, living in south Lebanon, the Bekaa  and in Dahiyeh, who are the primary beneficiaries  of the more than one billion dollars in recent  reconstruction aid from Iran.

This  infusion of funding contributed to Hezbollah’s  increase in political power and its ability to achieve public services in its neighborhoods which were previously ignored by the state.  The massive rebuilding projects created  pockets of thieving construction economies, mainly in the Hezbollah areas of Ghouberi Municipality, Bir Abed and Haret Hreik, near the  Palestinian refugee camps of Burj al Barajeneh, Mar Elias and Shatila. This area saw, since the 2006 war, the rebuilding of 235 multi unit apartment buildings (80% completed as of 10/19/10 in probably the most efficient building project of its kind in history according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

The Iranian largess has quietly benefited thousands  of Palestinians in these areas even though they are forbidden by law to travel to south Lebanon to visit or work and must remain north of the Litani river on penalty of arrest and imprisonment.

During a 10/18/10 morning tour of nearly completed Waad (promise) residential buildings, bombed into smoldering mountains of rubble during the 2006 war,  this observer interviewed several Palestinian laborers and craftsmen working side by side with equally skilled and hard working Syrian workers.  What was learned is what Hezbollah officials have revealed, regarding Waad (Promise) and Jihad al Bina (struggle construction company) both now firmly on US Terrorism lists solely for political reasons.  Both organizations have discretely hired, in addition to laborers, hundreds of Palestinian engineers, craftsmen,  architects, and “syndicate professionals.”  These job offerings go to Palestinian refugees despite being forbidden to them by Lebanese laws enacted by a government that does not even pretend to comply with internationally mandated civil rights for refugees.

Nearly a week now since Ahmadinejads departure, the 12 Palestinian camps and two ‘gatherings’, especially among the young people, are still abuzz with often excited discussions of his visit.

This reaction, despite much that is being erroneously reported these days about the current “lost” generation of Palestinians in Lebanon resulting, so it is said, from the devastation that beset this community following the August 1982 departure of the Palestine Liberation Organization. These are legitimate concerns with sociological studies on the subject often presenting shocking indices of social decline, ennui, passivity, and hopelessness.  It is well known that Lebanon’s  camps have deteriorated  and  that the quality of life continues to disintegrate. But the young people still appear resolved to follow the spirit of their elders who founded the Palestinian Liberation Organization.  Discussions among many in the camps here inevitably turn to questions of “what went wrong?” and “how can we fulfill our parents dreams and take up the mantle of Liberation and Return that we heard from our elders”, “how  can we unite Hamas and Fatah”,  and “how to confront the expanding apartheid regime in Palestine”?

What President Ahmadinejad brought to the under 30 generation in the Palestinian camps is more hope, energy and self confidence.

Lacking unified  leadership of their own, many Palestinians  in Lebanon have been looking to Hezbollah and Iran as a model to revive the Palestinian liberation movement.  The veteran American journalist Jonathan Randel, in Lebanon this week finishing a book on Palestinians in Lebanon suggests that Hezbollah’s 1985 removal of Israeli occupation forces from one-third of Lebanon’s southern villages was likely one of the factors that  gave those under occupation in Palestine confidence  to achieve the first intifada,1987-93.

Iran’s President easily connects with young people and is unquestionably committed to the full right of refugees return to their country.  In a side meeting with representatives of the refugees camps community and some of their allies, Iran’s President could not have been more emphatic and clear about this.  Included in his counsel to young Palestinians during his visit were the following:

• “Stay in school and help care for all members of your family.  It is you who will join the villagers of south Lebanon and liberate Palestine.  People like you make revolutions”;
• Do not become discouraged by what might appear to be a bleak period in occupied Palestine and in Lebanon’s camps.  Ignore those who say the Palestinian revolution belongs to the past.
• Palestine will be liberated.  It is a scientific certainly that this criminal occupation will end and  that all Palestinian refugees in Lebanon will be able to go back to their ancestral lands
• The splintering of the  Palestinian body politic has been caused largely from external forces but increasingly with internal dimensions that must be resisted;
• It is the duty of the international community to help you secure basic rights in Lebanon until your certain return to Palestine. Iran is prepared to fulfill its duty in this regard;

• “Lebanon is the focus point of  the resistance and standing against occupiers and oppressors and is playing an excellent role”;
• “Your return to Palestine may happen sooner than you think and is only a matter of time and perhaps the coming war will achieve this”;

Mohammad, a young Palestinian  dentist allowed only to practice inside Shatila Camp due to Lebanon’s discriminatory labor laws explained:  “President Ahmadinejad has been a hero to many of us here in the camps since he first became President of Iran.  Unlike most Arab leaders, he is committed to  the liberation of Palestine as if he were himself a Palestinian. He encourages us and speaks like our leaders used to speak before they seem to have given up our national struggle.  If fact, he is more Palestinian than many Palestinians I know. We trust him and feel we have someone to support and protect us. Like  Hassan Nassrallah  he has bolstered our confidence to struggle to return to Palestine. Both of these great men are like uncles to the  Palestinian generation now becoming adults. Published originally in bitterlemons-international.org

Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon and can be reached at fplamb@gmail.com

Palestine Studies TV | October, 2010

Read the interview’s transcript

Cléa Thouin: In its summer 2010 issue, the Journal of Palestine Studies published an article by Professor Lawrence Davidson on
President Harry Truman and the establishment of Israel .
I’m Cléa Thouin, assistant editor for the Journal of Palestine Studies. Here with me today to talk about his article is Lawrence Davidson, professor of Middle East history at West Chester University.

Welcome to Palestine Studies TV.

Lawrence Davidson: It is my pleasure.

CT: Prof Davidson, what is it about American national politics that allows Zionists to have such influence?

LD: American politics is lobby centered, and this is true at almost all levels: local levels, state levels, national levels. And this is well known in terms of domestic policy, but it also is the way of the world in terms of foreign policy. So essentially, if there is a part of the world that you have a domestic interest group, particularly focused on Cuba for Cuban refugees, and of course the Zionists and the Christian fundamentalists in terms of the Middle East, if you have got these very well financed and organized special interests, they will have the capacity to organize and, essentially, shape foreign policy through their influence in Congress etc, and the political parties, and make national policy reflect their parochial interests rather than any abstract or ideal national interest.

And so, this has been the case in the formation of Middle East foreign policy certainly since 1967, but you can trace back the influence right into the 1920s. I mean, in 1922, just a few years after the Balfour Declaration, you have a joint Congressional resolution supporting the Balfour Declaration. In Zionist history, that is marked as the beginning of the American commitment to a Jewish state in Palestine and they will always trace it back into that early 1920s date. To some extent, they are quite accurate, they have been building that influence from the early 1920s on.

CT: In the development of this influence, what made Harry Truman’s administration so important?

LD: Up until Harry Truman’s time, the presidency sort of stood outside of that. For instance, in the 1930s, when you had rioting in Palestine, the Zionists would go to whoever the president was, Harding or Hoover or whoever, and they would say we want you to put pressure on the British to step on the Arabs and not the Zionists. In other words we want you to take sides, and pressure the British through taking sides. And the president would always say no; this is a British affair, its British territory and we don’t want to alienate our ally.

And even with Roosevelt, Roosevelt understood the need to finesse domestic pressures and the pressures coming from the Arabs because you needed their resources, and you had to work with the British etc. He had a statesman like top-down view of this thing, but Harry Truman didn’t do that. Harry Truman was the first president that essentially carried the Congressional attitude that Palestine is essentially a domestic political issue over into the presidency. Now the Zionists had the influence in the Congress, the political parties, and the presidency. Harry Truman was the tipping point for that.

CT: What could possibly break the influence of the Israel lobby in Washington? And what is the probability of that happening anytime soon?

LD: Well, if you want to change policy what you have to do is compete at this special interest level. And that is what is kind of starting. You saw Mearsheimer and Walt’s book on the Israel lobby along with President Carter’s book Peace not Apartheid; these are the two opening shots in a campaign to essentially change, at least, elite public opinion. Then you get J Street, the formulation of J Street, as a way of trying to compete with AIPAC.

The real question is, yeah, in the long run we will be able to compete against AIPAC and eventually kind of almost deny it of the kind of influence that it has now, the question is will there be anything left of Palestine at the time. Once you have got the Israelis successfully absorbing all the lands they want, then AIPAC can go away, they all can retire and go up and ski in Utah or something like that.

CT: Going back to Truman, in your article you talk about how Truman sidelined the State Department. Why did the State Department lose that battle over the shaping of the Israel-Palestine policies?

LD: Well, these agencies their influence with the president is based on tradition. There is a longstanding understanding on the part of most presidents, with some exceptions, that they didn’t know anything about foreign policy. There are some exceptions like Wilson, and those who thought they did, but most of them didn’t know anything, they knew they didn’t know anything and they weren’t really interested in foreign policy, most of them. The tradition grew up that the State Department was the department that, essentially, took care of this stuff. And they themselves, the people in the State Department, grew to a point where they assumed that was their role and traditionally it became their role. However, structurally, they served at the pleasure of the guy in the White House. They weren’t appointees except at the very top, but they were employers of the President, of the executive branch.

So if you get someone like Wilson or Truman who, at once, thinks they know a lot about something and is the type of personality that doesn’t want to hear what he doesn’t want to hear then you are working on a potential clash there. Now Wilson cut out the State Department as well, he gave this speech on self-determination and he didn’t even refer to Robert Lansing, his State Department Secretary of State. And afterwards Lansing said, you know you apply the theme of self-determination around the world, including Europe, and it’s just a formula for disaster, a formula for war etc. But Wilson was ideologically driven and he didn’t care what Lansing thought.

The same thing with Truman. Truman has a class bias against the elites. He thinks the State Department is full of elites, stripe-paints boys. And he comes in and he doesn’t even know them and he doesn’t like them, just on general principals. He is insecure, and the way that he overcomes that insecurity is taking a very hard lined ‘I’m the Boss, you do what I tell you’ kind of thing, and that translates to the ‘Buck stops here’. And so, when it comes to Palestine he thinks he knows everything. Because he read the Bible and what else is there to know. And he read FDR’s correspondence with the Saudis and stuff like that, so he thinks he knows the Arab attitude.

About the Palestinians, about the things on the ground, he knows nothing. Nor do [sic] his advisors, but that’s ok it’s a domestic issue. It’s tied into his political ambitions and the point is there is no point of leverage for the State Department to act against this. They can send Marshall in, Marshall is a very respected man, he is going to be the Secretary of State, and Truman respects him. But, he is not going to let Marshall dictate policies that Truman thinks are going to lose him the election. There is no point of leverage that they can work against him.

Truman, and the Zionists too, are actually the types of people who hold grudges. So the people like Henderson, the head of the Near East and Africa division who worked very diligently pushing what he considers to be the best policy for the United States, ultimately he will accede to the President, but he is going to push what he thinks he knows. Truman takes homage to this and afterwards they will, essentially, get him out. They will punish him and send him to India or something like that. Truman is a gruff, aggressive, insecure, biased kind of guy and if you stand against him he is going to hold a grudge.

CT: How else is Truman’s legacy still with us?

LD: Well, I think that it is with us by virtue of the fact that everyone now knows that the State Department has essentially been emasculated. The tradition of it being a center of folks who have deep knowledge of different parts of the world, and that they then give that knowledge to the policy makers who take that knowledge seriously is gone. They still have plenty of people who know a lot, and some of my students want to go into the Foreign Service and I always tell them you can do this, but I cannot imagine a more frustrating job than being a middle echelon player in the State Department or even in the intelligence agencies, because you develop all of this knowledge and insight, you know the languages, you know the cultures, all of that stuff about a particular area and then you give your advice, you write your reports, and if it does not fit into some domestic political ideological angle that is working now amongst the Congress of the political parties, then they just trash it.

CT: Professor Davidson, thank you very much for talking to Palestine Studies TV.

LD: It is my pleasure, I enjoyed it very much.

————————————————————————
DR. LAWRENCE DAVIDSON is professor of Middle East history at West Chester University in West Chester, PA, and the author of America’s Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood (University of Florida Press, 2001), Islamic Fundamentalism (Greenwood Press, 2003), and Foreign Policy, Inc.: Privatizing American National Interest (University of Kentuck Press, 2009).

President Carter is welcomed by Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III

President Carter Meets with Jerusalem Church Leaders and is deeply touched by their Commitment to Peace, Reconciliation and Interfaith Harmony.

Jerusalem: Former President Jimmy Carter on a Peace Mission to the Middle East met in Jerusalem on Saturday June 13^th, at the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in the Old City with a group of Church Leaders from the Council of Religious Institutions in the Holy Land, and a core group from the World Council of Churches (WCC Geneva, Switzerland) Palestine and Israel Ecumenical Forum. The core group was locally led by Mr. Yusef Daher, the Inter Church Center Executive, and the Rev’d Canon Naim Ateek, the SABEEL Director, both of Jerusalem.

Carter and Patriarch Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III

The meeting with Christian leaders “was the suggestion” said Mr. Daher “of the Right Rev’d Suheil S. Dawani, the Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem,  and coincided with the WCC Core Group’s visit to the region”.  Bishop Dawani, had recently participated in a Carter Center conference in Atlanta, Georgia, of Christian Leaders in America  hosted by President Carter on May 14^th – 15^th the signature theme of “Towards a New Christian Consensus: Peace with Justice in the Holy Land”.

In Jerusalem, President Carter was hosted for the meeting at the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in the Old City by His Beatitude Theophilos III who welcomed  the former U. S. President and Nobel Peace Laureate to the “Mother Church”  that “embraces all initiatives that call for peace and justice in the world generally, and in our beloved Middle East Specifically” and went on to say in speaking for his colleagues and in recognition of the Carter initiatives,“ we firmly believe, now exists the possibility for the conflict and hatred to be turned into durable and justice peace”.

President Carter with Christian Church Leaders: Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III presenting a gift book on Jerusalem to Carter

Bishop Dawani in his comments stressed the need to stem the outflow of Christians leaving their historic homeland through emigration and the consequent loss of the moderating balance that Christian community has traditionally provided over the centuries.  Today, the Bishop stressed, “the Christian community seeks to focus its renewed energies and resources on housing, Healthcare, Education and Social Service Institutions, all of which need governmental, NGO  and interagency developmental support as that of U.S. AID” and towards this, the Bishops added   “these institutions are a natural grass roots presence,  and in their non-sectarian services,  promote respect for other people’s convictions, uphold interfaith dialogue and seek communal harmony -  and we all warmly welcome your (Carter) initiatives for peace in the region.”

President Carter responded in reaffirming his commitment to that important task, of Peace, reconciliation and expressed his rising hopes for this in what he saw in President Obama’s statement in Cairo. He spoke well of his meetings in Lebanon with several Leaders of different faiths during the recent national legislative elections there, and of his prayerful hope for the coming week’s meetings in Gaza.  The President also expressed his understanding of and encouragement for the role that the historic Christian Community can and does play in Peace initiatives and interfaith harmony.

Canon Naim Ateek commended the President for his affirmation of democracy by his presence at national country elections in regions of conflict.  In this process of democratization in governance, there needs to be a built-in Dr. Ateek stressed, of a shared respect for both the political aspirations as well as the religious convictions of minorities in the electorate, and especially where Christians find themselves in sensitive minority placement among the three Faiths.

As President Carter was leaving, the Patriarch asked the group to join him for “a pleasingly special and memorable sight” on the Veranda with its magnificent vista of the Old City. In the twilight of that day, he pointed to the picturesque historic interfaith presence in three Holy Shrines symbolized by the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Minaret of the Mosque of Omar, and the rebuilt Dome of the Old City’s Synagogue in the ancient Jewish Quarter  -  almost touching each other -  three Abrahamic communities living faithfully – “what had been, what should be now,  and our hope for the bright future”.

With the President, himself a devout evangelical Churchman who teaches Sunday School in his small Baptist Church congregation in Plains, Georgia “40 Sundays of the Year”, and deeply touched by the physical sight in this admixture of the three collegial Faiths, Lutheran Bishop Munib Younan then pointed to a fourth building on the horizon, the late 19^th Century majestic white Bell Tower of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Redeemer.

#     #     #

(News story, caption and photo’s by the Rev’d Canon Samir J. Habiby, Special Assistant to the Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem)

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Since Dec. 27, 2008, Israel killed more than 1,300 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, more than half of whom were civilians, and is continuing to maintain an economic blockade of its 1.5 million residents with U.S. weapons and political support. Israel has placed the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip under military occupation since 1967, in violation of international law and UN resolutions.

Learn more about how U.S. military aid and diplomatic support sustain Israel’s illegal military occupation and enable its human rights abuses of Palestinians by downloading our recent fact sheet.

3. Take Action for a New Direction in Our Foreign PolicyPresident Obama has promised to “make a personal commitment to do all I can to advance the cause of [Israeli-Palestinian] peace from the start of my Administration.”

We want to help the President achieve this important goal. But we won’t get there through the same failed policies of the past. We need change and this means holding Israel accountable for its misuse of U.S. weapons as a first step toward peace and justice.

However, President Obama is expected to propose even more military aid for Israel at a time of economic crisis at home. As part of a ten-year agreement totaling $30 billion, the President is expected to ask for $2.775 billion in weapons for Israel in the budget he’ll be sending to Congress this year.

Ask President Obama to hold Israel accountable for its misuse of U.S. weapons to kill Palestinians and occupy their lands. Our country’s foreign policy should promote human rights, not enable countries to violate them. Send your letter to the President today by clicking here.

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Cartoon Carlos Latuff

Lobby? What Lobby?

by Michael Scheuer
Last December, I spoke to the nonpartisan Jamestown Foundation’s annual conference on al-Qaeda. My talk was a worldwide survey of how America’s war against Islamism had gone in 2008; an analysis of al-Qaeda’s current fortunes and growth potential; and an assessment of whether U.S. policies were adequately protecting genuine U.S. national interests as the Obama administration began. I concluded that 2008 was a year of setbacks for America, and that the future appeared rather bleak.

For the speech, I took as my text a truncated version of the introduction I wrote for the paperback edition of my book, Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq. In preparing the new text I was pleased to find my predictions in the hardcover had been accurate, but saddened that Americans had not faced the fact that our Islamist foes are motivated by U.S. foreign policies and their impact. One policy I am critical of in Marching Toward Hell is the nature of the U.S.-Israel relationship. I argued that unqualified, bipartisan support for Israel damages U.S. national security, and I damned those who identify critics of the relationship as anti-American, anti-Semitic, or, in my case, according to AIPAC leader Morris J. Amitay, a man who would make Mein Kampf “required reading” at the CIA.

In the course of analyzing 2008 events, I found no reason to alter my view. And after hearing McCain and Obama during the campaign, there was no reason to expect change in Washington’s Israel policy. At the Jamestown Conference, I therefore first discussed the abject failure of President Bush and his advisers to recognize that al-Qaeda and its allies are waging war because of U.S. policies – one of which is Israel policy – and not because of our lifestyle and domestic politics.

I next offered an estimate of Mr. Obama’s potential to change these terrorism-motivating policies. While admitting an inability to read Obama’s mind, I noted that he had given at least two strong hints – to Americans and the Muslim world – that he would be as pro-Israel as Mr. Bush. I noted that (a) Mr. Obama spent the last months of the presidential campaign “dancing the Tel Aviv two-step,” promising to protect Israel as if it were located inside the United States; and (b) Obama appointed Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff, a U.S. citizen who during the 1991 Gulf War left America to serve in Israel’s military.

These statements of fact suggested to me that U.S. policy toward Israel and the Muslim world would be identical to Mr. Bush’s, albeit couched in softer, come-let-us-reason-together rhetoric.

My speech seemed well received, but in January I received a call from Jamestown’s president telling me I had been terminated as a senior fellow by the Foundation’s board of directors. Why, I asked? He responded by citing my comments about Obama doing the “Tel Aviv two-step” and my description of Emanuel’s record, both of which he said might be in a speech by Rep. Ron Paul. My remarks about Emanuel apparently sparked particular anger among the Foundation’s directors, as Jamestown’s president referred to them at least three times in a short telephone conversation. In any event, the president said several major financial donors to Jamestown threatened to withdraw funding if I remained a senior fellow, so I was getting the boot. Then he added that my every-other-week essays for Jamestown’s Terrorism Focus had attracted readers and praise for the Foundation, so the directors said I could keep writing for the journal. I declined this honor, which seemingly was a bribe made in the hope that I would not speak publicly about being terminated as a senior fellow for saying the current state of the U.S.-Israel relationship undermined U.S. national security.

I regret leaving Jamestown, as I have great respect for its analysis on several vital U.S. security issues. But at the same time, I am grateful to the Foundation’s directors for terminating me. In the hardcover of Marching Toward Hell, I condemned the U.S.-Israel relationship and those who take it “upon themselves to decide who is and who is not a ‘good American,’” based on his or her views of U.S.-Israel relations, and “then mete out punishment to those of their countrymen who do not make the grade.” At the time, my view was based on what pro-Israel U.S. citizens had done to Pat Buchanan, President Carter, and Professors Walt and Mearsheimer.

Now, however, I have the personal experience of losing both position and income for condemning Washington’s status quo Israel policy as a threat to U.S. national security. The introduction to my paperback, therefore, can be said to be credibly written by an author with firsthand knowledge of how the Israel Lobby works. After my experience with the “nonpartisan” board of directors at Jamestown, I can only say of them what FDR said of his domestic foes: “They are unanimous in their hatred for me – and I welcome their hatred.”
SOURCE

Cartoon Carlos Latuff

Lobby? What Lobby?

by Michael Scheuer
Last December, I spoke to the nonpartisan Jamestown Foundation’s annual conference on al-Qaeda. My talk was a worldwide survey of how America’s war against Islamism had gone in 2008; an analysis of al-Qaeda’s current fortunes and growth potential; and an assessment of whether U.S. policies were adequately protecting genuine U.S. national interests as the Obama administration began. I concluded that 2008 was a year of setbacks for America, and that the future appeared rather bleak.

For the speech, I took as my text a truncated version of the introduction I wrote for the paperback edition of my book, Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq. In preparing the new text I was pleased to find my predictions in the hardcover had been accurate, but saddened that Americans had not faced the fact that our Islamist foes are motivated by U.S. foreign policies and their impact. One policy I am critical of in Marching Toward Hell is the nature of the U.S.-Israel relationship. I argued that unqualified, bipartisan support for Israel damages U.S. national security, and I damned those who identify critics of the relationship as anti-American, anti-Semitic, or, in my case, according to AIPAC leader Morris J. Amitay, a man who would make Mein Kampf “required reading” at the CIA.

In the course of analyzing 2008 events, I found no reason to alter my view. And after hearing McCain and Obama during the campaign, there was no reason to expect change in Washington’s Israel policy. At the Jamestown Conference, I therefore first discussed the abject failure of President Bush and his advisers to recognize that al-Qaeda and its allies are waging war because of U.S. policies – one of which is Israel policy – and not because of our lifestyle and domestic politics.

I next offered an estimate of Mr. Obama’s potential to change these terrorism-motivating policies. While admitting an inability to read Obama’s mind, I noted that he had given at least two strong hints – to Americans and the Muslim world – that he would be as pro-Israel as Mr. Bush. I noted that (a) Mr. Obama spent the last months of the presidential campaign “dancing the Tel Aviv two-step,” promising to protect Israel as if it were located inside the United States; and (b) Obama appointed Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff, a U.S. citizen who during the 1991 Gulf War left America to serve in Israel’s military.

These statements of fact suggested to me that U.S. policy toward Israel and the Muslim world would be identical to Mr. Bush’s, albeit couched in softer, come-let-us-reason-together rhetoric.

My speech seemed well received, but in January I received a call from Jamestown’s president telling me I had been terminated as a senior fellow by the Foundation’s board of directors. Why, I asked? He responded by citing my comments about Obama doing the “Tel Aviv two-step” and my description of Emanuel’s record, both of which he said might be in a speech by Rep. Ron Paul. My remarks about Emanuel apparently sparked particular anger among the Foundation’s directors, as Jamestown’s president referred to them at least three times in a short telephone conversation. In any event, the president said several major financial donors to Jamestown threatened to withdraw funding if I remained a senior fellow, so I was getting the boot. Then he added that my every-other-week essays for Jamestown’s Terrorism Focus had attracted readers and praise for the Foundation, so the directors said I could keep writing for the journal. I declined this honor, which seemingly was a bribe made in the hope that I would not speak publicly about being terminated as a senior fellow for saying the current state of the U.S.-Israel relationship undermined U.S. national security.

I regret leaving Jamestown, as I have great respect for its analysis on several vital U.S. security issues. But at the same time, I am grateful to the Foundation’s directors for terminating me. In the hardcover of Marching Toward Hell, I condemned the U.S.-Israel relationship and those who take it “upon themselves to decide who is and who is not a ‘good American,’” based on his or her views of U.S.-Israel relations, and “then mete out punishment to those of their countrymen who do not make the grade.” At the time, my view was based on what pro-Israel U.S. citizens had done to Pat Buchanan, President Carter, and Professors Walt and Mearsheimer.

Now, however, I have the personal experience of losing both position and income for condemning Washington’s status quo Israel policy as a threat to U.S. national security. The introduction to my paperback, therefore, can be said to be credibly written by an author with firsthand knowledge of how the Israel Lobby works. After my experience with the “nonpartisan” board of directors at Jamestown, I can only say of them what FDR said of his domestic foes: “They are unanimous in their hatred for me – and I welcome their hatred.”
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