Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

Freeman and the Defamation of the Zionist Lobby | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Former diplomat Charles Freeman was not shy with regards to openly pointing the finger at the Zionist lobby for being behind the organized smear Campaign against him in order to prevent his appointment as Chairman of the US National Intelligence Council. Now the sniping has continued between the former ambassador and the pro-Israeli groups in newspapers, on websites, and on news channels. The pro-Israeli groups are accusing the Saudi Arabian and Chinese lobbies of being behind the campaign to appoint Freeman as Chairman of the National Intelligence Council, while Freeman on the other hand is accusing the Zionist lobby as being behind the failure of his appointment. Freeman accuses them of making allegations against him of having special relations with Saudi Arabia and China.

The good thing is that Freeman has not made the issue of his failure to be appointed to this importation position about himself; rather he has made it against the Zionist lobby as a whole. Transferring the conflict to the Zionist lobbies positions which stands in the face of American interests, as well as the extortion of American politicians, and the belief that all who express opinion against Israel are enemies of Israel, which in turn is considered a greater sin than disagreeing or even being enemies of the USA itself.

It is not new for the pro-Israeli groups to succeed in preventing somebody it considers as disagreeing with Israel from reaching a senior political position, either at the ministerial level, or within the embassies. And so I think that many will agree with Freeman in that the Zionist lobby does not distinguish between who disagrees with Israeli positions, and those who are hostile towards Israel, considering them all as enemies. Therefore anyone who is ambitious for [political] success in the US Capital must guard their tongue in the future if they want to avoid being labelled an enemy of Israel, and so they should not oppose aid to Israel, or write articles – even in local newspapers – that criticize Israeli action, nor appear on the television screen or at university campuses criticizing the pro-Israeli viewpoint. Only [doing] one of these is enough to ensure one being accused of anti-Semitism, and being an agent of the Arabs, or the Chinese, or being a previous agent of Japan. As for Freeman, he was accused of all of the above, even though he is not known to be hostile towards Israel at all, nor was he overly favourable towards the Saudis.

This is politics in the USA, which permits pressure groups and allows financial contribution to electoral financial organizations that specialize in providing funding to certain parties; this gives these organizations the freedom to support the interests of their clients [by financing political parties and electoral campaigns]. These are legal activities which use media campaign, in addition to lies, exaggeration and distortion.

Yet the Zionist lobby did not commit a violation by exercising what it regards as its natural right to serve Israeli interests. In this case it is the absent lobby that is at fault, that is to say the Arab lobby which has failed in serving its own interests for thirty years. There is nothing to prevent the establishment of an Arab lobby, but the problem with such a lobby is that the Arabs themselves are split into factions, they cannot form a US political group to express their position and serve their interests, as these are disperse and contradictory.