Pakistani ambassador Husain Huqqani hosts an Israel lobby fundraiser

Pakistani ambassador Husain Haqqani at the neoconservative Foundation for Defence of Democracies

An investigation by Ali Gharib on Foreign Policy magazine’s Middle East Channel reveals that Pakistani ambassador Husain Haqqani recently hosted a fundraiser for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, an Israel lobby think tank campaigning for an attack on Iran.

Haqqani has a long association with the Israel lobby. He has worked for the neoconservative Hudson Institute and the notorious Islamophobe Daniel Pipes. Indeed, Pipes chose Haqqani to head his ‘religion-building’ project, a ‘pro-American’ Islamic think tank that would ‘go head-to-head with the established Islamist institutions’. In February 2004, he toured the United States with neoconservative propagandist Stephen Schwartz attacking mainstream Muslims organizations, and advising local Jewish communities on how best to enhance their lobbying power in Washington. In Cleveland, they told their Jewish audience that “[e]xtremists dominate all of the major Muslim advocacy groups”. According to the Cleveland Jewish News, Haqqani said:

There are 1.2 billion Muslims in the world and only 18% of them are Arabs, Haqqani points out. In the U.S., only 200,000 of the 4 million Muslims are Arabs. Furthermore, only one-third of the Arabs in the U.S. are Muslim. A little more than half of one percent of American Muslims are Palestinian.

Yet Muslim leadership in America focuses on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as its core issue.

Haqqani and Schwartz then went on to say:

The Jewish lobby has to organize, write letters, and continue to contribute to politicians to counter the Saudi lobby, which has extraordinary influence in Washington

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Some Unvarnished Truths About the US and Israel

by M. Shahid Alam

Was there ever a time when a leading organ of the US media could speak the unvarnished truth about the links between the United States and Israel?

Consider this quote from Time magazine of January 1952, embedded in an article that explained its choice of Mohammed Mossadegh as its Person of the Year for 1951. It had no compliments for Mossadegh, the man who was spearheading his country’s bid to take back its oil resources from the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. No surprise there.

Surprising, however, is Time’s candor on Israel. It minces no words. US support for the creation of Israel had alienated the Middle East: it had been a costly error, motivated not by national interest but petty considerations of presidential politics. Truman had supported the creation of Israel in order to court American Jewish votes. This was the plain truth: a US President had placed his electoral chances ahead of a vital national interest. Apparently, in those days, Time could write the plain truth without worrying about the tide of flak from the American Jewish community.

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Canada-Israel: The other special relationship

Fault Lines with Avi Lewis looks at the Canadian Israel Lobby. Over the fold you’ll also find two excellent documentaries on the US and British Israel lobbies. They all have one thing in common: they were all produced by media institutions outside North America — Al Jazeera, VPRO, and Channel 4 respectively.

Seen as an honest-broker in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Canada has become one of Israel’s most fervent supporters. Avi Lewis investigates.

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New York Times Beats Drums for War

Ray McGovern: NYT ignores intelligence there is no evidence of Iran nuclear weapons program program. He also has some interesting observations about Alan Dershowtiz’s fantasies.

Helen Thomas on Her Resignation and Middle East

Brave and outspoken: the great Helen Thomas.

Thomas: Israel should get out of Occupied Territories; White House Correspondents Association were out of line.

Virginia standing up to the Fifth Column

Eric Cantor

IMPORTANT: Pro-Palestine activists and ordinary Americans who want their country back have an ideal opportunity to strike against Israel and its fifth column in the United States. Rep Eric Cantor recently promised the Israeli government that he would do everything in his power to undercut his own president on behalf of Israel,  statements which are demonstrably felonious under the Logan Act of 1799. Even the rightwing Examiner was moved to write that

Cantor’s comments take away from American prestige, and set a dangerous precedent for future United States foreign policy.  Cantor and his Republican colleagues have every right to support the nation of Israel, but their ultimately loyalty should be to the United States and not the country of Israel.  If Israel’s interests conflict with that of the United States, the Israeli government should theoretically not be able to call on Republicans in Congress to “check” the foreign policy of the Obama administration.

Should someone take this case to court, it will be an open and shut case. Veteran journalist and blogger Helena Cobban is already rallying Virginians to confront Cantor. If you are one, this campaign could really use your support.

The following two posts are a must read, one by Helena Cobban and the other by Glenn Greenwald.
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Young Jews disrupt Netanyahu speech in New Orleans

Young Jews disrupted Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to the General Assembly of Jewish Federations.

Also see this interview with the protestors, Matan Cohen, Matthew Taylor, Emily Ratner, Eitan Issacson and Antonia House.

For more, visit: YoungJewishProud.org

Europe’s Alliance With Israel: Aiding the Occupation

David Cronin’s important new book Europe’s Alliance with Israel: Aiding the Occuption (Pluto Press) isJacket image for Europe’s Alliance with Israel now available, filling a key void in the growing body of literature on the role of the Israel lobby. Cronin is one of the very few journalists who regularly exposes the pernicious role of the Israel lobby in Brussels and the long-standing hypocrisies of the European Union. (See some of Cronin’s articles published on PULSE in the past, here and here).

In carefully crafted official statements, the European Union presents itself as an honest broker in the Middle East. In reality, however, the EU’s 27 governments have been engaged in a long process of accommodating Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.

Journalist David Cronin interrogates the relationship and its outcomes. A recent agreement for ‘more intense, more fruitful, more influential co-operation’ between the EU and Israel has meant that Israel has become a member state of the Union in all but name. Cronin shows that rather than using this relationship to encourage Israeli restraint, the EU has legitimised actions such as the ill-treatment of prisoners and the Gaza invasion.

Concluding his account, Cronin calls for a continuation and deepening of international activism and protest to halt the EU’s slide into complicity.

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Susan Abulhawa v. Alan Dershowitz: Novel Approaches

Palestinian author Susan Abulhawa, whose debut novel, Mornings in Jenin, is an international sensation, confronts Zionist bully Alan Dershowitz, known for fictions of a different variety, at the Boston Book Festival. The discussion is moderated by Director of the Harvard Negotiation project, James Sebenius and sponsored by the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Boston.

Jewish activists confront the JNF

The JNF according to historian Ilan Pappe is Israel’s main agency of ethnic cleansing. For nearly a decade the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign has been waging a lonesome fight against this pernicious outfit which, outrageously, enjoys tax-exempt charitable status in many Western countries. Now it is being confronted by some great Jewish activists both in the UK and the US. This latest protest took place in Atlanta where some activists were physically abused after trying to disrupt the JNF event. They deserve our support and encouragement. (via Mondoweiss)

For more on the JNF see the SPSC’s invaluable e-book.