Familiar story now front page news

James Zogby

• Last Updated: March 27. 2009 1:50PM UAE / March 27. 2009 9:50AM GMT

Now we know

On three consecutive days last week, major US newspapers and popular websites featured stories about Israeli behaviour towards Palestinians during and after the recent assault on Gaza.

There was a report on testimony from Israeli soldiers describing excessive violence and unwarranted shootings of Palestinian civilians. Another story featured reports of extreme rabbis assigned to Israeli Defence Forces units instructing soldiers “to get rid of the gentiles that are interfering with our conquest of the land”.

And there were pictures of T-shirts being worn by IDF veterans featuring a pregnant Palestinian woman in the crosshairs with the logo “1 shot kills 2”.

In the middle of all this came a front-page story in The New York Times headlined “More allegations surface in Israeli account of the Gaza war”, which discussed Israel’s post-Gaza image and the negative impact of the testimony of the IDF soldiers.

None of this is new. Back in the 1970s, I ran a Washington-based group, the Palestine Human Rights Campaign. As part of our work, we distributed a monthly report from Dr Israel Shahak, then-chairman of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights. Dr Shahak’s reports largely consisted of translated articles from the Hebrew press, which detailed stories of torture, collective punishment against Palestinian civilians, rantings by extremist rabbis who termed Palestinians “strangers who must be driven from our lands”.

Israelis reported these stories and debated them. But this information did not break through into the US press. And now here it is, three days in a row, and on the front page of the Washington Post and The New York Times.

L’affaire Freeman

When Chas Freeman withdrew from consideration as chairman of the National Intelligence Council, some might have thought that the story was over.

It was not.

Mr Freeman has been clear in maintaining that he was not forced out of his position by President Barack Obama. He said the decision was his and that he withdrew because the controversy created by the pro-Israel lobby would make it impossible for him to carry out his responsibilities.

On the one hand, there was the predictable outcry from the same elements that had mugged Mr Freeman, maintaining that they had nothing to do with the matter.

How strange then, that Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat senator, and Steve Israel, a New York Democrat congressman, would both issue statements taking personal credit for upending Mr Freeman.

Daniel Pipes, a Middle East commentator, has made the same boast. On the other hand, both the Right and Left have kept the story going, maintaining a discourse about the unseemly way the Freeman affair played out. This is a reflection of the growing concern that the charge made by the former ambassador was right when he observed: “[There is a powerful lobby determined to prevent any other view than its own from being aired.”

A Debate

The Doha Debates is a BBC programme (usually taped in Doha) that features an Oxford Union style debate on Middle East issues. Now in its fifth season, the debate was recently held in Washington.

When, a few months back, the debate organiser, Ali Willis, announced that the topic for the US-based episode would be “The House believes that it is time for the US to get tough with Israel,” some thought it was too hot for the nation’s capital.

Given the events of the past few months, however, it now appears that the debate topic is, as the British would say, “spot on”.

As per Oxford Union rules, at the debate’s end, a vote was taken. The affirmative side won by a 63 per cent to 37 per cent margin.

FBI-Cair Kerfuffle

It all began rather cryptically with the FBI noting the bureau would, henceforth, “limit its formal contact” with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair), a civil rights group. The most that the FBI would acknowledge about the reasons behind this action was that “certain issues” needed to be addressed, and that “[Cair’s] leadership is aware of this”.

Cair cried “Foul!” and has organised some of its affiliated groups, issuing a statement that they were considering “suspending relations with the FBI”.

All this has been to the delight of anti-Muslim advocates who have written letters to the FBI praising the move.

The former chairman of Cair, Purvez Ahmad, has expressed concern with both the FBI and Cair’s handling of this matter, calling on both to display greater “transparency and accountability.”

This week on Viewpoint, my weekly programme aired on Abu Dhabi TV, I will host John Miller, assistant director of the FBI, in an effort to learn more about what lies behind this controversy.

jzogby@thenational.ae