Page 1 of 2 Is the Israel lobby running scared?
By Robert Dreyfuss
Is the Israel lobby in Washington an all-powerful force? Or is it, perhaps,
running scared?
Judging by the outcome of the Charles "Chas" Freeman affair this week, it might
seem as if the Israeli lobby is fearsome indeed. Seen more broadly, however,
the controversy over Freeman could be the Israel lobby's Waterloo.
Let's recap. On February 19, Laura Rozen reported at ForeignPolicy.com that
Freeman had been selected by Admiral Dennis Blair, the director of national
intelligence, to serve in a key post as chairman of the National Intelligence
Council (NIC). The
NIC, the official in-house think-tank of the intelligence community, takes
input from 16 intelligence agencies and produces what are called "national
intelligence estimates" on crucial topics of the day as guidance for Washington
policymakers.
For that job, Freeman boasted a stellar resume: fluent in Mandarin Chinese,
widely experienced in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, a former US ambassador
to Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War, and an ex-assistant secretary of
defense during the Ronald Reagan administration.
A wry, outspoken iconoclast, Freeman had, however, crossed one of Washington's
red lines by virtue of his strong criticism of the US-Israeli relationship.
Over the years, he had, in fact, honed a critique of Israel that was both
eloquent and powerful. Hours after the Foreign Policy story was posted, Steve
Rosen, a former official of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee
(AIPAC), launched what would soon become a veritable barrage of criticism of
Freeman on his right-wing blog.
Rosen himself has already been indicted by the Department of Justice in an
espionage scandal over the transfer of classified information to outside
parties involving a colleague at AIPAC, a former official in Donald Rumsfeld's
Pentagon, and an official at the Israeli embassy. His blog, Obama Mideast
Monitor, is hosted by the Middle East Forum website run by Daniel Pipes, a
hard-core, pro-Israeli rightist, whose Middle East Quarterly is, in turn,
edited by Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute. Over
approximately two weeks, Rosen would post 19 pieces on the Freeman story.
The essence of Rosen's criticism centered on the former ambassador's strongly
worded critique of Israel. (That was no secret. Freeman had repeatedly
denounced many of Israel's policies and Washington's too-close relationship
with Jerusalem. "The brutal oppression of the Palestinians by the Israeli
occupation shows no sign of ending," said Freeman in 2007. "American
identification with Israel has become total.")
But Rosen, and those who followed his lead, broadened their attacks to make
unfounded or exaggerated claims, taking quotes and e-mails out of context, and
accusing Freeman of being a pro-Arab "lobbyist", of being too closely
identified with Saudi Arabia, and of being cavalier about China's treatment of
dissidents. They tried to paint the sober, conservative former US official as a
wild-eyed radical, an anti-Semite, and a pawn of the Saudi king.
From Rosen's blog, the anti-Freeman vitriol spread to other right-wing,
Zionist, and neo-conservative blogs, then to the websites of neo-conservative
mouthpieces like the New Republic, Commentary, National Review, and the Weekly
Standard, which referred to Freeman as a "Saudi puppet".
From there, it would spread to the Atlantic and then to the op-ed pages of the
Wall Street Journal, where Gabriel Schoenfeld called Freeman a "China-coddling
Israel basher", and the Washington Post, where Jonathan Chait of the New
Republic labeled Freeman a "fanatic".
Before long, staunch partisans for Israel on Capitol Hill were getting into the
act. These would, in the end, include Representative Steve Israel and Senator
Charles Schumer, both New York Democrats; a group of Republican House members
led by John Boehner of Ohio, the minority leader, and Eric Cantor of Virginia,
the Republican Whip; seven Republican members of the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence; and, finally, Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who engaged
in a sharp exchange with Admiral Blair about Freeman at a Senate hearing.
Although Blair strongly defended Freeman, the two men got no support from an
anxious White House, which took (politely put) a hands-off approach. Seeing the
writing on the wall - all over the wall, in fact - Freeman came to the
conclusion that, even if he could withstand the storm, his ability to do the
job had, in effect, already been torpedoed.
Whatever output the NIC might produce under his leadership, as Freeman told me
in an interview, would instantly be attacked. "Anything that it produced that
was politically controversial would immediately be attributed to me as some
sort of political deviant, and be discredited," he said.
On March 10, Freeman bowed out, but not with a whimper. In a letter to friends
and colleagues, he launched a defiant, departing counterstrike that may, in
fact, have helped to change the very nature of Washington politics. "The
tactics of the Israel lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and
include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion
of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the
truth," wrote Freeman. "The aim of this lobby is control of the policy process
through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the
wisdom of its views."
Freeman put it more metaphorically to me: "It was a nice way of, as the Chinese
say, killing a chicken to scare the monkeys." By destroying his appointment,
Freeman claimed, the Israel lobby hoped to intimidate other critics of Israel
and US Middle East policy who might seek jobs in the Obama administration.
On triumphs, hysteria and mobs
It remains to be seen just how many "monkeys" are trembling. Certainly, the
Israel lobby crowed in triumph. Daniel Pipes, for instance, quickly praised
Rosen's role in bringing down Freeman: "What you may not know is that Steven J
Rosen of the Middle East Forum was the person who first brought attention to
the problematic nature of Freeman's appointment," wrote Pipes. "Within hours,
the word was out, and three weeks later Freeman has conceded defeat. Only
someone with Steve's stature and credibility could have made this happen."
The Zionist Organization of America, a far-right advocacy group that supports
Israel, sent out follow-up "Action Alerts" to its membership, ringing further
alarm bells about Freeman as part of a campaign to mobilize public opinion and
Congress. Behind the scenes, AIPAC quietly used its considerable clout,
especially with friends and allies in the media. And Chuck Schumer, who had
trotted over to the White House to talk to Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's
chief of staff, later said bluntly:
Charles Freeman was the wrong guy
for this position. His statements against Israel were way over the top and
severely out of step with the administration. I repeatedly urged the White
House to reject him, and I am glad they did the right thing.
Numerous
reporters, including Max Blumenthal at the Daily Beast website and Spencer
Ackerman of Firedoglake, have effectively documented the role of the Israel
lobby, including AIPAC, in sabotaging Freeman's appointment.
From their accounts and others, it seems clear that the lobby left its
fingerprints all over Freeman's NIC corpse. (Indeed, Time magazine's Joe Klein
described the attack on Freeman as an "assassination", adding that the term
"lobby" doesn't do justice to the methods of the various lobbying groups,
individuals, and publications: "He was the victim of a mob, not a lobby. The
mob was composed primarily of Jewish neo-conservatives.")
On the other hand, the Washington Post, in a near-hysterical editorial, decided
to pretend that the Israel lobby really doesn't exist, accusing Freeman instead
of sending out a "crackpot tirade". Huffed the Post, "Mr Freeman issued a
two-page screed on Tuesday in which he described himself as the victim of a
shadowy and sinister 'Lobby'... His statement was a grotesque libel."
The Post's case might have been stronger, had it not, just one day earlier,
printed an editorial in which it called on Attorney General Eric Holder to
exonerate Steve Rosen and drop the espionage case against him. Entitled "Time
to Call It Quits", the editorial said:
The matter involves Steven J
Rosen and Keith Weissman, two former officials for the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee, or AIPAC ... A trial has been scheduled for June in the US
District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Mr Holder should pull the
plug on this prosecution long before then.
In his interview
with me, Freeman noted the propensity members of the Israel lobby have for
denying the lobby's existence, even while taking credit for having forced him
out and simultaneously claiming that they had nothing to do with it. "We're now
at the ludicrous stage where those who boasted of having done it and who
described how they did it are now denying that they did it," he said.
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