The Anti-Defamation (of Jews) League has circulated a list (I published yesterday) of ten anti-Israeli groups that are active in the United States. However, I found it to be incomplete and so I add: - The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). This organization was founded in 1980 by James Abourezk, a U.S. Senator who is also a Lebanese descent, and chaired after him by our dear friend Hala Salam Maksoud, Rest in Peace. ADC continues to be active today in the defense of all Arabs. Its Advisory Committee is made up of several American peace advocates and Arab Americans who have an impressive track-record in the political landscape of the United States. - The Council for the National Interest (CNI). It was created in 1989 by two former Congressmen, Paul Findley and Pete McCloskey. Its stated objective is to work against the tide that aims at altering the U.S. Middle Eastern policy that is biased in favor of Israel. - The Arab American Institute (AAI), which celebrated this year its 25th anniversary, is chaired by Jim Zogby, one of the most active and most influential Arab Americans. The institute places particular focus on election campaigns and the integration of Arab-Americans in the U.S. society. On October 20, the Washington Post published a lengthy report on AAI's founder, entitled “James Zogby, a Catholic of Lebanese descent, works to dispel myths about Arabs”. The report praised Jim's efforts in a manner that leaves nothing for me to add in this respect. As I write, I realize that I cannot adequately give this subject its due importance, because this would otherwise require an entire book, and not a hurried journalistic treatise. At any rate, U.S. universities have become hotspots for advocacy movements that defend Arabs and Muslims, specifically the Palestinian people, so much that 900 university professors signed last year a document enumerating Israeli violations against human rights (I read a ridiculous criticism of this document coming from Likudniks, where only 27 professors expressed their opposition of violations against the rights of women and homosexuals in the Middle East, as though this would cancel out the crimes perpetrated by the state of Israel). Thus, the total between yesterday and today is a few dozen anti-Israel groups, perhaps twenty or thirty groups. However, I still find the analysis of this subject to be incomplete, as I would also list the Anti-Defamation League, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), or the Jewish lobby, and every single similar extremist group under the broad title of “anti-Israeli” groups. Why? Because these groups encourage the fascists in the successive Israeli governments to further extremism and rejection of peace, which only increases mutual killings and reduces the chances of peace. What is even more sinister is the fact that these pro-Israel lobbies destroy U.S. interests around the world, and provide excuses for the terrorism of al-Qaeda and every other terrorism. For this reason, I hold them responsible for terrorism before blaming its direct perpetrators. Were it not for the occupation, destruction and murder of women and children, not to mention the theft of Palestinian lands in 1948 and of the homes of the natives who remained on these lands, we would not have come to witness the present wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and the so-called War on Terror. Israel is the mother of all terrorism. Its fascist government includes war criminals among its cabinet members, and the Jewish-American lobbies that back it are complicit in the Israel crimes, to the extent of participating in them. Inspired by this issue, I remembered some of the Americans who betrayed their country and spied for Israel. After consulting Google, 28,600 results returned for the search cue “officials in ADL accused of spying for Israel”, and 119,000 results returned for a similar search cue, this time on AIPAC. The pro-Israeli lobbies are nothing short of dens of spies whose allegiance lies solely with Israel. Today, the Israeli government is so insolent, or vile, that it is demanding the Obama administration to hand over the most dangerous of these spies, Jonathan Pollard, in return for a two-month moratorium on settlements. Recall that Pollard was a U.S. Navy analyst who betrayed his country and transferred nearly one thousand classified documents to Israel, including documents naming American intelligence operatives in the Soviet Union, and which Israel gave in turn to the USSR, in return for increasing Jewish immigration out of Russia into Israel. The Soviets then liquidated the agents working for Israel's number one ally. Since I want the end of this two-part article to be conclusive, I would like the reader to compare these dens of spies that defend the criminal occupation by a state that has 35 laws institutionalizing racial discrimination against the Palestinians of 1948 (or the native inhabitants of the country), with the U.S. Methodist Church, a protestant church of nearly eight million parishioners. In its annual meeting in Minnesota last month, for instance, this church called on its members to pray for peace and justice for Palestinians, and launched a website to this effect. Thus, we have one extremist lobby after another defending crime, and a U.S. church, not an Arab church or a Muslim sect, calling for justice. It is not fair to compare the two, and hence I will not do so. [email protected]
