Potential intel pick accused of bias -Ron Kampeas
The Obama administration’s reported pick for a top intelligence post helped peddle a Saudi-funded school study guide decried by Jewish groups and educators for having anti-Jewish biases.
Charles "Chas" Freeman [pictured above], the U.S. envoy to Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War, is slated to chair the National Intelligence Council. Spokesmen for Freeman and for the White House declined to comment.
Freeman is president of the Middle East Policy Council, a Saudi-funded think tank.
The problem [with] Freeman, should his appointment eventuate, is that his writings have tended less toward analysis and more toward advocacy -- and not simply of a line of thought that defends Arab interests but that demonizes Israel and its advocates.
[JTA]
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UPDATES:
Controversial Figure Appointed as Council Chairman
National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair announced [the selection of] Chas Freeman to head his council of advisers, deflecting the concerns of Israel supporters who question whether Freeman will undermine U.S. policy in the Mideast.
Statements that Freeman made over the last three decades on U.S. peace efforts in the Middle East and Iran's threat to the international community have prompted some to question his objectivity in a role that requires it.
For example, in October 2007, Freeman said the U.S. has "abandoned the role of Middle East peacemaker to back Israel's efforts to pacify its captive and increasingly ghettoized Arab populations."
(FOX News)
The Obama administration’s reported pick for a top intelligence post helped peddle a Saudi-funded school study guide decried by Jewish groups and educators for having anti-Jewish biases.
Charles "Chas" Freeman [pictured above], the U.S. envoy to Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War, is slated to chair the National Intelligence Council. Spokesmen for Freeman and for the White House declined to comment.
Freeman is president of the Middle East Policy Council, a Saudi-funded think tank.
The problem [with] Freeman, should his appointment eventuate, is that his writings have tended less toward analysis and more toward advocacy -- and not simply of a line of thought that defends Arab interests but that demonizes Israel and its advocates.
[JTA]
*
UPDATES:
Controversial Figure Appointed as Council Chairman
National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair announced [the selection of] Chas Freeman to head his council of advisers, deflecting the concerns of Israel supporters who question whether Freeman will undermine U.S. policy in the Mideast.
Statements that Freeman made over the last three decades on U.S. peace efforts in the Middle East and Iran's threat to the international community have prompted some to question his objectivity in a role that requires it.
For example, in October 2007, Freeman said the U.S. has "abandoned the role of Middle East peacemaker to back Israel's efforts to pacify its captive and increasingly ghettoized Arab populations."
(FOX News)
U.S. Intelligence Pick Pulls Out after Objections -Randall Mikkelsen
Former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Charles Freeman, named to head the National Intelligence Council which produces formal U.S. intelligence assessments of security issues, withdrew on Tuesday amid congressional objections over his past criticism of Israel and ties to China and Saudi Arabia. Freeman was president of the Middle East Policy Council, a Washington think tank that received funding from Saudi Arabia.
(Reuters)
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2 comments:
Finally obama's showing some balls. Or do you agree with Marty Peretz who recently wrote in New Republic: "But Freeman's real offense (and the president's if he were to appoint him) is that he has questioned the loyalty and patriotism of not only Zionists and other friends of Israel, the great swath of American Jews and their Christian countrymen, who believed that the protection of Zion is at the core of our religious and secular history, from the Pilgrim fathers through Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy. And how has he offended this tradition? By publishing and peddling the unabridged John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, with panegyric and hysteria." UGH!
Dear Anonymous,
Thank you for your comments.
I am indeed inclined to agree with Marty Peretz. Are you inclined to defend "The Israel Lobby" book?
If so, let me suggest that such material seeks to rob Jewish
American Zionists of their rights in a democracy. As long as the Zionist dream lives in a majority of American [most of them Christian] Israel will enjoy a loyal ally. Not because of the sway of "The Israel Lobby" [a bit paranoid, no?] but rather because Americans love Israel of their own volition.
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