Posted on 06/06/2002 2:29:38 PM PDT by It'salmosttolate
The National Iraq Network includes:
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC)
Association of Arab-American University Graduates (AAUG)
Berkeley City Council
Center for the Global South, American University
Committees of Correspondence
Friends Committee on National Legislation
Institute for Policy Studies (IPS)
Maryknoll Missionaries Justice & Peace Office
Middle East Research & Information Project (MERIP)
National Association of Arab Americans (NAAA)
Pax Christi, USA
Peace Action
Voices in the Wilderness
War Resisters League
Washington Peace Center
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
Women Strike for Peace
http://216.239.35.100/search?q=cache:IqCZfrVSiS4C:shamash.org/listarchives/amcha/log9903+elgindy+bosnia&hl=en&start=6
Arabs need not apply
The Zionist lobby has managed to block the appointment of Arab-Americans to prominent public positions, but not without damaging its own credibility
by Khaled Elgindy
The "warm" exchanges between the leadership in Tel Aviv and Damascus--historic and intractable foes--that emerged following the election of Ehud Barak as prime minister of Israel have not been matched by concomitant gestures on the part of Arab and Jewish leaders in the United States. In fact, quite the opposite has happened. Relations between Arab-Americans and Muslims on the one hand and American Jews on the other have deteriorated sharply in recent months and are characterized by growing animosity, mistrust and suspicion.
Tensions between Arab-Americans and American Jews are of course not new--both groups have long battled each other over the issue of Palestinian rights in various public forums. However, some in the organized Jewish community have recently shown great displeasure at the ever-increasing visibility, access and even influence Arab-Americans and American Muslims have shown in areas of policy-making, the media and public opinion. Their response has been to try to discredit or otherwise intimidate the Arab-American community by branding its leaders, activists and institutions as extremists or even as supporters of terrorism.
Three times in as many months, pro-Israel organizations have launched attacks on prominent and highly respected Arab-Americans and American Muslims who were appointed to important foreign policy positions. While the charges originated on the extremist fringes of the Jewish community, they have been echoed and regurgitated by more mainline Jewish organizations as well, causing already strained ties to sink to new depths.
Arab-Americans and American Muslims believe they are the targets of a deliberate McCarthyist campaign aimed at marginalizing their communities and intimidating them from participating in the political process and policy-making arena. Whether the alleged campaign succeeds, however, is another matter altogether.
In April of this year, the radical Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) took aim at a young Arab-American lawyer, Joseph Zogby, who at the time worked as an aide to Martin Indyk in the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. In a 19 April press release, the ZOA blasted Zogby for having written two articles that were mildly critical of Israel's policies in the Occupied Territories and called on Indyk to fire him. The ZOA's press release, riddled with gross distortions and quotations taken wildly out of context, branded Zogby as an "extremist," "anti-American" and an "Israel-hater"--with the latter two intended to be synonymous.
For his part, Indyk officially--if somewhat half-heartedly--defended Zogby, calling him "a valued member of the Near East Bureau staff" and referring to his work as "exemplary." Indyk also confirmed that Zogby had been offered a promotion, which he subsequently turned down in order to accept another job at the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department.
Despite the fact that the over-the-top rhetoric of the ZOA and its head, Mort Klein, are often dismissed as something of a nuisance even by many in the Jewish community, it did not take long for the Jewish press and other Jewish organizations to jump on the bandwagon. The issue soon came to dominate the editorial pages of US Jewish weeklies, and other Jewish leaders joined the chorus calling for Zogby's dismissal. Max Hoenlin, chairman of the highly influential Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, called Zogby's appointment "obscene." More dangerously, however, in a meeting between Martin Indyk and Jewish leaders in New York just days after the controversy broke out, Abe Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, laid it out for Indyk and the American public in no uncertain terms. "There is no room," he said "at a US government agency, the State Department, for individuals who publicly advocate antagonistic views of Israel and our policy regarding an ally."
Arab-Americans were outraged. Here was a private, non-governmental organization attempting to set the criteria by which one may or may not work in agency of the US government. In a joint press conference held on 12 May, Arab-American and Muslim organizations demanded that Indyk unequivocally repudiate attempts by pro-Israel groups to establish a "litmus test" on government employment, and called on administration officials to correct the "imbalance" in political appointments and make a concerted effort to hire more Arab-Americans and Muslims at all levels of policy-making. For their part, officials at both the State Department and the White House agreed that more Arab-Americans and Muslims should be hired.
Even as the controversy surrounding Joseph Zogby raged on, the ZOA lobbed another of its rhetorical bombs--this time at a prominent Muslim physician and women's rights activist, Dr. Laila Al Marayati, who had been appointed by President Clinton to the International Commission on Religious Freedom. Among other things, the ZOA charged Dr. Al Marayati with being "a Muslim extremist who has ties to groups that oppose Israel's existence and support Arab terrorist violence." The attack revolved around Dr. Al Marayati's "associations" with such "terrorist sympathizer" organizations as the American Muslim Council, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, and the Islamic Center of Southern California.
In late June, increasingly confident in their ability to discredit Arab and Muslim leaders and put government officials on the defensive, pro-Israel groups launched their third assault against Salam Al Marayati, the Iraqi-born executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) and the husband of Laila Al Marayati. Al Marayati was appointed by House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt to serve on the National Commission on Terrorism.
The attack, by now routine and well rehearsed, would follow a familiar pattern, though the outcome would come as a surprise to everyone. The ZOA again led the pack, leveling hysterical and unsubstantiated accusations, and accusing Al Marayati of "justifying terrorism."
"Like the David Dukes [white supremacists] of the world, these anti-Israel and pro-terrorist individuals and groups should be condemned, relegated to the margins of society, not granted credibility by being given government appointments and meetings at the White House," argued a statement from the ZOA. "The appointment of Salam Al Marayati should be revoked immediately."
Mainstream Jewish organizations across the political spectrum, including the centrist Anti-Defamation League and the ostensibly liberal American Jewish Committee, echoed ZOA's calls and mounted a massive campaign to pressure Gephardt to rescind Al Marayati's s nomination. Meanwhile, Arab-American and Muslim organizations advised their members to express their support for the nomination.
On 8 July, Gephardt sent shock waves through the Arab and Muslim communities when he withdrew his nomination of Al Marayati to the Terrorism Commission. The House Minority Leader's official reason for withdrawing the nomination was that the length of time it would take for the requisite security check would be longer than the life span of the Commission itself. The New York Times ran a front-page story the following day under the headline "Gephardt Bows to Jews: Anger Over a Nominee." The ZOA quickly claimed credit for the dumping of Al Marayati as Arab and Muslim groups formulated a joint statement calling for his reinstatement.
Then came a surprise. The incident received unprecedented coverage in the American media. Over the course of the next few weeks, editorials in major newspapers across the country assailed the Minority Leader for caving in to Jewish pressure and for locking Arab-Americans and American Muslims out of policy discussion. The Los Angeles Times called Gephardt's withdrawal of Al Marayati's nomination "craven and grossly unfair," while the Detroit Free Press reasoned that "in caving in to Al Marayati's critics despite his widespread support from Muslim, interfaith (including some Jewish organizations) and human rights groups, Gephardt did a disservice not only to Al Marayati and the commission, but also to the causes of democracy and pluralism." The nation's premier political paper, the Washington Post, argued that "it is important for American counter-terrorism measures not to be seen reflexively by Muslims as illegitimate. People like Mr. Al Marayati should be at the table." At the same time, Gephardt's office was inundated with calls, faxes and letters protesting the withdrawal, and several members of Congress publicly and privately expressed their outrage.
In the case of Salam Al Marayati, the McCarthyist smear campaign led by the ZOA and others in the Jewish community had clearly backfired, and its failure was in many ways a great coup for the Arab and Muslim communities. While Gephardt did not (and is not likely to) reinstate the nomination, the ordeal thoroughly embarrassed him. Gephardt also learned that unlike in the past, when pro-Israel groups could instantly marginalize Arab and Muslim activists, these communities would no longer sit idly by and watch it happen. The attacks by the Zionist organizations did more to elevate the profile of the Arab and Muslim communities and highlight their concerns about fair play than any public relations firm could have ever done.
The recent smear campaigns confirmed for Arab and Muslim Americans the long-suspected notion that the single greatest obstacle to the advancement of their communities' interests--both domestic and international--is the power of the Zionist lobby in Washington. Yet the backlash following the withdrawal of Salam Al Marayati's nomination has shown that pro-Israel organizations are not invincible, and nor are they beyond reproach, whether by mainstream media or by US policy-makers themselves.
Irresponsible attacks and reckless rhetoric are not acceptable discourse and are not without consequences. Perhaps the mainstream Jewish organizations' collective miscalculation will cause them to reassess their ties to extremist organizations like the ZOA--but don't count on it.
Volume 3, Issue 13 19 August to 1 September 1999
The Mother Tereza Organization may have had an office in Chicago, the location of the current charity scandal as reported in the NYT
June 14, 2002 Prosecutors See Possible Link Between U.S.-Based Charity and Al Qaeda By DOUGLAS FRANTZ ARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina — Benevolence International Foundation, an Illinois-based charity with broad activities in Bosnia, has emerged as a central focus of the investigation into the finances of Osama bin Laden and his Qaeda terrorist network. More at NYT
http://www.thestreet.com/tech/internet/952295.html
<snip> The chief prosecutor in Elgindy's fraud case backs up at least part of what Pluvia's been questioning about Elgindy's handling of some charity contributions.
Elgindy had made an urgent plea for donations last April for the Mother Theresa Humanitarian Organization. The money, he said, was to help refugees of fighting in Kosovo.
But the charity story was full of holes, said David Jarvis, the assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted Elgindy in the fraud case in Texas. "None of that money from the American people was ever given to the Mother Theresa fund in Macedonia," Jarvis said. "He [Elgindy] was not the transformed man that they made him out to be."
Elgindy, in an interview, said he never gave the $14,000 he collected to the Mother Theresa organization because he was concerned it might be misspent by the group, and because the organization didn't have a valid tax-exempt status.
He said he returned the money to the 50 or so contributors within the past month, and on Friday, posted an explanation of the whole matter on SI. He also said he's spent $127,000 of his own money helping Kosovo refugees.
Elgindy has been ordered to check into a federal prison on June 11, and begin serving his sentence. He says he's angered that someone like Pluvia is pelting him with renewed criticism. </snip>
From http://www.fas.org/irp/world/serbia/docs/6_e.html
"The data have been taken from the press and electronic media in Belgrade, May-August 1998 "
35. In addition to the "Fund of the Government of the Republic of Kosovo" seated in Aachen and the "Homeland Calling" ("Zeri e adtheu") Fund seated in Switzerland, there is a greater number of humanitarian funds which are mostly registered under the name "Mother Theresa" and provide a sound financial basis for Albanian terrorism. There are indications that the mentioned funds are also used for "laundering money" from drug trafficking, in which a great number of the Albanians from Kosovo and Metohija is engaged, as well as from other highly profitable illegal activities.
http://www.onthecanvas.com/newest_addition_to_permeating.htm
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