by Jim Lobe

In my 30 years as the Washington DC bureau chief for Inter Press Service, only one institution has denied me admission to their press or public event. That was the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) shortly after the broadcast in 2003 of a BBC Panorama (its equivalent, more or [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Jim Lobe

In my 30 years as the Washington DC bureau chief for Inter Press Service, only one institution has denied me admission to their press or public event. That was the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) shortly after the broadcast in 2003 of a BBC Panorama (its equivalent, more or less, of our “60 Minutes”) program on neoconservatives and their promotion of the Iraq war entitled “The War Party” in which I was interviewed at several intervals. In that case, I was told forthrightly (and somewhat apologetically) by the think tank’s then-communications chief, Veronique Rodman, that “someone from above” had objected strongly to the show (I had my own reservations about it) and my role in it and had demanded that I be banned from attending AEI events. My status as persona non grata was reaffirmed about five years later when Lobe Log alumnus Eli Clifton went there for an event and was taken aside by an unidentified staffer and told that he could attend, but that he should remind me that I was still unwelcome.

Now it seems I’ve been blackballed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), although, unlike AEI, it has so far declined to give me a reason for denying me accreditation to its annual policy conference, which runs Sunday through Tuesday. All I’ve received thus far is this email that arrived in my inbox Thursday morning from someone named Emily Helpern from Scott Circle, a public relations firm here in DC.

Thank you for your interest in attending this year’s AIPAC Policy Conference as a member of the press. However, press credentials for the conference will not be issued to you. We regret any inconvenience this may have caused.

I emailed Emily back as soon as I received it to ask for an explanation and point out that this is the first time in a decade that I’ve been denied credentials to cover the AIPAC conference. When no reply was forthcoming, I sent a second email to her and to Marshall Wittmann, AIPAC’s communications director, seeking an explanation, but, alas, it seems I’ve become a non-person.

Now, it bears mentioning that I am not the first to be blackballed by AIPAC, apparently for political reasons. As the JTA’s Ron Kampeas reported in 2012, three journalists were denied credentials to the policy conference that year:

Journalists turned away include Mitchell Plitnick, a liberal blogger who has sparred with right-wing pro-Israel groups as well as anti-Zionists, and who was going to provide coverage for Inter Press Service, which emphasizes developing nations coverage as well as what it calls marginalized groups; Adele Stan of AlterNet, a news site that says it encourages advocacy in a number of areas, including human rights and social justice; and Philip Weiss of Mondoweiss, an anti-Zionist site.

Plitnick had been cleared for coverage, only to be told that it was rescinded, and Weiss has covered AIPAC policy conferences at least three times without incident.

Barring coverage in Washington is rare; Government institutions in Washington are known for accommodating a broad range of journalists, including those adamantly hostile to the government of the day.

Actually, at least four journalists were barred from the 2012 conference. Alex Kane, who writes for both Mondoweiss and Alternet, was also denied credentials. Mitchell’s exclusion was particularly bizarre, given the sudden turnabout and the fact that he is a “non-Zionist” — as opposed to an “anti-Zionist” like Phil (barred again this year) — who also believes there should be a state where Jews should be able to gain refuge in the event that they ever face a threat like Nazism again. Of course, his past associations with the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem and with Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP) may have been too much for AIPAC to bear. I have no such organizational affiliations and probably fall somewhere between Mitchell’s idea (my parents were German Jewish refugees) and liberal Zionism to the diminishing extent that it remains a realistically viable option.

Now, however, it seems I’ve been added to AIPAC’s blacklist.

This raises a lot of questions, not the least of which is how thin has AIPAC’s skin become in light of its recent defeats on Capitol Hill. Another is whether it’s also barring its right-wing critics like Adam Kredo who, like me, has written a lot recently about the group’s travails in trying to maintain its bipartisanship while also doing the bidding of Bibi Netanyahu and his Republican and neoconservative allies here. But, of course, AIPAC’s right-wing critics, like Sheldon Adelson and Bill Kristol, have serious money — or access to it — while people like Mitchell, Phil and I don’t have quite as much to offer (although this is an encouraging development).

While I am under no illusions about my very marginal impact on the fate of the Israel lobby’s premier institution, I do think the fact that AIPAC would actually take the trouble to exclude me from its conference this year testifies — at least a tiny bit — to the organization’s current weakness, or, more precisely, its loss of self-confidence. Aside from AEI, I’ve never been excluded from any organization, no matter how politically or otherwise obnoxious it was to me or I to it. I have attended briefings and events by the the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, the Hudson Institute, and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, for example, and have always been treated with civility, if not cordiality. It’s hard to believe that AIPAC, which is far bigger and more powerful than any of these others alone or in combination, would think that my presence at a conference attended by 14,000 devoted followers might pose some kind of threat to — or, constitute an unacceptable blight on — its proceedings.

Meanwhile, read John Judis’s excellent analysis of AIPAC’s current plight. Maybe now that he’s written an increasingly revisionist history of Harry Truman and Israel AND critically assessed AIPAC’s problems, he’ll be blackballed, too. I’ll have to ask him.

by Farideh Farhi

As most observers and students of Iranian politics know, paranoia about behind-the-scenes British machinations and interference has a special place in Iranian politics and the Iranian psyche. Dinner conversations about any world event, even in family settings, may easily be peppered with at least one person confidently asserting [...]]]> via Lobe Log

by Farideh Farhi

As most observers and students of Iranian politics know, paranoia about behind-the-scenes British machinations and interference has a special place in Iranian politics and the Iranian psyche. Dinner conversations about any world event, even in family settings, may easily be peppered with at least one person confidently asserting that the Brits are behind it all, after all. In fact, the reason the novel Dayi jaan Napolean (My Uncle Napoleon) by Iraj Pezeshkzad (translated into English by Dick Davis) remains popular is precisely because it deliciously captures and lampoons so many cultural reference points, including the obsession with British hands behind Iran’s misfortunes, exemplified by the character that the novel gets its title from.

The book, written in 1973, and popular TV mini-series that were based on it, have been banned in Iran since the Revolution. But now, without exhibiting a trace of irony, Iran’s Intelligence Ministry has decided to resurrect one of the book’s main themes via a public communiqué regarding the reason more than a dozen journalists have been arrested (more will apparently continue to be arrested).

In my previous blog on this topic I had speculated that, given the recent pronouncement of the Prosecutor general and the Judiciary’s spokesperson, Mohseni Eje’i, this move may have come from the Judiciary. But based on information from the horse’s mouth we now know that I was wrong and the arrests resulted from efforts by the Ministry of Intelligence to discover “one of the largest media networks” connected to external “media camps” and were undertaken “in the context of its legal duties and responsibilities to combat any foreign infiltration and interference” by those who want awful things to happen to the “free nation of Iran.”

Furthermore, the Intelligence Ministry feels obligated to make several points clear:

1. Because the dossier is “highly sensitive and involves a multitude of security and judicial considerations,” the gathered intelligence regarding the relationship of arrested individuals to “the psychological operation of the UK government” is “completely supported and solid.” So, even without the accused admitting contacts, the fact that organized work was done by foreign media has already been established.
2. Given the large number of individuals connected to this media network (from inside and outside the country) and the variety in levels of contact, some of the accused may not even be aware that they have been in contact with a network that has a foreign source. This is why some may be released and more may be arrested. And rest assured that all the noise from various “so-called” human rights organizations connected to the same “arrogant camp” will not have any impact on the resolve of the Intelligence Ministry’s selfless members who are trying to get to the bottom of all this.
3.  Finally, more information regarding what’s going on will not be available until more information is gathered during the initial stages of interrogation.

So, “solid and supported” information regarding a network of contacts has led to the arrest of individuals who may or may not have been aware of their participation in the alleged crime and, given the potential release of some, may not have even participated in it!

It turns out that the Intelligence Ministry’s “solid and supported” information boils down to the fact that BBC Persian exists and that the Ministry has not been able to stop its reporting of issues related to Iran to viewers inside the country. The rest will be established via the interrogation of individuals who have no access to due process and will probably be prodded into securing their release by admitting their cluelessness in unknowingly helping the “old arrogant power.” The Intelligence Ministry will be vindicated, while hoping that it has created conditions in which Iranians will be leery of talking about what is happening in Iran to anyone lest they be arrested for unknowingly working for a network that eventually finds its way to BBC Persian!

(I had written earlier that if the late Pezeshkzad were alive today, he would probably be wondering if he could have written a better parody. Well, he is still alive, thank goodness, and I hope his great sense of humour extends to me and my blog post as well.)

There is a real conversation to be had regarding the role and impact of Persian-speaking media located outside of Iran that’s funded by citizens or governments of countries that are openly pursuing hostile policies towards the Islamic Republic. But these arrests do not contribute to that conversation. The only thing they show is that close to 35 years after the Islamic Republic asserted its “final independence” from external control and proverbially “slapped the face of arrogant powers” and “cut off their hands”, the Intelligence Ministry is once again full of the likes of Dayi jaan Napoleon and his servant Mash Qassem, both of whom were convinced of British revenge.