Two important talking points are making the rounds today.
First, The Israel Project (TIP) and the Emergency Committee for Israel’s (ECI) Noah Pollak seem to be running [...]]]>
Two important talking points are making the rounds today.
First, The Israel Project (TIP) and the Emergency Committee for Israel’s (ECI) Noah Pollak seem to be running with the strategy of highlighting the contrast between Tunisia, Lebanon, and Egypt’s instability with Israel’s stable, democratic government.
An Israel Project press release (H/T Justin Elliott) observed:
All this illustrates, perhaps more dramatically than ever before, how different Israel is from all its neighbors. As a lively, boisterous democracy, the events unfolding on Arab streets across the region would be unthinkable in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv.
TIP concludes:
There are no easy answers to Washington’s dilemma. But the overall lesson is clear. The United States needs more democratic friends in the region. Friends it can rely on. Friends like Israel.
Noah Pollak tweeted:
I hope the “realists” who think the U.S. should end its alliance w/ Israel are learning who is genuinely stable & strong in the ME.
TIP’s condemnation of authoritarian Arab leaders overlooks the fact that a number of them have been backed by the U.S., in no small part due to leaders like Mubarak being willing to make peace with Israel.
While TIP and Pollak prefer to portray the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as having played no role in shaping the region’s political landscape—such an acknowledgment might let the dreaded “linkage” argument out of the box—others, such as The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, are torn between a commitment to liberal democracy and their jobs as hawkish pro-Israel advocates.
At 10:51am, Goldberg decided to run with a linkage-denying argument that “these uprisings are offering proof that Israel isn’t the central Arab preoccupation.”
“Fifty years of peace has meant [the U.S.] propping up dictators for fifty years,” he observed.
He elaborated:
Is that such a bad thing? Friends of mine like Reuel Gerecht believe that Arabs, given their druthers, might choose Islamist governments, and that would be okay, because it’s part of a long-term process of gradual modernization. I’m not so sure. I support democratization, but the democratization we saw in Gaza (courtesy of, among others, Condi Rice) doesn’t seem particularly worth it.
Goldberg’s policy of playing the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Reuel Marc Gerecht off as an expert on Arab streets and a progressive (Gerecht jokes that his own mother thinks he writes too much about bombing Iran) is rather telling of Goldberg’s own beliefs. Even more telling is Goldberg’s torn relationship with democracy when it doesn’t go his, or Israel’s, way. His argument, it would seem, is that backing strongmen who are friendly—or at least complicit in sealing off Gaza—is more important than human rights or democracy.
By 3:50pm, Goldberg was accepting that Mubarak’s days in power could be limited but was still concerned about what role the Muslim Brotherhood might play.
I’m not downplaying the threat the Muslim Brotherhood poses, to America or to Israel. And I fear for the future of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty.
The Weekly Standard‘s Thomas Joscelyn voiced similar concerns, suggesting that Mubarak might be the lesser of two evils. He wrote:
Hosni Mubarak’s regime is no friend of freedom, even though it is certainly an ally against al Qaeda.
In all likelihood, an Egypt dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood (if that is how the turmoil plays out) would be neither.
At the end, both of the arguments we’ve seen emerge today—Israel is stable while Arab states can’t maintain stability; backing U.S./Israel-friendly dictators might just be worth it—tells us a lot about the logical contortions required by those who espouse an ideology of linkage-denial, or “reverse linkage.”
Egyptians are taking to the streets because of disgust with the failed economy, corruption, and abuses associated with Hosni Mubarak’s rule. But Mubarak’s ability to maintain a grip on power is directly related to backing from the U.S — a source of foreign aid that is in no small way connected to Egypt’s peace with Israel.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has warped the region’s political landscape and, as hinted at by Goldberg, led the U.S. to back authoritarian rulers. When the only positive thing TIP and Pollak can say about Israel’s role in the situation is that Israel is “stable,” it’s worth examining what cost Israel’s peace with its neighbors–and assistance in maintaining a siege on Gaza–has incurred on the the U.S.’s broader foreign policy interests in the Middle East.
]]>Réalité-EU is a group which claims to be [...]]]>
Réalité-EU is a group which claims to be “a website and e-newsletter for journalists, leaders and key analysts that focus on developments in and around the Middle East which pose a threat to Europe and beyond,” and “is supported by individuals concerned with the growing threat of Iran and extremism in Europe and the Middle East.” The group gained prominence in 2007 when it compiled a “backgrounder” of radical and inflammatory statements made by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The compilation found an audience on a number of right-wing and anti-Islam websites.
Réalité-EU’s website serves a clearinghouse, of sorts, providing information for journalists about sanctions and Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program. Réalité appears to have a European management and target audience, judging from its list of “expert sources” who are primarily based in the EU.
But a closer examination of their website raises questions about whose interests the organization is representing.
First, the domain name “realite-eu.org” has the following registration details:
Registrant Name:Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi
Registrant Organization:The Israel Project
Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi is the president and founder of The Israel Project (TIP), a group which describes its mission as giving a “more positive public face” to Israel.
TIP often presents right-wing and neoconservative views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and, in recent years, has spearheaded a push for escalating measures against Iran.
A 2007 TIP press conference on the “Iranian threat” included a number of neoconservatives including Frank Gaffney—who was recently deemed too Islamophobic for the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), a venue with a history of tolerating bigotry against Muslims.
I asked Mizrahi for an explanation of why she had registered Réalité-EU’s domain name.
She contacted her webmaster who told her:
Realite isn’t registered to TIP. Both Realite-eu.org and theisraelproject.org are registered under an account with register.com (a company that millions of organizations and corporations use to register thier domains). They are not connected, but are listed as separate domains under an umbrella account.
When asked if her webmaster could explain why Register.com chose to attach her and TIP’s name to the Réalité domain, she responded:
I asked him. He has no idea.
Btw – I know and like Realite and a whole host of other groups that support sanctions on Iran. It is all important lifesaving/war-avoiding work. Sanctions are a true path to peace.
During the 2009 Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, DC, Réalité staff handed out thumb drives to journalists entering the summit’s security checkpoint while TIP blanketed the local CNN broadcasts with this commercial.
After a bit more research, I found that the domain name wasn’t the only piece of Réalité’s website tied to TIP. Réalité hosted conference calls (promoted on Réalité’s homepage) which are recorded as MP3 files and can be streamed to anyone accessing the Réalité website.
It turns out that those MP3 files are stored on tipmedia.org (see here, here and here), a website registered by TIP and used to store TIP media files (see here and here).
I contacted Mizrahi for an explanation for why recordings of Réalité-EU conference calls were stored on a TIP website but I have yet to receive a response. (This post will be updated if and when I receive an answer.)
Back in 2009, SpinWatch identified that Réalité, which claimed to be based out of offices in London, was sending out emails using a mail server registered to the Washington, DC, offices of B’nai B’rith International. B’nai B’rith denied any connection with Réalité when called for comment by SpinWatch.
When pressed about the use of a B’nai B’rith server, Réalité acknowledged that the organization rents “services and space on their server for cost saving reasons.” Réalité did not respond to a call for comment when SpinWatch asked them why their London phone number forwarded to a voicemail box of The Israel Project in Washington. (B’nai B’rith and The Israel Project appear to share office space.)
There is plenty of evidence to suggest that Réalité-EU is directly tied to TIP and, as Mizrahi’s name is listed on Réalité’s domain name registration and TIP hosts recordings of Réalité conference calls, there would appear to be far more than just a coincidental sharing of server space for “cost saving reasons.” But there is strikingly little evidence to suggest that Réalité has much of a connection to London or Europe, where it seeks to inform European policymakers and journalists about “developments in and around the Middle East which pose a threat to Europe and beyond.”
A search of the UK’s Companies House and Charity Commission show no record of Réalité ever being registered as a legal entity in the UK. Réalité was reported to be a project of International Media Intelligence Analysis (IMIA) which was a registered entity in the U.K. But as of April 14, 2009, IMIA was dissolved.
Mizrahi, in email correspondence with me, did not respond to questions regarding the relationship or institutional link between TIP and Réalité.
The mounting evidence would appear to suggest that Réalité is either in close partnership with TIP or a project of the organization. Why would TIP be listed on the domain name registration and host MP3 files of conference calls for an organization seeking to promote hawkish Iran policy to European policymakers and journalists? More importantly, if Réalité is indeed a TIP project, why is there no public acknowledgment of the relationship?
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