Walter Pincus files another story on the withdrawal of Charles Freeman from consideration of NIC chair, this one reporting the view in newspapers across the Middle East. Pincus begins his round up with this:
A commentary in Abu Dhabi's the National, a newspaper owned by an investment fund controlled by the government, said Freeman's decision Tuesday to withdraw as chairman of the National Intelligence Council "threw the Obama administration into the heart of a long-running controversy over the alleged supremacy of pro-Israel hawks in determining U.S. foreign policy after having taken a cautious approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict so far consistent with previous administrations."
Pincus quotes several more just like that, including one quote from "senior political analyst" Khaled Batarfi that first appeared in the Arab News. Batarfi says "President Barack Obama . . . would have faced similar problems if his choice of Middle East envoy George J. Mitchell had gone through U.S. Congress." Pincus ends the quote there, but you can read the full quote here. It goes on, "Mitchell would have lost in getting the US Congress approval. Despite being a Democratic Congress we know it is actually an Israeli Congress."
Of course, Freeman's appointment didn't go "through U.S. Congress." Not only is Batarfi a propagandist, he appears to be ignorant of the most basic facts of our political system. Yet Pincus seems to believe his views have newsvalue, as if readers of the Post would be surprised to learn that some Sadi analysts thinks the Jews control the United States Congress.
Elsewhere, David Duke has now weighed in on Freeman's claim that it was the "Israel Lobby" -- or what Freeman's now calling the "Avigdor Lieberman Lobby" in a media blitz that seems designed to maximize the embarrassment this has all caused at the White House -- that scuttled the appointment:
Charles W. Freeman...was forced to withdraw from his appointment as head of the National Intelligence Council because extremist Zionists were afraid he would put the interests of America over those of Israel.
Makes you wonder why Pincus didn't just go straight to Duke rather than risk having his quotes garbled in translation from the original Arabic.
