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           " M  I  D - E  A  S  T       R  E  A  L  I  T  I  E  S "  

  A UNIQUELY INDEPENDENT NEWSLETTER PUBLISHED IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE JEWISH
COMMITTEE ON THE MIDDLE EAST (JCOME) AND HUNDREDS OF MIDDLE EAST SCHOLARS AND
                    WRITERS THROUGHOUT THE UNITED STATES.

(202) 362-5266     P.O. Box 18367; Washington, DC 20036   Fax: (202) 362-6965
                         E-MAIL:  MCIMAIL to JCOME
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     Volume 2; Issue 1                                 January 1993
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                       " D  R  E  A  M      A  G  E  N  T  S "

                             CNI - THE PHANTOM LOBBY


                               By Mark A. Bruzonsky

[Washington - 1 Dec]

Just a year and two ago there were many here telling their colleagues in the
Middle East that things were getting alot better in Washington in terms of      
                   
the Israeli-Arab quagmire. 

                     ......AIPAC IS MORE IN CHARGE TODAY
                                 THAN EVER."

 George Bush, they said, was really serious about pushing Israel into a deal
with the Palestinians.  American allies -- especially Saudi Arabia and Egypt
-- were on top in the region in the wake of the unprecedented U.S.-led
international defanging of Iraq and would now exert an important new influence 
in the upcoming "peace process".  And public support for Israel was on the
wane.

Furthermore, these voices kept insisting, George Bush and Jim Baker were
riding high in the polls and likely to be reelected, especially if the Arab
regimes and the Palestinians would just show further "moderation" in dealing
with Israel and engaging themselves in the "peace process."

Of course it was in this overall context that the Madrid Conference, so we
were also told, was to be a major historic watershed.  And the subsequent
Arab-Israeli talks were sure to lead, so we were further told, to a process of
Palestinian autonomy and eventual independence.  

The Israeli/American-approved Palestinian delegation itself said it had
definite assurances of a firm one-year time-table for the talks to show
significant progress. 

New "cause" groups, some clearly pro-Arab and Arab funded, others more
independent but showing signs of being at least more balanced in their
concerns about the region than had been the case in the past, were back then
expressing themselves more vocally than ever before.  

Then came the debate over extending billions of dollars in "loan guarantees"
to Israel, there was a chorus of opposition (beginning in the White House),
and then much self-congratulating when the "guarantees" were put on hold.   
But even on this one, the temporary victory eventually became another grand
defeat.  Those who had gloated before hardly muttered a wimper in the end.

It was all quite foreseeable from the start, actually, in view of the actual
line-up of political forces fighting these battles -- except, that is, if one
listened to the "wisdom" of those who were preaching that things had changed.

At the head of this cacophony of political dreamers was a small chorus of
defeated liberal Republicans with close ties to the Arab establishment in the
Middle East who had banded together into an organization calling itself The
Council On The National Interest (CNI).  

More on the order of a small political club than a real lobby (which is what
it misleadingly purports to be), CNI's leaders -- former Congressmen Pete
McCloskey and Paul Findley along with once Presidential candidate John
Anderson -- were all beating the Bush/Baker drums with great enthusiasm back
then.

How the world turns.

Bush is history, a tarnished one-term President.  

The "peace talks" -- other than buying Israel still more time to swallow
what's left of the Palestinian homeland and make a real peace all but
impossible -- have gone nowhere except to further Israeli designs in the
region.  

And a new American President clearly oriented toward domestic issues has come
to Washington -- arriving at the White House in part precisely because the
pro-Israeli forces worked overtime to push Bill Clinton forward and pull King
George down.  

Make no mistake about it.  Clinton owes them; and both they and Clinton know
it.  For one thing that's why he was willing to appoint one of AIPAC's men to
his National Security Council -- an in-house representative to watch over
things and make sure the new President doesn't stray from what he's told. (See
MER #4 - upcoming)

                     AS FOR CNI...  IN THAT IT PURPORTS 
                        TO BE A LOBBY AT ALL, IT IS A
                            CRUEL, DECEPTIVE JOKE.

Yet in today's new situation in Washington many of those who were so wrong and 
misleading just a short while ago are at it again.  

They are joined, just as was the case before, by a number of prominent
Arab-American spokesman -- among them James Abourezk, Jim Zogby, and Khalil
Jahshan and associated Jewish groups that these Arab-Americans work with
including Peace Now, the Jewish Peace Lobby, and the American Jewish Congress
-- who keep telling their flocks, year after year, that things are gradually
improving (thanks to their efforts of course) when in fact the opposite is
really the case.   

Example.  Even in 1992, after decades of efforts, just getting one important
Congressman or Senator (even a former one!) to an Arab-American event is
heralded as a major triumph; when it fact it simply reflects the continuing
political impotence of all of the Arab American groups in toto, regardless of
what useful work they might do in other non-political areas of concern.

Simply put, abit of progress in learning how to hold banquets and writing
letters protesting slurs and ethnic stereotypes does not equate with serious
political power.  

Example.  When the Arab American University Graduates (AAUG) recently met in
Washington -- even though well-known and well-respected Professor Edward Said
gave an exceptionally provocative round-up of the state of the Arab world and
the "peace process" at the Banquet -- quite literally no one from the media,
surely no one with political stature, and not even a single camera, were there
to take note of what he had to say.

Moreover, these same ever-optimistic voices that were touting Bush and Baker
not so long ago urging forward the "peace process" -- an approach which in
reality was mostly designed by Israel and her Washington chums in the first
place, as should now be more clear since the main Bush foreign policy that
President-elect Clinton is loudly supporting is this very same "peace process"
-- are at it again. 

With the same self-styled anti-AIPAC "phantom lobby" called CNI in the lead -- 
in reality that small collection of defeated liberal Republican politicians
who have very little clout here at home (as opposed to their overseas image)
-- these voices are now attempting to convince their followers that AIPAC is
somehow on the ropes while they are continuing to come on strong.  

George Bush, of course, tried to do the same -- to convince us that Clinton
was falling and he, Bush, was going to pull an upset victory afterall.  But we 
can and should forgive him as that's the way of political campaigns.  After
all even Ross Perot kept telling us he was going to win "all 50 States".  Yet
in the context of an election such hyperbole isn't taken seriously.

It's alot harder to forgive those out-of-power personalities who in a sense
mislead for profit and glory.  No longer competing for votes they purport to
be telling the truth not only about what's really happening in the Middle East 
but also about the real situation within American politics.  But in another
sense they are still competing, now for the largess of those willing to back
them.  And this situation creates a corrupting atmosphere in which too many
people more and more say, and write, what is useful and profitable for them to 
say, and write, rather than what is really happening.
                         (to be continued)
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