The tactics of the Israel Lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth. The aim of this Lobby is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views, the substitution of political correctness for analysis, and the exclusion of any and all options for decision by Americans and our government other than those that it favors.
The son of Chas Freeman, President Obama's pick for National Intelligence Council chairman, has a message for his father's detractors: I want to punch you in the nose.
"They are low-lives," Charles Freeman writes of his dad's critics. "And if you're among them and by chance read this: I still want to punch you in the face. You'd deserve it, you schmucks."
More to the point, the younger Freeman says "the attack by groups interested in issues about which he's been impolitic in the past doesn't particularly surprise him (or me). My Dad has been vocal on the dangers of established maxims about blind faith (in Israel) and blind antagonism (with China). That will get you in trouble quick, and it has, if you have any political sensibility. The problem with -- and the great virtue of -- my Dad is that he has no political sensibility at all."
The editors of the National Review, apparently not afraid of the younger Mr. Freeman's fist, write an editorial critical of the appointment of Freeman, calling the elder Mr. Freeman "a Saudi apologist, and a savage critic of Israel. He also argues that Beijing did not strike down the Tiananmen Square protesters with sufficient swiftness. Barack Obama proposes to make him head of the National Intelligence Council. It’s an abominable appointment."
Freeman, the NR writers say, "has distinguished himself as a rabid Israel-hater who regards the Jewish state’s defensive measures as the primary cause of jihadist terror. He is a shameless apologist for Saudi Arabia (where he once served as U.S. ambassador) despite its well-documented record of exporting terrorists and jihadist ideology. And he is a long-time sycophant of Beijing, where he served as Richard Nixon’s interpreter during the 1971 summit and later ran the U.S. diplomatic mission."
Freeman in 2006 wrote of the U.S.-Israel relationship, "We have paid heavily and often in treasure for our unflinching support and unstinting subsidies of Israel's approach to managing its relations with the Arabs. Five years ago, we began to pay with the blood of our citizens here at home. We are now paying with the lives of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines on battlefields in several regions of the realm of Islam, with more said by our government's neoconservative mentors to be in prospect."
Is Mr. Freeman, President Obama's New National Intelligence Commission Chair, asserting that al Qaeda attacked on 9/11 because of the U.S.'s support of Israel?
That would be a remarkable assertion for a U.S. policymaker to make, considering the myriad reasons al Qaeda has given for the attack. (In his 1996 fatwa, for example, Osama bin Laden railed against all sorts of U.S. allies, including the Saudi regime.)