Not unless there’s another Sevastopol posting on this board. Just as recently as the “Please explain the Middle East Crisis” thread (in the past week or so) you posted a link to PalestineMonitor.org which has the expected anti-Israeli viewpoint. Remember - I noted that the website is supposedly run by various Palestinian non-governmental groups, but neither they nor any individuals were identified, and I asked you for actual names of any persons or groups responsible for the site? I asked you twice, actually, and never got an answer.
Sorry, this dodge does not fly. Here are excerpts from an interesting piece (commenting on the Mearsheimer & Walt “Israel Lobby Is Under My Bed” report that came out earlier this year).*
Arab Lobbying Efforts in America
The authors (Mearsheimer and Walt) pretend there is no effective counterweight on the Palestinian or Arab side to this pro-Israel juggernaut. They ignore the proliferation of stridently anti-Israel Middle East studies centers on campuses across the country, which receive funding from the Gulf states and wealthy Arab donors. Professor Walt’s own university recently received a $20 million gift from a Saudi prince for a new Islamic studies program. Georgetown University received a similar gift from the same donor. Perhaps to show its appreciation, Georgetown decided not to allow an anti-terrorism conference to take place at a hotel on its campus, but helped sponsor and promote a Palestinian solidarity conference, replete with calls for Israel’s destruction by various speakers. The Saudis have spoken openly of how they can influence officials of the State Department and the intelligence community while they are employed by the American government, with the knowledge that when their government careers are over, they can be set up with far more lucrative arrangements at Middle East studies centers, or lobbying groups or public relations firms that promote the Saudi line.
The former Saudi Ambassador, Prince Bander bin Sultan, openly boasted of his success in cultivating powerful Americans.
“If the reputation then builds that the Saudis take care of friends when they leave office, you would be surprised how much better friends you have who are just coming into office.”
The list of ex-office holders who propagate pro-Saudi spin is a long and disgraceful one…The authors try to minimize the pro-Arab lobbying effort in America, and create the Goliath of Israel in its path. But Saudi money, which is much more substantial than that of the pro-Israel lobby, is very much at work, very often against American interests, in a variety of ways: radicalizing prison clerics, and mosque imams, setting up Wahhabbist schools, lobbying Congress against energy independence, and supporting academic chairs and policy centers that hire professors who routinely bash American policies and America itself…the same Saudi Prince who gave $20 million to Harvard bragged of his recent 5% purchase of News Corporation stock giving him the power to influence news reporting. This is a worrisome development, for he also owned a 30% stake in an Arab TV network, ART TV, that spews forth anti-Semitism and anti-Western agitprop. Foreign money, as long as it is anti-Israel, is worth its weight in gold (or oil). "*
