The Tundra Tabloids good friend and colleague, TINSC has long sounded the drum on Saudi influence in US politics. while the world’s attention is always focused on pro-Israel lobbying in the US, Saudi pockets are far deeper than Israel’s, yet, they get a free pass from the politicians and the media they’ve bought. KGS
NOTE: Information about Dr. Mitchell Bard’s new book, “The Israel Lobby” below teh interview under the fold.
The Saudis are the leading supporters of terror. As Stuart Levey, the under secretary of the Treasury in charge of tracking terror financing said, “If I could somehow snap my fingers and cut off the funding from one country, it would be Saudi Arabia.”
Op-Ed: The Powerful Saudi Lobby in the United States
Published: Monday, November 28, 2011 10:49 AM
Interview Series: “By far the most potent Arab lobbyists, are the Saudis”, says Dr. Mitchell Bard, Executive Director of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise and author of The Arab Lobby.
“Israel’s enemies have consistently claimed that a powerful Israeli lobby in the United States acts contrary to American interests. In truth, the Israeli lobby reflects the views of the American people while the little known Arab lobby works largely unseen to undermine American’s interests, values and security, ” says Dr. Mitchell G. Bard..
“This lobby’s components are heterogeneous.
“One element is the diplomats from the 21 Arab countries and those of a number of non-Arab Islamic nations.
“Others are U.S. defense contractors, former American government officials employed by Arab states, corporations with business interests in the Middle East, a number of human rights NGOs and the United Nations.
“To this one should add numerous academics – mainly from Middle East studies departments – members of the media and cultural elite, several non-evangelical Christian groups, as well as American Arabs and Muslims.
“By far the most potent Arab lobbyists, however, are the Saudis,” he asserts.
Dr. Bard is Executive Director of the Non-profit American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE). He is also Director of the Jewish Virtual Library, the world’s most comprehensive online encyclopedia of Jewish history and culture. Bard has published more than twenty books, the latest one being The Arab Lobby.
He remarks “Arab lobbies have no significant grassroots support. They therefore operate in a different way from AIPAC, the main American organization defending Israel’s interests. The Saudi lobby mainly takes a “top-down approach.” Its principal concern is to ensure that the heads of the royal family stay on their shoulders, so, while it pays lip service to the Palestinian issue, it is the survival of the House of Saud that matters most.
“The Saudis have almost unlimited financial resources, which they use to reward former officials in hopes of influencing those still in office. As Prince Bandar, a former Saudi Ambassador to the United States, once said, if the Saudis get a reputation for taking care of their friends when they leave office, “you’d be surprised how much better friends you have who are just coming into office.”
The former government officials can guide the Saudis on how to manipulate U.S. policy makers. They can use the contacts they have developed during their government career to gain Saudi access to decision makers. As the media often call on them to comment on Middle East affairs as “non-partisan experts,” they also act as Saudi propagandists.
“Many American policy makers think that the U.S. depends on the Saudis because they regulate the world oil market. Thus a Faustian relationship has developed between the two countries. The Saudis sell oil to the U.S. in return for America protecting the Saud regime. The Saudis also act like drug pushers manipulating the U.S. addiction to oil. The price is kept high enough to make huge profits, but low enough to discourage significant investments in alternative sources of energy.
“Clark Clifford, who was Truman’s political advisor, realized the United States did not need to give in to Saudi blackmail. He said in 1948 ‘The Arab states must have oil royalties or go broke. Their need of the U.S. is greater than our need of them.’
Throughout the history of the U.S.-Saudi relationship, presidents were in a position to demand support for American policies in exchange for the security umbrella keeping the Saud family in power, but, they did not. Even after U.S. forces saved the kingdom during the first Iraq War in 1991, President Bush was unwilling to seek Saudi support in promoting peace between the Palestinians and Israel.
The Saudis are the leading supporters of terror. As Stuart Levey, the under secretary of the Treasury in charge of tracking terror financing said, “If I could somehow snap my fingers and cut off the funding from one country, it would be Saudi Arabia.”
In addition to undermining the U.S. interest in peace, the Saudis undermine American values by maintaining one of the world’s most repressive societies that has historically discriminated against women, Jews, Christians and even its Shiite Muslim minority.
“The Saudis have also not been helpful to President Barack Obama in promoting his peace plans. They were not willing to make a single concession to Israel when he asked them to do so in recent years. Yet Obama agreed to a major supply of arms to Saudi Arabia.
“There are similar examples from the past. President Jimmy Carter asked the Saudis in vain to support the Camp David agreements in 1978. After he was rebuffed, he still sold arms to the kingdom.
“The Saudis are also terror supporters in many ways. Long before 9-11, Saudi Arabia was a major funder of the PLO’s international terror campaign. The United States, however, looked the other way. The American public never understood the Saudi role in terrorism until 9-11. Then it became known that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis. As we learned from Wikileaks and other sources, the Saudis are the leading supporters of terror.
“As Stuart Levey, the under secretary of the Treasury in charge of tracking terror financing said, ‘If I could somehow snap my fingers and cut off the funding from one country, it would be Saudi Arabia.’
“The Saudi lobby thus works in many ways against U.S. interests. The more this is exposed, the better it will be for both the United States and democracy at large.”
Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld
The writer has been a long-term adviser on strategy issues to the Boards of several major multinational corporations in Europe and North America. He is the Chairman of the Board of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
NOW AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK, THE ARAB LOBBY EXPOSES SEVENTY YEARS OF COERCION
BY SAUDI ARABIA
How American presidents and diplomats have sold out our interests, values and national security to the Arab lobby for decades
The Arab lobby has operated for decades beyond public scrutiny, guiding American policy in directions counter to the views of the public, and to the nation’s detriment. Now available in paperback, Mitchell Bard’s THE ARAB LOBBY: The Invisible Alliance That Undermines America’s Interests in the Middle East(Broadside Books; ISBN 13: 9780061725975; $14.99; on-sale: Dec 6, 2011) pulls back the veil on the lobby’s activities and debunks the myth that an Israeli lobby controls U.S. policy.
Documenting 70 years of complicity at the highest levels of government and corporate America, THE ARAB LOBBY shows us the malevolent forces at work and their choke-hold on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, as well as domestic policy, education, and national security. The book challenges us to shake off long-standing, toxic alliances and cement ties with countries that share our values and interests, fighting radical forces that threaten us, and ultimately achieving energy security.
Consider these surprising facts from THE ARAB LOBBY:
- 1Saudi Arabia has recruited more than two dozen U.S. firms as foreign agents in the last decade and spent nearly $100 million on American lobbyists, consultants, and public relations firms.
- The Saudis have an estimated $800 billion to $1 trillion invested in the United States, which they use for leverage to influence American policy.
- The United States has sold Saudi Arabia more than $100 billion worth of weapons, many of which they cannot use or maintain, and none of which obviates the need for America to defend the kingdom.
- The Saudis and other Arab states have invested more than $300 million in U.S. colleges and additional resources to influence K-12 education.
- Today, there are 125 Middle East studies programs at American universities. The U.S. Department of Education provides funding for 14 Middle East centers and grants nearly 100 student fellowships in these programs annually (at a cost of $4 million per year).
- There are approximately 1.2 million Arabs in the United States. About half of the Arab population is concentrated in five states — California, Florida, Michigan, New Jersey, and New York — that are all key to the Electoral College.
“Under Saudi leadership, The Arab Lobby works in the staterooms and boardrooms of Washington, and their activities are not out in the open for all to see,” explains Mitchell Bard. “They have no grassroots support, and the lobby has operated for far too long without scrutiny. Now is the time to wake up and break the nefarious ties that have encouraged global terrorism to spread like wildfire and made peace in the Middle East impossible.”
This is the first book to challenge the idea that an all-powerful Israeli lobby controls U.S. Middle East policy and demonstrate that a countervailing Arab lobby exists and is actually more powerful. 1It is the story of the invisible alliance of State Department Arabists, defense contractors, former government officials, corporations with business interests in the Middle East, non-governmental organizations, academics, non-evangelical Christians and foreign leaders and diplomats working to undermine U.S.-Israel ties while supporting regimes whose values and interests are inconsistent with those of America. The Arab lobby has argued the U.S. must capitulate to Arab demands or relations with Middle East nations would suffer. Too often this has led Americans to support autocratic governments that abuse human rights and act contrary to American values. Officials have rarely been willing to call the lobby’s bluff and to use American influence to change Arab policies. Meanwhile, elements of the Arab lobby have acted to subvert U.S. national security.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Mitchell Bard, Ph.D., is one of the leading authorities on U.S. – Middle East policy. He is the Executive Director of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise and director of the Jewish Virtual Library (www.JewishVirtualLibrary.org), the world’s most comprehensive online encyclopedia of Jewish history and culture. He has written or edited 22 books, including 48 Hours of Kristallnacht: Night of Destruction/Dawn of the Holocaust (Globe Pequot 2008), Will Israel Survive? (Palgrave 2007), and The Water’s Edge and Beyond: Defining the Limits to Domestic Influence on U.S. Middle East Policy (Transaction, 1991). For more on him and his books, visit: http://www.mitchellbard.com/.
THE ARAB LOBBY:
The Invisible Alliance That Undermines America’s Interests in the Middle East
Broadside Books/HarperCollins Publishers
ISBN 13: 9780061725975
$14.99; 432 pages
On-sale December 6, 2011
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