Washington Scene:
J U S T C A L L I T " A D C - G A T E " or A D C = B U L L S H I T (Part 2)
"Most of what I've heard from this panel is BULLSHIT." First audience comment
at ADC annual conference earlier this year in Washington.
ARAB AMERICAN ORGANIZATION DOCTORS TAPES TO FURTHER MISLEAD
MER - Washington - 11/6/97:
A few months ago we reported how the organization claiming to be the most
representative one in the Arab-American community -- the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee (ADC) -- enraged even its own supporters at its recent annual conference. That
article with details and background follows below for easy reference.
Many naive but well-meaning young Arab Americans get involved with ADC at one point or
another. They have nothing else; they know no better; they have no one to fill them in on
what ADC really is allabout; it's long history of misrepresentations and mediocrity; its
weak, ineffectual, and terribly self-serving staff.
The best and the brightest of them become disenchanted the soonest; the more they find
out, the more they become dispirited. The more they become aware of what's really going
on, the more they end their involvement and someone new replaces them. The more they find
out the reasons why, the more they become demoralized.
This same story is repeated over and over again, year after year, student activist
after student activist. And in the end of course there is no honest, effective or even
serious Arab American representation in Washington at all to realistically counter thevast
panoply of Jewish-Zionist organizations that make up the extendedIsraeli/Jewish lobby.
In some easy areas ADC does a few marginally useful things now and then -- hardly ever
anything difficult, sophisticated, or of any great consequence. But overall, when it comes
to the serious and important issues of the day, ADC's record is one of either bumbling
along orselling-out -- time after time, issue after issue.
Of course ADC's incestuous interaction with other far worse organizations that make up
the Washington scene is also an important part of this overall story -- and for background
in this area see the article at
.
This is the overall context in which earlier this year ADC arranged the pathetic panel
for the 30th anniversary of the 1967 war -- that was what "Part I" was all
about.
As for the "Part II" aspect to all this, not only has ADC sold its political
soul -- well-illustrated by the way ADC dealt with the 30th anniversary of the 1967 war --
but it appears it has jettisoned its remaining integrity as well.
Remarkably, ADC even had the tape of the convention -- which is sent overseas to
benefactors and sold to members and the press -- doctored to remove some of the very
audience comments and exchanges that we wrote about in the original article!
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(Original article first published last August) A D C = B U L L S H I T . "Most of
what I've heard from this panel is BULLSHIT."
First audience comment at ADC annual conference
MER - Washington - 8/27/97:
There are many reasons the Israeli/Jewish lobby rules in Washington with hardly any
effective opposition.
One of the main reasons is that the various Arab-American organizations that exist are
all controlled, manipulated, and usually paralyzedby the political and financial
corruption of the Arab world. That corruption and impotence is translated to Washington by
Arab ambassadors and the many they employ, most especially by Saudi Prince Bandar Bin
Sultan, now one of the longest-serving Arab representatives in Washington.
Not widely known, Bandar has actually been working closely and personally with some of
the main elements of the Israeli/Jewish lobby for years, even before the Gulf war in 1991.
His goal is simple -- use the power and influence of the Israeli/Jewish lobby to
perpetuate the rule of the al-Saud family in "the Kingdom" -- everyone else be
damned. For many matters involving commenting to the often gullible press, the Saudis use
Jim Zogby, a kind of public relations flakmasquerading under the guise of the "Arab
American Institute" (AAI).
When it comes to the only Arab American organization that has any grass-roots, the
American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), the situation is a bit more
complicated. ADC does a few useful, though always very easy, things in the area of
discrimination. Indeed, nothing could be easier in America then to oppose discrimination;
and actually ADC doesn't really do that very well either. But farmore importantly, when it
comes to the serious and historical political issues of our day, here ADC is worse than a
failure, it is a fraud and a deception -- one largely perpetrated on its own membership.
That fraudulent reality might well have been behind the private andunheeded call a few
years ago by ADC founder, former Senator JamesAbourezk from South Dakota, for the
organization to be closed down. Instead, some of the long-time Washington opportunists,
with former Arab League Ambassador Clovis Maksoud and wife Hala in the lead, pushed ADC to
make a kind of pact with the Arab establishment. In return for financial support from Arab
businessmen closely alignedwith the American-sponsored client regimes in the Middle East,
ADC would not involve itself in anything politically controversial (i.e., anything
important), would support the "peace process" and the Arafat regime (no matter
how much corruption and repression), and would not involve itself in any way against the
terrible abuses and corruption so rampant in many of the key Arab countries -- most
especially Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait and Jordan.
In short, on matters political and historical, ADC has become a kept woman of the Arab
regimes. All kinds of simplistic press releases goout to unknowing ADC supporters around
the country touting as grand ADC accomplishments what are really very small, usually
relatively insignificant, always easy matters. But when it comes to any major political
issues, ADC hardly ever has anything to say and evenwhen it does it is always the tritest
of slogans always corresponding to whatever the Arab "client-regimes" are
pushing at the time.
This sad reality couldn't have been better demonstrated this summer then what took
place at the ADC annual conference which came during themonth of the 30th anniversary of
the 1967 war, a theme which was in fact one by which the conference was promoted.
After 30 years of brutal and crippling occupation, after a decade of
the"Intifada", after the catastrophe that befell Lebanon, the 1982 war, the
Gulf/Iraq War, and the apartheid-type "Peace process", all that ADC could muster
for this 30th anniversary was a dull and self-serving panel of Arab Ambassadors
representing the very governments (plus the new Arafat regime) who are historically
responsible for what has happened and have every motive to misrepresent it!
Nothing more from ADC. Not a single independent commentator. Not a single important
academic personality. Not a single notable journalist. Not a single comment about the
subject that couldn't have been written by the Saudi press office. And incidentally, other
than their own paid press services, no important media even bothered to come.
At the end of the session, the usually compliant ADC audience had a lot of questions.
Right off the bat the first person succinctly indicated that what he had just heard was
mostly "bullshit". The next couple of questioners took a similar tone,
especially in severely challenging Arafat's representative on the panel (let's not
contribute to the deceptions by calling him "Ambassador"). But then,
allcontrolled and planned that way of course, the very short time for questions went by
very quickly, and those standing in line with more disenchantment to express faded away as
usual.
The kids of Palestine can take on the Israeli army with rocks and molotov cocktails,
suffering so terribly in the process. The ADC, after some two decades on the Washington
scene, can't even hold an honest and thoughtful session about what has happened.
Bullshit indeed. [For additional information about Arab American organizations in
Washington see
