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MER FLASHBACK - If you are Arab-American make sure to read and ponder this:
THE ARAB REGIMES AND THEIR ORGANIZATIONS:
ALWAYS TOO LATE, TOO LITTLE,
TOO WEAK, AND TOO CO-OPTED
"It's so unfair... After 50 years the Israelis
have nuclear
weapons, the Mossad, Hollywood, a kosher White
House,
and their own Assistant Secretary of State;
while the
Arabs have corruption, secret-police, pathetic
Arab-
American organizations, Arafat, and the 50th
anniversary quilt!"
"In today's Washington, whether from the miserably
inadequate offices of the Arab League, to
the prostituted
offices of such organizations as Zogby's "Arab-American
Institute" or Jahshan's "National Association
of Arab
Americans" or Maksoud's "Arab-American Anti-Discrimination
Committee", never has the influence and power
of the Israeli/
Jewish lobby been greater while that of the
Arabs totally
marginalized, illusory, and co-opted."
DEIR YASSIN REMEMBERED AND "THE QUILT":
MUCH TOO LITTLE, MUCH TOO LATE, MUCH TOO EASY
Pathetic response from Arab American Organizations
MER - WASHINGTON - 19 April 1998:
It's 50 years after the Arab defeat in 1948, and the Arab
organizations have finally advanced to figure out how to put an ad
in
a newspaper about a massacre 50 years ago, hold a few scattered
lectures, and sew a big quilt together remembering the villages of
yesteryear!
Meanwhile the small country of Israel (5 million people) has an army
eight times stronger than that of all the Arab armies combined
(nearly 200 million people); and a dozen or more Jewish
organizations can each individually and easily run circles around all
the Arab organizations combined!
And when it comes to the press, the Israelis and their friends have
a
number of major national publications, and significant weekly
publications in major cities all around the country. The Arabs and
their friends have nothing significant in the big leagues worth noting.
Among the major problems with nearly all of the Arab regimes, not to
mention the impotent groups they sponsor in Washington these
days, is that they always do things far too late and far too little,
not to
mention with such weakness and corruption, amateurism and
repression.
Two interesting displays of just how little the Arabs have advanced
since the days of Lawrence of Arabia, the Balfour Declaration, and
the defeat in 1948, are the recent Deir Yassin newspaper ad in The
Washington Post and "The Quilt" (that grand effort of the
Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee [ADC] recently
"endorsed" (hold the laughter) by the Council of Presidents of Arab
American Organizations).
Believe it or not, these two minor "achievements" are touted as
major and significant responses to Israel's massive 50th anniversary
celebrations that included last week's two-hour Hollywood TV
extravaganza as well as the major kick-off celebration in occupied
Hebron.
Here we are in 1998 -- Iraq in the midst of near genocidal misery
and the Palestinians being rounded up onto Reservations with Israeli
settlements still expanding all around them and Israeli army
roadblocks at every turn -- and the elite Arab students at
Georgetown University, carefully manipulated by the dysfunctional
Arab organizations, have managed to remember the Deir Yassin
Massacre of 1948 in a newspaper ad, hold a few campus lectures,
and squander their time and resources on the much talked about
"quilt", while saying and doing nothing of significance about the
events taking place right under their noses in their own life times!
In many ways, fifty years after Deir Yassin the Arabs are in worse
shape then ever -- both in the Middle East and in Washington.
From
horrible civil war in Algeria, to terrible repression in Egypt, to
the de
facto American occupation of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries,
to the destruction of Iraq coming on top of the earlier destruction
of
Lebanon, to the imposition and legalization of Apartheid in
Palestine, to the new U.S.-Israeli-Turkish Alliance; the region is
in
total chaos with the CIA, Mossad and repression omnipresent as
never before.
And in Washington, after decades of pretense, there is still not one
independent and significant Arab American organization while the
community is actually "represented" on national TV (just occasionally
thank God!) by such a corrupt and despised personality as Jim
Zogby and such a weak and pathetic personality as Hala Maksoud.
Furthermore, though there are few places to put such widely
discussed thoughts in print, repression and/or co-option of nearly
all
independent Arab institutions and thinkers has never so great. Even
Edward Said has been twisted of late into writing his column for an
Arab-language publication owned by the Saudi Royal Family, with
English translation in a publication controlled by the Egyptian
government -- with the concomitant actual and self-censorship this
situation entails.
In today's Washington, whether from the miserably inadequate
offices of the Arab League, to the prostituted offices of such
organizations as Zogby's "Arab-American Institute" or Jahshan's
"National Association of Arab Americans" or Maksoud's
"Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee", never has the
influence and power of the Israeli/Jewish lobby been greater while
that of the Arabs totally marginalized, illusory, and co-opted. Even
after all the tragedies of recent decades, all of the Arab
organizations combined in Washington have no serious political
importance, serving primarily to control and manipulate Arab
Americans at the behest of the client-regime governments that pull
their strings and "reward" their "leaders".
In summary of these 50 years, rarely has any ethnic people
squandered so much wealth and power while receiving so little for it.
Overall it seems the Arab regimes, and the panoply of organizations
and publications they now support and control, continue to be far
more interested in the subjugation, exploitation, and repression of
their own people than in the building of strong and viable institutions.
It's so unfair really. In the Middle East the kids of occupied Palestine
managed to sustain an Intifada against the Israeli occupiers, until
Arafat's crowd came on board to push them under; and the kids of
Iran managed to bring down the Shah. But in the Arab Diaspora the
kids of the Arab elite have only managed to figure out how to hold
a
seminar, put an ad in a newspaper, or sew a patch into "the quilt".
After 50 years the Israelis have nuclear weapons, the Mossad,
Hollywood, a kosher White House, and their own Assistant Secretary
of State; while the Arabs have corruption, secret-police, pathetic
Arab-American organizations, Arafat, and the 50th anniversary quilt!
-----------
Many more past articles about the realities
of today's "Washington Scene" can be found at:
http://www.MiddleEast.Org/merx.htm
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