U.S. policies in the Middle East have
for too long been determined by the power and money of special interest
groups as well as by narrow nationalist economic exploitation. This has
led to a grossly hypocritical situation in American foreign policy in dealing
with the nations and peoples of the Middle East. While the U.S. government
constantly professes a strong belief and commitment to democracy, human
rights, and national self-determination, far too often the same U.S. government
actually supports tyranny, repression, massive arms sales, despotism, and
ongoing subjugation.
The
Committee On The Middle East, COME, is an independent
association of concerned individuals, many of whom have personal connections
to the Middle East region and many of whom are experts about the region.
As an organization COME is primarily concerned with helping the peoples
of the Middle East achieve true democracy and self-determination along
with safeguarding the human rights and improving the economic conditions
of all the peoples in the region.
To these ends
COME is concerned with helping Americans understand the realities and the
complexities of the situation in today's Middle East and with stimulating
new American policies that are fully consistent with professed American
values.
COME's Ten Principles for a new
U.S. Middle East foreign policy:
1) A complete withdrawal
of the Israeli army and intelligence services from the territories occupied
by Israel during the 1967 war in accordance with numerous United Nations
resolutions thus allowing for the creation of a fully sovereign Palestinian
State with U.N. membership, capital in East Jerusalem, and serving as a
democratic homeland for all people of Palestinian origin including those
who were forced to flee Palestine during the 1948 and 1967 wars and during
the years of Israeli occupation.
2) A major redistribution
of American aid throughout the Middle East region including providing the
new Palestinian State -- once established, internationally recognized,
and having held totally free national elections unfettered by Israeli constraints
and manipulations and to which all Palestinians everywhere were enfranchised
including those forced to live in exile -- with a significant amount of
economic aid as was done for Israel during its formative years.
3) Serious and consistent
support for true democratic principles, an independent press, truly free
elections, and rapid political evolution away from the repressive monarchies,
dictatorships and "client regimes" that prevail in the Middle East region
today, most of whose origins can be traced back to Western manipulations
that began earlier in this century and have continued to the present day.
4) A rapid phasing
out by the turn of the millennium of American economic, military, and intelligence
support for monarchies and dictatorships that engage in press censorship,
torture, and political intimidation, or that refuse to allow their people
the basic rights enshrined in the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights
and other widely recognized international human rights covenants.
5) A major yearly decrease
in American arms sales to the Middle East making it possible for the countries
of the region to quickly shift toward desperately important economic and
social priorities.
6) An immediate
end to sanctions against Iraq -- sanctions whose result has been nearly
genocidal according to numerous international studies and one of whose
main goals has been to keep Iraqi oil from reaching world markets -- except
for military arms sales restrictions that are equally applied to all other
key countries in the region.
7) An end to the
misguided policy known as "dual-containment" designed to perpetuate long-pursued
Western policies of "divide and rule" and which continue to encourage the
development of competing blocks and the resultant further escalation in
regional tensions and arms sales.
8) An end to the
excessive power and intimidation of special interest groups and Political
Action Committees (PACs) over the policy choices of the American Congress
and Presidency, especially the inordinate and self-serving influence of
both the Israeli/Jewish lobby and that of the Arab Gulf States led by Saudi
Arabia and Kuwait.
9) The immediate
release of Israeli "Nuclear Prisoner of Conscience" Mordechai Vanunu from
imprisonment and establishment of a nuclear free zone by the turn of the
millennium throughout the region so that no country in the area will feel
compelled to possess nuclear, biological, chemical or other weapons of
mass destruction.
10) A serious new
commitment to the principles of political and economic democracy which
have been flagrantly violated throughout this century by repeated Western
intervention in regional affairs designed to control natural resources
and economic markets through the establishment and manipulation of pliable
"client regimes" who have in turn seriously damaged the economic, social,
and political institutions of the area and grossly retarded the entire
region's development.
In pursuit
of these basic principles and concerns COME sponsors a weekly television
program, MID-EAST REALITIES; provides expert independent, honest, and knowledgeable
spokespersons to speak with the media about Middle Eastern developments;
issues Statements and Reports dealing with key concerns; and provides weekly
information and analysis updates on the Internet at "WWW.MiddleEast.Org."
COME Advisory
Committee:
Prof Jane Adas - Rutgers Univ
(NJ); Prof Faris Albermani - Univ of Queensland (Australia);
Prof Jabbar Alwan, DePaul Univ (Chicago); Prof Alex Alland,
Columbia Univ (New York); Prof Abbas Alnasrawi - Univ of
Vermont; Prof Michael Astour - Univ of Southern Illinois; Professor
Charles Black - Emeritus Yale Univ Law School; Prof Francis O. Boyle,
Univ of Illinois Law School (Champlain); Mark Bruzonsky, COME Chairperson
(Washington); Linda Brayer - Ex. Dir., Society of St. Ives
(Jerusalem); Prof Noam Chomsky - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(Cambridge); Ramsey Clark, Former U.S. Attorney General
(New York); John Cooley, Author, Cyprus; Prof Mustafah Dhada
- School of International Affairs, Clark Atlanta Univ; Prof Mohamed
El-Hodiri, Univ of Kansas; Prof Richard Falk - Princeton Univ;
Prof Ali Fatemi - American University, Paris; Michai Freeman
- Berkeley; Prof. S.M. Ghazanfar -Univ of Idaho (Chair Economics
Dept) ; Nader Hashemi - Ottawa, Canada; Prof Clement Henry,
Univ of TX (Austin); Prof Herbert Hill - Univ of Wisconsin
(Madison); Prof George Irani - Lebanese American University
(Beirut); David Jones - Editor, New Dawn Magazine, Australia;
Prof Elie Katz - Sonoma State Univ, CA; Professor George Kent,
Univ of Hawaii; John F. Kennedy - Attorney at Law, Washington;
Samaneh Khader - Gruadate Student in Theology, Univ of Helsinki;
Prof Ebrahim Khoda - Univ of Western Australia; Guida Leicester,
San Francisco; Jeremy Levin - Former CNN Beirut Bureau Chief, Journalist,
Portland; Prof Seymour Melman, Columbia Univ; Dr. Avi Melzer,
Frankfurt; Prof Alan Meyers, Boston Univ; Kamram Mofrad,
Idaho; Prof Peter Pellett - Univ of Massachussetts (Amherst);
Prof Glenn Perry, Univ of Indiana; Prof Tanya Reinhart, Tel
Aviv Univ; Professor Masud Salimian - Morgan State Univ (Baltimore);
Prof Mohamed Salmassi, Univ of Massachusetts; Qais Saleh
- Graduate Student, International Univ (Japan); Ali Saidi,
J.D. candidate in inter law, Berkeley; Dr. Eyad Sarraj - Gaza,
Occupied Palestine; Henry Schwarzschild - New York (original
founder - deceased); Prof Herbert Schiller - Univ of California
(San Diego); Dr. Manjra Shuaib - CapeTown (South Africa);
Prof J. David Singer - Univ of Michigan (Ann Arbor); Prof
Majid Tehranian - Director Toda Institute for Global Peace and Policy
(Univ of Hawaii).
The Committee On The Middle East - P.O. Box 18367-
Washington, D.C. 20036
24-Hour Phone:
(202) 362-5266, Ext 266 Fax: (202)
362-6965 Web: WWW.MiddleEast.Org Email: MER@MiddleEast.Org