The Freeman Case and US Foreign Policy: Don't Say "Israel". Or "Lobby".

Two days after the withdrawal of the nomination of Charles Freeman as head of the National Intelligence Council, primarily because of his views on the Middle East and specifically the Israel-Palestine situation, the unspeakable is being spoken:

Was it the "Israel lobby" that bumped him off?

And as breath-taking as that question might appear, even more breath-taking are the evasions to tuck that question back in a box in a very dark place.

To be fair, both The New York Times and The Washington Post offer consideration of the reasons for Freeman's demise. In the Times, Mark Mazzetti and Helene Cooper assert, "Israel Stance Was Undoing of Nominee for Intelligence Post" while Walter Pincus in the Post notes "a debate over whether powerful pro-Israel lobbying interests are exercising outsize influence over who serves in the Obama administration".

Even in these stories, there is some tiptoeing. Pincus, for example, says, "a handful of pro-Israeli bloggers and employees of other organizations worked behind the scenes" against Freeman. Anyone paying even cursory attention to blogs, Internet chatter, and the pages of key journals like the Weekly Standard and The New Republic from mid-February, just before Freeman's nomination was public, knows that this was a very large handful.

Pincus also offers the official disclaimer of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) that it "took no position on this matter and did not lobby the Hill on it," before letting us in on the open secret: AIPPAC spokesman Josh Block "responded to reporters' questions and provided critical material about Freeman, albeit always on background, meaning his comments could not be attributed to him".

If Pincus was being direct, he would note that this was precisely the strategy of the Dump Freeman campaign: if AIPAC and other pro-Israeli lobbyists were seen as openly sabotaging the nominee, they would have been accused of political intervention. Instead, with "private" bloggers and editorial-page scribblers cherry-picking from Freeman's career, notably his 1999 e-mail on Tiananmen Square, distorting his remarks about the Middle East, and on occasion labelling one of his supporters as a "pederast", the Congressmen who eventually took Freeman down could see they were merely reflecting the legitimate concerns of individual constituents.

Mazzetti and Cooper are much better in reporting the developments without hesitation:

The lobbying campaign against Mr. Freeman included telephone calls to the White House from prominent lawmakers, including Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat. It appears to have been kicked off three weeks ago in a blog post by Steven J. Rosen, a former top official of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying group.

On the Middle East, Mr. Rosen wrote, Mr. Freeman’s views are “what you would expect in the Saudi Foreign Ministry,” rather than from someone who would become essentially the government’s top intelligence analyst....

Pro-Israel groups weighed in with lower-ranking White House officials. The Zionist Organization of America sent out an “action alert” urging members to ask Congress for an investigation of Mr. Freeman’s “past and current activities on behalf of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”

Unfortunately, such revelations raise the uncomfortable prospect that any Government nominee holding views that are unacceptable to staunch supporters of Israeli policy will be blacklisted. So some of the gatekeepers of Washington knowledge are furiously trying to sweep the story away.

Foreign Policy blogger David Rothkopf, motivated primarily by hatred of Stephen Walt, the leading proponent of the "Israel Lobby" thesis, snaps:

My problem comes with the implication that those who support Israel are necessarily twisted by dual loyalties into positions that undermine the interests of the United States.

Walt made no such implication in his analysis, which we posted earlier today. There was no reference to "dual loyalties", with its insinuation of un-American activity; rather, Walt contended that those opposing Freeman equated US interests with "unconditional support" of Tel Aviv. This, he argued, would cause "further erosion in America’s position in the Middle East, and more troubles for Israel as well" (an argument that Freeman has also made).

Of course, one can challenge Walt's contention that a detachment of US policy from its current backing of Israel would be beneficial to American interests. This, however, is not the aim of Rothkopf's distortion. It is a double distraction, both from meaningful consideration of the attack politics in the Freeman case and from a wider analysis of the US-Israeli relationship.

Still, for chutzpah, Rothkopf is outdone by his Foreign Policy colleague, Dan Drezner. Drezner flees from reality by making up motives for Freeman: "He was not all that eager to re-enter government life." To be blunt, Chaz wasn't tough enough; in fact, he wasn't even as tough as a girl: "If Hillary Clinton had been in the same situation as Freeman, there's no way in hell that she withdraws her name."

So there you have it. No need to worry that this incident, with all its real (rather than Rothkopf-ian) implications for US foreign policy and intelligence, has anything to do with the manoeuvrings of those opposed to any interrogation of the American position on Israel.

It's all down to Stephen Walt's lack of scruples and Charles Freeman's lack of cojones.