[MID-EAST REALITIES © - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 4/20]: Three things this week underscored the pathetically tragic state of affairs for the Arab American community which remains, well, politically retarded and as a result miserably weak...not to mention oh so co-opted and manipulated.

After weeks of "organizing" and, as usual, badly led to nowhere by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) and its third-rate group of long-time staffers in Washington, a rather bedraggled group of about 50 managed to turn out at the "demonstration" at the Israeli Embassy yesterday. The ADC has hardly any real grass-roots, no allies worth discusing, and over the years has squandered even the little credibility it once had, especially here in Washington where the realities of the ADC scene are much better understood then in other places around the country.

The ADC crowd is also responsible for another little fiasco this week, pushing their credibility with many into the minus category. After a variety of local Arab and Muslim groups around the country invited the iconoclastic Israeli writer Israeli Shamir to speak to them, ADC, in its usual underhanded way, launched a campaign actually trying to discredit Shamir as a racist and "anti-semite", urging groups to cancel his scheduled talks. Apparently feeling threatened as usual that someone not under their thumb was speaking up and getting more attention then themselves, the ADC's Hussein Ibish and an associated Chicago super-charged activist with few credentials but much malicious misinformation, Ali Abunemah, started sending their rantings to the couple of incestuous Palestinian email groups they constantly try to manipulate (those groups are themselves another sadly pathetic tale of woe, but for another day).

So while the Israeli army was busy invading the Arafat-Authority areas of Gaza, still further trying to torture the Palestinians into submission, the ADC crowd was busy trying to defame one of the few Israeli writers loudly and publicly calling for total equality among Jews and Palestinians; and then wondering in a seemingly oblivious daze why their credibility is so marginal that even with staff, friends, and onlookers, they could only manage to get 50 people to come to their demonstration at the Israeli Embassy at such a critical time in history. What a tragic state of affairs.

Oh yes, and then there is Jim Zogby -- probably the most despised Arab American (if we are talking about other Arab Americans that is) but also the one whom the Saudis promote the most and who grabs for the limelight the most. Zogby's model it seems is former mentor Jesse Jackson -- but at least in Jesse's case he has some actual following among fellow Blacks.

Zogby went on CNN's "Crossfire" program this week -- defender of the Palestinians he pretends to be. In reality he is a kind of political whore funded and promoted by the Arab regimes to protect their own interests, front for the "peace process", slither platitudes in his articulate way, and considerably enrich himself as he goes (the "Builders For Peace" Scandal another sadly pathetic story, but also for another day).

The ridiculous but watched "Crossfire" program which promotes itself as representing all spectrums of opinion is actually a political masquerade program whenever the subject is the Middle East. "On the left" they had a host that day, Robert Shrum, former Clinton/Gore "strategist", who sounded like Ariel Sharon's campaign manager. "On the right" was the old Robert Novak, who kept telling everyone he was a great supporter of Israel like the Zionist leaders Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak, and David Ben-Gurion! And as guests they had the despised Zogby who actually represents the most right-wing and repressive regimes in the region and who also was promoting the Clinton/Israeli "peace plan" up against the fast-talking Sharon-appologist who is now Israeli Consul-General in New York. Yes, we did say "pathetic"...but actually that word is no longer sufficient in today's circumstances.

But then, it's the same old story really. Since the Arab American "leadership" is afraid to protest Zogby's grotesque grandstanding (not to mention whom he represents and how) and allows him to carry on as he does, since the Arab American organizations can't compete in a serious and professional way anyway and are so badly co-opted and marginalized from within (as well as from without), this putrid rotten stinking state of affairs persists in today's ignominious Washington.

Mid-East Realities

www.middleeast.org

Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2001/4/172.htm