The Arab Lobby by Michell Bard is a detailed account of the organisations, fronts and persons that make up an Arab lobby in the United States of America. While the Israel lobby (primarily AIPAC) is well known and often mentioned, at times even inspiration forconspiracy theories, the Arab lobby is less well defined, has very limited public support, yet has significant influence on US policies and the educational system. ”The Arab Lobby” is an ambitious effort to set the record straight.
Bard goes through the complex and at times dizzying array of persons and organisations in fifteen chapters, covering various aspects of the Arab lobby, its structure, backers and influence. The chapters overlap in time, but in aggregate progresses through time from the 1930's to the present. One tricky aspect of the Arab lobby is that the actual lineup of organisations change rapidly over time, making it hard to follow and establish track records of what the Arab organisations were standing for 10, 20 or 40 years ago. This spills over into Bards' book, for it is not easy to make a structured and readable account of such a hall of mirrors, and downright daunting for Europeans. The index and footnotes help, but a mini-encyclopedia of the organisations would be a useful addition.
The Arab lobby (the actual lobby, not the book) comes across as initially quite amateurish, yet well-funded and eventually successful anyway, not least in introducing doubt and uncertainty into US policies. The extent of blatant anti-semitism in the lobby (and its main sponsor Saudi Arabia) is shocking, as today any such attitudes would to civilized people seem beyond sense and reason, yet it is still widespread in the Arab world.
For example, the Saudi king would eagerly hand out copies of ”The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” to every guest he received. Worse, his guests, supporters and many US politicians didn't seem to mind, even though anti-semitism should have been dead and buried in Berlin, May 1945. But business is business, and given the oil money involved it becomes hard to put ethical questions above those of money and purchased loyalty.
Purchasing loyalty is a key ingredient here. The Arab lobby has plenty of oil money in its coffers, and knows how to use it. Anyone with sufficient funds can purchase the aid of PR agencies and advertising space on television, which the Arabs have done extensively, helping to avert criticism and instead presenting an image of exotic and exiting countries with friendly citizens. The human rights situation, in particular religious freedom and the plight of women, are the obvious issues to gloss over. However, the solidifying US public support of Israel, not the Arabs, indicates that the millions spent here have had only limited success.
More devastating is the influence on US academia, and the deliberately confusing effect that the lobby has had in US universities. As Martin S. Kramer has pointed out in his book Ivory Towers on Sand, the Arab influence on US universities, in particular in the wake of Edward W. Said and his book Orientalism (See also Ibn Warraq: Defending the West) has been profound, and not to the benefit of academic excellence or human rights. Foreign agents are to register with the US authorities, but foreign sponsorship of academic institutions is not subject to any particular restrictions. On page 309, Michell Bard has a very important list of Arab donations to US universities, donations that quite clearly seek to purchase goodwill in the most respected of ivory league institutions.
The influence in government is a simple consequence. Another tool to influence government staff is generosity towards those helpful to the Arabs. After they leave office, of course, for taking money while in office would be clearly illegal. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton are but two of the most prominent beneficiaries of this friendly generosity.
One common ground of the quite diverse Arab lobby is that of Palestine. Or rather, it purpotes to be, for if one examines what the organisations and their spokesmen actually say, the views expressed are much more frequently anti-Israeli than pro-Palestine, and practical support for constructing the mythical Palestinian State is very limited.
While uniting against a common enemy is much easier than uniting for a common cause, the analysts of the White House should be able to see through the thinly veiled anti-semitism underlying this, call their bluff, and request the Arab states to make concrete advances in human rights. For in the few cases that the US government has done so – for instance calling upon Saudi Arabia to abandon slavery – it has been qute effective. But at present the US is hardly in a position to press an agenda of freedom, human rights and democracy.
The root cause of this mess of intrigue and lack of clarity, of course, is the need for stable oil supplies. This creates a mutual dependency not easily resolved. For while the US on the surface has a need to not offend the Arabs, the other side of the coin is that the Arab leaders depend heavily on their petrodollars, to keep themselves in power, fund a lavish lifestyle, to keep their citizens fed and to import foreign expertise.
Trade has always been a promoter of mutual understanding, and even if this understanding is to be between the flagship of democracy and the most repressive, autocratic regime of the world, it still works. This, however, renders the US promotion of 'democracy' impotent, as any such promotion that would challenge the Saudi regime is not likely to happen.
One may wonder why the US didn't simply cut the root of this mess early on, by cutting the dependency on oil before it became a problem of strategic magnitude. The root of this lies in a decision in 1967, where the Johnson administration was having an internal debate over this. The alternatives were simple: Either use the US technological muscle to create alternative energy sources – most notably nuclear – that would ensure independence from foreign suppliers of oil. Or play the game of the Arabs, tone down relations to Israel, and build a friendly relationship to the Arab autocrats. Since grand efforts were already takin in the lunar landing project, the War on Poverty and the war in Vietnem, yet another grand effort for the nation could have been a hard sell. However, choosing the easy way out proved short-sighted, with consequences we're still dealing with even today.
Summing up, this is a most important book, and should be read by anyone interested in understanding the background for the US Middle East policies, and why it keeps failing. The book is comprehensive, but could do with some more structure, and not least more tables and illusrations. They would provide useful anchors in this veritable sea of information, reference points one can easily return to.
That said, the material presented here, including the historical overview it provides, is indispensable reading for those wanting to understand the Middle East conflict, and why we keep failing to 'create peace' there. Falling for the Arab games and their subtle anti-semitism is not going to benefit anyone in the long run. Bard's book is a valuable contribution to identifying those games as we meet them, and to react more appropriately. While daunting, it is sincerely recommended.
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