Ah yes, The Great Zionist Conspiracy, as seen by the New Left:
From the 1920s roughly to 1990, Arabists, who had a personal history and an educational background in the Arab world and were accused by supporters of Israel of being totally biased toward Arab interests, held sway at the State Department and, despite having limited power in the policymaking circles of any administration, helped maintain some semblance of U.S. balance by keeping policy from tipping over totally toward Israel. But Arabists have been steadily replaced by their exact opposites, what some observers are calling Israelists, and policymaking circles throughout government now no longer even make a pretense of exhibiting balance between Israeli and Arab, particularly Palestinian, interests
So what happened to all the career Arabists in 1990? You can't fire civil servants. Did they drop into a black hole? You would think he would at least pick 1992 as a turning point, since that was the start of a new administration. But that might remind people that Yasser Arafat got more face time with Bill Clinton than any other leader. Certain members of his team, like Madeline Albright or Robert Malley, have not exactly made names for themselves as "Israelists" either.
Let's also assume that Prince Bandar has been wasting his money for the last twelve years - the article doesn't even mention the existence of a Saudi lobby. And of course, pay no attention to the behavior of the Palestinians or a certain 15 Saudis during the past couple of years. That couldn't possibly have influenced anybody's decisions... |
