[R-G] Neocons, Ex-Israeli Diplomats Push Islamophobic Video

[Anthony Fenton]

  September 25, 2008
Neocons, Ex-Israeli Diplomats Push Islamophobic Video
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43983
by Ali Gharib

with Eli Clifton and Jim Lobe

A group of hard-line US neoconservatives and former Israeli diplomats,  
among others, are behind the mass distribution, ahead of the November  
US presidential election, of a controversial DVD that critics have  
denounced as Islamophobic.

The group, the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET), is working with  
another organization called the Clarion Fund, which produced the 60- 
minute video and is itself tied closely to an Israeli organization  
called Aish Hatorah.

The Fund is currently distributing some 28 million copies of the DVD  
through newspaper inserts in key electoral ''swing'' states – states  
like Michigan, Ohio, and Florida that, according to recent polling,  
could go either way in November's presidential election.

According to Delaware incorporation papers, the Clarion Fund is based  
at the same New York address as Aish Hatorah, a self-described  
"apolitical" group dedicated to educating Jews about their heritage.

The Clarion Fund's street address as listed on the group's website and  
a DVD mailer for the film is apparently not a physical address, but  
rather a "virtual address" that goes to a post office box in New York  
City.

Critics allege that the movie "Obsession" is "hate propaganda" which  
paints Muslims as violent extremists and, among other things,  
explicitly compares the threat posed by radical Islam to that of Nazi  
Germany in the 1930s.

At least two major metropolitan newspapers solicited to insert the  
paid advertisement into their product have refused to do so because of  
a perceived bias in the film.

"Despite the perilous state of American newspapers, the St. Louis Post- 
Dispatch advertising department took an ethical stand and refused to  
distribute the DVD of a film that for two years has troubled American  
Muslims," wrote Tim Townsend, a reporter at Missouri's most  
influential newspaper earlier this month after it rejected the ad.

While the initial press reports about the mass distribution focused on  
the Clarion Fund's financing role, it was EMET that organized and  
oversaw the distribution, EMET's spokesman, Ari Morgenstern, told IPS.  
Morgenstern, a former press officer for the Israeli embassy here, said  
he contacted IPS at the Clarion Fund's request.

EMET, according to a recent press release, is "a nonpartisan,  
nonprofit organization dedicated to policy research and analysis on  
democracy and the Middle East."

According to filings made in compliance with the organization's tax- 
exempt 501(c)3 status, "the organization hosts seminars, debates and  
educational films featuring Middle East experts in order to educate  
policymakers and the public at large on the common threats facing  
Israel and the United States."

Morgenstern told IPS that EMET was "partnered with the Clarion Fund"  
on what he called the "Obsession Project" which he identified as "an  
initiative of EMET". He declined to name the Project's donors. A  
spokesman for the Clarion Fund, Gregory Ross, has also refused to name  
the Fund's donors, whose identity remains a mystery.

Morgenstern also declined to specify the cost of the DVD distribution,  
but did say, "it costs a great deal – it's a multi-million-dollar  
effort." Outside experts have estimated the cost of the operation,  
including reproduction and distribution, at between 15 million dollars  
and 50 million dollars.

Like hard-line neoconservatives, EMET opposes any land concessions to  
Palestinians and takes other hard-line positions identified with  
Israel's right-wing Likud Party and the ''Settler Lobby'' there.  
EMET's website says, "We regard ourselves as 'intellectual  
revolutionaries'".

The group's acronym, EMET, mirrors the name of a predecessor to the  
Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, which was called Emet. The  
word means "truth" in Hebrew.

Two weeks ago, EMET sponsored a seminar series on Capitol Hill named  
for the controversial multi-billionaire casino and hotel magnate  
Sheldon Adelson, a major donor to right-wing Zionist organizations in  
the US; the far-right lobby group, Freedom's Watch; and the Republican  
Jewish Coalition (RJC), whose efforts to persuade Jewish voters that  
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is aligned with radical  
anti-Israel forces in the Islamic world have drawn strong criticism  
from the mainstream Jewish press here.

EMET's board of advisers includes a list of familiar neoconservative  
figures, as well as three former Israeli diplomats, including a former  
deputy chief of mission in Israel's Washington embassy.

The group is headed by Sarah Stern, who began her activism on Israeli  
issues in opposition to the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and  
Palestinians. She made a career out of her activism in the far-right  
Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) as its national policy  
coordinator from 1998 through 2004.

Notable members of the advisory board include prominent hard-line  
neoconservatives, including former US U.N. Amb. the late Jeane  
Kirkpatrick; Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum; and the Hudson  
Institute's Meyrav Wurmser, the Israeli-born spouse of Vice President  
Dick Cheney's former top Middle East adviser, David Wurmser.

Other prominent neoconservative members of the board include Center  
for Security Policy (CSP) president Frank Gaffney; former CIA chief  
James Woolsey; and Heritage Foundation fellows Ariel Cohen and Nina  
Shea, who has also served for years on the quasi-governmental US  
Commission for International Religious Freedom.

The US-born and -educated hard-line deputy managing editor of the  
Jerusalem Post and senior fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at  
Gaffney's CSP, Caroline Glick, is also an adviser.

Glick, Pipes, and Walid Shoebat, a "reformed" terrorist and EMET  
adviser, are all featured as experts in "Obsession".

Also among the top names of listed advisers to EMET are three Israeli  
diplomats. Two of them, Ambassadors Yossi Ben Aharon and Yoram  
Ettinger, were among the three Israeli ambassadors whom then-Israeli  
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin referred to as "the Three Musketeers"  
when they lobbied Washington in opposition to the Oslo accords.  
Indeed, Stern began her career at the behest of three unnamed Israeli  
diplomats who were based in Washington under Rabin's predecessor,  
Yitzhak Shamir, according to EMET's website.

Ettinger was at one time the chairman of special projects and is still  
listed as a contributing expert at the Ariel Center for Policy  
Research, a hard-line Likudist Israeli think tank that opposes the  
peace process.

Ben Aharon was the director general – effectively the chief of staff –  
of Shamir's office.

The third Israeli ambassador, Lenny Ben-David, was appointed by Likud  
prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to serve as the deputy chief of  
mission – second in command – at the Israeli embassy in Washington  
from 1997 until 2000. Ben-David had also held senior positions at the  
American Israel Public Affairs Committee for 25 years and is now a  
consultant and lobbyist.

But EMET is not the only group involved in the "Obsession" controversy  
to have direct ties to Israel.

The Clarion Fund has also been criticized for initially denying its  
ties to Israel's Aish Hatorah, which were first disclosed publicly by  
an IPS investigation last year.

Honestreporting.com, an organization set up by Aish Hatorah and also a  
client of Ben-David, admitted to IPS that it had aided the production  
of the film.

The Clarion Fund and Aish Hatorah are headed by twin Israeli-Canadian  
brothers Raphael and Ephraim Shore, respectively. The two groups  
appear to be connected as Clarion is incorporated in Delaware to the  
New York offices of Aish Hatorah.

"It seems that the Clarion Fund, from what we can tell, is just a  
virtual organization that is a front for Aish Hatorah," Ibrahim  
Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations  
(CAIR), told IPS. "They don't have staff, they don't have a physical  
address. Nothing."

Little is known about the shadowy Clarion Fund, which is listed with  
the New York Secretary of State's office as a "foreign not-for-profit  
foundation." The group has rejected requests for information about its  
donors.

IPS has, however, uncovered one donor to the Clarion Fund, the Mamiye  
Foundation, which gave it 25,000 dollars in August of 2007, according  
to tax filings. Four Mamiyes, Charles M., Charles D., Hyman and  
Abraham, are listed as trustees on the forms.

According to filings with the New York Secretary of State, a contact  
listed for a Mamiye company is also the same man listed as a contact  
and counsel for the Clarion Fund – Eli D. Greenberg of the law firm  
Wolf, Haldenstein, Adler, Freeman and Herz.

Foreign nationals and companies, and domestic tax-exempt 501(c)3  
nonprofits are prohibited by federal election law from attempting to  
sway US elections at any level through either contributions to  
campaigns or advocacy.

Morgenstern, EMET's spokesman, said that the DVD distribution only  
went to "swing states" because media attention is focused there, and  
EMET is hoping to spark a public debate about the threats posed by"  
radical Islam".

But CAIR has filed a complaint asking the Federal Election Commission  
to review the actions of the Clarion Fund both as a foreign entity and  
as a nonprofit

The complaint by Nadhira Al-Khalili, CAIR's legal counsel, asked that  
both charges be investigated.

(Inter Press Service)