BYE BYE GAZA - Barry Chamish

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It's now clear that Mr. Siegman's assessment in October
2004 was precisely wrong. It's hardly the first time. America's
Middle East policy, in Mr. Siegman's analysis, is the result of
how "Sharon manipulates Washington," as he put it in an
April 26, 2004, article in the International Herald Tribune. A
similar theme is conveyed in cartoons in the Arab press,
labeled as anti-Semitic by the Anti-Defamation League,
depicting Mr. Sharon as a puppeteer manipulating President
Bush.
Mr. Siegman has said Israel is worse than the terrorist leader
Yasser Arafat. "Surely depriving the freedom of 3.5 million
Palestinians and subjugating them to a military occupation
for nearly two generations is a more fundamental and
egregious offense to basic democratic values than the
authoritarianism of Arafat, who at least came to office in a
free and democratic internationally supervised election," Mr.
Siegman wrote on February 27, 2003, in the International
Herald Tribune. He suggested that U.S. policy-makers who
think that "our actions in Iraq will inspire admiration and
trigger region wide democratic change better check what
they are smoking." The smoke had barely cleared when
American actions in Iraq did trigger region wide democratic
change and admiration from Beirut to Cairo and beyond.
So why would the Council on Foreign Relations, a New Yorkbased
American institution, fund this "expert" at the level of
$204,151 in salary and benefits, making him, in the most
recent year for which tax returns are available, its fourthhighest
paid employee? It turns out that much of the funding
for the Council's "U.S./Middle East Project" comes from
overseas, including the European Commission, the
government of Norway, Kuwaiti and Saudi businessmen, a
Lebanese politician, and, for one year, an official of the
commercial arm of the Palestinian Authority, Munib Masri.
Mr. Siegman tells us that his views have been consistent
over his career and that his project's funding sources - which