The pro-Israeli academic Gestapo is coming out of the woodworks. We were privy, in previous years, to a phalange of pro-Israel storm-troopers patrolling the political corridors of power on Capitol Hill and in the White House, the Pentagon, and the State Department. We were also aware of their hyper-sensitivity to any opinion that even in a remote sense is conceivably pro-Palestinian or pro-Islamic. Armed with biased opinions and skewed information, these die-hard defenders of the Israeli interest were keeping watch over any Islamic "intrusion" into their exclusive American political domain.

American Muslims though were not sitting around and making believe that nothing is happening and that the American government is to remain until the Day of Judgment under the control of the Israeli political agenda. American Muslims began to organize and walk the corridors of Congress with their American Jewish counterparts. Of course, this new level of American Muslim political activity drew fire from the Zionist sentries who are positioned in every influential department in the U.S. government that is in one way or another relevant to the unique relationship that binds Washington with Tel Aviv. Political competition for the hearts and minds of the average American when it comes to Israel is not tolerated by the well entrenched Jewish/Zionist lobby. Therefore, when American Muslims put together their own political action committees and their public relations offices they drew political fire from their American Jewish adversaries. The seven hundred pound Zionist gorilla in Washington began to swing its considerable weight around to make sure that no bloc of congressmen or legislators will ever caucus for an even-handed approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict. According to long established political tradition, congressmen on both aisles of the Congress should remain entrapped in the Israeli political cage.

We thought that the Zionist hawks would be satisfied with their contentious and offensive presence in the highest circles of the American decision making process. But we were wrong. When these guards of secular Zion realized that American Muslims as well as Muslim students were breaking new ideological and political grounds on campuses throughout the United States, these guards went on alert. When pro-Palestinian and pro-Islamic campus programs and lectures began to show a pattern of potential intellectual recruitment for the Palestinian issue, the defenders of Israel made their move. Coming from the barracks of pro-Israeli think tanks two academics have emerged to lead the charge against the budding of a more balanced and a much more rational understanding of Islam and the Palestinian point of view on campuses from coast to coast. The center for this new attack against Muslim students on campuses seems to be the Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum, which is run primarily by its Director, the long time Israeli apologist by the name of Dr. Daniel Pipes.

This new Israeli defense force on campus is to operate by recruiting faculty and students who are pro-Israel or anti-Palestinian or amenable to pro-Israeli pressures. They are to spy on professors and lecturers who express a point-of-view about Islam or the Israeli-Palestinian issue that is independent of the Israeli slant or that breaks with the established aseptic tradition in academic that supports the American government and the American media in their dehumanized presentation of the Palestinians and their aspersions about Islam and Muslims.

Joining Dr. Pipes in this academic crusade is Martin Kramer, editor of the Middle East Forum’s Middle East Quarterly. Dr. Kramer also works in Israel and is considered in some quarters as a specialist on issues of Islamic fundamentalism and contemporary Islamic resurgence. Both Pipes and Kramer, armed with their shot-gun information about Islamic political reinstatement around the world, bring with them the deadliest academic information about Muslims and Palestinians as they draw their mental ammunition from headquarters: Israel. Their Israeli connection convinces them that American academia is the next battlefield for the soul and mind of America. And with their historical paranoia they looked around in the summer of 2002 and targeted the University of North Carolina, where freshman this year are required to read passages from the Holy Qur’an, and Harvard University, where a Muslim American student, Zayed Yasin, delivered a commencement speech originally entitled My American Jihad. These two incidents are really the opening salvos in a long and protracted war of the wits on American campuses.

From now on, the Israeli brigades are on high alert across the United States for "mentally suicidal" students and professors who dare express ideas and opinions on campus that are critical of Israel and sympathetic to the Palestinians. The Muslim Students’ Associations can expect the Israeli thought police on campus to begin attending some of their lectures and meetings. And this is not entirely negative, because these recruits for secular Zionism who receive their marching orders from Israeli hawks to spy on faculties and students may become exposed to the truth for a change.

The dual chiefs of staff, Pipes and Kramer, have come up with a web site called "campus-watch.org." They intend this web site to become the focus of highly qualified American academics who will defend American interests by addressing the root of the problem: the professoriate. This computerized trench warfare is designed to monitor and collect information on professors "who fan the flames of disinformation, incitement, and ignorance." And to do that the high brass, Pipes and Kramer, will "develop a network of concerned students and faculty members interested in promoting American interests on campus." Another item in their campus-crusade is to keep the public "apprised of course syllabi, memos..." etc., including funding.

Who said that the evil empire is dead! These practices are reminiscent of the intelligence services that used to operate behind the Iron Curtain. Remember, Pipes and Kramer are not two drifting academics who are driven by their cerebral convictions to set up an innocent network of like-minded academics; these two individuals are anchored deep down inside the Israeli establishment and are committed to Israeli hard-line policies. Martin Kramer is an Israeli American who has a track record of following in his own bigoted way the ups and downs of contemporary political Islam. He was at one time a former director of the Dayan Centre at Tel Aviv University, a center that is intimate with Israeli intelligence departments and spooks. And Daniel Pipes? Well, you only have to check out his Middle East Forum to ascertain his Israeli credentials.

One might think that introducing discussion about Islam and Palestine on campus where people think would be a welcome development in American academic life; but not so with the "Israeli crowd." Perish the idea that people should actually begin to discuss in an intelligent and enlightened way what Islam or Palestine are all about. To the gladiators of Israel, Islam and Palestine should remain negative "buzzwords" and the "call-to-arms," phrases that remain at the visceral level of the American public – never to be admitted into the calm and logical spheres of American academic life where analysis and research are required to have a better understanding of the Palestinian or the Islamic perspective.

I don’t think we are revealing a secret when we say there are indications that the American public has been gradually turning away from the position that "Israel is always right." Writing in the Ha’aretz of August 19, 2002, Nathan Guttman warns that, "Over the past year, American Jews have tried almost everything in an effort to influence public opinion - from organized boycotts of media outlets, which the boycotters felt provided slanted coverage of Israel, and public demonstrations of solidarity, to a concerted effort to influence decision makers in the American Administration and on Capitol Hill. Still Jewish activists are frustrated and fear they have not succeeded in the battle over public opinion. A new poll sponsored by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) indicates that there is reason for the activists’ fears. Although the base of support is still strong and Israel’s situation in terms of public opinion is infinitely better than that of the Palestinians, in recent months there has been some erosion in support for Israel and an increase in the number of those taking a neutral position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

Part of this shift may well be related to the overall Islamic and Palestinian activities throughout America. The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai Brith, AIPAC, and other defenders of the Temple are hyper-sensitive to this incremental shift taking place (as slow as it is) inside the American psyche as well as within American society. They have to rush and do something about it – on the double. It satisfies them now to begin to collect dossiers on those who dare open their mouth in college classrooms or institutions of higher education and breath a word that can be construed as "anti-Israel." Political opinions opposed to the racist policies of the Israeli government are now subject to a campus "Patriot Program." And patriotism is defined by supporting Ariel Sharon or whoever the prime minister of Israel is at the time. Any dissent will not be tolerated – this is the coded message coming out of www.campus-watch.org.

The current president of the Middle East Studies Association, Joel Beinan, who is a professor of Middle East history at Stanford, on behalf of its more than 5,000 members in universities all over America, wrote, somewhat tongue in cheek, to Daniel Pipes and his Middle East Forum as follows: "I have recently learned that your organization is compiling dossiers on professors at U.S. academic institutions who oppose the Israeli occupation and its brutality and actively support Palestinian rights of self-determination, as well as a more informed and intelligent view of Islam than is currently represented in the U.S. media. I would be enormously honored to be counted among those who actively hold these positions and would like to be included in the list of those who are struggling for justice during these times."

The assault on academic freedom in the current xenophobic atmosphere is no laughing matter. Pipes and Kramer are explicitly calling on Congress to de-fund existing Middle East Centers that the U.S. government has been supporting under Title VI in order to maintain a high level of area expertise. Instead Israeli lobbyists insist that the government funding should be redirected to build more reliable "patriotic" sources of Middle East expertise.

The combatant academics Pipes and Kramer are not going to be absent-minded professors sitting behind their monitors and giving orders over the internet. God forbid. They will go to the front lines of this war-of-the-wits, as did Middle East scholar, or is it soldier, and author, or is it admiral, Daniel Pipes when Hanan ‘Ashrawi was invited to speak at a symposium on the Middle East conflict at Colorado College in Colorado Springs. To bolster the strident confidence of the Israeli gung-ho attitude that extends from the beleaguered refugee camps in the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza to the besieged campus administrations in the American Mid-West, hundreds of students, members of a coalition of Jewish and Christian groups waving Israeli and American flags, were in attendance as their keynote speaker, Dr. Pipes, arrived on campus. To prove the point that pro-Israeli personnel in the United States have the establishment on their side, Dr. Pipes was accompanied to the college by state Attorney General Ken Salazar.

What did the soldier in academic clothes, or is it the wolf in sheep’s clothes, say? He said that the appearance of Ms. ‘Ashrawi at this academic event was "a grievous error." He also went on to say: "Simply put, the United States is engaged in a war of terror, and Mrs. ‘Ashrawi is on the side of America’s enemies." Imagine, if Dr. Pipes were some one high up in the American government during the Viet Nam war, he probably would have had Jane Fonda summarily executed! This "academician" goes on to betray his militarist phobia by demanding: "We should work so that this type of anti-American spokeswoman is not welcome on American campuses." O yeah! What type of anti-American spokeswoman should we welcome? Maybe the Golda Meier type that confidentially rebukes president Kennedy for stating that American and Israeli interests may not always coincide.

Daniel Pipes un-stripes himself, or is it un-strips himself, when he says:

"I worry very much from the Jewish point of view that the presence, and increased stature, and affluence, and enfranchisement of American Muslims ... will present true dangers to American Jews." [1]

III. The Zionist-Evangelical Alliance

The Zionist-instigated Campus Watch is only the latest thrust of an older interfaith effort. This may be traced back to the politicalization of born-again Christians during the 1970's. Recognizing the potential of this fundamental change in American politics, in 1978 the Likud Party published a plan to encourage fundamentalist churches to support Israel. The founding event of the budding alliance may be considered to be the New York dinner that the one-time terrorist-bomber, Prime Minister Menachem Begin, gave in 1980 to Jerry Falwell. At the awards ceremony, Begin presented him with a Learjet so he could accelerate his outreach on behalf of Israel. This was followed in the same year by the creation of an "International Christian Embassy" in Jerusalem. In 1985, a formal Christian-Zionist lobby, known as the National Unity Coalition for Israel, emerged at a "National Prayer Breakfast for Israel." The principal speaker was the future Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. In order to establish historical continuity pre-dating Theodor Herzl and the First Zionist Congress in 1896, Netanyahu stated correctly that, "A sense of history, poetry, and morality imbued the Christian Zionists who, more than a century ago, began to write, plan, and organize for Israel’s restoration."

Since 9/11, Christian fundamentalists have raised support for Israel to the top of their political agenda. Why? At a standing-room-only crowd of 2,000 in the heart of the Bible Belt, the pastor of the local Memphis Assembly of God declared: "Let me say today that we - and when I say ‘we,’ I represent the Assemblies of God here in America, three and a half million of us, and forty-two million people in Assemblies of God around the globe - we love Israel." [6]

This is augmented by the newly formed Israel on Campus Coalition, which coordinates some twenty national Jewish organizations, including the Hillel Society, in their common mission. This initiative received a founding grant of $250,000 from the Oklahoma-based Charles and Lynn Schusterman Foundation. This mission was clearly stated by Lynn Schusterman at its founding: "Given the grave crisis in Israel and the resurgence of anti-Israel activity on college campuses, it is vitally important that the community join forces to develop a unified approach to educating and training students to support and defend Israel." [7] The coalition has hired Wayne Firestone, who is leaving his job as head of the Anti-Defamation League’s Israel office, to serve as its Executive Director. It is also putting together a resource guide for campus activism and setting up a clearinghouse for programs and speakers. ‘We are going to provide one-stop shopping for students and campus professionals'." [8]

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) is an organization with tax-deductible status and is financed by U.S. taxpayers. It is based in Washington, but it has trans-Atlantic offices in Jerusalem, Berlin, and London. This operation claims that it is bridging the gap between mono-lingual Arabs, Persians, Americans, and Israelis by translating the Arabic and Persian press into English and thus providing an invaluable resource to both journalists and politicians alike.

The former head of the CIA’s counter-intelligence office, Vincent Cannistraro, however, comments that, "They are selective and act as propagandists for their political point of view, which is the extreme-right of Likud. They simply don’t present the whole picture."

We think the following information about MEMRI is enough to blow the cover off of its disguise:

The co-founder and president of MEMRI, and the registered owner of its website, is an Israeli called Yigal Carmon. Mr. — or rather Colonel Carmon — spent 22 years in Israeli military intelligence and later served as counter-terrorism adviser to two Israeli prime ministers, Yitzhak Shamir and Yitzhak Rabin.

Retrieving another now-deleted page from the archives of MEMRI’s website also throws up a list of its staff. Of the six people named, three – including Col. Carmon — are described as having worked for Israeli intelligence. Among the other three, one served in the Israeli army’s Northern Command Ordnance Corps, one has an academic background, and the sixth is a former stand-up comedian.

Col. Carmon’s co-founder at MEMRI is Meyrav Wurmser, who is also director of the Centre for Middle East Policy at the Indianapolis-based Hudson Institute, which bills itself as America’s premier source of applied research on enduring policy challenges.

The ubiquitous Richard Perle, chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, recently joined Hudson’s board of trustees.

Ms. Wurmser is the author of an academic paper entitled "Can Israel Survive Post-Zionism?" in which she argues that left-wing Israeli intellectuals pose "more than a passing threat" to the state of Israel, undermining its soul and reducing its will for self-defense. [9]

Putting all these pieces together we begin to see the whole picture. There is an army of Israeli dual loyalists who transcend national frontiers and who occupy legislatures, and who intrude into academic settings seizing the political moment to enforce their agenda on those who would take issue with their "all or nothing" approach.

It does not make political sense to have the United States sever its vital ties to the Muslim world just because the Israelis say so. We do not know exactly how much money the Israelis have in American financial institutions and banks. We do not think there is much there, as Israel is an annual basket case that saps more than five billion dollars out of the U.S. treasury. In contrast, we are told from multiple sources that the combined deposit of Muslim wealth and finances in America is well over one trillion dollars. And who has the ugly image? You guessed it. What if this whole affair were the other way around? What if Israel had one trillion dollars in American banks, and the United States were giving the Palestinians over five billion dollars every year? We would think that in this case the Palestinian and the Muslims are the villains. But when it comes to Israel there is a mental block. None dare say Israel is a drain on the American budget, which is slowly but surely becoming a drain on the American conscience.

If the United States decides to go to war against Iraq, we have reason to believe that the war will be exploited to serve the Israeli national interest. After all, the Israelis have most of the media at their disposal and all the intellectual choke-locks on campuses, with a large share of the election contributions coming from pro-Israeli political action committees. The Zionist lobby in the United States still has an acute and foreboding sense of the anti-war movement that snowballed on campuses and eventually led to the winding down and then the termination of U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia. Yet, the Zionist lobby seems willing to lob the United States into Southwest Asia perhaps in a protracted war against a sometimes visible and sometimes invisible enemy triggered in part by its own Zionist intransigence. In self-defense, therefore, this lobby must abort or subvert any anti-war movement made up of America’s best and the brightest who will be able to see beyond the Zionist rationale.

On a parallel front, the pro-Zionist warmongers who are beating the drums of war do not want to see African Americans opposed to a bleeding war policy for which they will be its principal cannon fodder. So the Zionist American interlocking institutions are busy "cleaning house" in Congress. This means "African Americans" are permitted in, provided that they rubber stamp the Israeli (unspoken) agenda — you have to go along or you have to go away.

The Zionist thought police are trying to combat any instability that might reduce the security and power of Israel. Ironically, they are trying to keep the American people focused on the effects of instability rather than on its causes. They are trying to preserve the status quo in the world by imposing what Henry Kissinger in September, 2002, for the first time called a "new world order," based on the new international law of "pre-emptive self-defense" that is to emerge from the defeat of Saddam Hussein.

Those who ignore injustices in global structures and policies will inevitably accelerate change in the world. But, the change will come from a clash of civilizations that the Zionists and their allies have themselves created in their own minds and now are bringing into existence by their own self-fulfilling prophecies. The ultimate losers can only be the Zionists themselves, together with billions of innocent people who will suffer from the resulting global chaos.