Richard Melson
August 2004
United States Institute of Peace Taken Over By Neo-Con/Zionists
The United States Institute of Peace (USIP), Washington, DC, surrendered to the neo-con/Zionist grouping completely by appointing Daniel Pipes and the Haifa University "Arab and Muslim expert" Amatzia Baram, to top posts. Douglas Feith, the radical neo-con Zionist who is to the right of Sharon and Netanyahu(!) was an ex-officio member of the USIP Board.
This sends the signal that Israel rules.
Professor Baram’s profile follows:
Senior Fellow
Jennings Randolph Fellowship Program
In Residence: July 2003 - June 2004
Project Focus
State-Mosque Relations in Iraq, 1968–2003
Areas of Specialization
Middle East • Iraq • Political Islam • Civil-Military Relations • Territorial and Low-Intensity Conflict • Civil Society
Foreign Languages: Hebrew, Arabic
| Phone: Office (202) 429-3819 |
Background
Amatzia Baram is professor of Middle Eastern history at the University of Haifa, Israel. He is a prolific author and editor of several books and dozens of scholarly articles on Saddam Hussein and Iraqi politics and history. He testified about Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction in September 2002 before the House Committee on Government Reform, and has consulted widely about Iraq with senior U.S. administration officials.
He has been a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, Georgetown University, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, St. Antony's College (Oxford), and Hebrew University's School for Advanced Studies. Baram directed the Jewish-Arab Center and the Gustav Heinemann Middle East Institute at the University of Haifa from 1999 to 2002. He received his Ph.D. from the department of the history of Islamic countries at Hebrew University.
The Israelization of Washington policy has led to a situation where all of American policy turns around an "avoidance dance": the dance which is geared to avoidance of any trouble with or about Israel.
Officials like Condoleezza Rice, who gave a speech at the Institute, August 19, are governed by "Israel-fear" and nothing else and the entire Bush White House is a "dance" to the Likud Zionist tune, governed by absolute "Ziono-fear".
Rice’s recent address to the Institute follows:
| For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary August 19, 2004 Remarks by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice Followed by Question and Answer to the U.S. Institute of Peace Washington, D.C. 19 August 2004 www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/08/20040819-5.html ...And America has worked to find a lasting solution to the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians. No matter who is in office, no matter from what party, American Presidents have cared to try to find peace in the Holy Land. In doing so, we stand these days with the Palestinian people who seek democracy and reform. After all, President Bush is the first American President to call, as a matter of policy, for a Palestinian state. Yet, because America supports Israel's desire for security, many in the Muslim world seem to believe that America opposes the Palestinian desire for freedom. This is a misconception that we must take head-on and dispel. Because the truth is that our policy insists on freedom. The President believes that the Palestinian people deserve not merely their own state, but a just and democratic state that serves their interests and fulfills their decent aspirations. For its part, Israel must meet its responsibility under the road map and help create conditions for a democratic Palestinian state to emerge. Israel must take steps to improve the lives of the Palestinian people and to remove the daily humiliations that harden the hearts of future generations. Along with the vast majority of people who dwell in the Holy Land, Americans want peace for this troubled region -- but we realize that there can be no lasting peace for either side until there is freedom and security for both sides. ....Finally, as to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I think there's a general understanding on all sides that you have got to have two partners in order to make this work. It is our belief -- and we are getting support for that view from a number of quarters -- in the Quartet, in Europe -- that the disengagement plan which Prime Minister Sharon has put on the table could provide an opportunity to give a new spur to the Palestinian -- to a possibility of a resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, as long as that disengagement plan from the Gaza is followed by further steps, which the Israelis have said they're prepared to take. Now, in order to do that, we do need leadership on the Palestinian side, as well. And I think that the recent problem that we've been through in the Palestinian territories where, really, lawlessness has broken out and where the Palestinian Authority has not been able to deal with it, and where Chairman Arafat's first idea was to appoint his cousin, or nephew as chairman of the security forces, and where that was violently rejected by the Palestinian people shows that there is growing discontent with a leadership that has not been prepared to deal with the best aspirations of the Palestinian people. We remain committed to a resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. I think the Europeans remain committed to that. Yes, we have degrees of difference from time to time, but through the Quartet we've been able to coordinate our policy, I think, in a quite effective way. .. Q (Inaudible) -- the U.S. administration has had to deal with Israeli and the Palestinian and they have an even-handed policy. Why do you find it so hard to condemn the Israeli plan, because 1,000 new settlements? Do you think that's mostly a (inaudible) -- DR. RICE: What we have asked of the Israeli government is to let us know what it is that they are doing and what it is -- our policy on settlements are very clear. We believe that the Israelis should live up to their obligations under the road map. I might mention, by the way, the dismantlement of settlements comes in the third phase of the road map. If you get the disengagement plan from the Gaza, you will have dismantlement of settlements early in the process. And so we are very engaged with the Israelis on how they begin the disengagement from the Gaza, the dismantlement of settlements there, the dismantlement of settlements in parts of the West Bank. And we've been very clear so that settlement expansion is not consistent with our understanding under the road map. Now, when I said that our policies were to -- were equally to try to find peace and security for both sides, I do want to be very clear that the President did make clear that he felt that it was time for a Palestinian leadership that was ready to take up that challenge, and that was ready to live up to its obligations under the road map. The fact is that we had, in 2000, an opportunity for a resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and the Palestinian leadership, for one reason or another, was unable to take that opportunity. We have not been able to get back to that place since. We tried in the Aqaba process to re-start that again, working very hard with the then-Prime Minister of the Palestinian territories, Abu Mazen, to put forward a set of steps that would be taken on the road to a final status solution, to get back on the road map. Within a few weeks of Aqaba, Chairman Arafat decided that he didn't want Abu Mazen around, and he eventually resigned because he was not given the freedoms to do what he needed to do. Yes, the Israelis have obligations and the Israelis need to act on those obligations because they need to end the occupation that began in 1967. But the Palestinians have got to give them somebody to work with. And they've got to embrace a leadership that does not believe that terrorism is a means to an end. And they have got to embrace a leadership that believes that democracy and transparency and good government deserve -- the Palestinians also deserve good government and democracy and transparency. And that's what we believe. ... Q (Inaudible.) DR. RICE: Well, we have, as you say, very good relationships with the Egyptian government, we do. We have been very clear -- and, by the way, Egypt has been important in a number of initiatives and is increasingly important, for instance, in what we might be able to do in the Israeli-Palestinian issue, and so Egypt is a good friend, has been an ally for a long time and will continue to be.
Current Board of the United States Institute of Peace: J. Robinson West (Chair) Marķa Otero (Vice Chair) Betty F. Bumpers Holly J. Burkhalter Chester A. Crocker Laurie S. Fulton Charles Horner Stephen D. Krasner Seymour Martin Lipset Mora L. McLean Daniel Pipes Barbara W. Snelling Members ex officio: Lorne W. Craner Michael M. Dunn Lieutenant General, U.S. Air Force Peter W. Rodman Richard H. Solomon Past Chairs of the Board of Directors Chester A. Crocker, 1992-2004 Elspeth Davies Rostow, 1991-1992 John Norton Moore, 1986-1991 Institute Address and Phone Number United States Institute of Peace
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