'Israel lobby' blamed as Obama's choice for intelligence chief quits

By Rupert Cornwell in Washington

Veteran diplomat attacks wilful distortions that 'plumb the depths of dishonour'

March 13, 2009

Fears over the Jewish lobby's excess influence on US foreign policy flared anew yesterday after a former diplomat and strong critic of Israel backed out of a key national intelligence post, saying his appointment by President Barack Obama had been torpedoed by a campaign of lies against him.

Charles Freeman, a veteran diplomat hugely experienced in Middle Eastern affairs, had been chosen to head the National Intelligence Council, the body that delivers to the White House influential and highly sensitive reports synthesising the views of the country's 16 intelligence agencies.

But, on Wednesday, he withdrew his name from consideration, declaring he had fallen victim to what he called the "Israel lobby". Its campaign, he charged, had "plumbed the depths of dishonour and indecency," including "wilful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth".

The lobbying against his appointment included a phone call from Charles Schumer, a Democratic Senator, to Rahm Emanuel, the White House Chief of Staff, reminding him that Mr Freeman had shown "an irrational hatred of Israel" in past comments. Mr Emanuel is a strong defender of Israel's interests.

The loss of Mr Freeman, a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia under the first president Bush, suggests that Mr Obama's ability to make significant changes in US policy in the Middle East will be severely limited by domestic political reality. As such, it raises the question of how far Mr Obama will be able – or willing – to stand up to Benjamin Netanyahu, the hardline Likud party leader who is all but certain to become Israel's next prime minister. Their relationship will be crucial for the important decisions looming over the Palestinian conflict and Iran's suspected nuclear weapons programme.

Yesterday, supporters of Israel, even as they quietly revelled in Mr Freeman's departure, claimed the most important objections to him were his links to Saudi Arabia and some past expressions of support for repressive policies by China's leadership. His true sin, however, was to have spoken out against Israeli policies with a forthrightness almost never heard in Washington. Indeed, one top pro-Israeli activist recently described his views on the Middle East as "what you would expect in the Saudi foreign ministry".

A trenchant critic of the harsh Israeli responses to attacks from Hizbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, Mr Freeman has long maintained that the Jewish state's policies were self-defeating. Yesterday, he repeated that charge in an interview with The New York Times, saying Israel was "driving itself towards a cliff". It was "irresponsible to not question Israeli policy and to decide what is best for the American people," he said.

Those words exactly reflect the thesis of the 2007 book The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy that generated huge controversy by asserting that American policy was slavishly aligned to Israel thanks to the efforts of the Jewish state's supporters, to the detriment of underlying US interests.

For Stephen Walt, one of the book's authors, the Freeman row has proved the point. As he put it yesterday: "For all of you out there who may have questioned whether there was a powerful "Israel lobby," or who admitted that it existed but didn't think it had much influence, or who thought that the real problem was some supposedly all-powerful "Saudi lobby," – think again."

The victory of Mr Obama, who as a child lived in a Muslim country, raised hopes that he would see the Middle East through radically different eyes. But the new administration's deeds have been cautious. The Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, has hewed to a conventional line, while Dennis Ross, her special adviser for Iran and Gulf issues, is seen as sympathetic to Israel.

Congress unfailingly supports Israel. Pat Buchanan, a right-wing commentator and erstwhile presidential candidate, once described Capitol Hill as "Israeli-occupied territory".