The Career of Jeffrey Feltman
By As'ad AbuKhalil
Al-Akhbar English, 16-09-2011
We know quite a bit about Jeffrey Feltman. This Assistant Secretary of State for the Near East is the top official in the Obama administration in Middle East policy making. Of course, the significance of that position has declined sharply over the years with demise of the Arabists.
The "Israeli" lobby and its affiliate organizations now decide on key issues affecting US policies in the Middle East. We know that Feltman is the anti-Arabist expert at the state department, politically and academically. Many Arabists wrote some awful cultural and racist generalizations about Arabs and Muslims. But Arabists were deeply knowledgeable about the Middle East and skilled in its languages. They were trained analysts.
Feltman, on the other hand, lacks basic training in Middle East studies. When he served in Lebanon, his Chinese, Russian, French, and British counterparts were all fluent in Arabic (the Chinese ambassador at the time had a PhD in Arabic literature, and her successor is fluent too). Feltman was known for being able to say one Arabic word in every encounter before switching into English. He is the top Middle East expert who can't speak any Middle East language. His Arabic is just laughable. His interview with Algerian TV is now famous on Youtube. When he tried to speak a few words in Arabic at the beginning of the interview, he kept referring to Algeria in Arabic as "Aljazeera."
But Feltman's career and rise within the bureaucracy were due to political factors, and not due to knowledge or sharp insights. This is a man who honed his political skills by working under Martin Indyk (The first non-Arabist in the position of Assistant Secretary of State for the Near East-and the first AIPAC candidate for the position) in the US embassy in Tel Aviv. Feltman rose within the US administration because he was an outspoken Democrat baking Bush junior. His enthusiasm for the Bush wars and agenda in the Middle East was rewarded with a position in Washington, DC.
In Washington, Feltman worked closely with Zionist groups. This is a man who expressed admiration for one of the most offensive books about Arabs (The Strong Horse, by Lee Smith-the latter gave a most favorable review of Raphael Patai's The Arab Mind in Slate magazine and called Patai "sympathetic " to the Arabs).
But we were able to know more-much more-about Feltman from Wikileaks. What emerges is a man who has no analytical skills whatsoever and who offered no insights on Middle East politics in the numerous Wikileaks documents released. What we discover about Feltman, instead, is that he is obsessed with gossip and with pettiness and personalities.
He relishes writing about who-is-sleeping-with-whom. He compounds his ignorance with a propensity to dig dirt about people's personal lives. In a report on An-Nahar's newspaper, Feltman takes extensive time to report on the dating situation of Nayla Tuwayni and offers plenty of comments about her boyfriend and is even keen in finding information about him. US Taxpayers' money at work, I guess. And when the Tuwayni family had clear prejudice against the boyfriend in question (he was Shia), Feltman defended the Tuwayni family and described their bigotry as nothing more than political opposition to the guy in question (although he was a secular with no affinity for Hizbullah's ideology). In the same report, Feltman referred to an-Nahar as democratic when the paper in reality serves as the propaganda arm of one of the worst regimes in Lebanese history, the regime of Amin Gemayyel. As George Hawi once observed about an-Nahar's publisher, Ghassan Tuwayni, the latter supports freedoms only when he is not in government.
The successor to Feltman, Michel Sisson, was far more professional in her reporting from Lebanon. But Feltman got the ultimate reward for Zionists in the US government: he is now the top man (women are not encouraged to apply) on the Middle East, while his Zionist counterpart at the National Security Council, Daneil Shapiro, is now ambassador to "Israel". Shapiro is fond of making speeches about his long relationship with Zionism and "Israel". Such are the conditions of Middle East policy making in Washington, DC. But Middle East Zionist policy may defeat itself (in the short and long term): with people like Feltman in charge, only failures for US policies are to be expected. No wonder only Zionists were surprised by the scenes outside the "Israeli" occupation embassy in Cairo.
Al-Akhbar English, 16-09-2011
We know quite a bit about Jeffrey Feltman. This Assistant Secretary of State for the Near East is the top official in the Obama administration in Middle East policy making. Of course, the significance of that position has declined sharply over the years with demise of the Arabists.
The "Israeli" lobby and its affiliate organizations now decide on key issues affecting US policies in the Middle East. We know that Feltman is the anti-Arabist expert at the state department, politically and academically. Many Arabists wrote some awful cultural and racist generalizations about Arabs and Muslims. But Arabists were deeply knowledgeable about the Middle East and skilled in its languages. They were trained analysts.
Feltman, on the other hand, lacks basic training in Middle East studies. When he served in Lebanon, his Chinese, Russian, French, and British counterparts were all fluent in Arabic (the Chinese ambassador at the time had a PhD in Arabic literature, and her successor is fluent too). Feltman was known for being able to say one Arabic word in every encounter before switching into English. He is the top Middle East expert who can't speak any Middle East language. His Arabic is just laughable. His interview with Algerian TV is now famous on Youtube. When he tried to speak a few words in Arabic at the beginning of the interview, he kept referring to Algeria in Arabic as "Aljazeera."
But Feltman's career and rise within the bureaucracy were due to political factors, and not due to knowledge or sharp insights. This is a man who honed his political skills by working under Martin Indyk (The first non-Arabist in the position of Assistant Secretary of State for the Near East-and the first AIPAC candidate for the position) in the US embassy in Tel Aviv. Feltman rose within the US administration because he was an outspoken Democrat baking Bush junior. His enthusiasm for the Bush wars and agenda in the Middle East was rewarded with a position in Washington, DC.
In Washington, Feltman worked closely with Zionist groups. This is a man who expressed admiration for one of the most offensive books about Arabs (The Strong Horse, by Lee Smith-the latter gave a most favorable review of Raphael Patai's The Arab Mind in Slate magazine and called Patai "sympathetic " to the Arabs).
But we were able to know more-much more-about Feltman from Wikileaks. What emerges is a man who has no analytical skills whatsoever and who offered no insights on Middle East politics in the numerous Wikileaks documents released. What we discover about Feltman, instead, is that he is obsessed with gossip and with pettiness and personalities.
He relishes writing about who-is-sleeping-with-whom. He compounds his ignorance with a propensity to dig dirt about people's personal lives. In a report on An-Nahar's newspaper, Feltman takes extensive time to report on the dating situation of Nayla Tuwayni and offers plenty of comments about her boyfriend and is even keen in finding information about him. US Taxpayers' money at work, I guess. And when the Tuwayni family had clear prejudice against the boyfriend in question (he was Shia), Feltman defended the Tuwayni family and described their bigotry as nothing more than political opposition to the guy in question (although he was a secular with no affinity for Hizbullah's ideology). In the same report, Feltman referred to an-Nahar as democratic when the paper in reality serves as the propaganda arm of one of the worst regimes in Lebanese history, the regime of Amin Gemayyel. As George Hawi once observed about an-Nahar's publisher, Ghassan Tuwayni, the latter supports freedoms only when he is not in government.
The successor to Feltman, Michel Sisson, was far more professional in her reporting from Lebanon. But Feltman got the ultimate reward for Zionists in the US government: he is now the top man (women are not encouraged to apply) on the Middle East, while his Zionist counterpart at the National Security Council, Daneil Shapiro, is now ambassador to "Israel". Shapiro is fond of making speeches about his long relationship with Zionism and "Israel". Such are the conditions of Middle East policy making in Washington, DC. But Middle East Zionist policy may defeat itself (in the short and long term): with people like Feltman in charge, only failures for US policies are to be expected. No wonder only Zionists were surprised by the scenes outside the "Israeli" occupation embassy in Cairo.
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