Thursday, August 10, 2017

UAE and the funding of the Middle East Institute

In the past, the Middle East Institute represented the bastion of Arabist influence and the desire by retired American diplomats and government officials to argue against the Israeli lobby.  But the Arabists were killed by the advent of the Clinton administration, and the attempt by Gulf regimes to support Arabist shops ended by 1991 and the Gulf war.  Since then, the interests of Gulf regimes and Israel converged and the Israeli lobby ended for all intents and purposes its traditional resistance to arm sales to Gulf regimes.  Since then, none of the DC think tanks (esp the Middle East Institute given its past record of hosting views and perspectives opposed to the Israeli lobby) would touch the Palestinian question.  This report in the Intercept is a most damning look at the massive corruption of the DC think tank scene.  It once and for all end the illusion that there is free independent thinking in those shops.  Pretty much, the Israeli lobby and the allied Gulf regimes run the show. Ironically, Gulf regimes now cite reports in DC think tanks, which had been funded by those same Gulf regimes. So Gulf regimes cite themselves in their own media.