Charles (Chas) Freeman took a final slap at Israel while removing his candidacy to head the National Intelligence Council in the Obama government.
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) and other Jewish groups and pro-Israel lobbyists have been conducting a campaign against Freeman over his past association with Arab businessmen, his close connections with Saudi Arabia and his history of harsh anti-Israeli comments.
Freeman explained in a letter that he dropped out of the running for the intelligence post because he does not “believe the National Intelligence Council could function effectively while its chair was under constant attack by unscrupulous people with a passionate attachment to the views of a political faction in a foreign country.”
Freeman complained in his e-mail of “libelous distortions… [that] show conclusively that there is a powerful lobby determined to prevent any view other than its own from being aired.”
He charged “the Israel Lobby” with trying to control appointments through a veto power over “people who dispute the wisdom of its views.”
Freeman is a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia and head of the pro-Arab Middle East Policy Council, which routinely publishes anti-Israel articles. He blamed pro-Israeli lobbyists for causing an inability of the American public to discuss, or the government to consider, any option for United States policies in the Middle East opposed by the ruling faction in Israeli politics."
In his previous speeches and written comments, Freeman called Israel’s policies “high-handed and self-defeating” and charged that they are the result of the “inherently violent” Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria, which he called “occupation and settlement of Arab lands.”
ZOA president Morton A. Klein took credit for helping to derail Freeman’s nomination, calling him “a fierce opponent of U.S. support for Israel and an apologist for the regimes of Saudi Arabia and China.”
Seven Congress members, including a Nevada Democrat, signed a letter sent last week to the Inspector General of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence asking for an investigation into Freeman’s connections with Saudi Arabia.