Biden Nominee for Top State Dept Post Contributed to Book About How ‘Israel Lobby’ Controls American Politics

MUSLIM Uzra Zeya nominated for undersecretary of civilian security, democracy, and human rights

BY ALANA GOODMAN

SEE: https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/biden-nom-for-top-state-dept-post-contributed-to-book-about-how-israel-lobby-controls-american-politics/;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

President Joe Biden's nominee for a top State Department position played a key role in assembling a book on the nefarious influence of the "Israel lobby" while working for an organization that promoted claims about Jewish media control and dual loyalty to Israel.

As a staffer at the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Uzra Zeya compiled research for a book that argues that "the Israel lobby has subverted the American political process to take control of U.S. Middle East policy" by establishing a secret network of "dirty money" PACs that bribe and extort congressional candidates into taking pro-Israel positions. Zeya, a former U.S. diplomat who was nominated for undersecretary for civilian security, democracy, and human rights, worked for the Washington Report and its publishing group, the American Educational Trust, in 1989 and 1990. The news outlet is staunchly anti-Israel and has published articles questioning the national loyalty of American Jews and opposing taxpayer funding to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Zeya's work for the Washington Report and American Educational Trust raises questions about her views on Israel and could become an obstacle during her confirmation hearings. Biden's recent hiring moves on foreign policy and conflicting statements from staffers have made it unclear how his administration plans to approach Israel policy issues. White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki recently declined to denounce the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, contradicting statements condemning the movement from Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Biden's nominee for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the Washington Free Beacon recently reported. Biden also tapped anti-Israel activist Maher Bitar for a top intelligence post and is reportedly considering Matt Duss, an outspoken critic of Israel, for a State Department position.

Sean Durns, a research analyst at the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, called the Washington Report a "fringe organization" that has "published content with anti-Semitic themes," including claims that the Mossad was behind the JFK assassination and the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Organizations like the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs have a history of propagating fringe and sometimes anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and I think it's absolutely fair for questions to be raised in any sort of potential hearings," said Durns.

Zeya did not respond to a request for comment sent through her nonprofit the Alliance for Peacebuilding. The White House also did not respond to a request for comment.

Zeya was listed as one of the staffers who helped compile the research for the American Educational Trust's 1990 book Stealth PACs: How Israel's American Lobby Took Control of U.S. Middle East Policy, according to the acknowledgments section.

In a section titled "Jewish Power in the Formulation of U.S. Middle East Policy," the book claims that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee gives American Jews secret marching orders on how to vote and which candidates to support financially.

"Congressmen must assume that individual Jewish donors will be informed in advance as to exactly where each local and national candidate stands on Israel, and that on Election Day Jewish voters will be willing to cast their own votes on that issue alone," says the book.

The book argues that "non-Jewish Americans increasingly perceive their Jewish fellow citizens as members of a single-issue voting bloc which, at best, divides its loyalties between an increasingly exploitative Israel, and an increasingly exploited United States."

"[T]he more strident lobbyists for Israel must also accept a major share of the blame for whatever changes have taken place in American public perceptions of the loyalties of America's Jews," says the book. "The inevitable public perception is that such ardent supporters of Israel have no real interest in making the United States a better place for all of its citizens, but only in making Israel a more secure and prosperous place for Jews."

The book ends with an appeal to readers to pressure members of Congress to stop accepting donations from pro-Israel PACs.

"When that happens, the people of the United States will regain control of their own Middle East policy," the book concludes. "For better or for worse, in the Middle East as in other parts of the world, American foreign policy will, at last, be truly American."

Zeya was hired as director of the American Educational Trust's speakers' bureau in July 1989, according to the Washington Report, where she helped connect the publication's writers with groups looking for speakers.

"Ms. Zeya, a Muslim, will seek out Islamic groups seeking to work effectively within the American political system, and non-Muslim groups looking for authoritative speakers on Islam," reported the outlet. She published several book reviews in the Washington Report and was listed as "program coordinator for the American Educational Trust specializing in Islamic affairs" in March 1990.

The Washington Report and its publisher, the American Educational Trust, were founded in 1982 by former U.S. foreign service officials Richard Curtiss and Andrew Killgore.

During Zeya's time at the Washington Report, the organization published multiple screeds against the "Jewish Lobby" and accusing American Jews of controlling the media.

"Many Jewish Americans would unhesitatingly declare they are not Zionists," wrote Alfred Lilienthal in an August 1989 column in the Washington Report. "But they conduct themselves, nonetheless, as if they were part of that nation and thus in possession of two national identities."

"Through their tremendous outpouring of financial and political support and their inordinate influence over the media, so many Jewish Americans indicate that they are moved, if not compelled, by this almost involuntary duality," Lilienthal wrote.

After her work at the Washington Report and the American Educational Trust, Zeya moved to the U.S. State Department where she worked in various diplomatic roles until 2018.

US government says ‘right-wing extremists’ responsible for majority of deadly terrorist attacks last year

BY ROBERT SPENCER

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2021/02/us-government-says-right-wing-extremists-responsible-for-majority-of-deadly-terrorist-attacks-last-year;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

Note that there are no definitions. What does the government define as “right-wing”? What do they classify as “left-wing”? What do they define as a “terrorist attack”? The Joint Regional Intelligence Center report defines “terrorist incidents” as “violence motivated by political or religious conviction,” but offers no definitions of the other terms. It does, however, attempt to excuse “left-wing” violence, claiming that there was a “rarity of left-wing extremist attacks,” and that “increased response to right-wing activity motivated more left-wing violence in 2020 than in previous years.” Do the Antifa and Black Lives Matter riots all over the country last summer get counted as terrorist attacks? Note also that there is apparently little or no specific data: “the government has released no data on historical activity or the current threat landscape, prompting a number of data projects from think tanks and other groups tracking domestic extremist threats.” And there is strange fudging, epitomized by this sentence: “non-affiliated, right-wing and left-wing actors, right-wing [domestic violent extremists] were responsible for the majority of fatal attacks in the Homeland in 2020.” That wretchedly written statement apparently says that most fatal attacks in the U.S. were perpetrated by both “right-wing and left-wing actors,” and yet “journalist” Jana Winter and the officials she quotes all concentrate exclusively on the “right-wing extremism.”

Given the irresponsible but no doubt calculated lack of definitions, this Joint Regional Intelligence Center report, and the Yahoo News story about it, appears to be one more attempt to portray peaceful, law-abiding Americans who supported President Trump and dissent from the leftist agenda as terrorists and as enablers of terrorism.

Meanwhile, while our agencies purvey this propaganda, the global jihad proceeds apace.

“Feds now say right-wing extremists responsible for the majority of deadly terrorist attacks last year,” by Jana Winter, Yahoo News, February 19, 2021:

The U.S. government is acknowledging for the first time that right-wing extremists were responsible for the majority of fatal domestic terrorist attacks last year, according to an internal report circulated by the Department of Homeland Security last week and obtained by Yahoo News.

A review of last year’s domestic terrorist incidents by a DHS fusion center — which shares threat-related information between federal, state and local partners — found that although civil unrest and antigovernment violence were associated with “non-affiliated, right-wing and left-wing actors, right-wing [domestic violent extremists] were responsible for the majority of fatal attacks in the Homeland in 2020.”

The report, produced by the Joint Regional Intelligence Center, a DHS-funded fusion center, was sent out to police and law enforcement agencies nationwide as part of an intelligence-sharing system created after the 9/11 attacks.

While independent think tanks and outside groups have been pointing to the rise in ring-wing violence for some time, this appears to be the first known instance of an official government or law enforcement agency clearly acknowledging the trend, though senior officials have noted the rise in white supremacist attacks. The report also comes not long after the end of the Trump administration, which was criticized for downplaying right-wing violence.

Former President Donald Trump, in particular, frequently referred to the threat from antifa, a loose movement of left-wing activists.

“The government has not said this publicly, law enforcement has not said this publicly,” said Seth Jones of the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. “This is new.”

The findings about right-wing extremism are “consistent with every single assessment of data I’ve seen, not just in 2020 but in 2019,” Jones said after reviewing the fusion center report.

In October of last year, CSIS published its own analysis of domestic terrorist activity in the U.S. for the first eight months of 2020. Its data showed that white supremacists and other right-wing extremists conducted two-thirds of the terrorist plots and attacks in the nation during that period.

The CSIS report notes that the FBI and DHS have in the past identified “racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists,” and specifically white supremacists, as the biggest threat to the U.S. But the government has released no data on historical activity or the current threat landscape, prompting a number of data projects from think tanks and other groups tracking domestic extremist threats.

“What is a little unusual is that they’ve used terms like ‘right- and left-wing’ in a government document, because the government has generally used other terms,” said Jones.

“The government in 2020 did try to stay away from ‘right-wing’ terms because they were easily politicized,” he added….

“There is a lot of overlap between white supremacists and far-right militias, and they often work together during the commission of violent acts,” German said, “like at the attack on the Capitol.”

Biden Fires U.S. Attorney eying Democratic Corruption

BY RICK MORAN

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/02/20/biden-fires-chicago-u-s-attorney-hot-on-the-trail-of-democratic-corruption-n1427040;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

You’ve probably never heard of Chicago’s U.S. attorney John Lausch. For the last two years, he has been going after some of the biggest, most powerful Democrats in the state of Illinois.

His office indicted a Chicago alderman who had been serving since 1969. Edward Burke had been in the crosshairs of prosecutors for four decades but it wasn’t until Lausch came into office that he was indicted.

Then there’s the case of the most powerful state politician in the United States, Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan. His aides and cronies have been indicted for various crimes of influence over the years and Lausch has now set his sights on Madigan himself.

In fact, it’s believed Lausch has targeted some other high-profile Democratic politicians in other investigations. It’s a target-rich environment and Democrats in Illinois have gotten extremely nervous about who Lausch will go after next.

Now it appears, that bringing down corrupt Democratic politicians will be the job of the next U.S. attorney. Along with 56 other U.S. attorneys named by former president Trump, Lausch will lose his job — fired by Joe Biden. “It’s tradition,” said Biden supporters. This is true. But it’s also “tradition” to keep prosecutors in place who were pursuing high-profile cases. Lausch certainly qualified under that criteria.

Biden’s firing hasn’t gone down well in Illinois.

Washington Free Beacon:

Lausch’s abrupt removal has drawn bipartisan criticism from Illinois lawmakers who say he should be allowed to finish his work or depart on a longer timeline to ensure an orderly transition. The president asked all Trump-appointed U.S. attorneys to resign by the end of February but allowed two to remain in place to conclude politically sensitive work.

With much of the state’s Democratic establishment in his sights, it’s not clear why Biden did not extend the same courtesy to Lausch. Madigan’s resignation, timed as it is with Lausch’s imminent departure, will raise even more pointed questions for Lausch’s successor about the future of the case.

The timing is particularly suspicious in Madigan’s case. Lausch indicted several Madigan associates, including his most trusted aide, for their role in a scandal involving the state’s primary electric utility, ComEd. The company provided payments, subcontracts, and no-show jobs to various Madigan cronies in return for favorable legislation. Madigan had probably been doing this sort of thing regularly over his many years as speaker of the Illinois House. He facilitated the scheme, but never directly benefitted financially — that prosecutors know of, anyway. It’s illustrative of the political-business-criminal nexus that robs the taxpayers and enriches the powerful.

It’s a tale told all too often in Illinois. Just your run-of-the-mill influence-peddling, log-rolling and pay-for-play by crooked pols who are used to getting away with it.

Lawmakers in both parties have raised concerns that Lausch’s removal would disrupt the ComEd probe. Sens. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) and Tammy Duckworth (D., Ill.) said Lausch should remain in place until his successor is confirmed by the Senate, a move supported by Illinois’s five Republican congressmen. The GOP lawmakers emphasized that the scope of the investigation is “historic” in a Feb. 9 statement.

Who else in Illinois is being stalked? Biden will be watched carefully as far as who he names to replace Lausch. And more importantly, who else will be in the prosecutor’s crosshairs.

Critical Race Theory Costs Staffer at Smith College Her Job

BY RICK MORAN

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/02/20/critical-race-theory-costs-staffer-at-smith-college-her-job-n1427045;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

A staff member at Smith College, Jody Shaw, resigned her position as a student support coordinator because of the “hostile atmosphere” at the college. It appears that Ms. Shaw ran afoul of critical race theory fanatics who forced her to “participate in racially prejudicial behavior as a condition” of her employment.

Shaw, being a normal, intelligent, woman rebelled. She blew the whistle on the racialists at Smith College in a scathing video she posted to YouTube.

Bari Weiss is also covering this disturbing story.

“I ask that Smith College stop reducing my personhood to a racial category. Stop telling me what I must think and feel about myself,” she said. “Stop presuming to know who I am or what my culture is based upon my skin color. Stop asking me to project stereotypes and assumptions onto others based on their skin color.”

This is the essence of critical race theory. In order to make “progress” in “combatting racism,” everyone is reduced to a stick figure. It’s so much easier to define individuals when you identify them as members of a specific group, with specific beliefs, biases, prejudices,

In her resignation letter to the university president, she didn’t pull any punches.

Every day, I watch my colleagues manage student conflict through the lens of race, projecting rigid assumptions and stereotypes on students, thereby reducing them to the color of their skin. I am asked to do the same, as well as to support a curriculum for students that teaches them to project those same stereotypes and assumptions onto themselves and others. I believe such a curriculum is dehumanizing, prevents authentic connection, and undermines the moral agency of young people who are just beginning to find their way in the world.

Ms. Weiss catalogs the damage this ideology/theology is doing to people in all walks of life, of all colors.

We all know that something morally grotesque is swallowing liberal America. Almost no one wants to risk talking about it out loud.

Every day I get phone calls from anxious Americans complaining about an ideology that wants to pull all of us into the past.

I get calls from parents telling me about the damaging things being taught in schools: so-called antiracist programs that urge children to obsess on the color of their skin.

I get calls from people working in corporate America forced to go to trainings in which they learn that they carry collective, race-based guilt — or benefit from collective, race-based virtue.

I get calls from young people just launching their careers telling me that they feel they have no choice but to profess fealty to this ideology in order to keep their jobs.

Almost no one who calls me is willing to go public. And I understand why. To go public with what’s happening is to risk their jobs and their reputations.

We need more Jodi Shaws in the world. The problem is that it takes otherworldly courage to speak out, to demand change. I daresay Ms. Shaw’s life will never be the same. And given her stand was made on a college campus, any career she was hoping for in higher education is probably ruined. She’s probably lost some friends over her stand. Her life has been changed forever.

It’s important that we realize that this didn’t have to happen. Small-minded, even ignorant people see salvation in controlling the minds and lives of others. Is it a mass delusion that they believe they are actually “fighting racism,” that they’re doing this for white people’s own good? Or are these the same efforts at control that have been around since humans created civilizations?

It’s a contagion that no one seems capable of stopping. Perhaps it’s good enough now that enough of us speak out and fight for what we know in our bones is right.