Monday, May 29, 2006

It seems that the Institute for Gulf Affairs has become a mere propaganda tool of AIPAC and its cronies. I reported a week ago, based on a story in the Washington Post, about a new report by Freedom House (mostly prepared by their new ally, the Institute for Gulf Affairs) about Saudi textbooks. The report was widely reported. Today, the highly able and effective Al-Jazeera's Hafiz Al-Mirazi devoted his program, From Washington, to the subject, and he invited the director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs. Mirazi unearthed some of the Saudi books that were cited in the report and revealed that Freedom House and Institute for Gulf Affairs actually lied in some of their references to Saudi textbooks and made things up. Of course, this does not mean that Saudi textbooks do not contain stupid, hateful, and intolerant elements, just as Israeli textbooks do. In fact, Mirazi invited a specialist to speak about hate and intolerance in Israeli textbooks. But according to US Congress, Israel is cute and adorable when it hates and oppresses.