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Assistant Secretary of State
William Burns, under fire from conservatives for recent remarks in
Jerusalem that disparaged the president and his supporters, has a
history of cozying up to radical Muslims who oppose peaceful
coexistence with Israel.
Speaking to Israeli and Palestinian "peace activists" in Jerusalem on
May 4, Burns reassured them that "common sense" would prevail over
the views of the President George W. Bush's Christian and
conservative supporters, many of whom insist that the Palestinian
Authority recognize Israel's right to exist and stop homicide
bombings against civilians before the United States pressures Israel
to accept a Palestinian state on its territory.
Burns' comments, former White House domestic-policy chief Gary Bauer
tells Insight, "showed incredible disdain for the president and his
most loyal supporters, and demonstrated that this is not George
Bush's State Department. He should be fired."
On Monday, Bauer sent a letter to the president that was signed by 22
Jewish and evangelical Christian leaders, urging him to recognize
there can be "no viable peace unless Israel's neighbors concede its
right to exist." The letter
cited "Nazi-inspired hatred of
Jews" in Palestinian
schools and ongoing terrorist attacks as unmistakable signs of
Palestinian rejection of Israel.
While not named in the letter, top State Department Arabist Burns has
been taking it on the chin from nationally broadcast conservative
talk-show host Marlin Maddoux, a signatory of the letter, and
Washington Times publisher Wesley Pruden, who wrote
on Tuesday that the president needed to "rein in 'the Arabist cabal'
at the State Department
that is forever pressing the Israelis to kill themselves on behalf of
peace."
But it could get much worse for Burns. As the Clinton
administration's ambassador to Jordan for three years, Burns
apologized on behalf of the United States to a top Jordanian Islamist
who was barred from entering the United States because of his ties to
known terrorists.
According to the New York Times, Burns personally telephoned Islamic
Action Front leader Ishaq Farhan to "express his concern" after the
Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) at New York's John F.
Kennedy Airport barred Farhan from entering the United States on May
3, 2000, because he was on the terrorist watch list. Farhan had to
purchase a $2,000 one-way ticket back to Jordan when the INS ordered
him to return to Amman on the first available flight.
The Times article added that "American diplomats in Jordan said they
were unaware of information that would merit interrogating or
deporting Mr. Farhan, whom they consider an important moderating
force."
What the Times failed to report was that Farhan's U.S. visa had been
revoked by the State Department, after it had received information
from the INS detailing Farhan's ties to Hamas, the Palestinian
terrorist organization that has murdered hundreds of Israelis and
more than a dozen Americans in suicide bombings during the last eight
years.
Farhan headed the "consultative council" of the Islamic Action Front
(IAF), the political arm of the radical, anti-Western Muslim
Brotherhood that has spawned Osama bin Laden, Hamas and Palestinian
Islamic Jihad. In Jordan, the IAF is a recognized political party
despite its open sympathy for international terrorist groups.
"This story, which I was not aware of until now, shows that Mr. Burns
does not understand the nature of the enemy the United States and
Israel is facing," American Values President Bauer tells Insight.
"What a comment it is on the man's judgment."
Two days after Burns apologized to him, Farhan told UPI that the U.S.
Embassy in Jordan had told him he would receive a new, permanent U.S.
visa.
Farhan added that a U.S. journalist who "regards himself as an expert
on terrorism" had been responsible for the treatment he had received
at JFK. He claimed that the journalist had submitted a report to the
State Department and to a House of Representatives subcommittee
listing him as an "Islamic terrorist militant." Farhan appears to
have been referring to terrorism expert Stephen Emerson, who
testified before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism,
Technology and Government Information on Feb. 24, 1998, on the
subject of foreign terrorists in America.
Among the most notorious foreign terrorists regularly admitted to the
United States, Emerson told the Senate panel under oath, was Farhan,
who in 1991 "gave a pep talk to 25 handpicked Hamas recruits in
Chicago, and a few years earlier collaborated with Jordanian-based
Islamist Yusuf al-Azm on gunrunning for Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin."
Farhan also was a regular speaker at the annual conference of the
Islamic Association for Palestine, a Hamas front group in the United
States that has been closed down by the FBI, Emerson added in his
testimony.
"Burns arranged for an official of an organization that was calling
for jihad on America to come to this country. He should have been
held accountable then, and he should be held accountable now,"
Emerson tells Insight.
In his recent encounter at the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem with
left-wing Israelis and Cabinet ministers of the Palestinian
Authority, Burns said that President Bush was determined to move
ahead with his "road map" for Middle East peace, despite opposition
from his own supporters. According to minutes of the meeting released
by the left-wing "Peace Now" group to the Jerusalem Post, Labor Party
Knesset (Israeli Parliament) member Colette Avital alleged that
conservatives, Christians and the American-Israel Public Affairs
Committee "are lobbying to torpedo the road map." On behalf of the
"peace coalition," she asked Burns for help "to express our views to
the American public."
In reply, Burns stated his view that "the common sense of all peoples
will override the conservative and Christian viewpoints once they see
the road map's potential."
The State Department Near East bureau did not return Insight's calls
for comment on this story.
Kenneth R. Timmerman is a senior writer for
Insight.
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Original source: Insight
on the News - National
Issue: 05/27/03
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