Jeffrey Feltman (another Elliot Abrams) to be assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs

[scooby]

Feltman is another zionist foreign-service careerist.

The Feltmans of the world are enticed by the resumes of other zionist foreign-service careerists who seem to move effortlessly from elite schools to the State Department to think tanks to weekly columns to book deals to TV punditry to corporate boards to the Pentagon back to an elite school for a teaching stint to another book deal to advising the President to more think tanks to newspaper columns to more corporate boards to registered foreign agent work to defense industry work and on and on and on.

Of course the conflicts of interests are beyond comprehension. Just look at the resumes of the likes of Kissinger, Schlesinger, Perle, Feith, Wolfowitz, Elliot Abrams, Michael Ledeen, David Wurmser, Dennis Ross, Martin Kramer, etc.

Here's Feltman's wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Feltman

An excerpt:

In a speech following the Israeli operation in Lebanon in 2006, the "Secretary-General" of Hizbollah, Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah, dubbed Fouad Siniora's government in Lebanon as Feltman's Government. Nasrallah's label stressed what Hizbullah sees as Feltman's deep influence on the Lebanese government's decisions. The title of "Feltman's Government" has since been widely used among several opposition parties in Lebanon whenever referring to Siniora's government.

As'ad AbuKhalil writes:

http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2009/04/b ... ratic.html

This nomination should get more attention because it is yet another example of the theme of continuity in the Obama's Middle East policies. Feltman was a cheerleader for Bush early on and only in the 2006 election in the US he revealed to all in Lebanon that he was a Democrat but only to tell them that US policies in the Middle East under Bush will not change under a Democrat, and he was right. This nomination is a further evidence of the deterioration of Middle East expertise at the US Department of State. Gone are the days when the Middle East experts were the likes of Richard P Parker or Richard Murphy and others: these were people who knew the region and spoke its languages and interacted with its people. Don't get me wrong: there are still such people in the Department of State but they are marginalized and excluded from decision making. Feltman is a tool of Martin Indyk who pushed hard for this nomination. And from what I am told in Washignton, DC Dennis Ross continues to exercise influence beyond his specific portfolio and yesterday he even met--for some reason--with the Lebanese buffoonish Minister of Defense. Feltman can speak three (undecipherable) Arabic words and he uses them in the beginning of every conversation with Arabs before he quickly switches to English. What bothers me about Feltman is not only the politics but the attitude: he has the attitude of 19th century colonial officers in Asia. His successor at the US embassy in Beirut for example--politics aside--is a much nicer and less arrogant person although the politics are the same.

 :lol: AbuKhalil might be amused that Feltman's wikipedia page states:

Feltman studied Arabic at the University of Jordan in Amman from 1994 to 1995.

and

He speaks French, Arabic, and Hungarian.