Thanks Brian!
For all the indignant defenders of CRAPs (Courageous Reformist Arab Personalities, of course!) who regularly leave messages here accusing me of being an appeaser of Islamofascists of whatever– I just want you to ask yourself: does it make sense that most prominent CRAPs are completely uncritical of US policy in the Arab world when most Arabs tend to be? And that a good number of them seem to work for Benador Associates? And don’t fall back on the “most Arabs are brainwashed” theory…
Benador Associates sounds a bit iffy, who needs PR help on freedom of religion and foreign policy stuff, who hires their services, which of our dear CRAPpers are their employees (other than Amir Taheri who’s Iranian, no?) Surprised to see Saad Eddin Ibrahim and Ayman Nour on their list of experts. Am curious about the articles on their site, are those just for information, do they claim to have had some input into them?
The list of member of the Benedor Associates is quite fascinating. I recognized a lot of people in there. Some are hardcore zionists with ethnic cleansing tendancies, some others are religious freedom activist with Islam bashing tendencies, some are both.
I am actually more surprised to see Ayman Nour in there than Saad Eddin Ibrahim who I have seen sharing the light with some other Benador Associates member I would not feel confortable being associated with.
Very surprising indeed
I’m sceptical about Ayman Nour’s inclusion. The charming Ms Benador (a chum of Richard Perle) is surely not going to be booking public speaking engagements for Nour any time soon. A couple of people previously on her list asked to have their names taken off, claiming they had been listed without permission.
A UK-based PR firm has also been touting Walid Phares, the great Lebanese-Christian expert on Islam and terrorism, trying to arrange meetings for him with newspapers in the UK. A couple of senior editors asked my opinion. I told them not to bother and referred them to Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walid_Phares
I have to agree with Brian about Ayman Nour. It’s doubtful he ever agreed with this. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, on the other hand, is a member and does paid lecturing for it. He may have not known about Benador’s reputation and just see it as a job (he is awfully naive in that way sometimes) or it may just be that he was charmed into it by his friends in Amreeka, who are very much of the Benador ilk. Either way, it sheds light into what Benador is trying to turn itself into: a kind of rent-a-Middle Eastern-dissident PR firm whose political goal is essentially that Likudnik neo-cons, whether those dissidents know (or care) about that or not. It this sense it plays a role analogous to right-wing think tanks around DC who provide a platform and living to those Americans (and some foreigners) who support their views (or are willing to become hired pens for them.)
ala fikra, I know a guy who worked with Walid Phares. Apparently he likes to refer to himself (non-ironically) as a “Phoenician.” That always cracks me up.
I’ve seen quite a few references to Benador in the blogosphere over the last year, and most of them (including this one, sorry) seem to misunderstand how companies like that work. I have no direct knowledge of Benador’s firm (other than it has a very badly designed web site) but if it works like other rent-a-speaker agencies, it doesn’t actually employ the speakers or pay them directly. These companies usually arrange a lecture, for which the speaker is paid an honorarium, and the company gets a percentage of that.
That said, Issandr, I think you’re absolutely right about Benador’s goals.
I know Benador doesn’t pay its speakers directly – in fact it probably gets a handling fee for them – but it does work to promote them. The fact that it is extremely selective in the political leanings of its speakers speaks volumes about it’s politicized nature — surely other speaker agencies have a wider variety of speakers.
I agree with Issandr in his description of most members of Beneador. I was just being diplomatic 🙂
These kind of company are qui common in fact, I have had to deal with one when I was trying to bring Desmond Tutu to speak on a US campus about Palestine. Basically they are brokers they help set up the whole event because they know exactly what the speakers want in term of honorarium and logistics.They get a cut of the honorarium. Most of these agencies have much better websites than Benador Associates 🙂
(We ended up no having Tutu because he asks for $80 000 for his foundation to speak, plus 2 first class tickets for he and his aide and accomodation. It’s for the cause but that is still a lot of money.)
Interesting if Nour is a member – given this article highlighting his ‘chequered background’ by Arnaud de Borchgrave, who’s one of his colleagues at Benador.
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20050516-091555-2090r.htm
Have to agree that its more suprising to find Nour’s name there than Saad Eddin Ibrahim. I had the unfortunate task of covering an event at which the latter spoke – at the American Enterprise Institute. The event was a panel discussion given by ‘Arab dissidents.’ Was saddened to see Saad Eddin share the stage with Danielle Pletka and Barry Rubin…