Israel Matzav

Prominent supporters of Israel back removing MEK from terror list

Some prominent supporters of Israel, including Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, former Canadian Justice Minister Irwin Cotler and Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel, have called for removing Iranian opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) from the list of designated terror groups.

On the record, the people involved insist there is no Israel element to what they say is a humanitarian endeavor to remove the movement’s followers from danger.

“I don’t see any Israel issue at all,” Dershowitz told JTA in an interview, instead casting it in terms of Hillel’s dictum, “If I am only for myself, who am I?”

Off the record, however, figures close to the campaign use another ancient Middle Eastern dictum to describe the involvement of pro-Israel groups: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

A source close to the effort to bring pro-Israel voices into the initiative cited reports that Israel has allied with the MEK, which reportedly maintains agents in Iran and in the past has published details of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

The organized pro-Israel community, however, has been reluctant to sign on. One official at a pro-Israel group said pushing to de-list MEK without a full review could undercut efforts to keep groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah on the list.

“They're listed as a terrorist group, and until the U.S. government says otherwise, we’re not going to deal with them,” said the official, whose group otherwise counsels a tough posture against the Iranian regime.

The MEK, an Iranian exile group that some accuse of being a cult, has maintained a presence in Iraq since 1986, when Saddam Hussein welcomed it as a useful thorn in the side of his deadly enemy. From its border encampment, Camp Ashraf, it conducted operations against the theocracy in Iran. The MEK claims to have ended military activities in 2001.

Subsequent to the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that removed Saddam, Camp Ashraf disarmed as a condition of maintaining its presence in the country.

Read the whole thing. Supporters of delisting the MEK include John Bolton, Rudolph Giuliani, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey and many others.

Labels: Alan Dershowitz, Elie Wiesel, Iranian nuclear threat, Irwin Cotler, MEK

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:34 AM