Because the MEK is a resource being used by Israel in its clandestine war against Iran, it is perhaps inevitable that many friends of Israel in the United States are campaigning vigorously to have the group removed from the terrorism list. Indeed, neocons at their various think-tanks and publications as well as AIPAC all support delisting the group
Right on cue, enter former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani claiming that Camp Liberty (TTL)isn’t good enough for his newly found terrorist friends. It was good enough for our soldiers who fought and died there, but apparently Rudy thinks it’s a “concentration camp” that is beneath the gold standard status of a well equipped terrorist training facility we should provide for the MEK.
Clinton didn’t comment on the”concentration camp”charge and simply emphasized that the U.S. was working hard to safely relocate the MEK to Temporary Transit Location, keep the Iraqi government from harassing the MEK, and ensure that the U.N. monitors the camp and provides help for refugees. She also said that if the MEK really wants off the list of foreign terrorist organizations (FTO), it should get with the program at Camp Liberty( Temporary Transit Location).
As the quote from Luce shows, the MEK aka MKO/PMOI issue is perfectly relevant to a discussion of Israel and the Iranian nuclear program because Israel has allegedly used MEK operatives to kill Iranian nuclear scientists. I assume Luce’s point is to draw attention to the fact that there is televised advocacy for de-listing a terrorist group that has recently been implicated in acts of terrorism ..
the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), an exiled Iranian opposition group designated a “foreign terrorist organization” by the State Department, conducted a series of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. Former CIA official and visiting Georgetown professor Paul Pillar, citing the U.S. government’s definition of terrorism, observed that “with or without confirmation of details of this story, the assassinations are terrorism.” But numerous right-wing pundits ..
A senior political analyst says numerous prominent US political figures are receiving “substantial fees” from the terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) that is in turn funded by Israel..Greenwald went on to highlight US hypocrisy in prosecuting numerous Muslims inside the US for providing “material support for terrorism” and for doing “far less than” these American politicians are publicly doing on behalf of a designated terrorist group.
is this not definitive proof that Israel is, by definition, a so-called state sponsor of Terrorism? Leaving everything else aside, if Israel, as NBC reports, has “financed, trained and armed” a group officially designated by the U.S. Government as a Terrorist organization, isn’t that the definitive act of how one becomes an official “state sponsor of Terrorism”? Amazingly, as Daniel Larison notes, one of the people who most vocally attacked me ..
.. Although the Ashraf issue is separate from the issue of MEK’s status as a terrorist organization, MEK’s backers in the West have often used the conditions at the camp to garner sympathy for the group’s broader agenda in Washington and to argue that its continued listing as a terrorist group is the cause of its mistreatment… MEK’s [MKO/PMOI] current lobbying efforts were foreshadowed in a 1994 report by the U.S. State Department, which …
Palestine’s top envoy to the UN Ibrahim Khraishi said the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO/MEK/PMOI) never has a place in Palestine and those supporting them are only”looking for the money”they are promised to receive from the terror cell.
The editorial director of Antiwar.com also pointed out that Mujahedin-e Khalq /MKO/MEK/PMOI enjoys”widespread support on Capitol Hill”and stated that”this is the only terrorist group I know of that is allowed to maintain an unofficial embassy in Washington through various front groups”.He raised a question that”could it have something to do with the large amounts of cash the MEK front groups in Washington are throwing around?”concluding that some of these supporters are somehow motivated to take part…