Robert Lindsay: Daniel Pearl’s Dad Takes On Anti-Zionism

Robert Lindsay argues in Daniel Pearl’s Dad Takes On Anti-Zionism that Daniel Pearl was a spy:

Judea Pearl is the father of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter murdered by Al Qaeda and probably by the Pakistani government too (Where does one end and the other begin?) for investigating the connection between the Pakistani government and Al Qaeda. An open Jewish journalist, running around openly in Pakistan and publishing these stories, and then continuing to blissfully run around in Pakistan publishing his articles about Al Qaeda…well.

Al Qaeda said he was a spy. Indeed, Mr.Pearl was effectively an agent of the US state in seeking out secrets about Al Qaeda and its connections in the Pakistani state and publishing them in a worldwide newspaper. So, to Al Qaeda and its elements in the Pakistani state, Pearl was a spy. In war, spies get killed. Solution? In wartime, don’t be a spy. I have no love for AQ, but Mr. Pearl definitely wins a Darwin Award. What was he thinking?

While I would agree that it is truly offensive to market Daniel Pearl as the Anne Frank of the War on Terror so that Judea Pearl can have a soapbox to spout an exceptionally psychotic form of Zionism, the Daniel Pearl story is not quite as cut and dry as Robert Lindsay suggests.

Reporting is a dangerous profession, and war reporting is often fatal. Daniel seems to have known that he was getting in over his head and complained to his management about potential danger

Daniel was operating in a particularly treacherous shadow war zone, but he was not the first Jewish reporter to investigate Pakistan. (See Thinking About Danny Pearl.) In different circumstances his captors might have viewed him as a conduit to send a message to the West and not as a spy to be executed.

I am not as interested in Daniel's status in the world of espionage as I am curious why Muslims and Muslim organization are lending their names and perhaps funding organizations like the Daniel Pearl Foundation, whose major purpose lies in legitimizing Zionist extremism and throwing rocks at Muslims. (See http://www.danielpearl.org/news_and_press/articles/Op-Eds.pdf.) Here is the list of Honorary Board Members:

HONORARY BOARD

Christiane Amanpour

President William J. Clinton

Abdul Sattar Edhi

Danny Gill

John Hennessy

Ted Koppel

Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan

Sari Nusseibeh

Mariane Pearl

Itzhak Perlman

Rabbi Harold Schulweiss

Craig Sherman

Paul Steiger

Elie Wiesel I understand that the Hashemites feel a need to prove their moderation (as probably does Abdel Sattar Edhi) while Sari Nusseibeh is looking for ways to maintain al-Quds University, but I remember Judea Pearl from local conferences in inference and computability. He is at the fringe of the most extreme Zionism, and as far as I can tell from talking with Daniel Pearl's co-workers, Daniel really did not agree with his father about Zionism. There should be some way to persuade important Muslim leaders not to legitimize Judea Pearl's rantings. (It would be truly offensive if Queen Noor or Abdel Sattar Edhi have donated any real money to Judea Pearl's efforts.)

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