Amb. Richard P Parker, dead

By way of coincidence, I received the obituary of Ambassador Richard P Parker the day I wrote about him on my blog yesterday (in the post about Jeffrey Feltman--please don't compare the two otherwise it would be an insult to knowledge, education, and expertise).   I knew Parker when I lived in Washington, DC and I saw him while he worked at the Middle East Institute.  He in fact, published my first piece in a journal: a study of the internal contradiction of the PFLP which he published in the Middle East Journal back in 1987 when I was still finishing my dissertation at Georgetown.   Parker's level of Arabic was quite impressive and he was very impatient with mistakes in Arabic transliteration which are still common in the press and in academia.  Parker served as ambassador in Lebanon in the late 1970s so I obviously had many questions to ask him about that experience.  I remember how much he detested Bashir Gemayyel--the worst Lebanese ever--and how he consistently referred to him as "thug".   He was alarmed when the US government would later endorse him in the Reagan administration.  He also served in Lebanon during the time when the Lebanese government tried to deployed army troops in the South (I personally am opposed to the deployment of any Lebanese troops in South Lebanon and call for their total removal from the area--along with the UNIFI--because the South should only be home to those resistance groups, Lebanese and Palestinians, who are willing to defend Lebanon from Israeli aggression and to attack Israel from Lebanese territory.)  And for Parker, it was clear that it was Israel and not the PLO--as the Israeli propaganda in the US would have it--which prevented the deployment and bombed the troops.  I read a manuscript he wrote on that era and don't know if he later published.  Parker belongs to that generation of Arabists who are not allowed to exist anymore:  WINIP and AIPAC now get to pick who get to serve where in the Middle East (how do you think that fanatic Zionist, Adam Ereli, got to serve as ambassador in Bahrain?  This Likudnik could one day become Asst Sec of State for the Near East due to his ties with the Likud network in DC.  Oh, and you have to watch him attempt to speak Arabic.  I remember once and Arab watched him and exclaimed: was that supposed to be Arabic?) and they decide what the criteria for Middle East expertise are (they are fanatic dedication to Likud interests).   (thanks Elias)