Experts on the Middle East in US media

How can you take seriously an article which cites such expertise: "Daniel Byman, a scholar at the Brookings Institution".  He holds a degree in political science and he never studied the Middle East (and knows none of its languages) but worked on the Middle East as one of the Zionist staffers in Congress.  That made him an expertise. But forget about that: read his book:  A High Price: The Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism.  I have recommended it as one of the worst books on the Middle East (and lest scholarly) in the last decade--and a bit more.