WASHINGTON, 10 July 2004 — This has been an interesting week to be in North Carolina. Annual family vacation takes us to the beautiful beaches of North Carolina with family and friends.

We have people coming together from California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Tennessee and North Carolina. What better then to ask them all about the Middle East. Also the opportunity came up to look at a lot of under-reported issues relating to the Middle East and Saudi Arabia.

And as another Carolina bonus, North Carolina Sen. John Edwards was selected by John Kerry as his Democratic vice presidential running mate.

Most of the beach gang are upper middle class types with a distinctly conservative bent.

The men were willing to talk more openly about their opinions than the women, who held on to their thoughts much more privately.

All agreed, however, that although George Bush wasn’t the quality of president that they expected, they would vote for his re-election. John Kerry was just too liberal for their tastes and you could forget Ralph Nader, they said.

What about the addition of John Edwards to the Democratic ticket? Nobody votes for the vice presidential candidate, they noted, and besides someone pointed out that John Edwards is the fourth most liberal US senator. John Kerry is usually ranked the most liberal member of the US Senate.

So let’s talk about the Middle East and what is going on politically there and here. Someone had just put “John Edwards” and “US Senate” into a Google search on the Internet and pointed out that one of the first few entries focused on John Edwards and Israel.

This was a site placed on the Internet by Edwards and his staff and it made it very clear that no matter what, Edwards put Israel on the top of his list for protection and unlimited support.

This clearly was a prerequisite, thought the searcher, for his selection as Kerry’s running mate.

Michael Moore’s new film, Fahrenheit 9/11 came up next. Everyone who saw it, whether they liked it or Michael Moore or not, believed what he had said about Saudi Arabia and Saudis.

Moore stated in the movie that President Bush and Saudi Arabia are probably working behind the scenes for business purposes and that Saudis were flown out of the US after 9/11 before anyone else, due to their “special relationship” with president Bush.

Both of these contentions have either been disproved or highly questioned by reputable sources but most of the beach group still believed Moore’s take on Saudi Arabia.

Someone also noted that a back-page story in the newspapers had just announced that Israel was “being pushed on nuclear weapons” and said that this story should be front page but “Israel and the pro-Israelis are so powerful that this story would never make the front pages in the United States, particularly in an election year”.

He then quoted Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon from the newspaper story.

Sharon had said, “I don’t know what (Mohamed El-Baradei, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency) is coming to see. Israel has to hold in its hand all the elements of power necessary to protect itself, by itself.”

The beach vacationer then said, “Can you imagine an Arab saying that? He would be dead meat.”

A letter to the editor in a local newspaper about Israel was then discussed. This pro-Israeli writer carefully pointed out that Israel was a “nation of laws”.

The writer focused on the recent story that the Supreme Court of Israel found that a small portion of the “Israeli security fence” protecting them from “devastating and continued terror attacks on civilians” would interfere with property and other rights of some Palestinians. The Supreme Court ordered this little portion to be rerouted.

The writer pointed out, however, that according to the Supreme Court, that the fence itself is justified for the protection of the Israeli civilian population.

To his credit, one of the beach-combers said, “That’s like our Supreme Court saying that you can’t beat your wife with a whip anymore. In the future, you have to use your belt. It’s really amazing to see the propaganda that the pro-Israeli forces get away with in this country.”

What about Saudi Arabia and gas prices? Though all of the car drivers in the group noted that though gas prices were slightly cheaper for their trip to the beach, no one had a clue that Saudi Arabia had just put more oil on the market and that was noted in a few back pages of US newspapers as the predominant factor in the lowering of gasoline prices. Most agreed, however, that the Saudis were getting richer by “gouging Americans with their high-priced oil.”

The Carolina beach seems so far from the Middle East yet still so close.

(Dr. Michael Saba is the author of “The Armageddon Network” and is an international relations consultant.)