During the Middle East Forum's conference on Qatar today, during which he was critically mentioned several times due to his ties to the government of Qatar, Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, wrote me a brief note at 10:17 am. In it, he asked: "Why. I really don't understand. What's going on. We were good friends for decades."
I replied at 10:31 am: "This is not personal; I like you a lot. It is about you coming clean on Qatar. Send me a statement I can read out to the conference."
He proceeded to do that at 11:10 am. While I found the statement's length and specificity not suitable for reading out to the conference, it is an important document that deserves public attention. So, as Mort requested, here it is (with no edits, exactly as he sent it to me, except for deleting the two e-mail addresses):
From: "Mort Klein (ZOA)"
Date: February 6, 2019 at 11:10:32 AM EST
To: Daniel Pipes
Subject: MortMy friends and ardent Zionists Dershowitz & gov Huckabee asked me to join them in Qatar. Dershowitz told me Netanyahu suggested he should go. Malcolm Hoenlein went himself and told me to go. Hoenlein even had the brother of the Emir at his daughters wedding. Danny danon urged me to go. General Mordechai of Israel who oversees money going to Gaza told me Qatar doesn't fund Hamas and said I should go. Secy treasury Mnuchin told me and said publicly that Qatar was acting great and fighting Islamic terrorism. Pres Trump publicly said the same. Rabbis and scholars urged me to go. Netanyahu has accepted Qatar money to give to Gaza. For all these reasons I decided to take an 18 hour trip through Boston and go.
I went with no quid pro quo. The $100000 joey Alleham gave ZOA I believed was a personal gift from a wealthy man who said he wants to be on my Board and give ZOA 300,000 in the next year and that he had wealthy friends who would give ZOA several hundred thousand each. Of course that excited me. When I learned he filed a fara report and that the money might have come from Qatar, although Alleham denies it to this day, ZOA returned all 100,000 immediately. No one else returned the money. And I never knew who he invited and sat at his table at our ZOA Dinner.
I came to Qatar met with the Emir and other top officials- gave each of them a 50 page paper on all my demands for Israel and the Jewish people from canceling the anti Israel lobbying film to releasing the Israeli prisoners to stopping antisemitic books at the Doha Book Fair to closer relations with Israe to Al Jazeera issues. They promised they would kill the film and the antisemitic books and look into the other issues. They never asked me for anything except to bring Congressmembers to Qatar. I refused immediately, saying they first have to show substantial change for a substantial period of time. I never lobbied for Qatar and never wrote or tweeted anything positive about Qatar. In fact I wrote a strong article release bitterly attacking Qatar especially for their disgraceful Sl Al Jazeera programming. Top Qatar officials got in touch with me and said they wanted me to come back to Qatar and meet with top Al Jazeera officials. I declined. The Emir came to the US and the White House last April and asked to meet me. I declined.
I also supported your Anti Qatar legislation.
Sent from my iPhone - Mort Klein
(February 6, 2019)
