TIKUN OLAM : Meir Javedanfar: Iran “Analyst” as Pro-Israel Cipher
I’ve written before here about a crop of wannabe analysts that specialize in Israeli patronage–Amir Ebrahimi, Amir Fakhravar –and general political opportunism like the MEK’sHassan Daioeslam.There is also an effort, often by pro-Israel interests, to parachute these individuals into the Beltway political mix. One of those who’s succeeded admirably at self-promotion and maximizing his meager credentials into a career as a B-list analyst of Iranian politics is Meir Javedanfar. According to the meager biographical details he’s offered, he was born in Iran and left in with his family 1987. There is a relatively large Iranian community in Israel so he may’ve emigrated to Israel though his bio doesn’t make this clear.His academic career took him to an undistinguished provincial school, Lancaster University, where he earned an MA in the International Relations and Strategic Studies program. A bio published at a speaker’s bureau says he has another MA in information management, but doesn’t name the school. Javedanfar doesn’t mention this degree in any of his other online biographies.He has published in few, if any peer-reviewed academic publications as far as I can tell. He has no permanent academic position, though he teaches one course on Iranian politics at the Inter-Discipliniary Center in Herzliya, Israel’s private college. He has only one book, one that he co-wrote with former Haaretz security reporter, Yossi Melman. Like all of Melman’s other work , the Nuclear Sphinx of Teheran is full of conspiratorial theories that paint Iran in the worst possible light and pose the nuclear threat in the most extreme terms. In Gareth Porter’s review, he wrote:

The Nuclear Sphinx of Tehran takes on the highly charged issue of Iran’s nuclear program — a tricky project even under the best of circumstances, given the interests of all the relevant parties to the dispute in promoting their own version of reality. A critical challenge in carrying out such a study is to avoid becoming captive of an official propaganda line, and co-authors Yossi Melman and Meir Javedanfar have failed to surmount that challenge…[It] tilts sharply toward the official Israeli view on virtually every question surrounding the Iranian nuclear program…The thesis of the book is clearly stated in the first four chapters: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a dangerous Islamic extremist whose determination to exterminate Israel and belief in the coming of the Twelfth Imam (the Mahdi) adds up to a desire for war against Israel, with nuclear weapons if possible.

Porter charitably posits that “his [Melman's] analysis has dominated in the conversation between the two coauthors.” But even if you consider that Melman wrote all this conspiratorial nonsense and Javedanfar served as little more than translator of the Farsi-language documents used in the preparation of the book, this still means the Iranian allowed himself to be sucked into a project involving extremist fear-mongering. I’m certain he did so willingly because associating himself with a figure like Melman would lend himself further credibility. Credibility is the currency of opportunists like Javedanfar.The Iranian “analyst” did write the Iran chapter for the PSI Handbook of Global Security and Intelligence, co-edited by Prof. Shlomo Shpiro, who specializes in national security issues at the Begin-Sadat Center at Bar Ilan University. It is known as Israel’s Orthodox institution of higher learning, with a generally right-wing political and academic orientation.His bio says he worked for BBC Persian, was a member of the Club of Rome “tt30″ (Think Tank 30),” where he ran its Beyond Oil economic forecast group, and was an analyst for Jane’s Intelligence Digest. The only evidence of a Beyond Oil entity associated with TT30 is a blog whose last post was in 2005. Jane’s Intelligence Digest no longer exists and hasn’t been printed for a number of years.He falsely infers an affiliation with Columbia University’s School of International Studies by virtue of his membership in the Gulf 2000 Project, a listserv maintained by Gary Sick, who is on the faculty:

A member of Gulf 2000 Project, which is run by the School of International and Public Affairs of Columbia University in New York City and staffed by internationally renowned experts in Persian Gulf states

Membership in the listserv confers no special distinction and Javedanfar typically exaggerates his bona fides. I know this because I too was once a member, but left precisely because some poseurs like Javedanfar, with little or no academic qualifications in the field, espoused especially robust pro-Israel views which were never rebutted by other members. There is a separate academic program associated with Gulf 2000 which hosts conferences and papers, but I’ve found no evidence that Javedanfar participated at that level.With such lean academic credentials, Javedanfar has done an excellent job parlaying them into TV and print media gigs for such outlets as BBC, Sky News, the CBC, RAI Italia, ABC Australia, Voice of America, Al Jazeera, Voice of American, the Boston Globe andHa’aretz.

Meir Javedanfar speaking at Iran conference hosted by The Israel Project

On his website, he boasts of his participation in a BBC Persian panel at the London School of Economics. The Israeli foreign ministry has engaged him to speak at various local Latin American universities. He spoke at a 2007 conference on Iran co-sponsored by The Israel Project on Iran in Latin America. He is also listed as a potential speaker in the group’s list of those able to provide the suitable pro-Israel political line to American Jews on a variety of topics.To give you a sense of TIP’s political orientation, Josh Block, formerly chief media enforcer for Aipac, is its new director. What’s shocking about the TIP event at which Javedanfar spoke, is that it was co-sponsored by the Hebrew University’s Truman Center, a well-respected academic institution. This is yet another example of how the ideologically driven pro-Israel advocates have co-opted the academic sphere; and how operatives like Javedanfar succeed in penetrating it as well.One speaker’s bureau lists his fee as between $5,000-6,000. If you add all-extense paid travel to exotic places around the world, this gets to be quite a cushy gig.

He also claims to have been consulted by the State Department and Pentagon and lists further accomplishments:

He has briefed government and intelligence officials from no less than 10 countries about Iranian politics, economy, security affairs and the nuclear program.Mr Javedanfar currently serves as a political advisor to the Spanish Embassy in Israel and also works as the in house Israeli affairs expert for BBC Persian.

But somewhat oddly, his own corporate consulting companies website lists no clients at all. This is, to say the least, unusual for someone claiming to be a distinguished international consultant. Though of course it could indicate an individual conducting his career by the seat of his pants.Javedanfar has a blog, Iran-Israel Observer, which catalogs his anti-regime views. He also publishes prolifically online at a variety of sites most of which have a distinct right-wing orientation. In that sense, he’s a bit like Daniel Pipes, who earned a PhD at a prestigious academic institution, but has eschewed academia for agitprop and pamphleteering. But unlike Pipes, Javedanfar can be taken into respectable company. He wears a suit at the dinner table and espouses views that are acceptable because they are not bellicose or outrageous.At the pro-Israel, neocon-funded Pajamas Media he published scores of articles between 2007-09. He is also a contributor to RealClearWorld, a conservative news aggregator akin to Huffington Post. He blogs at Times of Israel, a newish right-wing English language news site. The financing for the venture comes from a right-wing U.S. Jewish hedge fund manager. The blog editor avoids any responsibility for the accuracy or editorial content of posts published by pointing to the policy that offers little or no editorial oversight of the product at all. This of course is a boon to people like Javedanfar or David Abitbol (Jewlicious), who spews his venom there as well.

[ed notes;i love these kinds of pieces...click link for whole expose,just citing few paragraphs..btw since this piece deals with pro israhell reject,pundits and irans nuclear program,what happened to this recently zionist promoted scoundrel?  BREAKING NEWS! IRANIAN DEFECTOR PHOTOGRAPHER WHO REVEALS ''SUPPOSED''SECRET IRANIAN NUCLEAR SECRETS GETS ASYLUM IN U.S. AND HIS LAWYERS FAMILY IS ZIONIST W/ TIES TO TERRORIST GROUPS IRGUN,HAGANAH AND US STATE DEPT!!! Read With Caution: Ahmadinejad cameraman hands nuclear tapes to CIA http://thenakedfacts.blogspot.com/2012/10/iranwatch-iranian-defector-photographer.html