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Tracking militarists’ efforts to influence U.S. foreign policy

Eleana Benador


    • Benador Associates: Founder
    • Benador Public Relations: Founder
    • Middle East Forum: Former Publicist

Please note: IPS Right Web neither represents nor endorses any of the individuals or groups profiled on this site.

Eleana Benador is Peruvian-born public relations entrepreneur whose firm Benador Associates helped publicize the work of neoconservatives and hawkish policy wonks during the George W. Bush presidency.[1] Benador now directs Benador Public Relations, the successor to her Benador Associates.

A former publicist for Daniel Pipes’ Middle East Forum and associate of the hawkish U.S. Committee to Free Lebanon,[2] Benador once claimed credit for the rise of neoconservatism in the United States in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Her firm’s website used to boast, “European educated, and a polio survivor, Ms. Benador has been the mastermind behind Benador Associates, which became the centerpiece of the neoconservative movement in the United States and the West in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11.”[3]

During its heyday as a neocon publicist, Benador Associates clients included some of the more hardline proponents of the invasion of Iraq and an expansive “war on terror,” such as Rachel Ehrenfeld, Hillel Fradkin, Charles Krauthammer, Richard Pipes, Dennis Prager, James Woolsey, and Meyrav Wurmser.

In a 2006 expose about Benador, the New York-based magazine Bidoun reported: "Founded, with what Mrs. Benador calls 'serendipity,' on September 10, 2001, Benador Associates has ridden the rising demand for such strident voices. If you read something that advocates regime change in the New York Post, or if you see a 'political adviser' on Fox News suggesting that Israel hasn't gone far enough in its attacks on Hizbullah, there's a good possibility that the appearance has been engineered by Mrs. Benador. She arranges speaking events for her clients, places articles in newspapers for them, and helps them address problems with their public image. Which is good for them, as Mrs. Benador's fifty-plus clients are hardly a lovable bunch. Benador Associates' first member was the late A.M. Rosenthal, an executive editor at the New York Times, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, who, in the wake of the attacks on September 11, called for the bombing of the capital cities of Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Sudan."[4]

According to Jim Lobe of the Inter Press Service: "When historians look back on the United States war in Iraq, they will almost certainly be struck by how a small group of mainly neoconservative analysts and activists outside the administration were able to shape the U.S. media debate in ways that made the drive to war so much easier than it might have been. ... But historians would be negligent if they ignored the day-to-day work of one person who, as much as anyone outside the administration, made their media ubiquity possible. Meet Eleana Benador, the Peruvian-born publicist for Perle, Woolsey, Michael Ledeen, Frank Gaffney, and a dozen other prominent neoconservatives whose hawkish opinions proved very hard to avoid for anyone who watched news talk shows or read the op-ed pages of major newspapers over the past 20 months."[5]

By early 2006, Benador began expanding the range of her public relations work to include individuals not involved in national security issues. According to a January 2006 press release, Benador Associates intended to diversify “into other fields of activities, enlarging the scope of its initial and successful areas in the world of politics, Middle East, national security, foreign policy, terrorism, relations with Islam and the Muslim world.”[6]

In late 2007, Benador announced the creation of an new firm, Benador Public Relations (BPR), whose “areas of expertise—with absolute exclusion of politics—will include: international finance, with investment banking and infrastructure projects as the main chapters in that field; international real estate; science and culture.” According to a BPR statement, "Ms. Benador announced that in view of the uncertain political situation in America, she is to devote her undivided attention to her new public relations outfit.”[7] Despite the firm’s expressed desire to distance itself from politics, shortly after its launch it posted on its website a picture gallery featuring photos of Benador with figures like Perle, Gaffney, and Ledeen.

According to her biography on the BPR website, “Ms Benador has been a keynote speaker at leading international events and has been interviewed for publications such as Asia Times, Die Welt, the Gulf News, Bidoun, Lifestyles, among others. Ms Benador has developed an international media relations network that expands from Australia, Kazakhstan, Singapore, Japan, the Middle East and Europe, in a variety of fields. Her contact database includes presidents, prime ministers, and decision makers from around the world. She has provided public relations services, among others, to the Arab Broadcasting Forum, the Young Arab Leaders, the Arab Strategy Forum, the Coptic Association, and has been advisor to a variety of politicians and business leaders worldwide.”[8]

Please note: IPS Right Web neither represents nor endorses any of the individuals or groups profiled on this site.

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    Affiliations

    • Middle East Forum: Former Publicist
    • Children of Peace: Goodwill Ambassador
    • U.S. Committee to Free Lebanon: Golden Circle Supporter

     

    Business

    • Benador Associates: Founder/CEO
    • Benador Public Relations: Founder

     

    Education

    • Sorbonne: Studied Interpreting and Translation
    • Universite Catholique de Lille: Studied Interpreting and Translation
    • Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (Peru): Studied Psychology
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The Right Web Mission

Right Web tracks militarists’ efforts to influence U.S. foreign policy.

Sources

[1]Benador Associates, http://www.benadorassociates.com/.

[2]In May 2000, the Middle East Forum published “Ending Syria’s Occupation of Lebanon: The U.S. Role,” by Daniel Pipes and Ziad Abdelnour. Benador served as the media contact person for the publication. She was also listed at one time as a “Golden Circle” supporter of Abdelnour’s U.S. Committee to Free Lebanon—a list that also included several of Benador’s clients.

[3]Benador Public Relations, "Announcing the Creation of Benador Public Relations,”November 29, 2007, http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/announcing-the-creation-of-benador-public-relations-59898872.html.

[4]George Pendle, "Eliana Benador," Bidoun, Fall 2006, http://www.bidoun.org/magazine/08-interviews/eliana-benador-with-george-pendle/.

[5]Jim Lobe, "The Andean Condor among the Hawks," Asia Times, August 15, 2003, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/EH15Aa01.html.

[6]PR Newswire, “New York Based Benador Associates Public Relations Firm Diversifies,” January 3, 2006.

[7]Benador Public Relations, "Announcing the Creation of Benador Public Relations,”November 29, 2007, http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/announcing-the-creation-of-benador-public-relations-59898872.html.

[8]Benador Public Relations, “Eliana Benador,” http://www.benadorpr.com/bio.html.

Latest Feature Articles
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Tehran's threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, coupled with mounting threats from hawks in Israel and the United States, has brought the possibility of war sharply into view. But a number of influential members of the U.S. foreign policy establishment—including several prominent liberal interventionists who supported the invasion of Iraq—are warning against further escalation.

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With key members of the "Israel Lobby" acknowledging the importance of providing a broader space to Israel’s critics, the indelibly beltway Politico recognizing the influence of such critics in a full-length feature, and core Democratic organizations showing an increasing sensitivity to inappropriate uses of the anti-Semite charge, is the United States finally willing to undertake a real debate on what are the best U.S. interests in the Middle East?

The China Divide and the Future of the GOP

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The issue of whither U.S. relations with China is an important test case for observing the divide between the free market and neoconservative wings of the Republican Party. Thus far, the GOP presidential candidates have largely failed to articulate a vision of China that comes anywhere close to reflecting the complexity of U.S.-Chinese relations. Among the leading candidates, Mitt Romney has arguably been the most aggressive in his discussion of China policy. Yet, his embrace of a hawkish line towards Beijing would appear to indicate that President Obama’s would-be challengers have not yet found an alternative vocabulary for talking and thinking about one of the critical foreign policy issues of the 2012 election. It seems clear that even though neoconservatives lack grassroots support, they offer what is effectively the only option for an “establishment” GOP candidate, a fact that could have lasting impact both on the viability of any Republican Party foreign policy platform as well as future U.S. decision-making vis-à-vis other hotspots like Iran, Israel, and North Korea.

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