Adelson
Politico is saying that Sheldon Adelson, the ultra-Zionist casino owner reported by Forbes to be the third-richest person in the U.S., may have committed $20 million to pro-Gingrich groups outside the official campaign. This ties in with the great reporting on Republican competition for Jewish donors by Josh Nathan-Kazis and Nathan Guttman at the Forward; they also said that Gingrich's big Jewish backer is Sheldon Adelson, and the two have a mutual friend in Netanyahu.
This piece underlines what I've reported, and repeated again and again, about Adelson: that at the same time that he gave the Republican National State Elections Committee $100,000 in 2000 (after $200,000 in the two years before that), president-elect George Bush was giving neocon Douglas Feith a job, and Feith brought the One-Jerusalem/freeze-the-peace-process agenda into the Bush administration. Along with Iraq-war-architect David Wurmser, who comes up again here, in Gingrich's wake. Notice all the neocons floating around the Romney and Gingrich campaigns in the Forward report:
In the battle for the Republican pro-Israel vote, Newt Gingrich lacks Mitt Romney’s broad base of prominent Jewish donors. But he has something potentially more powerful: the support of one of Benjamin Netanyahu’s most significant American backers, and a relationship with the Israeli prime minister himself that stretches back decades.
Billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, one of the wealthiest men in the world and a major donor to Jewish and conservative causes, is widely known as a Netanyahu stalwart. Less well known are his equally close ties to Gingrich, to whom he has been a major giver in recent years...
(h/t Voskamp via Sullivan)
The number of neoconservatives waiting just off stage in the camps of the Republican candidates, eager to find any excuse for the US to go to war with Iran, is ominous and worrisome. Obama’s re-election is quite uncertain. We need to be able to use the term “Israel-firster” freely on the Chris Matthews or Ed Shows.
Bizarre statement in Ha’aretz
link to haaretz.com
“We believe in common with most Israelis that Israeli nationality is an inclusive concept which can accommodate equally those of other faiths and ethnic origins.”
Zionism “can accommodate those of other ethnic origins”. Including the local people. I guess that is colonialism in a nutshell.
FFS.
But of course it can’t even do that.
I do not understand what is wrong about the sentence, ESPECIALLY given the context.
True, many Israelis believe that while Israeli nationality can accomodate a variety of “other faiths”, it should not. Other believe that it should. Probably relatively few believe that it cannot.
The sentence is a quotation from a document that critically describes actual (rather than potential) accommodation of the minorities in Israel and recommends improvement. In that context the sentence slyly rebuts criticisms that recommended reforms would undermine the national character of the Jewish State.
In actuality, I am not sure if the concept of “Israeli nationality” exists. Recently an intelectual requested that in the population registry he would be reclassified from “Jew” to “Israeli”, and he won a lawsuit to achieve that goal. So there are several individuals who are “Israeli”, rather than “Israeli Jews”, “Israeli Beduins” etc. So the sentence is of the character “surely you want to eat your vegetables and grow strong and healthy like other children”. Nothing sure about that, but I would not characterize such motherly statement as a lie.
seafoid, i agree. it was that sentence that made me suspicious of the project here:
link to mondoweiss.net
It’s nuts. Half of the people in Erez Israel are not Jewish. The political system serves half of the people ruled by the system. That is called racism.
>> “We do not believe that recognition of Israel as a Jewish State should detract in any way from the vision of equality for all its citizens enshrined in its founding documents,” the report says.
There is no vision of equality in a religion-supremacist “Jewish state”.
>> “It is in the interests of all Israelis to demonstrate that Israel is not only Jewish and democratic, but tolerant and inclusive, and that these are patriotic values.
How exactly is Jewishness a “patriotic value” to non-Jews?
I don’t trust him, but Gordon Duff of Veterans Today once wrote something on Gingrich being ‘invented’ that made a whole lot of sense. That Gingrich was a ‘creation’ of the lobby from the very beginning. Basically they saw in this man somebody who could do their dirty work with a straight face and be ‘charming’ about it to gullible masses. Ron Paul’s political ads kinda exposed part of this. His constant flip-flopping on issues and all the third party conflict-of-interest bribery.
Adelson is one of the PTB. He has all the symptoms. Philanthropy to save face superficially that funds propaganda and can be used to throw his weight around if need be (the way ‘donors’ pressure universities to silence criticism of Israel). He is invested in the media, his Israeli newspaper has the highest readership in Israel. He is sue crazy, he sues everybody. And when people sue him he accuses them of lying. Always. And smears them. His lawyers are well-paid and make him nearly invincible. He apologizes a lot and his apologies lack empathy meaning he is likely a psychopath. And this is not the first time he has donated something to Gingrich.
$20 million is quite a bit of cash. In the back of my mind, I kept thinking about that article written by Duff. I was thinking if this man was really a Likudite brought up by the lobby, why was he in the background in the initial straw polls and debates? Maybe they were waiting for the opportune moment to bring him to the spotlight, assuming there way any truth to the ‘creation’ thing to begin with. Now he’s the front runner. That’s why I think Duff was telling the truth (I’ll try and dig up the article). Weird that the “Jewish Vote” abandoned Obummer to support Romney and now are supporting Gingrich. And that folks, is why Ron Paul is going to come out ahead. At least IMO. Because Gingrich is truly unelectable.
Not the article I was thinking of, this one is new and from the same place. It’s similar:
link to veteranstoday.com
The author is a Palestinian American. It’s a response to the invented people thing and doesn’t say he was a product of the lobby but it’s kinda along the same lines. I can’t find the one I was thinking of. Now that I remember it, I think it was implicating that Rupert Murdoch had something to do with bribing Newt from the outset too. Who knows…
Gingrich needs to get destroyed at the polls for letting people like the racist traitor Adelson bribe him.
FYI
“GIULIANI: I jumped up out of my chair and cheered for Newt when he said what he said about Palestine. Finally. Thank God. Someone is saying the right things about Palestine. Somebody has to question why are we creating a Palestinian state that’s going to be another terrorist state. Put Israel aside for a minute. Is it in the interest of the United States of America to create another state where they’re going to be training people to come over here and blow us up? Of course it isn’t.”
link to thinkprogress.org
RE: “Politico is saying that Sheldon Adelson, the ultra-Zionist casino owner reported by Forbes to be the third-richest person in the U.S., may have committed $20 million to pro-Gingrich groups” ~ Weiss
MY COMMENT: Wow, Gingrich’s recent “play” for contributions [calling the Palestinians an "invented people"] seems to have resulted in a mighty quick, mammoth payoff (see below)!
SEE: Gingrich comments on Palestinians a “play” for “Jewish” money, former strategist says, by Ali Abunimah, 12/13/11
SOURCE – link to networkedblogs.com
RE: “Gingrich’s recent ‘play’ for contributions [calling the Palestinians an 'invented people'] – me, above
SEE: Mr. Gingrich, Grab a Pen: It’s Time for Your History Lesson, by Ashraf Ezzat, Dissident Voice, 12/16/11
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to dissidentvoice.org
I read Israel Finkelstein and some other authors, and it is not true that archaeologist KNOW that there was no “sojourn in Egypt”. Semitic tribes had presence in Egypt (and Sinai, of course) most of the time, and some groups were entering and leaving Egypt on regular basis.
What Finkelstein has proven is that there was no bloody conquest of Joshua because at the most plausible time for that conquest there were very, very few people living in settled villages of Kana’an, especially away from the coastal plane. It was the time of a demographic implosion, a deep climate induced crisis that affected entire eastern Mediterranean. As the climate improved again, raising crops again became attractive and several new agriculturalist nations were formed on both sides of the Jordan. New nations were a fusion of native farmers and pastoralists, but elite groups could well be more cosmopolitan in outlook.
At the very least, the elite group could descend from wanderers who could impress local yokes with the tales of their exploits in the Egypt land where their ancestor Joseph was a Grand Vizier…
RE: “Gingrich’s recent ‘play’ for contributions [calling the Palestinians an 'invented people'] – me, above
SEE: Gingrich, Israel and the Palestinians, by Uri Avnery, Counterpunch, 12/16/11
ENTIRE COMMENTARY – link to counterpunch.org
if this were fiction adelson would be the ultimate archenemy. something around 200 million dollars to “jewish” causes per year. and if that in itself is not such a bad thing, much is directly benefiting israel’s military machine. one organization of which he is a founder/ principle donor is the iaf center, a tactical training and research facility dedicated to most aspects of military aviation including drone warfare. so when some hapless palestinian is collateral damage to a lockheed martin hellfire strike his surviving family, if there are any, can thank sheldon’s generosity (they can thank lockeed martin also for proudly siting on the iaf centers donor wall of honor). all while his wife’s substance abuse clinics treat the equally hapless crack/ heroin addicts of vegas. down and out victims perhaps of adelson’s very own gaming industry.
and of course there is his funding of freedom watch. how many unknowing victims can be attributed to those iraq war cheerleaders? is it safe to say that there is perhaps no greater traitor to the american people than this, unfortunately most successful, self made man? every role of the dice/every spin of the wheel comes up blackjack! his fortune is purported to increase by a cool 1 million dollars per hour. 20 million to newt is just a poor days wage. what a bright future it is. so when he’s done bleeding the united states dry he can move his gambling show on to china’s 1.3 billion potential clients. no wait, he’s already there. do you feel lucky, china?
From Talk to Action:
“Will the “Casino King” Finance “Saint” Gingrich’s Campaign?”
Bill Berkowitz
link to talk2action.org
Do we want to have, as a president, a man who sticks out his hand and says:
” ok , grease my palm, and I will say and do whatever you want me to”.??
link to youtube.com
I suspect Adelson had a hand in Mc Cain’s rise during the last election after he was down and practically out, but it didn’t do him any good then. Buying a US president doesn’t always work.
If all the money used for the election (funding, advertising, parties, backstabbing etc..) is put towards something more useful, say like helping the poor in the US, who knows, maybe no American kids will go to bed hungry for a change, and the election might actually be a little more representative of the people.