Tom Edsall had an OK piece on Huffpo about Sheldon Adelson, the casino mogul and One-Jerusalem guy and funder of the rightwing Freedom's Watch, in which he pushed the demand on Freedom's Watch to disclose the extent of Adelson's contributions. I say the piece was just OK because any piece that fails to describe Adelson's religious agenda directly–greater Israel– is not all that helpful. Imagine the Christian right getting this sort of pass when it comes to abortion rights or stem-cell research. You can't. And the poverty of the journalism here is that: Adelson's largesse may well have insured the hiring by Bush of Douglas Feith in 2000, to the immense detriment of children and other living things, and may well have played a role in McCain's hiring of neocon/Georgia boy Randy Scheunemann as his top foreign policy adviser. The press is indifferent.
Adelson also funded a lot of Israel's 60th birthday celebration in May. That's a little pathetic, isn't it? A friend who's been in Israel recently says Adelson's largesse has contributed to demoralization among the people about the future of Israel. A lot of folks leaving, doing reverse aliyah to the U.S. And an American casino mogul having to pay for the birthday bash. Here is Dan Levy saying that Adelson intends to buy Israel's next P.M. (Netanyahu) and quoting Nahum Barnea of Yediot Ahranot on the theme:
from Las Vegas who bought my country’s birthday with three million
dollars. I thought with sorrow: Is the country worth so very little?
While Haaretz reflects the humiliation in this anecdote:
himself a 60th birthday party at his home in north Tel Aviv. President
Shimon Peres was invited and was asked to say a few words to the
birthday boy. Peres started with Beilin but very quickly moved to
himself.
Peres talked about projects he was working on. The guests soon
understood that he was referring to the conference he sponsored in
conjunction with Independence Day last month, and the criticism that
was leveled at the fact that it was paid for almost wholly by a group
of moguls, headed by Sheldon Adelson. In a bitter tone, Peres told the
dozens of party guests: "I have reached the conclusion not to ask for
donations from tycoons anymore, but only from the poor. From now on,
when I want to launch initiatives and projects, I will seek out only
the poor, because this 'Yachimovichit' is sitting in the Knesset and
saying it is wrong to take money from the rich. What nonsense."
