The Israel Lobby: Taking Over America, One Politician, One Newspaper,
And One Television Network At A Time...
thenation.com
By Robert Dreyfuss
The Nation
May 11, 2010
If you’d like to get an unvarnished look at the Israel lobby
in action, go no further than the May 10 edition of The New
Yorker, and read Connie Bruck’s painful portrait of Haim Saban,
the Israeli billionaire who is probably the single most important
person in The Israel Lobby in the entire United States.
“I’m a one-issue guy, and my issue is Israel,” says Saban.
My favorite juxtaposition in the article: at one point, Saban
says that he gave a U.S. official “my two cents” about U.S.
policy concerning Israel, whereas in fact Saban has given
countless millions of dollars to American politicians,
including $7 million all at once to the Democratic National
Committee.
And Saban, who wanted his own thinktank, got one: he created
the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, housed at the
Brookings Institution. (Saban forked over $13 million to
Brookings for the center, which Brookings gratefully named
after him.)
In the New Yorker piece, Saban comes across as a political
thug, a wheeler dealer and a tax cheat, a billionaire
net worth: $3.3 billion, according to Forbes) who throws his
money around for explicitly political and pro-Israel causes,
a tough-talking womanizer who once had thirty-nine girlfriends
all at once, a sleazy businessmen who has left a trail of
angry and bitter associates in his wake, and more. If you
don’t believe me, read the whole article.
Some key points:
Saban says in the article that he’s desperately in search of buying media outlets
that he can transform into overtly pro-Israel mouthpieces.
[SOTB: No "conspiracy theory" there - just right out in the open]
He’s tried to buy the New York Times, Time, and Newsweek, and
now that Newsweek is for sale, he might get his wish. He’s tried
repeatedly to purchase the Los Angeles Time. Reports Bruck:
“In targeting media properties, Saban frankly acknowledges his
political agenda. He has tried repeatedly to buy the Los Angeles
Times, because, he said, ‘I thought it was time that it turn
from a pro-Palestinian paper into a balanced paper.’ He went
on, ‘During the period of the second intifada, Jews were being
killed every day over there, and this paper was publishing
images of a Palestinian woman sitting with her dead child,
and, on the Israeli side, a destroyed house. I got sick of it.’”
Bruch describes how unhappy Saban was when Barack Obama refused
to echo Hillary Clinton’s call to “obliterate” Iran if Iran
attacked Israel. When Saban sought Obama out, the Obama
campaign stiff-armed him, to their everlasting credit, and
Saban has held a grudge against Obama ever since. As Bruck
reports:
“His [Saban's] voice grew louder. ‘I need to understand what
that means. So I had a list of questions like that. And
Chicago’—Obama campaign headquarters—‘could not organize
that meeting. I was ready and willing to be helpful, but
‘helpful’ is not to write a check for two thousand three
hundred dollars. It’s to raise millions, which I am fully
capable of doing. But Chicago wasn’t able to deliver the
meeting, so I couldn’t get on board.’
“Saban offered to fly his group of Hillary supporters to meet
with Obama anywhere in the country, but he was told that it
couldn’t be arranged. ‘Haim understands message—Obama didn’t
have time for him,’ a close adviser said. ‘After that, he met
with McCain. It went that far. But, ultimately, he felt he
could not abandon the Democratic Party, even though he did not
like its candidate.’
“He has not spoken with Obama since he became President, Saban
said, ‘because he has no need to speak to me—or, at least, he
thinks he has no need to.’ He has refused on two occasions to
co-chair fund-raising dinners for the President.
“Saban called Hillary’s defeat ‘my biggest loss—and not only mine.
I’ll leave it at that.’”
Bruck’s piece is brilliant and devastating:
"Just doing God's work."
“Despite being one of the richest men in the world,
Haim Saban, believing he is above the law, has spent
decades trying to avoid paying taxes on the many billions
of dollars in income."
Read more:
newyorker.com
====================
====================
SOTB |
