Zionism, the CIA, New Labour and the Iraq War

[Guest David Guyatt]

The left used to investigate these things (big oil) back in the Seventies but seemed to have dropped such activities. Much of it has now become the playground of the right, which is far from satisfactory.

The point I was trying to make in raising the subject is the possibility that the Israel lobby, who you believe is responsible for Labour's funding, might, in turn, eclipse even deeper matters.

I am partly thinking about some of the anti-semite shenanigans of Jack Philby, father of the traitorous MI6 spy Kim Philby, and Jack's deep involvement in developing the Arab oil industry. I am also partly thinking about the rationale of Israel's founding at a time when the oil business was beginning to truly explode and how having a ready-made religious conflict festering in the middle-east could only have benefited the oil industry - the old divide and conquer strategy.

[John Simkin]

According to a report in today's Guardian, Labour Party officials helped lawyers acting for David Abrahams to draw up complex convenants that allowed the millionaire businessman to pay up to £650,000 indirectly to the party. This arrangement was drawn up in 2003 by John McCarthy, the Newcastle solicitor acting for Abrahams. At the time, the Labour Party officials concerned sought and got approval from senior figures in the party. The Guardian did not name these senior figures but the article did include a denial from Lord Triesman, who was general secretary at the time. Lord Levy, Tony Blair, Jon Mendelsohn, Gordon Brown and Peter Watt all refused to answer questions about this arrangement because of the ongoing police investigation.

[Paul Rigby]

I would need to check but I think Balfour (or those surrounding him) were key members of the Rhodes-Milner "Group". Certainly Lord Rothchilds was.

Founder member – see Quigley’s Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (NY: The Macmillan Company, 1966), p.133. Quigley’s notably reticent on the subject of oil.

Much neglected, incidentally, is the fact that Milner and Balfour worked arm-in-arm to foment civil war in Ireland in the years preceding the WWI:

“Milner, who recently had raised considerable money to provide arms for the Ulster Volunteer Force, told Bonar Law that any attempt to use troops against Ulster, or the threat of it, would bring the government down,”

Catherine B. Shannon. Arthur J. Balfour and Ireland, 1874-1922 (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1988), p.187.

I note in passing that of all the post-WWII groups in the Anglosphere, it is the Neo-Cons who have most faithfully embraced the maniacal senses of superiority and imperial destiny we find in the Round-Tablers. God help America: The Round Tablers cost Britain dear.

[John Simkin]

This appeared in The Times this morning.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/poli...icle3013590.ece

The property developer at the centre of Labour’s “donorgate” crisis said last night that he had given money secretly to avoid accusations of being part of a Jewish conspiracy. David Abrahams also warned the Government he will come out fighting if ministers start “hammering” him over the row.

In an interview with the Jewish Chronicle, Mr Abrahams said all his money had been “earned legitimately”, and none of it had come from Israel, as had been alleged. Mr Abrahams said he was now being linked with Lord Levy, Tony Blair’s chief fundraiser who was investigated in the “cash for honours” inquiry, and Jon Mendelsohn, Labour’s new chief fundraiser. “Some of the things written about me have been terrible. Now they are saying there was a Jewish conspiracy, with Lord Levy, Jon Mendelsohn and me, and that is ridiculous.” h “The real reason I wanted to remain anonymous was that I didn’t want Jewish money and the Labour Party being put together because this is what I feared would happen. People would say there’s a Jewish conspiracy.”

He of course does not mention that Lord Triesman, who was General Secretary of the Labour Party when the arrangement was set-up in 2003, is also Jewish. Of course he was just plain David Triesman at the time. He is another who no doubt bought his peerage.

[John Simkin]

The article that appeared in today's Jewish Chronicle:

http://www.thejc.com/home.aspx?ParentId=m1...0&ATypeId=1

By Leon Symons and the JC Reporting Team

Labour donor David Abrahams has made clear to the JC where he thinks the blame lies for the events that put him at the centre of a major political scandal alongside Jon Mendelsohn, a former colleague at Labour Friends of Israel and now Gordon Brown’s fundraiser.

From his £1 million apartment overlooking London’s Regents Park, he lashed out at those he claimed had blackened his name simply for giving money to a cause close to his heart.

He also claimed that he had made his donations secretly so as to avoid accusations of his being part of a “Jewish conspiracy”.

Of the row surrounding 19 anonymous donations made through third parties, Mr Abrahams told the JC: “A lot of this is character assassination, conjecture and speculation. The Daily Telegraph was saying that the money was not mine and that it came from Israel. That was patently untrue. My accountant has recently done my books and it was all there. The money was earned legitimately through hard work and it was totally wrong to say that it came from Israel.

“Some of the things written about me have been terrible. Now they are saying there was a Jewish conspiracy, with Lord Levy, Jon Mendelsohn and me, and that is ridiculous.

“The real reason I wanted to remain anonymous was that I didn’t want Jewish money and the Labour Party being put together because this is what I feared would happen. People would say there’s a Jewish conspiracy. I didn’t come into Labour just to give them money. I give money to many good causes, to Jewish charities, not just to Labour.”

As for Jon Mendelsohn, the Prime Minister’s chief fundraiser, the Newcastle-born property developer said: “The letter that Jon Mendelsohn sent [asking for a meeting with Mr Abrahams] was totally confidential. Mendelsohn was a fool and politically naïve to slag me off because he didn’t want me in Labour Friends of Israel. I was the treasurer and I had been a member for some years. When he became chairman, he thought he might have opposition.

“He tried to alienate me from my own organisation that I had helped to build up. He slagged me off over it and that’s why I released the letter. If the government starts hammering me, then it might take one or two dirty turns there as well.”

Mr Abrahams and Mr Mendelsohn were both involved with LFI, Mr Mendelsohn as chairman and Mr Abrahams as a donor. Sources in the community have suggested that the pair did not get on because Mr Mendelsohn wanted to imbue LFI with a more modern approach to its lobbying role, whereas Mr Abrahams preferred more traditional methods.

Mr Abrahams had been a regular visitor to LFI stands at Labour events and his family were said to have been long-standing supporters.

The furore surrounding both men began when the Mail on Sunday revealed that Mr Abrahams had used third parties to conceal donations amounting to more than £600,000.

Mr Mendelsohn became embroiled after he admitted he had known of the arrangement, which broke electoral law, for at least two months. The JC has seen the letter to Mr Abrahams from Mr Mendelsohn praising him as “one of the party’s strongest supporters”.

Mr Abrahams also had long-standing connections to Trade Union Friends of Israel and had been a supporter of, though not a donor to, the boycott-fighting Academic Friends of Israel.

One Jewish Labour activist said this week of Mr Abrahams: “What really concerns people is that he hasn’t lain low and is playing this peculiar media game. An apology from him for the adverse publicity the party has suffered would be welcome.”

But Lady Cocks, a past director of LFI, said: “I am always chasing people for money for charity, but it never occurred to me to ask David, because one would never have imagined he was rich, or seeking any interest for himself.”

Mr Abrahams has not shied away from publicity. On Tuesday night, he topped the guest list at the Anglo-Israel Association’s fundraising dinner at the Savoy, arriving with a friend he introduced as Catherine Zalanowska.

They spent the evening at Table Number 1, flanked by a clearly anxious Anglo-Israel official and the Israeli ambassador’s Special Branch officer.

Photographers who spent last Shabbat outside St John’s Wood Synagogue were told by a warden to return next September — Rosh Hashana.

On Wednesday, Mr Abrahams’s flat in Imperial Court in St John’s Wood, overlooking London Zoo, was silent. Neighbours appeared surprised to learn that he lived there, and security guards said they had not been seen him for weeks.

Mr Abrahams last week hired Martin Minns as his spokesman. Mr Minns has a long history in politics, which began with the Conservative Party, as an agent then assistant campaign director at Central Office. He left in 1992 to set up a PR company and, during the 1997 election, defected to the Eurosceptic

Democracy Movement. In a stunt designed to warn of what he perceived as the horrors of the euro, he arranged in 1999 for five minimally dressed women to have a telephone number written on their buttocks. The number was for a phone line warning of the euro.

He has worked as an adviser on numerous campaigns, most famously for the Paddington Survivors Group.

This led to a huge political furore when the special adviser to then transport secretary, Stephen Byers, tried to research Mr Minns’s background, suggesting there may have been political motivations behind the actions of the group.

In the Commons on Wednesday, MP Andrew Dismore was somewhat taken aback at the response to a question he put to Gordon Brown during Prime Minister’s Questions.

Mr Dismore wanted the Prime Minister to acknowledge the contribution made by the British Jewish community, to mark Chanucah.

But as he began his question, he said: “Some Tories shouted ‘Lord Levy’ and ‘David Abrahams’ when I said the word Jewish. There were a few of them heckling. It didn’t get out of hand, it was brief and the Speaker didn’t have to intervene.

“When I carried on speaking they stopped.

“This just feeds the problems we have in relations, in the way that this whole thing has been turned into an antisemitic attack.

“It’s neither here nor there that they [Lord Levy and Mr Abrahams] are Jewish, it’s irrelevant. The Prime Minister rose above it.”

[John Simkin]

As a result of the police investigation into the David Abrahams case, this issue has gone quiet in the British media. However, I think it is worth taking a close look at the organization, “Labour Friends of Israel” at the heart of this affair. This organization has provided large sums of money to the Labour Party over the last ten years. This money usually goes to constituencies that have or intend to have Jewish MPs. One of the flaws in the system is that organizations like “Labour Friends of Israel” do not have reveal who their financial backers are. For example, there is nothing to stop foreign governments or intelligence agencies from donating large sums of money to politicians via these organizations.

There is also an organization called “Conservative Friends of Israel”. They also provide a lot of money to constituencies willing to promote the policies of Israel. It was revealed yesterday that one of the main financial backers of this organization is a Finnish billionaire named Polu Zabludowicz. You may well ask why a rich man from Finland is interested in political decisions made in the UK. The answer to this question could have something to do with how Zabludowicz got his money. It comes from a company called Soltam, that was started by Polu’s father, Sholomo Zabludowicz after the war. Soltam was an Israeli arms company. Over the last few years it has reinvented itself as a property company. This is what the criminal community call money laundering.

[Paul Rigby]

There is also an organization called “Conservative Friends of Israel”. They also provide a lot of money to constituencies willing to promote the policies of Israel. It was revealed yesterday that one of the main financial backers of this organization is a Finnish billionaire named Polu Zabludowicz. You may well ask why a rich man from Finland is interested in political decisions made in the UK. The answer to this question could have something to do with how Zabludowicz got his money. It comes from a company called Soltam, that was started by Polu’s father, Sholomo Zabludowicz after the war. Soltam was an Israeli arms company. Over the last few years it has reinvented itself as a property company. This is what the criminal community call money laundering.

Sounds like a very spooky outfit - any firm evidence on that score?

[Mark Stapleton]

Yes, it looks like Shlomo Zabludowicz and his son(s) were Israeli weapons manufacturers.

And author Peter Oevig Knudsen writes that Danish businessman Johan Schroeder became part of an illegal arms trading deal which involved Mossad infiltration, via Shlomo, of Danish Marxist terrorist groups.

Shroeder was convicted but his sentence was suspended. The trial was public but the grounds for conviction were officially supressed:

http://blog.balder.org/?p=313

Edited January 12, 2008 by Mark Stapleton

[Paul Rigby]

...Danish Marxist terrorist groups.

Much as I admire the oxymoron, it's the plural bit I love. More make-work schemes for Europe's gladiaters and their international friends.

Shroeder was convicted but his sentence was suspended. The trial was public but the grounds for conviction were officially supressed:

http://blog.balder.org/?p=313

Thanks for the info.

[John Simkin]

Maggie Hansen has posted a very good article on the role that David Aaronovitch has played as Tony Blair's foreign policy advisor:

http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2008-01/12edwards.cfm

Like many of the Neo-Cons, Aaronovitch is a former Jewish Marxist who became converted into a passionate Zionist. I wonder how much it cost?

[John Simkin]

The latest development in the corruption of New Labour concerns Peter Hain, Secretary of State for Works and Pensions. This also has a strong Zionist connection.

I have a lot in common with Hain. We both have a M.Phil. from the University of Sussex (we were there at the same time). We have both been active in the Anti-Apartheid Movement, Anti-Nazi League, and various left-wing pressure groups within the Labour Party. Then, in 1995 he joined the New Labour Project. Since 1997 he has held various posts in the Blair government.

When Blair was forced to resign as prime minister in 2007 Hain decided to stand in the election for deputy prime minister. Hain attempted to present himself as the left-wing candidate. He made a speech attacking the George Bush administration

As being: "the most right-wing American administration, if not ever, then in living memory". He also raised issues concerning the redistribution of wealth in the UK. However, his record in power had not been good and had gone along with the invasion of Iraq and the other right-wing policies of the Blair government.

The left-wing of the Labour Party was not impressed and instead supported Harriet Harman, who had more credibility because she had been sacked by Blair as Secretary of State for Social Security in 1998.

Harman won the Deputy Leadership election, with Hain coming in a poor fifth. In November 2007, it emerged that property developer David Abrahams' secretary Janet Kidd had given a donation of £5,000 donor to Harman's successful deputy leadership bid. The funding of Harman’s campaign, much of it having being paid into her account, after the election had taken place, is now being investigated by the police.

Last week the Guardian reported that Hain had not reported £100,000 in contributions for his deputy leader campaign. It later emerged that a large part of these funds were channeled through a non-operating think tank the Progressive Policies Forum. On Saturday (12th January) Peter Hain released a statement saying that being busy with his government jobs it was simply forgotten about the money. Like in the case of Harman, most of this money was paid after the election had taken place.

This raises several issues. For example, why does it cost so much money to run a campaign to become deputy leader of the Labour Party? Also, why would individuals give large sums of money to a candidate for a job that on the surface seems to have little power. Why would the Progressive Policies Forum (PPF) want to give money to Hain. The PPF set up by Labour party adviser John Underwood in December 2006. Gregory McEwen, a solicitor, is the PPF's single director and only shareholder. Although it is sometimes characterized as a "think tank", it has no employees, has not published any work and has no website.

All told it channelled funds of over £50,000 to Peter Hain's campaign for the May 2007 Labour Party's deputy leadership campaign. This money came via three businessmen, Willie Nagel, Isaac Kaye and Michael Cuddy. Clearly, they did this as they did not want to be identified as Hain’s backers. Why?

Nagel is a former diamond broker from South Africa, whereas Kaye is the former chairman of Norton Healthcare, a pharmaceuticals company investigated by the police over accusations of price rigging of drugs sold to the NHS. Kaye, who like Nagel, originally came from South Africa, has also been active is technology, investment and healthcare in Israel. Nagel and Kaye are both major financial contributors to pro-Israeli pressure groups. Both men were also financial supporters of the Conservative Party until Tony Blair became leader of the Labour Party. Kaye provided money via Lord Levy for Blair’s campaign to become leader of the Labour Party.