Why Israelis Assassinated John and Robert Kennedy

[David Lifton]

Mr. Rago...I think you might possibly be taken more seriously if your research was more accurate.

The man's name was James JESUS Angleton...not James JESSE Angleton.

With whom are you confusing Angleton...DPD Chief JESSE Curry?

MY advice is to show us you can be trusted to get the SMALL details [like names] right, before asking us to trust you with the bigger stuff.

Mark Knight has zeroed in on a possible area of concern, and so I have created the beginnings of a “Study guide for the Perplexed”:

Study Guide For the Perplexed

Jesse James:

(9/5/1847 – 4/3/1882) American outlaw, gang leader, bank robber,

train robber; confederate guerilla during civil war

Jesse Curry

Dallas Police Chief at time of Kennedy assassination

James Jesus Angleton

: (12/9/1917 – 5/12/87)

Head of CIA Counter-Intelligence Staff

Close Friend of Allen Dulles

Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth; Jesus Christ, or simply Christ

The central figure of the Christian religion

Alec James Hidell

Alias used by Oswald in ordering rifle

Alec Baldwin

American actor who has appeared on film, stage and television

Married to actress Kim Bassinger

Has daughter who won’t speak to him.

Called her “pig” on audio tape released by TMZ

DMZ Demilitarized zone in Korea

James Baldwin

American novelist, playwright, poet, social critic

James Bond

British agent, with “license to kill”

“James Bondery” Expression used by Harold Weisberg to criticize the work of David Lifton, or anyone else who attempted to offer specifics about the assassination of President Kennedy

This list may be expanded as necessary, and may provide a useful guide to be consulted before making confusing

posts on the London Education Forum

[Len Colby]

Mr. Rago...I think you might possibly be taken more seriously if your research was more accurate.

The man's name was James JESUS Angleton...not James JESSE Angleton.

With whom are you confusing Angleton...DPD Chief JESSE Curry?

MY advice is to show us you can be trusted to get the SMALL details [like names] right, before asking us to trust you with the bigger stuff.

Mark Knight has zeroed in on a possible area of concern, and so I have created the beginnings of a “Study guide for the Perplexed”:

Study Guide For the Perplexed

Jesse James:

(9/5/1847 – 4/3/1882) American outlaw, gang leader, bank robber,

train robber; confederate guerilla during civil war

Jesse Curry

Dallas Police Chief at time of Kennedy assassination

James Jesus Angleton

: (12/9/1917 – 5/12/87)

Head of CIA Counter-Intelligence Staff

Close Friend of Allen Dulles

Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth; Jesus Christ, or simply Christ

The central figure of the Christian religion

Alec James Hidell

Alias used by Oswald in ordering rifle

Alec Baldwin

American actor who has appeared on film, stage and television

Married to actress Kim Bassinger

Has daughter who won’t speak to him.

Called her “pig” on audio tape released by TMZ

DMZ Demilitarized zone in Korea

James Baldwin

American novelist, playwright, poet, social critic

James Bond

British agent, with “license to kill”

“James Bondery” Expression used by Harold Weisberg to criticize the work of David Lifton, or anyone else who attempted to offer specifics about the assassination of President Kennedy

This list may be expanded as necessary, and may provide a useful guide to be consulted before making confusing

posts on the London Education Forum

LOL you should have included:

Timothy James "Tim" Curry (born 19 April 1946) is a British actor, singer, composer and voice actor, known for his work in a diverse range of theatre, film and television productions. Curry first became well known with his breakthrough role as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in the 1975 cult film The Rocky Horror Picture Show,

[Len Colby]

An eye opening time, the latter half of July, 1999. I don't believe Heymann's claim of being an actual agent of Mossad. I don't accept the official government claims, or Heymann's "notes" about JFK, Jr. and the events related to the disappearance of JFK, Jr.'s Piper Saratoga. I think Lisa pulled her punches in her related CTKA piece. I think this thread is as good a place as any for this curious collection and I hope more is not read into it.

[...]

Wow that clocked in at over 3200 words. Others and I have told in the past but many of your posts seem like a whole bunch of data in search of a point, what exactly was your point?

[Len Colby]

While it is not certain if Hoover was in Dallas that day, it is very likely that Yitzak Rabin, who soon became head of the IDF, was in Dallas just hours before the murder of John Kennedy according to this...

http://1078567.sites...e=&topic_page=2

If you'd been following this thread you'd have known this came up already. If you'd been following this thread you'd have known that based on your source he was at best (worst?) in Dallas the night before JFK arrived, and you wonder why you get the Rodney Dangerfield treatment.

[Allen Lowe]

of course we killed them both, just like we killed Jesus - and Angelton's name: James JESUS Angleton - coincidence? I think not.

[Mike Rago]

The Tree of Jesse...(click to enlarge)

http://en.wikipedia....i/Tree_of_Jesse

Edited September 11, 2012 by Mike Rago

[Dawn Meredith]

Blah, blah, blah.

I agree with Lifton, go sell your wares elsewhere.

Really why is anyone bothering to respond to this person. Whatever his real name is.

[Mike Rago]

Looking for this letter from President Johnson to Prime Minister of Israel Eshkol on January 2 1964.

Prime Minister Eshkol and John Kennedy spoke of Israels nuclear program in a separate letter in July 1963, 6 months prior to Johnson's letter.

http://educationforu...=15#entry255600

Edited September 11, 2012 by Mike Rago

[Mike Rago]

The connection to the Soviet Union and the existential threat to Israel...

http://books.google....epage&q&f=false

"The Israeli nuclear bomb was to defend Israel not only, or perhaps not even primarily, against the Arab states, but also, perhaps primarily, against the Soviet Union. The need for this had become evident when the Soviet Union issued an ultimatum to Britain, France and Israel on November 6, 1956, stating that the government of Israel was "criminally and irresponsibly playing with the fate of its own people...which puts in jeopardy the very existence of Israel as a State". Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai Bulganin warned Ben-Gurion in a separate communication that this was a threat of a Soviet missile strike against Israel. Ben-Gurion immediately sent Director General of the Ministry of Defense Shimon Peres and Foreign Minister Golda Meir back to Paris, where Peres requested French nuclear assistance in return for an Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai. The French agreed to provide the technology and the technicians needed. From that point the Israeli bomb project went down the path since followed by other second-and third-generation atomic powers: obtaining "peaceful" nuclear reactor technology from one of the four initial atomic powers, then modifying it for weapons production."

Edited September 11, 2012 by Mike Rago

[Mike Rago]

Heavy Water

http://books.google....epage&q&f=false

The American government made an effort to keep track of this process. For example, early in 1958 the U-2 photographed construction under way near Beer Sheba in the Negev Desert. President Eisenhower was personally briefed on this, but "did not say a word.". There were no follow-up orders from the White House or the CIA for additional photographs of the site. Rumors reached the American Embassy in Israel in May 1959 that the chief of the Israeli Ministry of Defense's Development Authority, Dan Tokovsky, had resigned, supposedly as a consequence of his opposition to Shimon Peres's determination to obtain nuclear weapons, but the rumors were not confirmed and no action followed. The next month the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was notified that Norway had agreed to sell Israel heavy water, but no effort was made to investigate this, nor was the matter pursued when the CIA found that the amount of heavy water in question was 20 tons.(It will be recalled that German interest in Norwegian heavy water had been one of the impulses behind the Second World War's Manhattan Project)

Edited September 14, 2012 by Mike Rago

[Pamela Brown]

Just a heads-up that anyone who wants to understand how Israel manipulates the US need only to keep an eye on the news between now and the election. Israel does not like Obama.

[Guest Tom Scully]

Pamela, don't be too concerned about Obama being victimized and his promising career, side railed. He is only a cog in the machine and the people who own the machine will decide, and their primary allegiance is to their own retention/accumulation of money and what it buys, not to any country or religion. If you had the money to impact high level national government policy positions in the country where you kept much of your wealth and the means to generate more of it, wouldn't you be paying to have that impact and to rig the system to give you the most say and the most protection of your interests and distribution of propaganda most beneficial to those interests?

A core problem is that Israel is a tiny rendition of the U.S. behemoth, two militarily hyper powerful, mutually highly dysfunctional extremist oligarchies unrivaled elsewhere except perhaps, by Russia. It is about U.S. politics, but it is bipartisan to a very troubling degree. It is about religious extremist influences, and as in almost everything else, it is always about the money (= power).

http://www.salon.com...nding_ovations/

Tuesday, May 24, 2011 By Justin Elliott

Netanyahu gets more standing ovations than Obama

An annotated guide to the 29 standing ovations during Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-line speech to Congress

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu got 29 standing ovations during his speech before a joint meeting of Congress today. That compares to just 25 for President Obama’s last State of the Union address, ABC points out.

Most members of Congress attended the speech, with a few notable exceptions (such as Sen. Rand Paul). So it’s a worthwhile exercise to take a quick look at what members were clapping about during the roughly 50-minute speech. Here’a a quick guide to the lines that drew standing O’s, with some explanation and context for just what Netanyahu was talking about:

1. I see a lot of new friends of Israel here as well. Democrats and Republicans alike!

There are increasing signs, even among hard-line pro-Israel types of both parties, that the Mideast conflict is becoming a partisan issue. Netanyahu wants to stress, at least publicly, the overwhelming bipartisan support in the U.S. for Israel and its policies.

2. Israel has no better friend than America and America has no better friend than Israel.

3. You got bin Laden! Good riddance!

4. You don’t need to send American troops to Israel, we defend ourselves.

The U.S. does, however, give (.pdf) $3 billion of military equipment and aid to Israel every year.

5. [shouting protester removed from the House chamber]

She was later identified as a young Jewish woman from California, Rae Abileah, who yelled, “Stop Israeli war crimes.”

6. You can’t have protests in the farcical parliaments of Tehran or Tripoli, this is real democracy!

Netanyahu used a similar line when his AIPAC speech was interrupted by Jewish anti-occupation protesters over the weekend. Left-wing Jews also interrupted a Netanyahu speech last year in New Orleans, so this seems like an increasingly common occurrence.

7. In a region where women are stoned, gays are hanged, Christians are persecuted, Israel stands out, it is different.

He’s not including the gay, female or Christian Palestinians living under oppressive Israeli military occupation or the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

8. Israel is not what is wrong about the Middle East. Israel is what is right about the Middle East.

9. Leaders [like those of Iran] who spew such venom should be banned from every respectable forum on the planet.

10. There are many who rush to condemn Israel for defending itself against Iran’s terror proxies. Not you. Not America!

11. The more Iran believes that all options are on the table, the less the chance of confrontation.

Since the campaign and throughout his presidency, this is the exact formulation President Obama has used about Iran and nuclear weapons — “all options are on the table.”

12. This is why I ask you to continue to send an unequivocal message: that America will never permit Iran to develop nuclear weapons.

That’s a stronger formulation than Obama has used. It’s also worth noting here that Netanyahu was claiming as early as 1995 that Iran was three to five years away from being able to build nuclear weapons.

13. When we say “never again,” we mean “never again.”

14. We must also find a way to forge a lasting peace with the Palestinians.

15. I recognize that in a genuine peace we’ll be required to give up parts of the ancestral homeland. And you have to understand this, in Judea and Samaria, the Jewish people are not foreign occupiers.

This point, which drew particularly raucous applause, is at odds with international law. “Judea and Samara” is a loaded term favored by the right-wing in Israel that basically refers to the West Bank, which has been ruled by the Israeli military since the 1967 war. The international community views the Israelis who live in the West Bank as settlers and the military that rules it as occupiers. And while Israeli citizenship is extended to the ever-growing population of Jewish settlers in the West Bank, the state has not officially annexed the West Bank besides East Jerusalem.

16. No distortion of history could deny the 4,000-year-old bond between the Jewish people and the Jewish land.

17. They [the Palestinians] should enjoy a national life of dignity as a free viable and independent people living in their own state.

18. Our conflict has never been about the establishment of a Palestinian state. It’s always been about the existence of a Jewish state. This is what this conflict is about.

19. And, worst of all, they [the Palestinians] continue to perpetuate the fantasy that Israel will one day be flooded by the descendants of Palestinian refugees. My friends, this must come to an end.

This is a reference to the Right of Return, the concept that Herman Cain fumbled over in an interview on Sunday. Some 700,000 Palestinians were displaced from their homes in 1948, the year of Israel’s creation, through a still-disputed combination of forcible expulsion by Jewish forces and flight in the face of conflict. They and their descendants now number in the millions and live in both the West Bank and neighboring Arab countries, where they typically have a lower status than the rest of the population. Israel opposes these refugees’ return to their old homes because it would threaten the Jewish ethnic majority in Israel.

20. It’s time for President Abbas to stand before his people and say, “I will accept a Jewish state.”

Here is what Abbas has said on the matter: “It is not my job to give a description of the state. Name yourself the Hebrew Socialist Republic — it is none of my business.” And: ”Our position is that we recognize Israel. We fully believe in the two-state solution — a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders and the state of Israel, living next to each other in peace and security. This is the best option for both people and we must not distance ourselves from the two-state solution.”

21. Israel will not return to the indefensible boundaries of 1967.

See Judea and Samaria item above.

22. The Palestinian refugee problem will be resolved outside the borders of Israel.

Again, this is about maintaining a Jewish ethnic majority in Israel.

23. Jerusalem must never again be divided. Jerusalem must remain the united capital of Israel.

Because the sharing of Jerusalem has always been a key Palestinian demand — and, indeed, because East Jerusalem, which was annexed by Israel in 1980, is still seen as occupied territory by the international community — this statement by Netanyahu is essentially a rejection of a two-state solution to the conflict.

24. Imagine there’s a siren going on now and we have less than 60 seconds to find shelter from an incoming rocket. Would you live that way? Do you think anyone could live that way? Well, we’re not going to live that way either.

25. It’s vital that Israel maintain a long-term military presence along the Jordan River.

He’s proposing an Israeli military presence within any future Palestinian state.

26. Peace cannot be imposed, it must be negotiated.

Translation: Any of you thinking about a more robust role for America or the United Nations in pressing for resolution of the conflict, don’t even think about it.

27. Israel will not negotiate with a Palestinian government backed by the Palestinian version of al-Qaida.

When asked by a New York Times reporter on Sept. 11, 2001, for his reaction to the terrorist attacks, Netanyahu replied that “it’s very good” for U.S.-Israel relations. Lines like this one are why. Though the comparison between al-Qaida, a stateless, decentralized international terrorist group, and Hamas, a nationalist movement based in Palestine that sometimes uses terrorism, is a stretch.

28. So I say to President Abbas, tear up your pact with Hamas. Sit down and negotiate. Make peace with the Jewish state. And if you do, I promise you this, Israel will not be the last country to welcome a Palestinian state as a new member of the United Nations, it will be the first to do so.

Expect to hear this formulation more and more when the Palestinians go to the U.N. in September to seek recognition of statehood, a move Israel fiercely opposes.

29. May God bless all of you. And may God forever bless the United States of America.

Haaretz columnist Nehemia Shtrasler summarizes where the speech leaves us — with no negotiations in sight:

Netanyahu is not willing to return to the 1967 borders (“with slight adjustments”), because in his opinion, they are not defensible. He is not willing to withdraw from the Jordan River, and he also wants the Palestinians to declare in advance that they will waive the right of return and recognize Israel as a Jewish state. That is why there is nothing to talk about with regard to resuming negotiations. There’s no chance of that. And Obama knows it too.

Here’s the video of the speech:.....

http://www.salon.com...anti_cap_smear/

Friday, Jan 27, 2012

The predictable aftermath of the anti-CAP smear The Center for American Progress censors its targeted writers on Israel, after they're branded as "anti-Semitic" By Glenn Greenwald

.....That’s why I generally avoid using the term “fascist” to describe contemporary politics, or avoid comparisons with Nazis, or avoid using the term “Israel-Firster” (in contrast to Time’s Joe Klein, who uses it frequently, I believe in all the years I’ve been writing about Israel and American neocons, I’ve used that term once, at least that I recall: to describe Democratic members of Congress who never criticize President Obama except when it comes to the demand that he be more loyal to the Israeli government).

But though the term may be inflammatory and of malignant origins, the concept it signifies is both wholly legitimate and quite important: namely, that there are some American political and media figures (both Jewish and evangelical Christians) for whom Israel is the primary, driving political issue, outweighing all others in importance. And it is that primary concern for Israel that shapes their political advocacy. As The Nation‘s Eric Alterman wrote yesterday, his avoidance of that specific term “does not mean that a great many people—including many right-wing Jews and some conservative Christians—will never prioritize what they believe to be Israel’s interests above all else.”

It is this plainly true idea, above all else, that this smear campaign and its aftermath is attempting to render off-limits (Spencer Ackerman, who sat silently by while his former CAP colleagues were being smeared, has not only defended Goldberg but has also anointed himself the discourse policeman and issued rules barring this issue from being discussed, in a Tablet article today that uses a cartoon to depict those who raise this issue or even approve of its being raised as channeling Adolf Hitler). The aim here — as Ackerman explicitly acknowledges — is to render it not only illegitimate, but even evil, to suggest that “some conservative American Jewish reporters, pundits, and policymakers are more concerned with the interests of the Jewish state than those of the United States.” But Alterman yesterday pointed out exactly why that needs to be discussed: “It hardly strains credulity to imagine that folks with the views described above would welcome an attack on Iran’s nuclear program to protect Israel, regardless of its implications for the United States and the world.”

But you’re not allowed to talk about these dual loyalties even though everyone knows it’s true.....

....

To determine whether the idea Ackerman wants to ban is true — namely, that some key political figures (both Jewish and evangelical Christians) “are more concerned with the interests of the Jewish state than those of the United States” — just judge for yourself their own comments on this question:

Let’s start with Haim Saban, the Hollywood mogul who, among other things, lavishly funds the Democratic Party, as well as the center at the Brookings Institution bearing his name where pro-Iraq-War and Iran-adversary Kenneth Pollack is a “senior fellow”; this is what Saban told The New York Times [link fixed] (which described him as “the most politically connected mogul in Hollywood, throwing his weight and money around Washington and, increasingly, the world, trying to influence all things Israeli”):

I’m a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel.

Or look at these comments last year from Sheldon Adelson — who donated $10 million to Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign after Gingrich said Palestinians were “an invented people” – as uncovered this morning by NBC News’ Michael Isikoff (h/t Ali Abunimah):

In a talk to an Israeli group in July, 2010, Adelson said he

wished he had served in the Israeli Army rather than the U.S. military

—and that he hoped his young son will come back to Israel and “be a sniper for the IDF,” a reference to the Israel Defense Forces.

)

“I am not Israeli. The uniform that I wore in the military, unfortunately, was not an Israeli uniform. It was an American uniform, although my wife was in the IDF and one of my daughters was in the IDF … our two little boys, one of whom will be bar mitzvahed tomorrow, hopefully he’ll come back– his hobby is shooting — and he’ll come back and be a sniper for the IDF,” Adelson said at the event.

“

All we care about is being good Zionists, being good citizens of Israel

, because even though I am not Israeli born, Israel is in my heart,” he said toward the end of his talk.

Or consider the oath that Goldberg himself took (and that Adelson says he wishes he took) when he voluntarily joined a foreign army, the Israeli Defense Forces, in the 1990s (my email to Goldberg asking for confirmation that he took this oath, one he then went and published, is what so upset Ackerman):

I swear and commit to pledge allegiance to the State of Israel, its laws, and authorities, to accept upon myself unconditionally the authority of the Israel Defense Force, obey all the orders and instructions given by authorized commanders, devote all my energies, and even sacrifice my life for the protection of the homeland and liberty of Israel.

(It’s fine if Goldberg wants to claim that he no longer harbors these loyalties, but the fact that someone who joined a foreign army is now leading the crusade to brand as anti-Semites those who discuss the dual loyalty issue illustrates just how grotesquely that accusation is abused)......

UPDATE III [sun.]: Here’s Eric Alterman, last year, summarizing the writings of Norman Podhoretz on this matter:

Three years later Podhoretz put his new view quite plainly in an article with the deliberately provocative—from the point of view of Commentary’s history of universalism and anti-Zionism—title, “Is It Good for the Jews?” Podhoretz explained why Jews ought to look “at proposals and policies from the point of view of the Jewish interest.” [iII] And he later announced that “the role of Jews who write in both the Jewish and general press is to defend Israel.” Critical reporting of Israel, Podhoretz insists, “helps Israel’s enemies–and they are legion in the US.”But for those who look to Spencer Ackerman for decrees on what is and is not permitted in Appropriate Discourse (and, really, given his impressive history in exemplifying lofty argumentative standards, who among us wouldn’t?), none of this is permitted to be spoken of. It’s all off-limits, along with the above-listed quotes. Even when prominent American political and media figures explicitly state that their devotion to Israel is a key factor — even the primary factor — in shaping their political advocacy, all Decent People will pretend this did not happen and never speak of it; if you do, then you’re a McCarthyite anti-Semite. That is how anti-intellectual and censorious this little campaign is, and why (as the campaign to attack Iran heats up) it deserves attention — and nothing else other than defiant scorn.

http://www.salon.com...w_for_politico/

Monday, Jul 30, 2012 10:03 AM EDT New low for Politico The gossip rag devotes substantial space to publishing a sleazy McCarthyite screed by Newt Gingrich

By Glenn Greenwald

Mitt Romney went to Israel this week and issued extreme pledges of fealty to Israeli government policy, but Israeli journalist Noam Sheizaf documents that a prominent Jewish Democratic Party group quickly attacked Romney and the GOP from the neocon right, insinuating that — unlike Obama and the Democrats — the GOP nominee and his party lack sufficient devotion to Israel.

http://walt.foreignp...he_israel_lobby

What 'unshakeable commitment' to Israel really means

Posted By Stephen M. Walt Monday, July 30, 2012 -

Pandering to special interest groups is a time-honored American political tradition, especially in an election year. The practice is hard-wired into the U.S. system of government, which gives interest groups many different ways to pressure politicians into doing their bidding. Whether we are talking about the farm lobby, the NRA, the AARP, Big Pharma, Wall Street, or various ethnic lobbies, it's inevitable that politicians running for office will say and do lots of stupid things to try to win influential groups over. Especially in a close election.

Which of course explains why Mitt Romney flew to Israel over the weekend, and proceeded to say a lot of silly things designed to show everyone what a good friend to Israel he will be if he is elected. He wasn't trying to win over Israelis or make up for his various gaffes in London; his goal was to convince Israel's supporters in America to vote for him and not for Barack Obama. Most American Jews lean left and will vote for Obama, but Romney would like to keep the percentage as low as he can, because it just might tip the balance in a critical swing state like Florida. Pandering on Israel might also alleviate evangelical Christian concerns about Romney's Mormon faith and make stalwart "Christian Zionists" more inclined to turn out for him. Of course, Romney also wants to convince wealthy supporters of Israel to give lots of money to his campaign (and not Obama's), which is why a flock of big U.S. donors, including gazillionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, accompanied Romney on his trip.

Once in Israel, Romney followed the script to the letter. He referred to Jerusalem as Israel's capital (something the U.S. government doesn't do, because Jerusalem's status is still supposed to be resolved via negotiation). He said that stopping Iran's nuclear program was "America's highest national security priority," which tells you that Romney has no idea how to rank-order national security threats. One of his aides, neoconservative Dan Senor, even gave Israel a green light to attack Iran, telling reporters that "If Israel has to take action on its own, the governor would respect that decision."

But this sort of pandering is a bipartisan activity, and it's not like Barack Obama isn't keeping up. The administration has been sending a steady stream of top advisors to Israel of late, including Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, and last week Obama signed a $70 million military aid deal for Israel, in a public signing ceremony. His message: "Romney can fly around and give speeches, but I'm delivering real, tangible support."

The good news, such as it is, is that both Romney and Obama are probably lying. No matter how many times each of them talks about the "unshakeable commitment" to Israel, or even of their "love" for the country, they don't really mean it. They are simply pandering to domestic politics, which is something that all American politicians do on a host of different issues. Of course, they will still have to shape their policies with the lobby's clout in mind (as Obama's humiliating retreat on the settlement issue demonstrates), but nobody should be under the illusion that they genuinely believe all the flattering stuff that they are forced to say. ....

http://webcache.goog...firefox-nightly

Finance Minister: Israel's economy being controlled by 30 families is a problem

In Israel, Yuval Steinitz says, there are people whose salaries are so unjustified they are essentially robbing their companies' shareholders

By Moti Bassok | May.02, 2010 |

"The fact that the Israeli economy is controlled by 30 families does not constitute corruption. But it does cause economic problems and damages competition," Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said this weekend during an interview with the Channel 2 television program "Friday Studio."

"We must find ways to reduce centralization without harming the economy," Steinitz said. He noted that he objects to the high salaries among Israeli executives, but also any attempts to rein in oversized wages through legislation.

"Throughout the world, including the United States and Europe, there is great opposition to unduly high salaries, but throughout the world there is also opposition to passing laws against this practice," Steinitz said. "Even President Barack Obama backed down from plans to impose legislation in the United States against high pay for executives."

In Israel, the finance minister continued, there are people whose salaries are so scandalous and unjustified they are essentially robbing their companies' shareholders - "but in business the rule is 'don't be right, be smart.'" Steinitz did not provide any details of his, or his ministry's, plan to fight these exaggerated salaries or whether such a plan even exists.

Regarding the bill being introduced by MK Shelly Yachimovich (Labor) and MK Haim Katz (Likud) - which would reduce wage gaps by capping executive salaries at public companies at no more than 50 times the wages earned by the company's lowest-paid workers - Steinitz said that such populist laws are often proposed in the Knesset.

http://www.ft.com/cm...l#axzz26V1hE4G4

May 14, 2010

Israel Inc's families face backlash

By Tobias Buck in Jerusalem and Vita Bekker in Tel Aviv

Reading the Israeli business press can be a monotonous affair, dominated by a roster of names familiar to everyone in the country. From banking to real estate, energy to industrials, few stories appear that do not include a Dankner, a Tshuva, a Leviev or one of the 20-odd other families that control Israel Inc.

The rising influence - and wealth - of the country's oligarchs has caused controversy in Israel, a country founded on strict socialist and egalitarian principles. Public anger has been further fuelled by the outsized salary packages and bonuses paid to the families' boardroom lieutenants.

"There is a lot of emotion right now. The general public asks: How come that 20 families control the economy? Israelis want these families to have less power," says Omer Moav, economics professor at the Royal Holloway, University of London, and Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

The backlash against the Israeli oligarchs is, however, more than a short-lived outbreak of populist anger. Indeed, concern over ownership imbalances in the economy has become a topic of intense scrutiny in the finance ministry, the central bank and university research departments.

In a recent report, the Bank of Israel noted that "in terms of dispersion of control, Israel is one of the most concentrated developed countries and even resembles a developing country in this respect". The study pointed out that about 20 business groups, nearly all controlled by families, in turn controlled about one in four listed firms and about half the market share in Israel.....

http://www.haaretz.c...r-life-1.303126

How do the powerful families affect your life?

An unusual conference in Tel Aviv sought to answer that very question for an unusual crowd on Tuesday.

By Ora Coren | Jul.21, 2010 |

An unusual conference in Tel Aviv sought to answer that very question for an unusual crowd on Tuesday.

How do the most powerful families in Israel affect your life? The people who showed up at the conference the Social Economic Academy hosted yesterday were wondering that very thing.

They were very different from those who usually attend economic conferences. Not a single tie or jacket was to be seen. The participants ranged from students to retirees and everyone in between. They came in sandals. They were there to understand how the economy's strongest families affect them personally, how these families' iron grip on the economy impairs democracy, and what they could do to heal Israeli democracy.

They learned that the control wielded by the big families goes far beyond economic assets. It disrupts the country's social, political and economic development.

They learned that the families' control is already straining Israeli democracy. They learned that 10 to 20 families have far more influence over the government than do the citizens at large, who vote only every three to four years.

In addition, the power these families have accumulated gives them enormous influence over the country's social and economic fabric. They control not only industrial and commercial companies, but also media outlets. This disrupts the media's critical faculties and the transparency crucial to a healthy society.

"The concentration that needs to be addressed is when one person controls several parts of the economy via an economic pyramid structure, because at the top of every big concern ultimately sits one person," said Davida Lachman-Messer, a former deputy attorney general. "Their economic power is also social and political power, and this makes them Israel's real centers of power. They weren't elected, but they decide who controls this country, how it looks and where our children will work."

The fact that these families also own media outlets means they can influence what's reported about them. They can block unflattering stories and promote stories that suit their interests. They thereby impair the media's role as watchdog.

The families' interlocking holdings exacerbate this concentration and the problems it creates, Lachman-Messer continued.

"The Idan Ofer and Mozi Wertheim groups own Bank Mizrahi-Tefahot," she noted. "Wertheim also has a direct holding in [Channel 2 television franchisee] Keshet, while Ofer has a holding in [Channel 2 franchisee] Reshet via Udi Angel [who was married to his sister, Liora Ofer]. Strauss sold shares of the latter company, and Tshuva's daughter received shares in Keshet. All these parties are big advertisers and also the owners of media outlets. And they have partners or friends who also own media outlets."

The big families are already influencing democracy and undermining the process that's supposed to give every citizen a vote, Lachman-Messer said: "The problem is already here. It's not something off in the future, it's here. And it's major. It also affects civil society [nonprofits and charities]. The large donors are the same people we encounter in the business pages. Ultimately, concentration - which is the existence of several people who control most of the production facilities in several branches of the economy, as well as the finance companies - is Israel's reality. I'm waiting for it to damage the economy, because only things that damage the economy get the government to take action.

"The Bank of Israel governor understands that concentration is bad for the economy," she continued. "It's bad for democracy, because a limited number of people can decide what laws are passed, who will be elected and who donates to what party. Israel has five million people who cannot compete against the fund-raising that each party receives from corporations. I'm pessimistic, but we need to keep fighting. If the economy is hurt quickly, there's a chance democracy will be saved. Democracy apparently isn't an important enough value for us."

Boring the public

Dror Strum, a former antitrust commissioner, said the discussion about concentration should be taken beyond the business pages, since this is a social and political problem that will only grow if it isn't fixed. "The existing legislative tools aren't enough to solve the problem," he said. "What's happening right now is they're putting us to sleep with this discussion of concentration. If I were to ask the public at large which is worse, the flotilla incident or economic concentration, most people would say the flotilla. Who understands what concentration is doing to our lives?"

It's important to convince the public of the need for legislation to fight the problem, he continued. Without public backing, nothing will change.

"In order to convince the public that concentration isn't just something in the business pages, we need to take the matter and show how it affects our assets and our children," Strum said. "Because the meaning of concentration is that in another 20 to 40 years, our children and grandchildren won't be able to get by in life if they don't go through one of five big families."

Evidence of the concentrated economic power in Israel can be seen when major international corporations try to enter the local market, he said. Nestle, for instance, usually sets up its own factories when it enters a new country. But in Israel, it was forced to use Osem as its manufacturer. Unilever also entered Israel through a local company, Strauss.

"There are two major measures of democracy," Strum said. "One is quantitative - one vote per person. There's also a qualitative aspect - how much the public can effect change, and whether big groups change things more than citizens do."

Trampling on the workers

Hanoch Livneh, who heads the tellers' union at the First International Bank of Israel (Beinleumi ), said the big families don't think about the workers, as they are primarily interested in making more money. Beinleumi is controlled by Zadik Bino, who also controls Paz and the Ashdod oil refinery.

"I work for one of these families, but I'm a socialist," Livneh said. "Most of the employees who work for the big families aren't unionized. They receive minimum wage and work under slave conditions. The controlling shareholders undermine protected positions whenever they can. You're working at a temple dedicated to profit above all ... You're not worth anything.

"They're 20 families, but they can't maintain control alone. They need a kind of intermediate level. Thus, they take the regulators ... They're close with all of them."

Citing examples of conflicts of interest created by concentration, Livneh stated, "When Beinleumi leases assets from Paz, who checks that the valuations are correct and whether a competitor has a better offer? When we belonged to Safra, why did the workers get only Cellcom phones? [The Safra family controlled Cellcom at the time].

"I know that my cellular company is [owned by] Nochi Dankner, who is also my flight abroad via Israir, as well as my insurance company and pension fund, as well as the building I'll build and my grocery store chain. What more do I need to understand the force of these things, and the fear of what it will bring?"

'Why are you interfering?'

Knesset Member Haim Oron (Meretz ) said that where money and politics mingle, it's hard to protect the public from the effects of concentration. U.S. Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis' 100-year-old warnings about concentration threatening democracy still apply today, he said.

He cited the example of Nesher, a cement monopoly controlled by the IDB Group, which in turn is controlled by Nochi Dankner. There have been attempts to bring in competition through imports, but Nesher still controls at least 90% of the cement market.

"When I brought up the subject for public discussion, they told me, 'Why are you interfering? Let the free market solve the problem,'" he recalled.

"It's not like there's a marker that, if you can pass it, the problem will be solved - that if you pass a law, the concentration will disappear," Oron said. "You suddenly realize that Yitzhak Tshuva is involved in all the desalination plants. You need to ask yourself if, when urban water consumption is 80% desalinated, one party should be controlling all this. You fight so that Mekorot [the state-owned water company] gets a desalination plant. They tell you, 'They want another 30 cents.' You need to say you're ready to pay more because you want a public body to be involved in desalination."

http://www.businessw...99010761878.htm

The Controversy Over Israel's Business Elite

By Calev Ben-David and David Wainer on October 07, 2010

Israel's economy is widely seen as a high-tech success story. Yet to many Israelis the real players in their economy are not programmers or venture capitalists. Rather, they are the 20 or so Israeli families who control banks, supermarkets, telecoms, real estate, gas stations, and utilities—businesses that underpin much of daily life.

Too much, says Stanley Fischer, the governor of the Bank of Israel, who has sounded the alarm over the power concentrated in the hands of these families. Fischer, a world-renowned economist who mentored Ben Bernanke and who has run Israel's central bank for five years, says the influence these companies wield may undermine Israel's growth by undercutting competition.

An important question is, who and what is Israel? Is it owned by the people who buy it's politicians, or by the increasingly poorer general populace, or a partnership of all of these? Does the tiny elite Israeli oligarchy own the U.S. congress and the U.S. president? Did Russia win the cold war, by embracing the U.S. "free markets God?"

http://www.utsandieg..._1n27putin.html

By Josef Federman

ASSOCIATED PRESS

April 27, 2005

JERUSALEM – The presence in Israel of some of Russia's most wanted fugitives is threatening to cloud the historic visit this week by President Vladimir Putin.

Three billionaire oil executives, a publishing tycoon and a former Putin ally have taken up residence in Israel in recent years as Russia sought their arrests, rankling officials in Moscow.

On the eve of Putin's arrival today as the first Russian or Soviet leader to visit Israel, both governments downplayed any disagreement over the businessmen. Israeli officials conceded that Putin might raise the matter, but noted that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon insists he won't turn over the wanted men.

"They are Israeli citizens, and that's it," Sharon spokesman Asaf Shariv said.

Israel and Russia have had close relations since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Both are involved in battles against Islamic militants, and they are linked by the hundreds of thousands of Russian immigrants living in Israel.

But ties have become strained over Russia's planned sale of anti-aircraft missiles to Syria, an enemy of Israel. Israeli officials dismissed speculation that they might bargain to extradite the fugitives in exchange for Russia scrapping the arms deal.

The Putin visit also coincides with today's scheduled verdict in the Russian tax-evasion-and-fraud trial of wealthy Jewish businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky, former head of the Yukos oil giant.

While Putin casts the case as a straightforward anti-corruption effort, some people see anti-Semitic undertones in his campaign against Khodorkovsky and other Jewish tycoons.

"The Yukos scandal had a political and maybe Jewish roots," said Roman Bronfman, an Israeli lawmaker who emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1980.

The three oil executives living in Israel – Leonid Nevzlin, Mikhail Brudno and Vladimir Dubov – are former partners of Khodorkovsky, and all are wanted by Russia on fraud charges. The men, all of whom appeared on the Forbes list of the world's billionaires in 2004, are now directors of Group Menatep, a holding company that owns 60 percent of what remains of the dismantled Yukos empire.

Menatep officials declined comment on Putin's visit, and a spokeswoman for Nevzlin, who also is wanted by Russia in an alleged murder plot, said he would have no comment until after the verdict in Khodorkovsky's case.

Also with homes in Israel are Vladimir Gusinsky, a media magnate who fled Russia after being charged with financial misdeeds in a probe widely seen as punishment for his TV station's critical coverage of Putin, and Boris Berezovsky, a one-time Kremlin insider who was charged with fraud after a falling-out with Putin. Both men spend most of their time in other countries. Berezovsky said he no longer holds Israeli citizenship but spends significant time in Israel.

The five wanted businessmen immigrated under Israel's "Law of Return," which grants automatic citizenship to any Jew.

http://www.washingto...anguage=printer

Prayer Breakfast Includes Russian Fugitives

By Peter Baker

Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, February 5, 2005; Page A05

.....The case has soured relations between Moscow and Washington. Putin delivered a testy lecture to Bush when the American president raised the issue of Russian democracy during a lunch in Santiago, Chile, in November, and the two then did not speak again until this week when they talked briefly by telephone about the Iraqi elections. Bush will meet with Putin in Bratislava, Slovakia, on Feb. 24, in what advisers see as the first test of the president's inaugural vision of confronting "every ruler and every nation" about domestic repression.

Dubov, who will turn 47 on Monday, and Brudno, 45, were major shareholders in Yukos along with Khodorkovsky, each holding about 7 percent of the firm, making them billionaires as well. When prosecutors targeted Khodorkovsky, Dubov and Brudno fled to Israel, where they obtained dual citizenship.

Russian prosecutors asked Interpol, the Paris-based international police agency, to issue "red notices" for Dubov and Brudno, alerting member states that they are wanted on fraud charges. The Russians provided old photographs of the two tycoons that make them look more like wild-eyed, bearded terrorists, pictures now posted on Interpol's Web site.

But U.S. officials said they saw no reason to honor the Interpol red notices and noted that the United States has no extradition treaty with Russia. Traveling on Israeli passports with long-term U.S. visas, Dubov and Brudno were not stopped when they landed. A spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the agency "had no active records in our law enforcement database on these individuals."

Margery Kraus, president of Apco Worldwide Inc., a public relations firm that represents the Khodorkovsky team, said Khodorkovsky before his arrest had attended the National Prayer Breakfast, which often includes foreign dignitaries. Khodorkovsky was invited this year as well, so Brudno and Dubov attended in his place. "The main reason to come was because others couldn't," she said.

Rep. Tom Lantos (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the International Relations Committee, invited the two to an hour-long meeting Wednesday on Capitol Hill. "The proceedings against Khodorkovsky were outrageous," said Bob King, the committee's Democratic staff director. "By American legal standards, this is something that could never happen in the United States."

The following report is more than seven years old. How much or Israel do these men own now? How much say do they have about who is elected to federal office in Israel and what Israeli foreign policy is? Is Israel being preserved as a special (unaccountable) sovereign space protected by U.S. politicians and the pit bull

accusation that it is antisemetic to ask these questions?

I would enjoy reading arguments that the influence of money in the bipartisan headlock of American politcians by Aipac and its stenographers is less about the money than it is about anything else. "Your money is no good here, this is about loftier ideals," (but they still cost money, lots of it, it has never been more expensive to run for congress, the senate or for the office of U.S. president.)

http://webcache.goog...firefox-nightly

Nevzlin, Brudno, Dubov buy stake in Israel Petrochemicals Russian-Israeli businessmen Leonid Nevzlin, Mikhail Brudno and Vladimir Dubov, are to complete their first investment in Israel, by buying a controling stake in Israel Petrochemical Enterprises.

By Ami Ginsburg | Mar.21, 2005

Russian-Israeli businessmen Leonid Nevzlin, Mikhail Brudno and Vladimir Dubov, are to complete their first investment in Israel, by buying a controling stake in Israel Petrochemical Enterprises.

Through their international investment company, Menatep, the three will buy 20 percent of Modgal, Israel Petrochemical's parent company from the Belgian company Plastiche Holding. Menatep will also be allocated a further 7.5 percent stake in Modgal, for an undisclosed amount.

Menatep's principal activity is in investments in the fields of gas, minerals, oil, telecoms and information technology. One of its major holdings is in the Russian oil company Yukos, whose controling shareholder, Michael Khodorkovsky, was arrested a year and a half ago, and is currently in prison in Russia. At the time, Nevzlin, Brudno and Dubov fled to Israel and have since established themselves in Herzliya Pituah. Khodorkovsky transferred his shares in Yukos to Nevzlin.....

Edited September 15, 2012 by Tom Scully

[Pamela Brown]

If anyone is wondering why the US is called the "Big Israel" one need only look at the events that are now transpiring in regards to the election. One shot across the bow is Canada's decision to end diplomatic relations with Iran. Next is the slur that Obama is refusing to meet with Netanyahu when there was no such request. And, of course, there are the predictable Republican rants as to how Obama has dismissed the needs of Israel.

The current state of Israel was founded by the UN in a botched attempt to provide homelands for both the Jews and the Palestinians. While I have the utmost respect for the Israeli people, I do not believe the US should embrace the objectives of its government. Even the churches are encouraged to be obsessed with giving the govt of Israel everything the US has to offer. This makes for a very uncomfortable situation in my book.

I'm not speaking from a partisan viewpoint; I don't know whom I an going to vote for in this election. I am suggesting that to get an understanding from an objective historical viewpoint we need only to watch the news to see how often Israel will be portrayed as a victim in need of a protector, and that protector will not be Obama.

[Len Colby]

An eye opening time, the latter half of July, 1999. I don't believe Heymann's claim of being an actual agent of Mossad. I don't accept the official government claims, or Heymann's "notes" about JFK, Jr. and the events related to the disappearance of JFK, Jr.'s Piper Saratoga. I think Lisa pulled her punches in her related CTKA piece. I think this thread is as good a place as any for this curious collection and I hope more is not read into it.

[...]

Wow that clocked in at over 3200 words. Others and I have told in the past but many of your posts seem like a whole bunch of data in search of a point, what exactly was your point?

"Tommy can you hear me?....Ooh, Tommy, Tommy, Tommy, Tommy"

[Mike Rago]

The Iran situation is similar to the Israeli situation that John Kennedy faced in the 1960's. John Kennedy was forcing inspections of Israels nuclear plant at Dimona to ensure it was devoted entirely to peaceful purposes.

However, this situation is different, because now, the Israelis need to stop Iran's nuclear program.

Edited September 15, 2012 by Mike Rago