"Georgetown Jihad"
[Also posted at Northern Virginiastan]
From Lee Kaplan's December 29, 2005 article "Georgetown's Jihad " (All emphases by Always On Watch):
Go here to enable links in the article.Never let it be said that the American college educational system ever missed an opportunity to promote the aims of terrorists and their allies when it came to money. Stop the ISM has received notification that the Palestine Solidarity Movement (PSM), the name the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) uses for its member groups in the United States, is going to have its fifth annual conference at a major American university-this time Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
The following announcement was put out to ISM activists in the United States:
Palestine Solidarity Movement
Announcement
Fifth Annual Divestment Conference("Fifth Annual National Student Conference of the Palestine Solidarity Movement")
Georgetown University
February 17 - 19, 2006
More information to come.
A quick call to President George DeGioia of Georgetown University netted no response or comment from his office or staff about the event. Another call placed to the campus office of communications to verify the event was actually scheduled was also met with no response. According to Fabiola Joubert in the campus Office of Communications, she could not confirm or deny the event and said she had no idea where to find a schedule of campus events for the Washington campus. She referred this reporter to Eric Smulson, campus press officer, who was "in meetings" and "unavailable."
The Palestine Solidarity Movement has held national conferences on major university campuses four out of the last five years, first at UC Berkeley, then U Michigan, Ohio State and Duke University. At the last conference held at Duke University in 2004, Huwaida Arraf, one of the PSM's main organizers, admitted that the Palestine Solidarity Movement works with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, all illegal terrorist groups per the US state department. That particular event was also found to be an anti-Semitic hate fest which also produced articles in the campus newspaper later attacking Jews in America as a "privileged class." At the earlier event at U Michigan, chants of "Kill the Jews" were heard among the attendees. Divestment from Israel is a major theme, an attempt to hurt the Israeli population and force it to capitulate to PLO demands; in other words, an extension of the Arab boycott against Jews in the Middle East for having their own country. Public reaction to the 2004 Duke event no doubt made finding a venue for another conference difficult which might explain why there was no such conference held at a major university in 2005....
Georgetown's Arab studies department has always had an anti-Israel slant due to wealthy Saudi and Palestinian Arab donors. Middle East Studies professor John Esposito, who frequently speaks as an apologist for militant Islamic groups, is based at Georgetown. He heads Georgetown’s Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. That fits nicely with the new theme of the PSM...
One of those Saudi donors to Georgetown is the omnipresent Prince Alaweed Bin Talal. Bin Talal was the Saudi sheik who accused Israel of "slaughtering the Palestinians" as he offered a ten million dollar check to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuiliani at Ground Zero of the World Trade Center disaster. Giuliani refused to accept the check. Bin Talal is one of the major financiers of Hamas, having contributed over 400 million dollars to date to the terrorist organization.
That Georgetown would look the other way comes as no surprise. One of Bin Talal's "gifts" to Georgetown University was the second largest one in the University's history-20 million dollars. No doubt after Duke, the PSM had trouble finding an American university willing to host such a venue again, but money talks and Georgetown listens....
posted by Always On Watch @ 12/29/2005 02:10:00 PM
23 comments
23 Comments:
Georgetown is the best whorehouse the Arab Johns can buy and John Esposito is the finest bitch in the harem. Is it any surprise that Georgetown would not offer up their campus for a PSM Muslim orgy with the PSM all climaxing with a scream "Kill the Infidels" .. and full 'release.'
Axis,
Your article More Detail on the Harvard 'Madrassah-Whorehouse' links to the article by Ben Shapiro and is a real eye-opener.
Of course, it is really no surprise that Georgetown would consider hosting PSM. And all the new funding by the Saudi Prince makes such an event even more possible.
Thanks for stopping by, AOI.
I've read some of Walid Shoebat's material. A convert to evangelical Christianity, he is a powerful witness against anti-Semitism.
The following is his bio from his web site @
http://www.shoebat.com/
bio.php?PHPSESSID=
6a8517e03e355ae4815456d8ed4a22cb :
Biography of Walid Shoebat
Born in Bethlehem of Judea, Walid's grandfather was the Muslim Mukhtar (chieftain) of Beit Sahour-Bethlehem (The Shepherd's Fields) and a friend of Haj-Ameen Al-Husseni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and notorious friend of Adolf Hitler.
Walid's great grandfather, Abdullah Ali Awad-Allah, was also a fighter and close associate of both Abdul Qader and Haj Amin Al-Husseini, who led the Palestinians against Israel. Walid lived through and witnessed Israel’s Six Day War while living in Jericho.
As a young man, he became a member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and participated in acts of terror and violence against Israel, and was later imprisoned in the Russian Compound, Jerusalem's central prison for incitement and violence against Israel.
After his release, he continued his life of violence and rioting in Bethlehem and the Temple Mount. After entering the U.S, he worked as a counselor for the Arab Student Organization at Loop College in Chicago and continued his anti-Israel activities.
In 1993, Walid studied the Tanach (Jewish Bible) in a challenge to convert his wife to Islam. Six months later, after intense study, Walid realized that everything he had been taught about Jews was a lie. Convinced he was on the side of evil, he became an advocate for his former enemy.
Driven by a deep passion to heal his own soul, and to bring the truth about the Jews and Israel to the world, Walid shed his former life and his work as a software engineer and set out to tirelessly bring the cause of Israel to tens of thousands of people throughout the world: churches and synagogues, civic groups, government leaders and media.
Walid has written several online books including "Dear Muslim, Let Me Tell You Why I Believed" and "Israel, And The World's Mock Trial”, where he exposes anti-Semitism and the hatred of Jews in both the Islamic Christian and secular worlds.
Walid is an American citizen and lives in the USA with his wife and children, under this assumed name.
A few excerpts from Shoebat's latest book, from
http://www.shoebat.com/ :
Quotes taken from page 21 of Walid's new Book, Why I left Jihad:
"The Holocaust never ended but the victims have decided to defend themselves.”
“The occupation is in the minds of Children who are taught hatred.”
“Israel was the solution for the world’s greatest refugee problem that went on for two thousand years.”
“Why is it that on June 4th 1967 I was a Jordanian and overnight I became a Palestinian?”
“When I finally realized the lies and myths I was taught, it is my duty as a righteous person to speak out.”
“The Israeli Arab Conflict is not about geography but about Jew hatred; Throughout the Islamic as well as Christendom's history Jews have been persecuted, the persecution of Israel is just the same as the old antisemitism.”
“The Arab refugees are being used as pawns' to create a terror breeding ground, as a form of aggression against Israel”
“The Arab refugee problem was caused by Arab aggression and not Israel. Why should Israel be responsible for their fate?”
"No one (Arab or Jew) has a "right of return". Jews who fled Arab persecution from 1948 to 1956 should have no right of return to Arab lands, and Arabs who ran away in 1948 and 1967 should have no right of return either. This should end all argument. Yet the Jews accept this judgment, while the Arabs reject EVERYTHING."
I confess that I haven't read his latest book all the way through, although I've read excerpts in addition to the above quotations.
Another Christian who speaks about Islam is Dr. Anis Shorrosh. He is an evangelical Baptist, of second generation, I believe. Are you familiar with Dr. Shorrosh? His web site is
http://www.islam-in-focus.com/
Of particular interest at Dr. Shorrosh's site is his 2002 press release Twenty Year Plan.
Storm,
The fact that Shoebat has to live under an assumed name and that Dr. Shorrosh is regularly threatened is very telling, I think. Both of these men regularly speak in Christian colleges and in various evangelical churches, both here in the United States and around the world. Rarely do they get much publicity from the msm. Right after 9/11, however, I heard Dr. Shorrosh speak on every news channel. And this past summer, Shoebat appeared on Fox News.
Samwich,
Your comment presents an accurate analysis throughout.
Islam's overall stategy is to bring to "submission to Allah" all who walk the earth. We are funding our own overthrow. The strategists have the oil money now to buy the influence and persuade the masses to accept muslims and muslim beliefs.
Violent jihad isn't the primary method for the takeover! The economic jihad is now in full swing. The media and the educational institutions aid and abet it. The government falls right into line.
Sorry to hear that you didn't get to enjoy a Christmas winder wonderland. We didn't either as the temps were well above freezing. But my husband and I did take mother-in-law and her boyfriend for a drive out to a spectacularly decorated neighborhood a few miles west of here. Boyfriend's comment: "It looks like a fairyland."
Mother-in-law and her boyfriend really enjoyed their visit here. They weren't disappointed in the lack of a white Christmas because he doesn't have a clue as to how to drive in it. He has lived in CA some 50 years and hails from Manhattan, where he didn't bother having a car.
Happy New Year, Samwich! I'll put up an end-of-year article tomorrow or Saturday. My husband and I plan to go out for New Year's Eve with my cousin and her husband. The local VFW is having an open house, and we may go there.
I read this article in FPM this mornig (your afternoon).
Similar things happen in Oz under the cover of solidarity with oppressed Palestinians.
We also had "Islamic summer" camps for childern in Victoria.
The radical left meanwhile is peddling furiously the idea of peaceful Islam being provoked by the evil U$rael.
Felis,
I'm sure that, in the guise of solidarity and multi-culturalism, similar meetings are going on all over the Western world.
I have a fond spot in my heart for Georgetown University, which has one of the finest neurological centers in the United States. Thanks to the wonderful surgeons there, my husband's brain tumor was successfully excised. At the time, only three U.S. medical centers did that particular surgery, and we were blessed that GTU is within 10 miles of our house.
With the Saudi oil dollars pouring in--dollars in part obtained from our purchases of their petroleum--certain universities' departments will be nothing more than propaganda centers.
The original Jesuit founders of GTU must be rolling in their graves now.
Why are so many American Universities taking money from Saudi Arabia? The tuition increases around the country far outstrip the rise in inflation. Taxpayer money pays for research at these universities. Georgetown is not a poor university by any means. I don't understand why all these universities allow these Jewish hatefest on their campuses. Why does the ACLU support their freedom to preach hate while the court systems punish Americans and Jews for telling the truth about Islam? What's next...Louis Farrakhan giving the commencement address?
"I have a fond spot in my heart for Georgetown University......"
I am sure it stil is a fine University.
The errosion usually starts with humanities and social sciencies.
The more, technical (sorry to say it professional) schools are at least initially less affected.
Samwich,
I get your point. But can Americans band together? They don't "get it."
Storm,
Shoebat is right. How many are listening?
Felis,
The humaniities and the social studies departments are the first to be subverted by any ideology.
Crusader,
You asked several "why's." It's all about the money. And money which will lead to the subversion of American ideals is always gratefully accepted. Well, not always because Rudy Giuliani turned down that check from Prince Alaweed. But the refusal of that $10 million check is a rare bird indeed.
Iran Watch,
As long as we continue to allow Saudi oil profits to buy into a control America's media this is bound to continue.
Oil dollars are buying out our economy, our media, and our educational institutions.
I noticed something samwich had said earlier about Brazil requiring ethanol usage, I think the United States should introduce a crash program to rid ourselves of our foreign fossil fuel dependency.
Something on the scale of the Manhattan Project or the race to land a man on the moon.
Does America have leaders that can bring about these changes?
I'm grieved to say this: If one or more of our cities is turned into a nuclear wasteland, our leaders will pay attention to the realities of world economics. Will that point be too late?
We need to terminate foreign aid of any type to any Middle Eastern nation. Okay, the cost of fuel here will skyrocket, but that cost will come down when hunger takes hold. Do I sound harsh? Yes. But I don't see many other choices.
Going now to check the link you provided.
Iran Watch,
A bit on Omar Shakir, who wrote the article to which you referred me, is mentioned here :
The DCRA is a national network with the purpose of proactively defending and securing the rights of the Arab American academic community, students, faculty and staff. It is an open project and we encourage participation from student organizations and individuals, faculty, staff, and community members from across the United States. Please send us information pertaining to issues on your campus. Whether you are a student organization in need of assistance, a professor who is under attack, or community member who would like to support this critical project, your participation is necessary in carrying out the DCRA program. Information on how to submit information, request assistance, and join the DCRA are all included on this page.
Does the above quote remind you of CAIR?
Omar Shakir is a member of DCRA.
You can find more info on Omar Shakir by doing a Google search.
Obviously Omar Shakir has no use for Irshad Manji, who calls for reform within Islam. Her site is here.
Omar Shakir accuses Muslim Irshad Manji of promoting Islamophobia. But apparently it's okay to hold hate fests which target Jews.
Storm,
My college years were pretty calm. While there were a few "activists" on campus, most of the student body didn't pay much attention because many of us were working our way through college. We weren't apathetic--just busy.
The formation of certain groups on campus is frowned upon, to say the least.
Storm,
Yep, conservative groups.
I was working in Durham last year when Duke put on the conference and I never saw so much hate generated by what seemed to be the attempt to put on a simple program to support the development of a Palestine run by Palestinians. This is what even Bush and Rice want. I think it would do more good for the cause of peace to let them have their 15 minutes of fame and let them make their case then spout so much hate. Only the best Universities in the world have sponsored this because they seem to have the reputation that can stand up to people who call the participants offspring of close personal friends of Hitler.
Georgetown Parent,
Thank for you stopping by and for making your comment.
You said, Only the best Universities in the world have sponsored this because they seem to have the reputation that can stand up to people who call the participants offspring of close personal friends of Hitler.
But do these universities stand up to them, or do they evince dhimmitude? Rational making of "the case" doesn't seem to be happening.
IMO, venting hate doesn't actually reduce the hate. After all, that type of venting is not the same as complaining after a bad day at work.
Naddem Muaddi is a Christian spokesperson for the "Palestinian Solidarity Movement". I wonder how "parent" would feel knowing that some members of the ISM/PSM would like his child to be a martyr for the Palestinians? This information is in the possession of President DeGioia of Georgetown University and he he is still letting the meeting go on.
A Call for Christian Martyrdom
Posted on Saturday, July 30 @ 09:22:45 EDT
Nadeem Muaddi, Ramallah Online Columnist
For those Christians who make pilgrimage to Jerusalem, walking and praying along the Via Dolorosa or “Way of the Cross” has become a standard. Starting at the location from which it is believed that Pontius Pilate condemned Jesus Christ to the cross, Christians walk all fourteen “stations” of Christ’s suffering until they reach the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. It is here, at the sight of his crucifixion and burial, that the Son of God’s martyrdom is commemorated.
In his book, Witnessing for Peace, Bishop Munib Younan dedicates an entire chapter to “A Theology of Martyria”. While the concept of martyria or witnessing has long been forgotten by western Christians who no longer fear religious persecution, the presence of ‘shahadat’ or martyrs is ever present in the life of this Palestinian clergyman & his nation.
Living in a region of the world where occupation, oppression, apartheid, and suicide bombings have become the unfortunate norm, Bishop Younan’s claim that the “theology of martyria” is a “concept misunderstood” is not only refreshing, but long overdue.
For years, religious fundamentalism – whether Jewish, Muslim, or Christian – has played a significant role in the erroneous interpretation of the scriptures in which the concept of martyria is found. According to Younan, while fundamentalist Jews have exploited a believed promise between God and Abraham to justify brutal policies aimed at marginalizing the Palestinian people and simultaneously fulfilling their hunger for territorial expansion, Muslim fundamentalists have mistakenly “tied” the concept of “martyrdom to death”. Christian fundamentalists, meanwhile, have focused too much of their attention upon spreading the word of God through “evangelism”, not deed – “a far cry from the witness described in the Acts of the Apostles”. In fact, Younan claims that much of the contemporary world has ignored the connection between word and deed – an unfortunate phenomenon that Palestinian society has long claimed as being true.
Contrary to popular belief, Younan claims that martyria is about life – not death. However, “It is about living fully in such a way that death is the outcome”. Elaborating upon this, Bishop Younan states that there are three necessary and equal components to martyria: word, deed, and suffering. To speak about an issue, but hypocritically not act upon it – to act upon a matter without educating others about it – or to simply inflict suffering upon one’s self or others without proper justification and explanation are all incompatible with the concept of martyria. Indeed, to become a true martyr, one must contribute equally to “witnessing in word, witnessing in deed, and exposing oneself to danger, whatever the cost”. If this “cost” so happens to be death, then one will have become a martyr. However, to simply kill one’s self in a desperate act of hopelessness does not constitute martyria, but murder – a sin against God in all three Abrahamic faiths.
It is astounding to observe the irony plaguing the area of Palestine-Israel, otherwise known as “The Holy Land”. In a region where religions were introduced in order to end the perverse exploitation of man and his world, such abuses not only exist, but are falsely justified by those very religions.
Perhaps the most disappointing has been Christianity’s response. While Judaism and Islam are, in fact, theologically grounded in the virtues of peace and justice, neither faith boasts adherence to a Holy Trinity, in which the Son of God himself provided an exemplary lifestyle for followers to emulate. In the case of Jesus Christ, he indeed was a martyr – as he bore witness to the word of God, acted in accordance with those words, and suffered along the Via Dolorosa for man’s sins. He did not kill himself, nor did he want to die, but because he refused to deviate from a righteous path, he was killed. For this, his reward was resurrection.
But if Christians are indeed required to follow Christ’s example by bearing witness to the virtues of peace, truth, love, and justice – “whatever the cost” – then why have millions of Christians either remained silent or avoided turning their words into deeds on the issue of Palestinian suffering?
Bishop Younan faithfully claims that “Martyria is the Via Dolorosa with resurrection”. If this interpretation of “a theology of martyria” is correct, then it’s about time more Christians step forward and offer themselves up as martyrs for a true and just resolution to the Palestinian Issue.
* Nadeem Muaddi is a graduate student at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. He can be reached at Nadeem_Muaddi@yahoo.com.
Upon being criticized for his "call for Christian martyrs" in IsraPundit, Mr. Muaddi first threatened to sue his critic for his unfavorable interpretation of "martyrs," then protested that "martyrs" meant emergency workers like firefighters who die in the line of duty, and finally engaged in proven Internet abuse to harass his critic with unwanted electronic newsletters. This is perfect proof of the maturity and responsibility of the Palestine Solidarity Movement's leaders.
Duke parent msut not ahve gone inside. The conference at Duke was not to helpcreatea P{alestinian state run by Palestinians. It's purpose was to devise tactics to destroy Israel and make it into Palestine under Arab Muslim rule, not to ahve two states side by side in peace. That will be the goal at Gerogetown also. The PSM relies ont eh ignorance of Americans like Duke parent to push it's agenda, an agenda of hate exactly like what she condemns.
Alison Weir is a big supporter of the ISM/PSM. She has a web site, http://www.ifamericansknew.org/
Ms. Weir wrote an article for David "KKK" Duke but is still welcomed by the PSM which declares that you can't be a racist to be one of them (ha ha).
The article follows:
_______________________
Do Americans Even Care?
Russia, Israel and Media Omissions
By ALISON WEIR
Commentary by David Duke: The following article shows once more how our government is securely in the hands of the Jewish supremacists and how their press supremacy works hand-in-glove to maintain that supremacy. As the article shows, the President of the United States hosted international criminals, gangsters really, who robbed the Russian people of hundreds of billions of dollars — at the the White House Prayer Breakfast! Not only was this fact not reported to the American people, but almost every time the press mentions the Russian crackdown on the Jewish oligarchs it is described as “politically motivated.” A tiny group of gangsters steal most of the wealth of a nation in two or three years and attempts to bring them to justice are called politically motivated!
The oligarchs who literally own most of the actual wealth of Russia (through theft not work) are not even Russian, but actually loyal to Israel, with many holding dual citizenship. But the same is true for men such as Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz. They are loyal to Israel not America, and they are the architects, with the same hand-in-glove support from the Jewish supremacists in the press, for the disastrous war in Iraq. Disastrous for America but useful for Israel!
_______________________________
As is often the case with AP’s coverage of news having to do with Israel, there’s a serious omission in its reporting on the Russia-Israel connection even when it involves oil and the United States.
The day after the State of the Union Address, two Interpol fugitives attended the “National Prayer Breakfast” held in Washington DC. The day before that, these fugitives from the law were the guests of honor at an hour-long meeting of the International Relations Committee on Capitol Hill, invited by ranking Democrat Tom Lantos (Calif.)
You would think it would be hot news when wanted men being hunted by European police suddenly pop up in the US particularly on Capitol Hill and at events attended by the US president.
Yet, there was not a single AP story in the US on any of this. [1] Not a single national network television or radio news program even mentioned these facts. In fact, Google and LexisNexis searches four days after these events took place turned up only three newspaper articles on them anywhere in the entire country. [2]
Who are these fugitives from the law, wanted by Interpol, who are meeting at the highest levels of the US government? And why didn’t we learn of them?
Therein lies the story. These two men, it turns out, are just the tips of a colossal iceberg. And this iceberg doesn’t just have 90 percent of its mass hidden under water; this iceberg is almost entirely submerged.
They are Mikhail Brudno and Vladimir Dubov, Israeli-Russian partners in the giant Russian oil company Yukos. They, along with a number of their cronies, are wanted by Interpol for allegedly bilking Russian citizens out of billions of dollars. To elude Russian prosecution, these men have taken up residence in Israel. [3]
As the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz explains: “In recent years Russian authorities began investigating [Yukos], its managers and major stockholders, many of whom are of Jewish origin. The probes caused several of the managers to flee to Israel, and resulted in Khodorkovski’s [Yukos CEO] arrest and a Kremlin attack on Yukos.”
The fact is that Israel is an important factor in the ongoing, nation-shaking power struggle now going on in Russia. Yet AP virtually never reports this connection. For example, a few months ago in a typical AP story on this power struggle, “Report: Russia again charges Berezovsky,” [4] Moscow AP Bureau Chief Judith Ingram makes no mention anywhere that Berezovsky is an Israeli citizen, or of his many connections to Israel.
Such omissions by AP and large swaths of the American media leave Americans seriously disadvantaged in deciphering what is going on in Russia, and its profound significance for the world.
In order to make sense of this Russian power struggle, and to understand its importance to the rest of us, it is necessary to understand the usually omitted Israeli subtext. When this is understood, the friendship of such pro-Israel Congressional leaders as Rep. Lantos to fugitive Russian oil tycoons begins to make sense.
To explore this background it is often useful to turn to the Israeli press. In July a major Israeli publication, the Jerusalem Post, carried an article headlined: “Boris Berezovsky: Putin’s Russia dangerous for Israel.” Before describing what this contained, let us first go into a little of the background.
The Oligarchs
Boris Berezovsky is one of seven “oligarchs,” as they are known both inside and outside Russia: massively rich, powerful manipulators who through violence, theft and corruption acquired a mammoth percentage (reports range from 70 to 85 percent) of Russia’s resources, from its oil to the auto industry to mass media outlets.
At the same time, the group steadily gained control over much of the country’s political apparatus. Using extraordinary financial resources and insider dealing, the oligarchs handpicked prime ministers and governmental leaders and barely even bothered to do this behind the scenes.
In 1997 Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky, one of the group and Russia’s sometimes richest man (several of the oligarchs trade the top spot back and forth) told an interviewer before he was arrested and imprisoned by Putin last year:
“If we rank all the fields of man’s activity by profitability, politics will be the most lucrative business. When we see a critical situation in the government, we draw lots in order to pick out a person from our milieu for work in power.” [5]
Almost all of these oligarchs, it turns out, have significant ties to Israel. In fact, Berezovsky himself has Israeli citizenship a fact that caused a scandal of Watergate proportions in Russia in 1996 when it was exposed by a Russian newspaper. [6]
Do Berezovsky’s dual loyalties really matter? Yes. In the realm of global dominance, Israel’s interests and Russia’s are considerably divergent. It is in Israel’s interests to bring to power a regime in Russia friendly to Israel, rather than the current one under Putin, which Israeli leaders feel is supportive of its enemies. Not long ago, for example, Putin met with Syrian leaders an action highly disturbing to Israel.
Having an Israeli citizen at the highest levels of the Russian government is ideal, from Israel’s point of view. In Berezovsky they had such a man. The Jerusalem Post article mentioned above is revealing. It describes Berezovsky as “the Godfather of the Oligarchs’ and Kingmaker of Russia’s Politics’” and reports Berezovsky’s statement that “Putin’s Russia is dangerous for Israel.” Berezovsky goes on to assert that Putin “supports terror” in the Middle East through Russia’s previous relations with Iraq and current relations with Iran. [7]
While Israelis may have been delighted at Berezovsky’s position in Russia, It is not surprising that Russian citizens were somewhat less so. Finding that a powerful leader and member of the Russian Security Council was an Israeli citizen was disconcerting, at best.
As a result of the media uproar over Berezovsky’s Israeli citizenship and other events, the Oligarchs’ connections to Israel are widely known in Russia and elsewhere. In Israel they are covered frequently, often with adulation, including a recent hit Israeli TV series called “The Oligarchs.”
“Some of its episodes,” according to Israeli writer Uri Avnery, “are simply unbelievable or would have been, if they had not come straight from the horses’ mouths: the heroes of the story, who gleefully boast about their despicable exploits. The series was produced by Israeli immigrants from Russia.”
Avnery writes that the oligarchs used “cheating, bribery and murder,” as they “exploited the disintegration of the Soviet system to loot the treasures of the state and to amass plunder amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars. In order to safeguard the perpetuation of their business, they took control of the state. Six out of the seven are Jews.” [8]
According to a Washington Post story by David Hoffman, the group bought and controlled Russian governmental officials at the highest levels. After financing Yeltsin’s election in 1996, Hoffman writes: “The tycoons met and decided to insert one of their own into government. They debated who and chose [Vladimir] Potanin, who became deputy prime minister. One reason they chose Potanin was that he is not Jewish, and most of the rest of them are, and feared a backlash against the Jewish bankers.” [9]
In Russia, the oligarchs are deeply loathed, considered villains who worked to bleed the country dry; during their reign many Russian citizens saw their life savings disappear overnight. A new term was coined for their dominance, “semibankirshchina” (the rule of the seven bankers), and they were widely known to have wielded small, murderous armies. There are rumors that Berezovsky, subject of the respectful AP article, was even responsible for the gunning down of an American journalist, Forbes Moscow editor Paul Klebnikov.
While no one has been charged with the murder of Klebnikov, who had written a book on Berezovsky, many suspect a Berezovsky connection. As a friend of Klebnikov wrote: “Experienced expatriates in Russia shared an essential rule: Don’t cross these brutal billionaires, ever, or you’re likely to go home in a box.” [10]
The Chechnya Connection
There is evidence that Berezovsky’s responsibility for death and tragedy may be vastly greater.
“Berezovsky boasts that he caused the war in Chechnya,” Avnery reports, “in which tens of thousands have been killed and a whole country devastated. He was interested in the mineral resources and a prospective pipeline there. In order to achieve this he put an end to the peace agreement that gave the country some kind of independence. The oligarchs dismissed and destroyed Alexander Lebed, the popular general who engineered the agreement, and the war has been going on since then.
“In the end,” Avnery writes, “there was a reaction: Vladimir Putin, the taciturn and tough ex-KGB operative, assumed power, took control of the media, put one of the oligarchs (Mikhail Khodorkovsky) in prison, caused the others to flee (Berezovsky is in England, Vladimir Gusinsky is in Israel, another, Mikhail Chernoy, is assumed to be hiding here.)”
Yet, apart from the Washington Post, American media report on almost none of this. Instead, US coverage largely portrays Berezovsky and his crowd as American-style entrepreneurs who are being hounded by a Russian government whose actions are, to repeat the media’s commonly used phrase, “politically motivated.”
US news stories, even when they occasionally do hint at questionable practices, tend to use such phrases as “brash young capitalists” to describe the oligarchs. [11] For example, a long series co-produced by FRONTLINE and the New York Times referred to these men as “shrewd businessmen,” and asked “what it’s like to be young, Russian and newly affluent?” [12] Massive violence, dual loyalties, and control of resources are rarely, if ever, part of the picture.
When AP Moscow bureau chief Ingram was asked for this article about Berezovsky’s Israeli citizenship, she claimed to know nothing about it, a curious contention for someone who has been an AP news editor in Moscow since 1999. When Ingram was queried further, she hung up the phone.
An examination of Ingram’s reporting on the Berezovsky story cited above raises serious questions. Though she is located in Moscow, Ingram interviewed only two people for her news story: Berezovsky, who is in London, and Berezovsky associate Alex Goldfarb, in New York. One wonders why she interviewed none of the Russians residing around her.
Similarly, one wonders why not a single AP story has identified Berezovsky’s considerable connection to Israel.
Further, nowhere does Ingram’s article convey the ruthlessness of the oligarchs’ actions, or the significance of their holdings, including control of its media. Unnoted in Ingram’s report is the fact that her subject and fellow oligarch Vladimir Gusinsky have been two of Russia’s most powerful media tycoons.
Before Putin’s crackdown, according to the Washington Post, oligarchs had succeeded in seizing “the reins of Russia’s print and broadcast media, vital to the evolution of the country’s fledgling democracy and growth of its nascent civil society.” Berezovsky crony Gusinsky, who is close friends with Rupert Murdoch and was about the launch a satellite network, fled to Israel when it appeared he would be arrested.” [13]
Somehow, AP’s bureau chief seems to have missed all this.
Does this matter to Americans?
AP is the major news source for the thousands of news outlets around the country who cannot afford to have their own foreign correspondents. When AP chooses not to cover something, its omission is felt throughout the nation. When national news networks and others leave out the same facts, the cover-up is almost total.
Russia, despite its current turmoil, contains enormous power. Its natural resources are gargantuan: it possesses the world’s largest natural gas reserves, the second largest coal reserves, and the eighth largest oil reserves. It is the world’s largest exporter of natural gas, the second largest oil exporter, and the third largest energy consumer.[14] Russia’s significance on the world stage now, as in the past, is immense.
Similarly, the United States is currently the most powerful nation on earth. It is therefore essential that its citizens be accurately informed on issues of significance. Israeli citizens, Russian citizens, and citizens of nations throughout the world know the information detailed above. It is critical that American citizens be no less well informed.
For years, the neocons’ push for war against Iraq was largely uncovered by the US media. For even longer, the neocons’ close connections to Israel have gone largely unmentioned in mainstream American news reports. As a result, very few Americans know to what degree many of those responsible for the tragic US invasion and occupation of Iraq have been motivated by Israeli concerns.
The omission in coverage of Iraq has been profoundly disastrous, both for the Middle East and for Americans. In fact, it is quite likely that only history will show the true extent of this disaster. It is deeply troubling to see the same kind of omission occurring on Russia.
Alison Weir is Executive Director of If Americans Knew
[1] Interestingly, an AP report sent out only on its Worldstream wire (i.e. to Europe; Britain; Scandinavia; Middle East; Africa; India; Asia; England, but not to US papers) contained information on this at the end of the report.
[2] Washington Post: “Prayer Breakfast Includes Russian Fugitives” (overall, the Post has been an exception to the general blackout on this subject); the Seattle Times, which ran the Post story, and the New York Times, in a short story on page 12 on Sunday, three days after the event. Interestingly, the NY Times story was filed from Moscow (not Washington) and quotes a “spokesman” for the two men, Charles Krause, who has worked as a correspondent in Israel for the News Hour with Jim Lehrer. In the Times story Russian attempts to prosecute these men are described as “politically motivated.”
[3] This is a wise move, since Israel is known for never extraditing Jewish citizens, no matter what their crime. Even requests for such cooperation by the US, which gives Israel over $10 million per day, go unheeded by the Israeli government. Private citizens wanted for committing murder in the US, for example, are not returned for trial.
[4] Associated Press, Sept. 22, 2004
[5] “Tycoons Take the Reins in Russia,” By David Hoffman, Washington Post Foreign Service, Friday, August 28, 1998; Page A01
[6] “Media and Politics in Transition: Three Models,” Post-Soviet Media Law & Policy Newsletter, Issue 35, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Feb. 27, 1997
[7] “Boris Berezovsky: Putin’s Russia dangerous for Israel.’, Bret Stephens, The Jerusalem Post, July 5, 2005
[8]” The Oligarchs”, Uri Avnery, CounterPunch, Aug. 3, 2004
[9] “Tycoons Take the Reins in Russia,” By David Hoffman, Washington Post Foreign Service, Friday, August 28, 1998; Page A01,
[10] “Same Old Ruthless Russia,” by Michael R. Caputo, Washingtonpost.com
[11] Washington Post, Aug 28, 1998
[12] October 2003, Sabrina Tavernise,
[13] “Powerful Few Rule Russian Mass Media,” David Hoffman, Washington Post, March 31, 1997; Page A01
[14] http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/russia.html
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