Republicans Grovel before Sheldon’s Billions

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Usually the media downplays any hint that strongly identified Jews acting out of Jewish motives are able to influence American politics or anything else. But Sheldon Adelson’s conference of Republican hopefuls apparently was too obvious, especially in the wake of his donating around $100 million to Republicans in the 2012 election cycle (and “much more in 2016“).

So the LATimes made it official: Republicans who are serious about being nominated for president had better genuflect before Jewish money: “2016 Republican hopefuls hope to woo Jewish donors.”

The occasion was a meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition in which Adelson was only one of many politically active Jewish billionaires. And what do Jewish billionaires care about?

During speeches Saturday, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie all addressed the key concerns of Adelson and many group members — the threat of a nuclear Iran, their desire to strengthen U.S. ties with Israel, and what they view as the waning prestige of the U.S. abroad. With varying degrees of deftness, the candidates each touched on their own ties to Israel and Jewish tradition.

Ah yes, the real issues facing America. I guess we are supposed to believe that, like every neocon who ever graced the op-ed pages of our elite media, these rich Jewish Republicans are absolutely certain that American interests are being served with their obsession about Israel. Read more

Ethnic Changes in the Anglophone World

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For better and for worse, the United States has maintained special international relationships with two foreign countries, Britain and Israel, the former for a century and a half and the latter for more than half a century. The alliance among these three powers has created a worldwide Anglophone Empire, which over time has evolved into what is presumptuously and prematurely called the “New World Order,” the common social and geopolitical interests of which have come to differ from those of Europe, where “Old World” values still persist and constantly reassert themselves. Developments in the past decade now suggest that not only is the relationship between Europe, a continental land power, and the English-speaking world, a sea and air power, loosening, but that those internal links between the three countries comprising the Anglophone empire are diverging as well.

No other nation in the world has so consistently and successfully directed all its efforts towards conquest, as has England. Her colonial empire encircled the globe and involved most of the races, languages, and climes of the world. Those major components of the Empire (Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand) were settled and developed quite peacefully by the native English, Irish, Scots, and Welsh sons of the motherland with only sporadic opposition from hostile indigenous tribes.  These settlers remained loyal to England’s mores, language, law, traditions and values, even serving as England’s allies in her wars. Read more

The Ukraine as a Model of a European Spring

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The role of geopolitics and the interests of powerful nations and groups — especially where they coincide or enter into a kind of equilibrium — are constantly underestimated in self-determination, nationalistic, and other political struggles.

The Kurds, for example, despite an overwhelming need and just cause for their  own state, and the apparent divisions of their neighbours, are going to find it extremely difficult to achieve statehood as long as the three dominant groups surrounding them — Turkey, the Arabs, and Iran (along with their superpower backers) — stand to lose equally by this process.

We see something similar in the Ukraine. Despite all the leadership posturing by those involved, it is clear that we are heading to a new consensus, in which (1) the new borders – i.e. Crimea as part of Russia – are tacitly accepted, (2) the Russians hold back the more threatening breakaway movements in Eastern and Southern Ukraine, (3) the West favours liberals and moderates in Kiev at the expense of the Ukrainian nationalists, and (4) the gas continues to flow.

This is a pity as 2014 has the potential to see a European version of an “Arab Spring.” But then, neither the Russians, the EU (which essentially means the dominant EU countries), nor, of course, the US wants this. Read more

SPLC and the ADL dropped from FBI Hate Crimes Webpage

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It was always a bit horrifying that  the ADL and the  SPLC are deeply intertwined with government, particularly at the federal level. So the world is a little better place now that these organizations have been been dropped as “resources” on the FBI‘s Hate Crime Web page. This occurred

after 15 family groups pressed Attorney General Eric Holder and FBI Director James Comey to stop endorsing a group — SPLC — that inspired a recent case of domestic terrorism at the Family Research Council.

“We commend the FBI for removing website links to the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that not only dispenses erroneous data but has been linked to domestic terrorism in federal court. We hope this means the FBI leadership will avoid any kind of partnership with the SPLC,” Tony Perkins, FRC President, told Secrets.

“The Southern Poverty Law Center’s mission to push anti-Christian propaganda is inconsistent with the mission of both the military and the FBI, which is to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States,” he added. (Washington Examiner)

The Daily Caller has a nice summary of the SPLC’s role:

Back in 2012, 28-year-old Floyd Corkins II used the SPLC’s Hate Map, which lists groups ranging from the Klu Klux Klan to pro-traditional marriage nonprofits as “active hate groups,” to locate the Family Research Council based in Washington, D.C. Armed with one hundred rounds of ammunition and 15 Chik-Fil-A sandwiches, he planned to “smother in [the] faces” of his victims. Corkins ended shooting up FRC’s lobby and wounding a security guard.

He was subdued by the wounded security guard and arrested before he could claim any lives — and charged with three felonies, committing an act of terrorism while armed, assault with intent to kill and transporting a firearm over state lines.

Let’s hope the victim sues the SPLC. Such a lawsuit would be quite on a par with SPLC lawsuits against organizations where someone associated with the organization commits a crime. Poetic justice.

The ADL was not pleased:

Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, told Secrets, “We are shocked, surprised and disappointed that this would be done without any consultation with groups such as ours who have been working closely with the Federal Bureau of Investigation on issues of hate crime. We look forward to having further conversations with them on this issue.”

Which shows that the ADL will exert pressure to be put back on the list of resources. However, the link between the crime and the SPLC likely gives the FBI cover for getting rid of all non-governmental groups as resources for “hate crimes.”

A search for the story turned up nothing in the major media. So we will continue to see the SPLC  quoted on immigration and other issues as a “respected civil rights organization.”

Forward Study of the Jewish Charity Industry

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A theme at TOO, most recently the early days of the Israel Lobby,  is that Jewish wealth and willingness to contribute to ethnic causes is a cornerstone of Jewish influence. Simply put, Jewish causes are lavishly funded and provide ample career opportunities. Now the Forward is beginning a series of articles on “the Jewish charity industry”: “26 billion: the Jewish Charity Industry Uncovered.” 

The $26 billion dollar figure in the title refers to the net assets of the network of explicitly Jewish charitable organizations, which puts it in the same league as a major corporation. Annual revenue is around $12-14 billion. Assuming an American Jewish population of around 6.4 million, this implies assets per capita  of over $4000 and per capita annual giving of around half that. Based on an older survey indicating 2.3 persons per Jewish household, annual giving per household would be around $4600.

These numbers are certainly not earth shaking, but, when broken down to particular categories, they indicate that Jewish activist organizations are indeed well funded, especially when compared to the financial resources of organizations that oppose Jewish interests (probably well under $1 million for organizations explicitly dedicated to advancing the interests of White Americans).

For example, 6% of the $3.7 billion in  annual donations for “functional charities” is allocated for “General Advocacy” ($222,000,000 annually), and 38% goes to Israel-related causes  ($1.4 billion annually). Advocacy presumably includes the ADL which reported revenue of over $53 million in 2012—enough to fund over $31 million in employee salaries (including Abe Foxman at $688,188 ) and 28 regional offices. Read more

David Cameron in the Knesset: Links with Israeli Espionage in the UK and the US

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It was in front of a packed parliamentary chamber that the British Prime Minister David Cameron finally felt able to express his devotion to the people who had stood by him.  In a voice shaking with emotion he spoke of the real connection he felt with them, how he admired their thousand years of history, how it had shaped him personally and finally how he would always defend their right to exist. His commitment to their security would always be “rock solid”

There was only one problem.  He was not in the House of Commons standing up for the rights of the native British. He was in the Knesset and the people he was speaking of defending were the Jewish — and only the Jewish — population of Israel.

And he had one surprise. “My Jewish ancestry is relatively limited but I do feel just some sense of connection. From the lexicon of my great, great grandfather Emile Levita, a Jewish man who came from Germany to Britain 150 years ago to the story of my forefather Elijah Levita who wrote what is thought to have been the first ever Yiddish novel.”

It was all par for the course for Britain’s shape-shifting prime minister. In recent months he has donned a turban to placate the Sikh community, he has tried to stave off the Scottish campaign for independence with stories of his Scottish forebears. But the Jewish angle caught many by surprise.

Cameron’s Knesset speech came in brief trip a fortnight ago to cement relations between the UK and Israel. It is a considerable relationship that is often overlooked because of Israel’s links with the USA. Bi-lateral trade between the two countries has soared to £5.1 billion and Britain’s unstinting support helps Israel to side-step trade restrictions issued by the European Union from Brussels. Read more

Alison Weir on the Early Days of the Israel Lobby

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In “Background traits for Jewish activism” I listed several traits of Jewish activist groups that make them so effective. They are all on display in Alison Weir’s excerpt from her book Against Our Better Judgment: How the US was Used to Create Israel. 

1. Jewish groups are well organized and lavishly funded. I probably shouldn’t have been surprised by the incredible scale of Zionist activism during the 1940s, both financially and in the scale of their outreach efforts. But it is truly remarkable. Weir describes the “gargantuan financial resources” available, amounting to $1.5 billion in today’s dollars. A big part of the effort was aimed at non-Jewish elites in business, labor, religion, and academia; pro-Zionist books by non-Jews were subsidized.

For example, at its beginning in 1945

[the American Zionist Emergency Council] booked Madison Square Garden, ordered advertisements, and mailed 250,000 announcements – the first day. By the second day they had organized demonstrations in 30 cities, a letter-writing campaign, and convinced 27 U.S. Senators to give speeches. Grassroots Zionist action groups were organized with more than 400 local committees under 76 state and regional branches. AZEC funded books, articles and academic studies; millions of pamphlets were distributed.

This top-down approach making alliances with sympathetic non-Jews is typical of Jewish efforts generally, as with the neoconservatives whose networks of think tanks and access to the media and the highest levels of government provide excellent career prospects for ambitious Jews and non-Jews alike. As a small minority, Jews must reach out to others and they are very effective at doing it. Read more