A TIME TO SPEAK
Vol. III:2 (No. 26)
February 2003 -- Shevet-I Adar 5763
PAYING THE PIPER:
PART II
"He who pays the piper calls the tune/" -- old adage
The European Union (EU) is indulgent when its heavy subsidies to the PLO/PA underwrite terrorism and Judeophobic incitement [Issues 17, 25]. It is meticulous in its donations to organizations and individuals in Israel, granting them only to those that support and forward "the peace process". That is, those who perpetrated the lethal Oslo Accords and are still dedicated to promoting appeasement, concessions, and surrender. To hold any alternative views is to be "anti-peace"
By this criterion, it is natural that the EU's favorite beneficiaries should include --
1] Shimon Peres, under the alias Peres Center for Peace
2] Yossi Beilin and his alias Economic Cooperation Foundation (ECF)
3] Peace Now, that consistently and vociferously agitates for an agenda almost
indistinguishable from that of the PLO.
4] Political candidates and parties that take the correct positions -- These may receive cash gifts that violate Israel's law against foreign contributions for election campaigns.
* * * * * * *
The EU gives a shade of sentiment to its politics, by sponsoring the "Israel-Palestinian Bereaved Families' Forum for Peace" that is dedicated to principles comparable to its own. This group is headed by Israeli Yitzhak Frankenthal, whose son was murdered by the PLO. The Forum is conducting an advertising campaign via newspapers and billboards, with the message
"Lebanon 1982. The Palestinian Authority 2002.
The same unnecessary entanglement. The same destruction. The same victims
dying in vain. Stop Shooting Start Talking. The road to peace is preferable
over the path to war."
As reported by IMRA (Independent Media Review and Analysis):
At
the outset of the campaign Frankenthal told IMRA that the European Union
provided financial support and that the campaign cost hundreds of thousands
of dollars.
The
Israeli-Palestinian Bereaved Families' Forum For Peace is a group of Israelis
and Palestinians who all agree that Israel should make compromises for peace.
The 'bereaved families' label is applied equally to the families
of Palestinian suicide bombers and the families of those murdered by the
bombers.
[Comment: The EU does not give hundreds of thousands of dollars
to help with the medical care of injured survivors of jihad-terror attacks.]
* * * * * * *
A conglomerate of the EU Commission, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, the Embassy of Finland in Israel, the United Churches of the Netherlands, the Ford Foundation (US), the New Israel Fund (US) and several other charities have shared the expense of producing and distributing a new chapter in the world's longest-running and still popular serial "The Blood Libel against the Jews".
As reported by Israel Resource Review, 4 November 2002:
On Friday
1 November, an eight-page color cartoon pamphlet was distributed with [the
Israeli newspaper] Haaretz. This pamphlet, produced by "Physicians for Human
Rights", can only be described as anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic propaganda.
It included caricatures of heavily armed Israeli soldiers 'oppressing' innocent
and powerless Palestinians, refusing them medical care, and engaging in
other alleged "crimes and misdemeanors".
In
one cartoon, two Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint are portrayed as mocking
a pregnant Palestinian woman. The ambulances used to carry suicide bombers
and their explosives are conveniently erased in this crude propaganda, and
there is no mention of Palestinian terrorism.
The
pamphlet was distributed in Hebrew in the apparent effort to propagandize
Israelis through emotional manipulation."
* * * * * * *
The EU calculatingly meddles in Israel's domestic affairs by supporting and encouraging those public figures, political parties and private bodies that will promote its own goals. This intrusion on the independence of a free and sovereign nation is best carried out in the dark, and is thus facilitated by the refusal of Israeli news media to give it adequate exposure.
The problem is defined by Aaron Lerner for IMRA, 26
December 2002:
[. . . .] the heavy foreign financial support - including support from foreign governments - for the Israeli Left receives little if any attention. [. . . .] The agenda of the EU and other foreign governments is to exploit the Israeli political system for the benefit of the EU and foreign governments. [It] is fundamentally more dangerous as it puts foreign interests over Israel's.
* * * * * * *
Yossi Beilin, paid by EU 350,000-400,000 NIS a year (at today's exchange rate $72,000-$83,000) to be middle-man for transferring EU money to the PLO. This is done through the straw-front Economic Cooperation Foundation.
Dr. Beilin has impeccable credentials. As Deputy Foreign Minister of the Peres-Rabin government, he was the chief instigator of the Oslo Accords. Today, he is a private citizens who holds no public office, yet darts about on self-inspired missions of personal diplomacy, negotiates with the PLO on his own, and concocts terms and settlements. This bizarre conduct is subsidized by the EU.
From "The Peace Profiteers", by Caroline Glick, Jerusalem Post, 13 December 2002:
Yossi Beilin himself has used his Oslo advocacy to draw large foreign
contributions to his think tank the Economic Cooperation Foundation. It
has been reported that in his capacity as a chief researcher at ECF, Beilin
receives a ministerial salary and an unlimited expense account for his world
travels during which he advances his radical views on the need for Israeli
surrender to Palestinian terrorism.
This same article discloses other ways in which the champions
of the Oslo Accords were rewarded:
[. . . .] Israeli encouragement of Palestinian corruption was cut
from the same cloth as our leaders' support for Arafat's dictatorship. In
the early years of Oslo, as the first inklings of Arafat's economic adviser
Muhammad Rashid's economic machinations began surfacing, far from discouraging
the trend, Israeli political leaders and security brass clamored for meetings
with Rashid.
[. . . .] The justification for Israeli encouragement of the undermining
of any semblance of financial order or legal system for the Palestinians
under Arafat's regime was the stability of the peace process. It was argued,
or actually, it was taken for granted, that the concentration of wealth in
the hands of Arafat's close associates would give them a vested and personal
interest in making peace with Israel. [. . . .]
A number of months ago, this column discussed the corrupting impact
of the Shimon Peres Center for Peace on the decision-making capability of
top Israeli leaders. As I wrote at the time, the fact that the Government
of Norway was one of the center's principal contributors may have had something
to do with the $100,000 cash prize that the center presented to UN Special
Middle East Coordinator Terje Larsen and his wife, Norwegian Ambassador
Mona Juul in 1999. And this fiduciary relationship may also have influenced
then-foreign minister Shimon Peres's lone defense of Larsen after he libeled
Israel in the immediate aftermath of the bloody battle in Jenin refugee
camp during Operation Defensive Shield.
As I also wrote in that column, Yossi Ginossar sits on the Board
of Directors of the Peres Center. In a tell-all interview with Ma'ariv last
week, Ginossar's business partner, Ozrad Lev gave a detailed account of
Swiss bank accounts that he and Ginossar managed for Rashid and Arafat.
Lev told of the millions of dollars that he and Ginossar received in kickbacks
from Rashid and Arafat for their handling of the funds.
While Lev's account is as disturbing as it is revealing, all it
serves to do is expose the worst kept secret in Israel. Since 1994, everyone
who is anyone in the top echelons of Israel knew full well that Ginossar,
who served as special envoy to Arafat for prime ministers Rabin, Peres,
and Barak, was Rashid's business partner. Everyone knew that Ginossar was
a partner in Rashid's cement and petroleum monopolies. Everyone knew that
Ginossar was Rashid's bagman for funds he siphoned off from the PA treasury
accounts. . . . . And Ginossar is far from the only Israeli official who
has accrued financial and professional benefit from his activities with the
Palestinian Authority.
[. . . .] Because of his official position, the Shin Bet, under
Ya'acov Perry, Carmi Gillon and Ami Ayalon, gave Ginossar not only free
access to intelligence information about the Palestinians, they also gave
him free access to Arafat. When Gaza was declared a closed military zone
to which Israelis were prohibited from traveling, Ginossar was chauffeured
to Arafat's office in Shin Bet armored cars.
[Ginossar's American partner] Stephen Cohen, who is deeply embedded
in the Jewish American peace camp, opened up Arafat's kingdom to Ginossar
when Rabin first appointed him point man with the PA in 1993. Together the
two made millions in kickbacks they received from Rashid for their role
in the cement and petroleum monopolies he built. [. . . .]
[According to the Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv] Cohen's impassioned
defense of Israeli concessions to the PLO, which he voiced regularly to key
officials in the Clinton administration . . . may very well have been influenced
as much by pecuniary as ideological motivations. Then too, it has been reported
that during the Camp David summit, Ginossar was the most fervent advocate
of Israeli concessions to Arafat among the Israeli team.
Stephen Cohen has over the years also enjoyed financial backing
from US business tycoon Daniel Abraham. Abraham is also one of the largest
backers of the Peres Center. [. . . .]
And there are many others as well. The sad fact that comes out
of a study of the financial interests of high ranking Israeli officials and
international peace activists is that while Arafat, Rashid and their associates
pocketed their monies and prepared for war against Israel, these top Israeli
officials became their chief advocates. These peace profiteers have for nine
and a half years made their personal fortunes by illogically arguing that
Arafat is both the problem and the solution that without his dictatorial
consent, Israel will get no peace deal with the Palestinians.
[. . . .] many so-called peace advocates have made personal fortunes by dint of their close relations with Arafat and his cronies. When we look around us, after two years and three months of the PA terror war and wonder how it is possible that Oslo and the corrupt terror regime it spawned still has domestic and international support, we need only to look to the money for our explanation.
The commercial aspects of the EU's pet Peres Center
for Peace is one topic in "Two challenges to our integrity", by David M.
Weinberg, Jerusalem
Post, 14 Decenber 2002:
[. . . .] [Israeli newspaper] Makor Rishon and the Norwegian
press have published extensive investigations of European Commission and
other funds improperly flowing through the Peres Center for Peace. These
funds have reached the pockets of Oslo hacks like Terje Larsen and his wife,
as well as pet projects established or backed by Yossi Beilin. The Israeli
press has paid only perfunctory attention.
No one has seriously taken up investigation of the $60 million
that the Peres Center invested in Paltel, the PA telephone and communications
cartel. Shimon Peres raised the money from foreign investors through his
"Peace Technology Fund," and then bought massive shares of Paltel.
Guess who is on the board of the Center and the Fund and who was
centrally involved in the purchase? Yossi Ginossar. [. . . .]
Now we learn from Caspit's expose that some of the profits made
by Ginossar and held in trust for Arafat apparently made their way from
Arafat's Swiss accounts to at least one prominent American Jew centrally
involved in a pro-Labor and pro-Barak support group, which in turn has been
connected to the murky puzzle of amutot.
Is there a connection? Did Ginossar's shady dealings with Arafat
partially pay for Barak's campaign? According to sources, other Arafat-Ginossar
funds may have oiled the tongue, pen and research center of a high-profile
American Jew with an international bully-pulpit who has become a pro-Palestinian
propagandist.
Given the centrality of Oslo to our political life and national
security debate, you would think that there is enough smoke here to draw
in the investigative attentions of half-a-dozen rightist politicians. To
paraphrase the legendary Deep Throat of Watergate: Follow the money trail.
[. . . .]
[Comment: Terje Roed-Larsen holds the title of United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and Personnel Representative of Secretary-General Kofi Annan to the PLO. His wife Mona Juul is Norway's Ambassador to Israel. Their joint acceptance of a $100,000 tip from the Peres Center for Peace was of questionable propriety under Norwegian law.]
* * * * * * *
Not only governments and international institutions disburse funds in Israel. So, too, do private individuals and non-governmental organizations. Many of these funds are for eleemosynary purposes: hospitals, ambulances, children's homes, vocational training schools, and the like. Others are designated for the promotion of an Osloid political agenda, adopted and advanced by persons and groups who are not citizens or residents of the State of Israel.
Prominent among the individuals are:
1] Lord Levy, chum and fundraiser-in-chief of British Prime Minister Tony Blair. (Blair now agitating to overturn past British promises and force terms of mortal peril upon Israel.)
2] Daniel Abraham, chum of former U.S. President Bill Clinton, proprietor of SlimFast, and chairman of the Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Development. [Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak are members of his board.]
Among the organizations are:
1] American for Peace Now -- supports and promulgates the doctrines of Israel's pro-PLO Peace Now. In the past two years alone, it has spent more than $2,000,000 on the expenses of Peace Now political demonstrations in Israel.
In the United States, it persuades the U.S. administration and the influential news media that selected parts of the Land of Israel must be made judenrein forever..
2] The New Israel Fund (US) -- that gives grants for the achievement of civil and human rights, social and economic justice, equality, tolerance and other nice things. Among the recipients of grants:
a] The pamphlet cited above by the pro-PLO "Physician's for Human Rights"
b] The Israel-Arab organization Adalah, that is demanding an end to certain benefits granted to veterans of the Israel Defense Forces. The grounds for the demand: Israeli Arabs do not serve in the IDF, and therefore do not have equal access to the benefits.
[Comment: Israeli Jews who do not serve in the IDF also do not have receive veterans' benefits. Americans who did not serve in the US military did not receive GI Bill benefits.]
3] The Shefa Fund (Philadelphia) -- that bestows grants on two groups in Israel that try to persuade Israeli soldiers to disobey orders and/or refuse to serve.
The organizations are "Yesh Guval [There Is A Limit]" and "Courage to Refuse", who implore men and women in military service to refuse to obey any order that entails crossing the Green Line. This is not a matter of views on the political future of lands beyond that line. It is a matter of preventing even the most defensive action beyond that line.
That would mean that if there is knowledge of an impending terrorist attack from the other side of the line, IDF soldiers should refuse to cross it to intercept the terrorists. If terrorists carry out a bloody mission inside Israel and escape across the line, soldiers should refuse to pursue them.
This message is spread through ads, pamphlets, e-mails, and accosting soldiers in public places. Soldiers who comply with the message are promised legal expenses and monetary compensation if they incur disciplinary action.
END