The “Sheldon Primary” is how casino mogul Sheldon Adelson showcases his political clout in the United States. As Jim Lobe reports, Israel was the main issue on the table for the line of Republican hopefuls who came to Las Vegas this weekend to curry favor with the pro-Israel billionaire [...]]]>
The “Sheldon Primary” is how casino mogul Sheldon Adelson showcases his political clout in the United States. As Jim Lobe reports, Israel was the main issue on the table for the line of Republican hopefuls who came to Las Vegas this weekend to curry favor with the pro-Israel billionaire and fervent supporter of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The influence Adelson has over the GOP on Israel was underlined by an embarrassing moment for New Jersey governor Chris Christie at the gala. In an attempt to impress his audience with pro-Israel bromides, he uttered the words “occupied territories” — a grievous mistake in front of someone like Adelson, who rejects a two-state solution and considers the West Bank to be part of Israel, indivisible. Christie, not known for making fulsome apologies or backing down from a controversy, nonetheless apologized to Adelson in private, according to Politico, trying to make clear that it was only a poor choice of words. For the record, “occupied territories” is correct according to the official US government position, which takes it cue from the United Nations.
Adelson is also in Israeli headlines this week, and not just because of his moment with Christie. Not satisfied with Israel Today (Israel Hayom), the free, pro-Netanyahu tabloid he set up in 2007, Adelson has now bought two other Israeli outlets, the national-religious daily Makor Rishon and the online version of the insolvent center-right daily Maariv, NRG, for $5 million from its parent media group. NRG, which reflects Maariv’s center-right editorial line, reaches a large online audience. Makor Rishon, printed only in Hebrew, has low circulation but is very well-read among the national-religious settler establishment. The purchase indicates further consolidation of media ownership in Israel, but the politics of it is another matter entirely.
Israel Today, founded in 2007, evokes memories of the hyper-partisan dailies of 1950s Israel. Since 2010, it has been the highest circulated daily in the country. Critics and supporters of Likud — even Netanyahu himself — say that the paper’s editorials helped him triumph in the 2009 Knesset (parliamentary) elections.
After seven years in print and two national elections, Israel Today (nicknamed “Bibiton”) has transformed the face of Israeli media. Economically, its free distribution upset the models for the other main dailies (Haaretz, Maariv, and Yediot Aharonot). Israeli media watcher Tal Schneider estimates that it currently costs Adelson $3 million a month to keep it afloat. Adelson’s print competitors simply cannot match this level of capital. Shlomo Ben-Zvi, owner of the national-religious daily Makor Rishin who took over Maariv and NRG in 2012, once hoped that he would be able to compete with Adelson directly. But his attempt never had a real chance given the financial distance between the two men.
Israeli legal efforts to undercut Adelson have also failed. A 2009 Knesset bill (quietly applauded by some of Israel Today’s competitors) would have barred foreigners from owning Israeli newspapers; it was clearly aimed at undercutting Adelson’s influence. Though that bill failed, Knesset members have now introduced legislation that would limit free newspaper distribution and fix prices for print sales. Israel Today will lose its competitive advantage if this becomes law.
Ambitious Israeli right-wing politicians seem to agree that the casino mogul has gone too far with his purchase of Maariv‘s properties — Israel Today, NRG (due to its relationship with Maariv), and Makor Rishon all have a reputation of being very close to the Prime Minister’s Office under Netanyahu.
Netanyahu’s nominal allies cannot stand the advantage Adelson’s tabloid gives him. Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Lieberman, Netanyahu’s Minister of the Economy and his Minister of Foreign Affairs, respectively, have both belittled Israel Today as the country’s own Soviet Pravda. They would also would jump at a chance to become the prime minister of Israel.
Netanyahu’s leadership rivals thus fear that if Adelson has his way, he will bless “Bibi” in perpetuity, while they scrape and shuffle outside the door for editorial blessings…not unlike the search by the 2016 Republican hopefuls in Las Vegas for Adelson’s largesse.
– Paul Mutter is a foreign policy blogger on leave from the NYU Arthur L. Carter Institute of Journalism. He contributes to PBS Tehran Bureau, The Arabist, Mondoweiss, Truthout, Salon and Foreign Policy in Focus. He primarily writes about US foreign relations, Israeli politics and the Persian Gulf region.
Photo: Jewish American billionaire Sheldon Adelson, left, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, center, and Adelson’s wife, Miriam. Credit: Eyal Warshavsky
]]>by David Isenberg
Last year I wrote a column for the Huffington Post discussing how some of my fellow members of the Chosen People — specifically, Jewish neoconservatives — were doing their best to bring comic relief to the American public in making idiots of themselves by opposing the nomination of [...]]]>
by David Isenberg
Last year I wrote a column for the Huffington Post discussing how some of my fellow members of the Chosen People — specifically, Jewish neoconservatives — were doing their best to bring comic relief to the American public in making idiots of themselves by opposing the nomination of former U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel as the next Secretary of Defense on the laughably spurious grounds that he was insufficiently supportive of Israel and even an anti-Semite.
In terms of sheer unadulterated, one hundred percent kosher, chutzpah, that set a new record for political comedy, and one I thought might last a while.
But, stop the presses! We have a new winner, and it is none other than Sheldon Adelson, the chairman and CEO of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation — a gambling tycoon well-known for his support of Israel and Jewish charitable causes. He also owns the Israeli daily tabloid Israel HaYom. As of October 2013, Adelson was listed as the 12th richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of $34.4 billion.
One might think that with all that money at his disposal, Adelson might be willing to spend a few dollars hiring a tutor to bring him up to speed on current geopolitical realities. But no, showing the same perspicacity and judgment that led him to financially contribute to Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney’s presidential campaigns, we now know, thanks to the Mondoweiss blog, that on Oct. 22 at a Yeshiva University event in New York Adelson said the U.S. should incorporate the firing of a nuclear weapon at Iran into its negotiations strategy. He apparently believes that if Obama shoots a weapon into the desert and then threatens to send the next one to Tehran so it’s “wiped out,” Iran will cease its nuclear program.
Evidently Adelson is in the running for becoming a Jewish version of Donald Trump. Their motto: nothing is too stupid to say, as long as it gets them publicity.
Before going further, we should note that there is a longstanding myth — assiduously cultivated by the private sector — that if you make a lot of money in one particular field, you are somehow qualified to opine in other areas. This is — putting it politely — a non sequitur. Less politely put, it’s sheer fatuousness.
But, if you spread enough money around, you can always find someone willing to say you’re the most profound thinker since Rabbi Maimonides. In this case, the role of posterior sucking interlocutor and softball-tossing moderator was filled by Shmuley Boteach, an Orthodox rabbi best known for his self-promotion.
Adelson’s remarks were so out of touch with reality that one scarcely knows where to begin when analyzing their innate stupidity. But before proceeding, we should thank him, for his remarks resoundingly confirm that having lots of money is no indication of intelligence.
Let’s go to the videotape. Here’s the nut graf:
What are we going to negotiate about? I would say ‘Listen, you see that desert out there, I want to show you something.’ …You pick up your cell phone and you call somewhere in Nebraska and you say, ‘OK let it go.’ And so there’s an atomic weapon, goes over ballistic missiles, the middle of the desert, that doesn’t hurt a soul. Maybe a couple of rattlesnakes, and scorpions, or whatever. Then you say, ‘See! The next one is in the middle of Tehran. So, we mean business. You want to be wiped out? Go ahead and take a tough position and continue with your nuclear development. You want to be peaceful? Just reverse it all, and we will guarantee you that you can have a nuclear power plant for electricity purposes, energy purposes.’
Putting aside his obvious ignorance about the way the National Command Authority over U.S. nuclear weapons actually works, the least of his offenses (hint: it doesn’t involve the commander-in-chief of the U.S. armed forces picking up his cell phone and calling Nebraska), I should point out the following:
First, ever since the United States was faced with the possibility of a nuclear weapons attack, its policy has been that nuclear weapons can only be used for deterrence, not for war fighting, not even for the purpose of threatening war. Apparently the irony of a Jewish plutocrat espousing a policy formerly advocated by an ex-Nazi scientist — though thankfully fictitiously in the film Dr. Strangelove – escaped Adelson and his publicist.
Evidently, it has also escaped Adelson’s attention that absent an attack on its territory or its allies, the United States has a no first-use policy when it comes to nuclear weapons.
Second, the idea that a nuclear weapon could be detonated somewhere in Iran without harming Iranian civilians is sheer fantasy. Adelson is entitled to recklessly gamble in his own casinos but he has no right to play Russian roulette with the lives of innocent people in another country.
Third, the idea that the threat of using nuclear weapons will shock and awe someone to capitulate to your demands is an option the U.S. has rejected in the past. It was considered by the Truman, Johnson and Nixon administrations during the Vietnam War and was decisively rejected. (For more details on this consider Five Myths About Nuclear Weapons, which was published earlier this year.)
Fourth, threatening to destroy Tehran because the Iranian government won’t comply with your unreasonable (see next point) demand is advocating genocide; something we Jews are supposed to know something about. Think I’m exaggerating? The definition of genocide, coined by a Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin, is “the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, caste, religious, or national group.” While legal scholars debate what constitutes enough of a “part” to qualify as genocide, consider that Tehran has a population of around 8.3 million and surpassing 14 million in the wider metropolitan area and is one of the largest cities in Western Asia.
Finally, as a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Iran has a legal right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes as part of its civilian nuclear energy program (see Article IV of the NPT).
It is true that Iran has been found in non-compliance with its NPT safeguards agreement, and the status of its nuclear program remains in dispute. It is also true that the November 2007 US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) later concluded that Iran had halted an active nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003 and that it had remained halted; an assessment with which many Israeli military and intelligence officials also agree.
So, to conclude, while we can thank Adelson for his willingness to offer blatantly insane policy advice and offer us a few laughs along the way, making him a sort of leytsim for the-out-of-touch one percent, we should also be horrified that anybody might take him seriously.
]]>Israelis are being sold on war with Iran in more ways than one.
In a commercial featuring John Cleese (a veteran of the zany British comedy shows, Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Fawlty Towers) a high level general takes a taste of a delectable chocolate and hazelnut spread and inadvertently [...]]]>
Israelis are being sold on war with Iran in more ways than one.
In a commercial featuring John Cleese (a veteran of the zany British comedy shows, Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Fawlty Towers) a high level general takes a taste of a delectable chocolate and hazelnut spread and inadvertently sets in motion an Israeli military strike on an unnamed country — Iran by implication and context — a command that the Israelis have been waiting for and are eager to carry out.
The ad’s tour de force hinges on a pun. Three high level military officers, for whom “General Rogers” (Cleese) is the spokesman, are seated at a table in a war room. Across the table is a silver-haired man flanked by two military officers trying to persuade the generals to authorize an attack that they are apparently reluctant to approve. “I promise you we will be in and out in 33 minutes,” the silver-haired civilian tells them. “We have the right to defend ourselves!” Mulling what the panel’s response ought to be, Cleese opens the container of chocolate-hazelnut spread that happens to be on the tablet, removes the inner liner and licks it. Impressed, he reads the product’s name aloud: Sababa Egozim. Adweek claims the phrase translates into something like “Let’s get nuts.” According to Gabe Fisher in the Times of Israel:
“Sababa” means “cool” in Israeli slang (taken from the Arabic, like many Hebrew slang words) and “egozim” are “nuts.” Put together, though, the term is slang for “super cool” or “hell yeah.”
Whatever the translation, the Israelis construe Cleese’s utterance as the generals’ official approval of a military strike. Delighted, they give one another victorious high five signs and triumphantly exit to launch their attack.
Tim Nudd of Adweek has criticized the promotional video for being “weird” and has faulted the offbeat comic for doing anything for money. An earlier version of the Adweek article, quoted by the British website, The Drum, apparently included the observation, “What would the young, rebellious Cleese, at the height of his powers in the early 1970s, say if he could see the depths to which his septuagenarian self has sunk?” Cleese reportedly received $50,00o for appearing in the ad, which was filmed in Monaco, where he lives.
This isn’t the first case of an Israeli commercial finding humor in Israel’s bellicose relationship with Iran. Last February — a few weeks after the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, that was widely believed to have been carried out by the Mossad — a commercial for the Israeli cable company HOT featured four characters from the Israeli television series Asfur. Poorly disguised as Iranian women, the foursome wonder how they’ll be able to find Kosher food in Iran. They meet a Mossad agent who is watching their show on his Samsung tablet. While examining the numerous features of the tablet, which the cable company was offering for free in a promotion, one of the “women” accidentally touches a button that causes a nearby nuclear plant to explode. The timing of the commercial also coincided with an upsurge in media speculation that Israel was indeed on the verge of attacking Iran this past spring.
Iranians didn’t think the ad was very funny. Iran’s Press TV objected to the ad’s assumption that Israel was powerful enough to easily destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities, and its lighthearted view of the assassination of the country’s nuclear scientists. Arsalan Fathipour, an Iranian lawmaker who heads the Energy Committee of Iran’s parliament, called for a ban on the import of all Samsung products, objecting to Samsung’s attempt to curry favor with Israelis through the commercial. A Samsung spokesperson in Iran insisted that HOT — not Samsung — had produced the ad and was not responsible for its contents, while Samsung’s Dubai office condemned the role of the company’s Israel office in the production.
What do these Israeli commercials that make light of Israeli attacks and sabotage against Iran reveal about the prospects for war? Joking about attacking Iran may function as an emotional safety valve for Israelis, allowing them to cope with a geopolitical situation that may be spinning out of control. Iranians can hardly be blamed if they don’t appreciate the humor. An optimist might opine that Israelis being able to find amusement in attacking Iran could indicate that an actual strike is less likely.
But humor about an attack on Iran may also signal a darker trend in Israeli popular culture: the acceptance that war with Iran is inevitable, so Israelis might as well take it in stride, sit back and enjoy the show.
]]>Having pulled all the stops to avert an Israeli attack against Iran last spring that never happened, has the Obama administration given all that it has to Israel’s hawkish leaders, only to learn that it has been played? If so, how might this affect the US response to Israeli warnings that [...]]]>
Having pulled all the stops to avert an Israeli attack against Iran last spring that never happened, has the Obama administration given all that it has to Israel’s hawkish leaders, only to learn that it has been played? If so, how might this affect the US response to Israeli warnings that it will attack Iran before the 2012 presidential election?
Martin Indyk, a former US Ambassador to Israel during the Clinton years who is now head of Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution, is reported by the Sheldon Adelson-owned Israel Hayom to have told Israel Army Radio on August 23 that:
The administration was convinced that Israel was going to attack in the spring. That was the official assessment, everyone ran to battle stations, mobilized, engaged with the Israelis, did whatever they could to calm them down and make it clear that the President [Barack Obama] was absolutely committed to Israel’s security and to ensuring that Iran would not get nuclear weapons. That seemed to work fine. But after that, the administration concluded that Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and Defense Minister [Ehud] Barak were engaged in a complete bluff, and having succeeded in bluffing them, I think they were wary of being bluffed again.
When Obama met with Netanyahu in March, according to Indyk, the president came away convinced that an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities was about to occur. He did everything possible to reassure Israel’s leader that the US would do whatever was necessary to deter Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons capability. “Apparently, Israel complied, as no attack has yet taken place,” according to the religious nationalist news site Arutz Sheva.
A diplomatic success story? Hardly, according to The Jerusalem Post:
After no Israeli strike took place, Indyk said that the US officials felt as though they had been duped by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s ruse. The former ambassador added that there is a sense within the US government that Washington is once again being misled by Israeli declarations and leaks.
It’s not clear whether Indyk is working for or against the President in suggesting that the Obama administration feels it was played by Netanyahu and Ehud Barak. Or, by stating that after having been misled about Israel’s intentions, the administration remains committed to preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons but views Israel as “the boy who cried wolf” and is therefore taking less seriously the hyperbolic hints that Israel will attack Iran prior to the US election. It’s possible that Indyk’s current message intentionally contrasts with the recent recommendation of fellow Clinton adviser Dennis Ross that Obama try to avert an Israeli military strike on Iran by promising Netanyahu even more armaments and military support.
The author of the Clinton administration’s “dual containment” policy that simultaneously targeted Iran and Iraq (instead of playing the two Persian Gulf powers off against one another as traditional “balance of power ” strategic logic would have suggested), Indyk has served as Assistant Secretary of State for Near East affairs, Special Assistant to the President, and the US National Security Council’s senior director for Near East and South Asia. Bill Clinton appointed Indyk as Ambassador to Israel in 1993. A former Research Director at the American Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Indyk was the founding director of the Washington Institution for Near East Policy (WINEP), an AIPAC-created think tank dedicated to influencing the executive branch on Middle East foreign policy while AIPAC focused on lobbying members of Congress. Indyk is also the founding director of Brookings’ Saban Center for Middle East Policy. During the 2008 presidential primaries, Indyk backed Hillary Clinton, but supported Barack Obama when he won the Democratic nomination.
In the past several months, however, Indyk has grown critical of Obama’s foreign policy. As co-author of Bending History: Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy (with Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Lieberthal) he classified Obama as a pragmatist who opted for reasonable policies — often the least-worst available options — “with an approach typified by thoroughness, reasonably good teamwork, and flexibility when needed”. Indyk told Nahum Barnea of the Hebrew-language Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot in an interview coinciding with the book’s publication that despite the greatness of the vision he presented, “Obama’s cold, analytical and aloof attitude didn’t suit the Middle Eastern climate.”
In a February 29 op-ed in the New York Times, Indyk criticized the “fundamental design flaw” in the Obama administration’s Iran sanctions policy. Indyk warned that “crippling” sanctions designed to “persuade the Israelis that there is a viable alternative to a preventive strike” could backfire as “the Iranians conclude that they have no choice but to press ahead in acquiring the ultimate means of assuring the regime’s survival.” Furthermore, Indyk opined, the constant warnings of Obama’s military advisers about the grave consequences of a military strike by Israel might signal that the US cannot be counted upon to restrain the Israelis from launching a war against Iran. Indyk also suggested that election year rhetoric might impact Iran’s strategic calculus. The louder Obama insists that that he will not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, the more likely it is that that Iran will respond defiantly:
The only way out of the vicious circle is for Khamenei to understand that Obama is not seeking his overthrow — that behind the negotiating door lies a path to Iran’s peaceful use of nuclear power and not a corridor to the gallows. But how, while pursuing sanctions designed to cut Iran’s economic jugular, can Obama credibly signal this to Khamenei without opening himself up to the charge of weakness? Any hint of reassurance to the Iranian regime will surely be seized upon by his Republican rivals as a sign of appeasement.
Yet during an Yediot Aharonot interview at the end of May, Indyk recommended that Israelis be wary of US efforts to negotiate with Iran. “The Israeli response must be skeptical, regardless of what exactly is agreed upon there,” Indyk said. “When others are negotiating in your stead, you have every reason to suspect you are being sold out.”
In his latest interview, Indyk’s message seems to be that Obama has nothing left to promise Netanyahu:
Essentially, the U.S. had done everything it could to reassure Israel, the president doesn’t have anything more in his quiver, no other arrow to shoot to reassure it. I think this time around they thought, ‘Here we go again, there’s nothing more we can do we’ll just learn to live with it.
What exactly is Indyk’s game?
]]>The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is probably the most notorious work of anti-Semitic propaganda ever written. First surfacing publicly in 1905 after several years in private circulation, the work was a fabricated transcript of a secret meeting of rabbis plotting to control the world, as Gary Saul [...]]]>
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is probably the most notorious work of anti-Semitic propaganda ever written. First surfacing publicly in 1905 after several years in private circulation, the work was a fabricated transcript of a secret meeting of rabbis plotting to control the world, as Gary Saul Morson explains. Its initial purpose appears to have been to blame the Jews of Russia for the radical activity that was beginning to shake the foundations of the Tsarist Russian Empire. Translated into English, French, German, Polish, Spanish and Arabic, its unfounded claim that a global Jewish conspiracy seeks to rule the world has shaped and seeped into anti-Semitic propaganda for over a century.
The Protocols of the Elder of Las Vegas, on the other hand, is a 21st century work in progress, and it is no hoax. It’s about a casino magnate with an estimated net worth of just under $25 billion (the seventh richest man in the United States) who decides to devote a small portion of his vast wealth to a neoconservative agenda determined to thwart negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinians; prevent the reelection of an incumbent U.S. president; engineer the destruction of political liberalism; and reshape the political environments of the U.S. and Israel by funding the election of politicians who serve his own corporate and ideological interests. Following is a rough draft of the plot line so far.
Chapter One: The Neoconservative
In April 2007, Sheldon and Miriam Adelson’s newly-established Adelson Family Foundation gives a $4.5 million three year grant to the Shalem Center in Jerusalem to establish the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies to “explore topics ranging from democracy and security, to nationalism, terror and identity.” Heading the Adelson Institute is former Soviet dissident Natan (Anatoly) Sharansky, who, after arriving in Israel, became a nationalist hardliner. Named as Adelson Institute fellows are former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon (currently Israel’s Vice Prime Minister and Minister for Strategic Affairs); Yossi Klein Halevi (a contributing editor of The New Republic since 2008); Martin Kramer, an Middle East Studies professor and Washington Institute (WINEP) Fellow; and historian Michael Oren who became Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S. in 2008.
The Adelson Institute’s first project is a June 2007 conference on “Democracy & Security” in Prague. Its agenda is a melange of neoconservative talking points: support for the U.S. war in Iraq; demanding human rights for freedom fighters (as long as they are not Palestinian); celebrating Eastern European resistance to Soviet domination and Communism, which had culminated in the integration of most former Warsaw Pact countries into NATO and the EU; and defending Israel’s right to absolute sovereignty. As Jim Lobe astutely noted at the time, the conference constitutes “a kind of ‘Neo-Conservative International’ designed to rally support for ‘dissidents,’ primarily from the Islamic world, and give them hope that ‘regime change’ in their countries is possible much as it was in the former Soviet bloc almost 20 years ago.
Within this “Middle East as Eastern Europe” neoconservative paradigm, Iran is accorded the role of “evil empire” once reserved for the Soviet Union. Two months later, in August, Sheldon Adelson is among the major donors who establish Freedom’s Watch, an advocacy group whose supporters overlapped with or were closely tied to the Republican Jewish Coalition. Freedom’s Watch immediately launches a 5 week, $15 million media blitz supporting President George W. Bush’s “surge” strategy in Iraq. In October, Freedom’s Watch sponsors a private forum of 20 “experts” on radical Islam and Iran.
Chapter 2: Ready for Prime (Minister) Time Player
In August 2007, after a failed attempt to purchase the Israeli evening newspaper Maariv, Adelson launches an Israeli newspaper of his own, Israel Hayom (Israel Today) with a reported $180 million investment. Israel Hayom soon achieves wide circulation. Not only is it free, it also offers home delivery at no charge. For Adelson, Israel Hayom would be a tool with which to remove Prime Minister Ehud Olmert from office, and replace him with Benjamin Netanyahu.
Olmert resigns as Prime Minister on July 29, 2008 after being accused of corruption during his previous posts as cabinet minister and Jerusalem’s mayor. The charges included taking $150,000 in bribes from a U.S. businessman and defrauding Israeli charities by double-billing them for overseas fundraising trips. Israel Today regales its readers with sensationalist headlines and accounts of Olmert pocketing cash-stuffed envelopes and enjoying a lavish lifestyle in luxury hotels. Olmert insists he is innocent and will ultimately be vindicated.
In a CNN interview this past May, Olmert explains to Christiane Amanpour that he had been the victim of a right-wing conspiracy involving American millionaires determined to thwart his peacemaking efforts and destroy his political career:
“[Trying to make peace] was a killer for me,” he said. “I had to fight against superior powers, including millions and millions of dollars that were transferred from this country by figures in the extreme right-wing who tried to topple me. There is no question about it. I know the names of people who spent millions of dollars who tried to stop me. They wanted to prevent a government led by me from achieving peace.”
In July 2012, Olmert is acquitted of major corruption charges, but found guilty of a lesser charge of breaching the public trust. Olmert calls for an investigation of “right wing American Jews” who had used their money and influence to topple him from power. Former government Minister Haim Ramon tells Israel Radio:
American right-wing Jews who filed countless complaints against Olmert have to be investigated. They saw Olmert as the man who could deliver an agreement with the Palestinians. Consider what Olmert could have done had he remained prime minister for two more years instead of Netanyahu.
Adelson’s intransigence on the Palestinian issue also brings him into conflict with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Adelson has been underwriting the cost of trips to Israel for members of Congress — although only for Republicans sponsored by an AIPAC-affiliate — and contributed toward a luxurious new office building for AIPAC in Washington DC, according to Connie Bruck in the New Yorker. Adelson is infuriated when he discovers that AIPAC is supporting a letter signed by 130 members of the House of Representatives that asks the Bush administration to increase economic aid to the Palestinians, a measure also supported by the Israeli government.
Chapter 3: All the President’s Money?
In 2011, Adelson forges an alliance with Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich. Adelson and his wife contribute $10 million to Gingrich‘s Winning Our Future political action committee. Adelson’s cash enables Gingrich’s campaign to run ads vilifying rival Mitt Romney‘s record at Bain Capital. When Gingrich drops out of the GOP primary race, Adelson begins negotiations with Romney. In June, “a well-placed source in the Adelson camp with direct knowledge of the casino billionaire’s thinking” hints to Forbes‘ Steve Bertoni that Adelson might even be willing to make “limitless” donations to Romney’s campaign in order to prevent Barack Obama’s re-election.
“What scares me is the continuation of the socialist-style economy we’ve been experiencing for almost four years,” Adelson tells Bertoni in an interview. The man who amassed more wealth than anyone in the U.S. during the three and a half years Obama has been in office — $21.6 billion, which is about 90% of his current fortune — declares, “I believe that people will come to their senses and not extend the current Administration’s quest to socialize this country.”
Adelson has other items on his agenda besides putting the lid on creeping “socialism” in the U.S. During Romney’s Israel visit, Netanyahu gave Romney a letter signed by the heads of all non-Arab political parties in Israel requesting clemency for Jonathan Pollard, an American convicted of spying for Israel while employed by U.S. naval intelligence. Pollard was sentenced to life in prison 27 years ago. All U.S. presidents including Obama have declined to free Pollard, who supporters say has served more time in prison than any other spy in U.S. history. An associate of Adelson’s, identified as a major Republican donor, tells the Daily Beast’s Eli Lake and Dan Ephron that Adelson is putting pressure on Romney to commit to freeing Pollard if he is elected. Romney’s response has been that he’ll have to wait until he is president and has access to top level national security files to make a decision about Pollard. That’s not the sort of answer Adelson likes to hear, so it’s being touted as evidence that Romney is a principled and independent thinker, not Adelson’s yes-man, despite the lure of massive cash infusions. According to Jonathan S. Tobin: ”The Romney campaign isn’t shy about making it clear that even the most beneficent contributor to the candidate’s coffers can expect nothing more than a civil hearing.”
“When Adelson was merely rich, he wrote checks for causes that he favored and for politicians whom he supported,” writes Connie Bruck. “Occasionally, he demanded to be heard. But he did not expect to play a significant role in U.S. foreign policy, or in Israel’s strategic decisions, or in the fate of a sitting Israeli Prime Minister. That was before he acquired many billions of dollars.”
Chapter 4: The Tycoon
Sheldon Adelson’s empire of shifting Sands was on the brink of bankruptcy in 2008. Now he is the 14th richest man in the world. ProPublica and Frontline have been co-publishing some in-depth reporting about Adelson’s business methods that may be under investigation, including “Inside the Investigation of Leading Republican Money Man Sheldon Adelson” and “New Questions about Sheldon Adelson’s Casino Operations in Macao.” Thomas B. Edsall also provides a detailed discussion of the business aspects behind Adelson’s success and questionable practices by which he may have attained it in the New York Times.
But could his obsession with politics be setting up Adelson for another downfall? Howard Stutz suggests in the Casino City Times that Adelson’s investors have reason to be concerned about the declining profitability and downgraded value of shares in Adelson’s casino empire, while he lavishes his largesse on philanthropy and politicians:
A few days after Las Vegas Sands Corp. disappointed investors with quarterly earnings declines that sent the company’s share price tumbling and had analysts breaking out in a cold sweat, Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson jetted to Israel to watch presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney deliver a speech in Jerusalem. “It was a great speech. Loved it,” Adelson told Bloomberg News.
In Israel, he was treated like a rock star. Adelson, 78, was swarmed by Israeli citizens, Romney donors, and the press as he slowly made his way to his wheelchair after the speech. Back in the U.S., Argus Research downgraded its view of Las Vegas Sands stock. The firm placed a Hold recommendation on the shares, a change from its previous Buy rating. The weaker outlook reflected Argus’ concerns that revenues and profits from Las Vegas Sands’ four Macau casino developments were in trouble. During the quarter, net income from Macau declined 40 percent. Argus said the Chinese economy seems to be slowing.
Analysts openly wonder if Adelson, Las Vegas Sands’ controlling stockholder with 57 percent of the outstanding shares, is being distracted from the casino operations by his bi-continental political endeavors. “With shares falling will Sheldon open his wallet for [Las Vegas Sands] or the GOP?” Stifel Nicolaus Capital Markets gaming analyst Steve Wieczynski asked at the top of a critical July 26 research report discussing the company’s quarterly results.
Chapter 5: The Outcome
A New York Times editorial views Adelson as “the perfect illustration of the squalid state of political money, spending sums greater than any political donation in history to advance his personal, ideological and financial agenda, which is wildly at odds with the nation’s needs.”
The Protocols of this Elder of Las Vegas is no conspiratorial fabrication. That’s the bad news. The good news is that the last chapter has yet to be written. Will money ultimately decide the 2012 U.S. election? And if it does, will it be Sheldon Adelson’s?
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