Does Corruption Drive Israeli Disengagement?

In the last few weeks we have explored some possible motives behind the government of Israel's insanely self-destructive decision to expel the Jewish population of Gaza and part of Samaria, and to withdraw Israel's military outposts from these areas, which are essential for Israel's defense.

Among the explanations we have considered are the deeply engrained Jewish tendency to seek to please friends and protectors and to appease enemies at all costs--a legacy of the Jewish people's many centuries as a helpless, ghettoized minority. Another possibility is that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon [http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Politics/6113.htm ] has been blackmailed by Israel's leftist public prosecutors, who are zealous supporters of the supposed "peace process," and who have been threatening for years to bring criminal charges against Sharon and his two sons.

But these tentative explanations don't fully satisfy even ourselves. Still the question remains: how is it possible for one of Israel's greatest military heroes, a man with a reputation as a patriot and even as a "hard-line" supporter of Israeli settlement in Gaza, Judea and Samaria, to bulldoze through a suicidal project that runs counter to everything he has stood for during the past fifty-seven years? Over the past few days, new revelations have caused suspicions of a more tangible motive for the old soldier's betrayal to be raised: corruption.

Continues

Sharon appears to be personally and financially beholden to a circle of financial backers and campaign contributors who stand to make a killing from the Gaza "disengagement." In addition, at least one, and possibly three, other powerful officials in the Sharon administration seem to have a financial interest in the expulsion/withdrawal operation.

Three years ago, a mysterious loan that Sharon had received from an old friend and former army buddy, a wealthy British businessman named Cyril Kern, dominated Israel's headlines. Sharon had apparently used the money to pay a stiff fine imposed on him by Israel's election authority for his solicitation of illegal campaign contributions. It is also illegal for an Israeli public official to accept loans from a foreign national. But Sharon, despite a widely publicized investigation by Israel's public prosecutions office, was never charged with a crime. One of the arguments that he used to defend himself was that Kern had absolutely no business interests in Israel; hence, the loan could not be construed as a bribe.

Now, it seems that a corporation has been formed to develop a gambling casino on the site of the Gaza Jewish community of Elei Sinai, whose land is slated for confiscation and whose inhabitants are marked for expulsion in August, only two weeks from the time that this is being written. The principal organizer of this venture is a financier, Samuel Flatto-Sharon, who has been a fugitive from justice in France for over 20 years, charged with embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars from investors in a fund he had managed. Israel gave Flatto-Sharon refuge and citizenship under its Law of the Return, which allows Jews of every background and past history to immigrate to Israel. Among the other investors are a Saudi billionaire and--you guessed it--a British citizen named Cyril Kern.

Nor, as it turns out, is this Kern's first venture into the Palestinian casino world. He has been a major investor in the casino in Jericho, which had to close down during the recent "intifada" because the terrorists couldn't resist the impulse to shoot it up.

Another major investor in the Jericho casino is an Austrian financier named Martin Schlaf. Described in the Israeli press as a close personal friend of Sharon, he was also a major source of the illegal campaign contributions that enabled Sharon to be elected Israel's Prime Minister in 2001.

The investors in the Jericho casino still have hopes of reviving it, but the Israeli military authorities have been reluctant to authorize Israelis to visit the still-standing and refurbished casino, in view of the Palestinian Authority's failure to maintain even minimal security in Jericho. Hence the interest in a new casino in the Gaza-Gush Katif area.

Schlaf cannot be ruled out as a player in the proposed new casino, either. His company has exclusive rights to operate other casinos in territories administered by the Palestinian Authority. How will the Flatto-Sharon group and the Schlaf group manage their seemingly conflicting interests in Gaza casino development? Will they cooperate, or fight it out for control? Perhaps Cyril Kern, whom the Israeli press has described as an investor in both casino enterprises, will act as a bridge between them. Those possessing a morbid fascination with evil will undoubtedly watch closely how the jackals divide up the spoils.

Not that the Flatto-Sharon and Schlaf groups are the only ones that stand to profit from the confiscated land of the Israeli "settlers." Yet a third such enterprise has as its managing director none other than Eival Giladi, the official in the Prime Minister's office whom Sharon has designated as the "coordinator" of the expulsion-retreat. The British-owned Portland Trust corporation has plans to raise $500 million to build 150,000 housing units for Arabs on the land seized from the Jewish farmers. Giladi will substantially augment his meager income as an Israeli civil servant by directing the development of the land, whose present owners are to be "evacuated," after he supervises their expulsion himself. No public official, it would seem, has ever had a stronger incentive for getting his job done!

The principal investor in the Portland Trust is Sir Ronald Cohen, a British billionaire who is a close advisor and political backer of the number two man in the British government, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown. Cohen also recently bought up Israel's monopoly telephone company, Bezeq.

The Portland Trust's corporate charter says openly that one of its objectives is to promote the foreign policy goals of the British government and the European Community in the Middle East. One of these goals is, of course, to bring about Israel's withdrawal to its pre-1967 "Auschwitz borders," as the late Israeli foreign minister Abba Eban named them. That makes corporate CEO and withdrawal-expulsion "coordinator" Giladi a foreign agent as well as a public official with a massive conflict of interest. The Portland Trust, too, has "recommended" casino development for the seized Gush Katif lands.

Another public official who has a possible financial interest in the "disengagement" is Sharon's closest advisor, his chief of staff and personal emissary Dov Weissglass. Virtually all-knowledgeable Israelis believe that Weissglass is the principal architect of, and driving force behind, the "disengagement." His only qualification for advising the Prime Minister about matters vital to Israel's security is the fact that he has long been Sharon's personal attorney, the man who has helped him to bail out of countless legal scrapes over the years. Weissglass's law firm, from which he is on temporary leave while he works in the Prime Ministers Office, represents the Austrian company that is a part owner of the gambling casino in Jericho and has a franchise from the PA to develop future casinos. Weissglass's firm also represents the business interests of the Palestinian Authority itself, which owns a substantial interest in the Palestinian casino companies, and is either part or full owner of nearly all businesses in the territory it rules. Weissglass is a friend of the shadowy Palestinian financier Muhammad Rashid, who managed the looting of the PA-owned companies and the transfer of their assets to the personal accounts of Yasir Arafat, Jabril Rajoub, and other Palestinian officials. Weissglass and Ariel Sharon's son and business partner Giladi "celebrated" Sharon's election as Prime Minister in 2001 with Rashid, in the "swank" apartment that Rashid owns in Tel Aviv, according to knowledgeable Israeli journalists.

Still another Israeli official who may have a financial interest in the "disengagement" is veteran Israeli politician Shimon Peres, who is currently Israel's deputy prime minister. (Over the past thirty years he has served as prime minister, foreign minister, defense minister, and in practically every other cabinet portfolio/) Peres is the founder of something called the Peace Technology Fund, a venture capital entity chartered in the Cayman Islands, which had as its stated goal bringing together investors from around the world to promote development in the Palestinian "territories," including Gaza. It invested in, among other things, Palestinian real estate companies. Perhaps not coincidentally, real estate prices in the vicinity of the Israeli communities slated for "evacuation" have gone through the roof in the past few months, as the expulsion and land-grab draws near. Peres suddenly dissolved this secretive partnership earlier in 2005 after Israeli investigative journalist David Bedein began to ask some hard questions about the secretive PTF, such as "how much was it paying Peres to act as an investment 'finder?'" Supposedly, its assets were all sold to unidentified Palestinian "entities."

The apparent reality is that Israel's government is a cesspool of corruption and treason. Its prime minister appears willing to place his people in mortal peril by destroying their national security, unity and morale, for no better purpose than to confer financial benefits on his financial backers and political hangers-on. Could the ethical and patriotic standards of Israel's leaders really have declined so far, so quickly from those of David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, or Menechem Begin?

We must all pray that honest and patriotic men and women will take back Israel's government and clean it up before it is too late.

Postscript for July 29, 2005. We have just received word that the Knesset Controls Committee has recommended that the Knesset order an investigation by the State Controller of Eival Giladi's apparent conflict of interest affecting his position as "Public policy coordinator" of the Gaza withdrawal-expulsion. The committee has learned that Giladi didn't sign the conflict of interest agreement required of all civil servants when they are appointed to a new position until more than three months after his appointment--and one hour before the Controls Committee met to consider the allegations against him! It has also learned that Giladi was appointed to this position by Prime Minister Sharon without a public advertisement for applicants for the position and the open, competitive hiring process required by Israeli law. Stay tuned for more developments!

* John Landau contributed reporting and research to this article

Excerpt from:

http://www.thegoldenreport.com/

8-3-05

How far will Sharon go to please

George Bush and his Road Map?

The number of anti-Disengagement Protestors that made it to Sderot is being reported by the main stream Israeli Newspapers at around 30,000 that usually means the real number is at least double that. But when we consider the fact that hundreds of buses full of Israeli protesters were blocked from getting to the protest the real number would have been around 200,000. Sharon tried to keep the number down to only 5,000 but obviously failed in doing so. Not only were buses stopped from bringing protesters to Sderot but thousands of private cars were also turned away.

Sharon has ordered over 15,000 Police and IDF Soldiers to stop the anti-Disengagement protesters from getting to Gaza. Had the buses and cars full of protesters gotten through there was no way they would have been able to stop them from reaching Gush Katif, short of shooting them, and I don’t put that past Sharon either. In fact, many of those living in Gaza Strip, Netzer Hazani Settlement are giving up their guns voluntarily so the soldiers will have no excuse if the shooting starts. Knowing that in so doing they will have little to no protections against the terrorist that surrounds them.

Hundreds of Jews from Gaza are refusing the makeshift homes being built for them or the temporary accommodations and have decided to live in tents on privately leased land. Many of these Jews are being forced out of their farms where a very large percentage of the produce eaten by Israel is grown, and millions of dollars of exports to Europe that flows back into the Israel economy will be lost. But instead of accepting the offer of King Sharon they have opted to live in tents to show the world what has been done to them.

In preparation for celebration the “Palestinians” have organized a large fleet of buses to bring the Palestinians in Gaza to see the empty settlements where the propaganda will be focused on how they made the Jews run for their lives under fire. Giving praise and glory to their god Allah of course.

It has already be announced that the headquarters of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad will be moved from Damascus to Gaza once the Jews leave. Fatah has already started training a newly armed terrorist group that is being formed by the hardliner Kaddoumi, and its name is “The Popular Army”. Just one more armed terrorist group to fight for power in Gaza. All of this while Abbas as usually does absolutely nothing to disarm any of the terrorists, but continues to get praises from Bush and Rice poured on him for his great job, and $50 million to help out a little.

The Israeli Shin Bet is also telling us that there is a new al-Qaida cell forming in Gaza to begin operating once the Jews leave. All of this and much more is known to Sharon, but his desire to please George Bush over rides everything else.

The fence being built around the northern side of Jerusalem is causing thousands of Arabs to be in a hurry to move on the Israeli side of the fence before it’s completed, they simply don’t want to be left on the PA side. But I haven’t heard that on any major TV news. These “Palestinians” don’t want to lose the life style offered to them by Israel, the highest in the Middle East.

In today’s Jerusalem Post we read that the IDF ask the PA to stop firing the Kassam rockets during the Disengagements. I thought was rather odd, to ask them to only stop for that period of time, surely someone can read something into that. Why not tell them to stop period, to stop killing us not just during the disengagement but just stop. Yesterday they tried to fire one into the anti-Disengagement rally at Sderot but it went off prematurely and killed a child near by, another was fired but landed in a Palestinian area.

*** ==>The American Base.

*** ==> I would also like to mention something else, We (a friend and I) made a trip yesterday back to the American Base being built and found that all the American flags have been removed, and the guards at the front gate refused to even allow us to take a picture. Instead tried to hold us there until security came. We was able to get back into my car and leave. But one thing is certain the article I wrote last week http://www.thegoldenreport.com/asp/j....asp?a=928&z=1 has hit a raw nerve of that there is no doubt. I was unable to linger and take any pictures even from a distance knowing it was important to leave the area right away. The reason I bring this up is this base will be finished by the date of disengagement and it may well be ear marked as a camp to hold Jewish protesters in. It certainly is large enough to hold everyone from Gush Katif and have plenty or room left over. Each of the barracks could easily hold a thousand or more and there are at least 50 of those buildings. I am not saying this is the purpose for the camp but it certainly is a possibility. We will soon see if this is a holding place for Jews or not. But one thing is certain it is an American base being built by Americans at a very rapid pace with a dead line to be finished by the Disengagement.

Anti-Semitism spreading quickly
throughout the entire world.

Yesterday Connie and I met with some Messianic friends from South Africa and they told us how the danger for Jews living there is growing far beyond anything being reported, and many will be moving to Israel soon.

(Excerpt)

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