An interesting read...

[Holt's Cat]

...perhaps. (http://www.amazon.com/Israel-Lobby-U-S-Foreign-Policy/dp/0374177724/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-4334488-4548101?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191971569&sr=8-1)

[Nbadan]

Somewhere.....Hagee is screaming into his pillow.....

[Nbadan]

Here..Kitty...Kitty


Israel's rising right wing

Together, an enigmatic billionaire and a resurgent Bibi Netanyahu could put Israel on the war path. Dick Cheney, AIPAC and Iran are all watching closely.
By Gregory Levey



Oct. 9, 2007 | One of this year's nominees for Israeli TV's "Man of the Year in Politics" award doesn't speak Hebrew. He has vast wealth and a shady past. He was once a circus worker. He isn't even a politician, at least not yet.

But over the past several years Arcadi Gaydamak, an enigmatic Russian-Israeli billionaire, has managed to become a widely influential figure in Israel. And he is now at the center of a right-wing political alliance -- featuring Israeli über-hawk Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu -- that could dramatically influence the country's direction. If the rising alliance takes power in the next election, it could push Israel toward military confrontations with Iran, Syria or Hezbollah, while extinguishing any remaining flickers of hope in Israel's peace camp regarding the Palestinians.

Gaydamak has recently been consolidating his influence as a power broker in Israeli politics. He has used his wealth to gain popularity through social and business initiatives, while deftly exploiting the widespread perception of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government as corrupt and incompetent, particularly during last year's disastrous war in Lebanon. With his financial capital and cunning political tactics, Gaydamak is like a cross between George Soros and Karl Rove, with a streak of Russian oligarchy at his core.

In a country full of colorful political characters, he may be the most colorful. Gaydamak is wanted in France for illegal arms dealing. He is alleged to have ties, through his former arms-dealing partner, to Halliburton and to corporations that donated to President George W. Bush's 2000 campaign. He has Russian, Israeli, French and Canadian citizenship, as well as a diplomatic passport from Angola, on which he reportedly travels in order to avoid arrest. He owns a Jerusalem soccer team with a notoriously racist, anti-Arab fan base. And he is said to be planning a run for mayor of Jerusalem.

But it is in Israeli national politics where Gaydamak may now be a powerful -- and, some say, dangerous -- force. Along with his new Social Justice Party, formed in July, Gaydamak has allied himself with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Likud Party leader and former prime minister. To this alliance Gaydamak brings his rapidly increasing popularity, especially among Israel's influential Russian population, a growing grass-roots political network, and billions of dollars. Netanyahu brings his credibility as a former prime minister, hawkish bona fides, and resurgent popularity both inside Israel and across the Atlantic, where he enjoys strong support among Washington war hawks and many delegates of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group.

The goal of this emerging alliance is to make Netanyahu prime minister once again, which would give Gaydamak direct access to the uppermost echelons of Israeli power. Not only does the alliance have the potential to unseat the centrist leadership governing Israel and replace it with one much further to the right -- precisely at a time when Israel may be on the brink of war with Iran -- but some observers believe it poses a threat to Israeli democracy itself.

Back in February, Gaydamak openly cast himself as an Israeli kingmaker. He announced that he would back Netanyahu's bid to regain office, declaring, "Any politician that I will support will be the prime minister."

And he may be right, riding a soaring popularity that he has in some ways literally purchased. For example, in 2005 Gaydamak bought Beitar Jerusalem, a wildly popular soccer team, which also happens to have a core of Jewish nationalist fans who regularly chant "Death to Arabs!" at the team's games. During the Israeli war against Hezbollah last year, when the country's leadership was in chaos and the citizenry felt abandoned and vulnerable, Gaydamak stepped in and fashioned himself as a savior. He opened his coffers and set up a tent city on a Mediterranean beach for Israelis fleeing towns in the country's embattled north. To the south, residents of the Israeli town of Sderot near the Gaza Strip came under constant bombardment by Palestinian rockets, and the Israeli government was not coming to their aid in any substantive way. Gaydamak bused hundreds of Sderot residents to another tent city he had built in a park in Tel Aviv, complete with a stage for entertainment and a mini-amusement park for children. If the government was not going to protect and aid its citizens, Gaydamak seemed to be saying, he himself would.

In doing so, he helped make the Olmert government appear impotent to many Israelis, earning the sitting prime minister's ire, and further establishing himself as a political force to be reckoned with. In August, Gaydamak clashed openly with a parliamentary committee that took issue with his actions during the war, accusing him of acting entirely for political reasons. This year, as his own popularity has continued to rise, Gaydamak has toned down his explicit backing of Netanyahu, but it is still widely believed that he will lend his support to a Netanyahu prime ministerial bid in exchange for greater power.

To his proponents, Gaydamak is simply the natural result of an Israeli establishment that is so wrapped up in corruption and cronyism that it is unable to care for its citizens, let alone advance a peace process with its neighbors or focus on crucial foreign policy problems. Gaydamak is, in this line of thinking, a positive phenomenon, a practical person in a place desperately in need of practical solutions.

But some Israeli analysts and governments officials have a darker view. One senior Israeli official, who has served at the highest levels of the policy-making apparatus, told me that he sees the rise of Gaydamak as the terrible byproduct of an already bad situation. "There is a sense among some people," he said, "that democracy just didn't work for us, and we should be like the rest of the Middle East -- that we tried democracy and failed. But Gaydamak is something else. He's an oligarch. Don't forget that a lot of his supporters are Russians. They're not really familiar with democracy."

Gaydamak has been quietly building a network of activists across Israel and choosing candidates to represent his party in upcoming elections at all levels. He will personally determine his party's platform, with each candidate meeting the approval of his closest aides. Although he has alluded to running for mayor of Jerusalem, Gaydamak seeks to pull strings in national politics, without putting himself in a vulnerable forward position on his party's ticket.

Some observers have labeled Gaydamak as antidemocratic for this, as well as for his actions abroad. For example, in 2005, for reasons that remain murky, Gaydamak purchased Russia's Moscow News, fired some senior journalists, and changed the paper's mandate to a firmly pro-government one, appointing a pro-Putin journalist as editor in chief. This was widely viewed as hostile to free speech and raised questions about Gaydamak's possible ties to the Kremlin.

Within Israel, according to the senior Israeli official, Gaydamak is preying on a sense among the Israeli population that the way Israeli democracy functions has left large groups disenfranchised and the country as a whole vulnerable to outside attack. And Netanyahu, as a political leader who has long exploited vulnerability and fear to obtain and wield power, may be Gaydamak's perfect complement.

Salon (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/10/09/gaydamak_bibi/index.html)

[DarkReign]

I read the first 20 reviews. Interesting and quite polarizing.

In my mind, I never understood why the US is so heavily allied with Israel. This is a "what have you done for me lately?" kind of world, and the only thing Israel does is stir the pot for its own selfish needs, almost in spite of American interests.

[xrayzebra]

I read the first 20 reviews. Interesting and quite polarizing.

In my mind, I never understood why the US is so heavily allied with Israel. This is a "what have you done for me lately?" kind of world, and the only thing Israel does is stir the pot for its own selfish needs, almost in spite of American interests.

Money talks and BS walks. And some very rich Jews
contribute mightily to both parties and carry a big stick.

And Hagee and his buddies are a breed that has come
about in recent years. I can never recall any of the
Protestant religions in the past as being so adamant
about supporting Israel.