US Plans TV Station to Rival Al-Jazeera,
Guardian [London], November 23, 2001
"An Arabic-language satellite television station financed by the US and aimed at winning hearts and minds in the Muslim world could shortly become a reality. President George Bush has been told of Initiative 911, which would put half a billion dollars into a channel that would compete in the region with al-Jazeera and would be aimed specifically at younger Muslims who are seen as anti-American ... Following the attacks in New York and Washington, Norman Pattiz, the chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors' (BBG) Middle Eastern sub-committee, put the idea of the station to Mr Biden who was 'intrigued by it and said in the current context we need to think bigger,' according to the aide. The $500m (£350m) price tag was described as 'eye- popping' but is being seen as a worthwhile investment if it lessens the possibility of further attacks by starting to dry up the pool of recruits to al-Qaida and by convincing young Muslims that the US is not anti-Islam ... The BBG chairman, Marc Nathanson, said: 'It is our responsibility to serve as a firewall between the international broadcasters and the policy- making institutions in the foreign affairs community, both in Washington and overseas.'" [CONTEXT: Norman Pattiz and Marc Nathanson are -- surprise! -- both Jewish. The fact that two Jews hold key positions in the literal propagandizing of the Muslim world is extremely significant, and will not be lost to those politically savvy in the Islamic world. This article is similar to a VARIETY piece that came out Nov. 19, 2001, entitled US WANTS ITS MTV TO GET MESSAGE OUT IN ARAB WORLD, by Pamela McClintock.. MTV, one of the companies controlled by Jewish mogul Sumner Redstone (Rothstein), is of course one of the major exportation avenues for US cultural imperialism and, of course, accusations of decadence. The Variety article notes that "MTV has made significant inroads in India and Asia, with MTV India recently voted the most popular music channel in Pakistan." What's at stake here is the war over the hearts and minds of the people of the Muslim world. The "free expression" sex and violence on MTV will most certainly drive deeper wedges between Islamic "fundamentalists" and the youth that absorb -- unquestioningly -- western cultural hegemony. Further CONTEXT.

BOOK REVIEW
(Home Grown). Want to understand "anti-Semitism?" Postville is Stephen Bloom's story of the ultra-Orthodox Jews of a small town in Iowa who have profoundly alienated their non-Jewish neighbors.

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We're in the Money. Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. August 17, 2001
" Despite a tough economic year that prompted more than $550 million in line-item vetoes by Governor Gray Davis, the new California state budget allocates almost $10 million dollars to Jewish organizations. With a range of programs from pediatric immunizations to materials for community colleges suffering last-minute cuts by the executive office, even political insiders say they are surprised by the success of Jewish-backed causes when it came to securing funds. 'I’m sort of amazed, frankly,' says Howard Welinsky, a board member of the Jewish Public Affairs Committee, the political affairs arm of The Jewish Federation. 'I’m amazed that the legislature and the governor allowed so many of these requests when so many other areas of funding got cut. The Jewish community did pretty well' ... The Jewish community’s biggest budget winner — as usual — was the Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance ... Other recipients of state funds include the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, which received $750,000 towards the $70 million dollar renovation of its Pacific Heights building. The Jewish Museum San Francisco also received $750,000, money — which will be used to finish a new facility near Yerba Buena Gardens in the downtown area. The Breed Street Shul, Los Angeles’ oldest synagogue and a historic landmark, received $500,000 for preservation and expansion of community services in its Boyle Heights neighborhood. The Skirball Cultural Center received $400,000 towards construction of a new exhibition hall. San Francisco Jewish Vocational Services (SFJVS), a Federation beneficiary agency, received $200,000 for a new training and employment center for émigrés in the downtown area. YouTHink, an educational program for public schools, scored $250,000 to expand its curriculum of arts projects that inspire discussions of current issues among children. Political insiders credit the Jewish community’s success to a combination of savvy political lobbying and a roster of projects with strong track records and broad social appeal."

FURTHER CONTEXT (JUST FOR STARTERS):

The Jewish community is already the wealthiest ethnic group in America. Both California senators, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, are Jewish. In the election year of 1996 (Bill Clinton's re-election year to the presidency), the top six individual donors to the Democratic Party were Jewish moguls from Hollywood: David Geffen ($575,000), Lew Wasserman ($507,000), Steven Spielberg ($503,00), Jeffrey Katzenberg ($408,000), Sidney Sheinberg ($321,000), and Edgar Bronfman, Jr. ($318,000). [McDougal, Dennis. The Last Mogul. Lew Wasserman, MCA and the Hidden History of Hollywood, Crown Publishers, NY, 1998, p. 520]

"Back in the late 1970s, "notes Joel Kotkin in the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, "... [future California governor Gray] Davis became acquainted with [former Governor Jerry] Brown's powerful coterie of Jewish political bankrollers like financiers S. Jon Kreedman, superagent Jeff Wald, and Eli Broad. The big Democratic political money in Los Angeles Democratic politics, Davis realized, was Jewish ... Davis made it his job to be the Gentile champion of the Jews." [KOTKIN, 5-29-98] As the Jewish Bulletin of Northern California noted in 1999, 'This was Davis' fourth trip to Israel, his first as governor. It's gratifying to see a political leader who understands and cares about the Jewish homeland.' [JEWISH BULLETIN OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA, 11-5-99, p. 24A]

Former Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres once noted his impressions of then-California governor Jerry Brown in the 1980s:

"I once appeared with Governor Jerry Brown before the Union of Meat Cutters in San Diego. He made a wonderful speech. He said, 'Well, I live on my salary. I never invested in anything. The only thing I'm going to invest in are the bonds of Israel, because I love Israel. If you would show me a map and ask me to identify Israel, I probably couldn't find it. But Israel is in my heart." [STARR, JOYCE. The Invisible Shield Between Americans and Israelis, Contemporary Books, Chicago, 1990, p. 225]

More locally -- in Los Angeles. In 1999, the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles noted that another Jewish "mover and shaker," Steven Soboroff, is the "best pal and top adviser to [Los Angeles] mayor Richard Riordan, who is backing Soboroff as his successor in City Hall." [TUGEND, T., 10-22-99]

In 1989, the Los Angeles Times also featured a front page expose on the qustionable personal and business relationship between then-mayor of Los Angeles Tom Bradley and his "friend" Abraham Spiegel. A federal grant jury was in fact beginning a criminal investigation, also subpoeaning Bradley's campaign fund-raiser (also Jewish), Ira Distenfeld. (For his part, Distenfeld, a Republican, yet the largest campaign contributor to Democrat Bradley in 1985, was eventually "sued by five current and former city commissioners for allegedly misappropriating their investments in a limited partnership that included several other political insiders.") [CLIFFORD, F., 3-7-85, p. B1; KRIKORIAN, G., 9-3-90, p. B1] "The City Attorney," noted the Times, "found no illegality in ... the way a top mayoral aide cut through city red tape for three Spiegel [real estate] developments ... Nonetheless ... the relationship raises questions about the degree of access to the mayor enjoyed by political contributors and supporters who have dealings with the city ... The sheer number and personal nature of Spiegel favors for the mayor ensures that he shares an intimacy with Bradley that few others enjoy." [PASTERNAK/BUNTING. Bradley Probers Study Links to Powerful Ally ..., Los Angeles Times, October 1, 1989, p. 1]

Spiegel even drew the African-American mayor of Los Angeles into the web of international activism for Israel. "Bradley," noted the Times, "has traveled twice to Israel to participate in ground-breaking, and dedication of museum and university buildings donated by Spiegel. And Spiegel in turn raised funds at a Los Angeles dinner to establish a Tom Bradley Chair in Social Integration at a college near Tel Aviv ... Spiegel has often invited local officials to galas for visiting Israeli dignataries." The Times noted one especially disturbing meeting Bradley had with Spielberg; the other two guests were former Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban and Israel's Los Angeles consul general ... "The discussion at their table," said the Times, "centered on two topics -- Bradley's friendship for Israel and Spiegel's construction projects in Los Angeles ... Spiegel became Bradley's 'point man' in Los Angeles' Jewish community, raising the mayor's profile among Israeli officials and thus among affluent local supporters of Israel." [PASTERNAK/BUNTING, p. 1]...

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When a Shoe Shine Boy and a Jewish Blanet Peddler Win Elections. Haaretz [Israeli newspaper], August 12, 2001
"To the best of anyone's knowledge, for the first time in the history of parliaments, a swearing-in ceremony for a legislator has been held in Hebrew outside of Israel. The Second Secretary in charge of the consular section at the Peruvian Embassy in Israel, Jose-David Hurtado Fudingo, reports: 'On July 28, Jacques Rodrich, from our new President Alejandro Toledo's party, was sworn in as a representative of the Congress of Peru. The swearing-in of the congressman did indeed take place in Hebrew - another indication of the deepening ties between Israel and Peru, where there has never been anti-Semitism' ... Toledo has a strong Israeli-Jewish connection. His wife, Eliane Karp, is a French-born Israeli who says she is Zionist and observes tradition. She met Toledo during her studies at Stanford. Their daughter Chantal, 18, is therefore also Jewish. Toledo's 'Jewish connection' has also contributed to the vocabulary of the President - a descendant of the Incas - Yiddish words like shlemazel (fool) and shmattes (rag), of which he is especially fond. Eliane Karp is very involved in the Peruvian political arena, which has inevitably lead to comparisons with Eva Peron and Hillary Clinton ...Like the first lady, the new president is also very close to several leading figures in the Jewish community, first and foremost David Waisman, who serves as Defense Minister and Second Vice President, and Congressman Jacques Rodrich."

FURTHER CONTEXT TO THE STORY:

There are only 3,000 Jews in Peru, a land of 27 million. [PERELMAN, M., A PERUVIAN CANDIDATE'S WIFE DEFENDS JEWISH VALUES, FORWARD, 4-20-01] But when Sally Goodgold followed a fellow Jew identified with the last name of Golden to meet the Prime Minister of Peru, Ephrain Goldenberg, in 1997 at the Museum of Natural History in New York, she noted that "he joked about 'all the 'Golds' at this 'Gold of Peru' event ... The prime minister bent down and said to me, 'Madame, my mother [co-founded] Hadassah [the women's international Zionist organization] of Peru." [MARSHA LEON, FORWARD, 9-26-97, p. 13] "In a meaningful symbolic act," notes Judith Elkin, "[former] Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori [of Japanese ancestry] prepared for Efrain Goldenberg's swearing in as prime minister by removing the crucifix that usually presides over such ceremonies."[JUDITH ELKIN, THE JEWS OF LATIN AMERICA, HOLMES & MEIER, LONDON, 1998, p. 278]

The preeminent media mogul in Peru is Baruch Ivcher (Bronstein), an immigrant from Israel who has controlling interests in the country's largest television station. In 1997, during political troubles with the government for a series of television exposes, Ivcher lived in Miami and Israel. His minority partners in the station, also Jewish (the Winter family), ran the station in his stead. [Forward, 11-97-97, p. 3] With the collapse of the Fujimori government in 2000, Ivcher returned to Peru.

In 2000, the shadowy head of the state Peruvian spy agency, Vladimiro Montesinos, known as Peru's "Rasputin," was arrested for bribing a Congressman; the incident was captured on videotape. The arrest of this powerful behind-the-scenes leader (one television-sponsored survey noted that 30% of Peruvians believed Monestinos ran the country) [Boyd, S., 12-97, p. 33-34] caused a crisis in the President Fujimori government. Montesinos is probably of Jewish heritage, although he is never identified in press reports as so. The surname Montesinos is a Jewish surname and "Vladimiro" implies an immigrant Eastern European ancestry. Peru's "Rasputin" was born into a "Marxist family" in 1944, later becoming a prominent lawyer known for defending major drug dealers. [LANE, C., 9-22-2000, p. A37]

Israeli Elaine Karp, the aforementioned wife of then-defeated presidential candidate Alejandro Toledo "brought charges against the Israeli defense establishment for allegedly assisting Montesinos' organization." [Cohen, C., 9-18-2000, p. 5] In 2001, a Peruvian special prosecutor, Dr. Jose Carlos Ugaz, determined that Montesinos -- still a fugitive -- had stashed millions of dollars in bribery payments in Swiss banks. The money came from "Israeli businessmen as part of a deal for the sale of Russian fighter aircraft to Peru's armed forces ... Montesinos was closely connected to a group of businessmen -- some Israeli and some Jews with Peruvian citizenship -- who acted for him in international arms deals, from which he collected illegal commissions." [Dayan, A., 3-5-01]

As noted above, Alejandro Toledo was elected President of Peru this year and Elaine Karp became Peru's First Lady. Karp was "born in Paris to a staunchly Zionist family [and] settled in Israel as a teenager ... Her father ws a member of the right wing Zionist youth group, Betar, while her mother belonged to the left-wing Zionist youth group Hashomer Hatza'ir." Former President Fujimori fled Peru in 2000 under a cloud of corruption, opening the way for Toledo. "Quite a number of Jews were linked with Fujimori, as ministers or advisers," notes Karp, "In addition, some Israeli intermediaries were involved in shady arms deals. And some of the money funneled off by the previous regime was handled by Israeli banks."

The Jewish Chronicle further noted that Karp's marriage to Toledo did not endear her to local Jewish ethnocentrism: "Ms. Karp has caused widespread resentment, partly because of her high profile marriage to a non-Jew ... Her mixed marriage and her leftist views have caused some rejection [from the Peruvian Jewish community].) [PERELMAN, M., 4-2001] (Nonetheless, the Jewish Week noted American Jewish lobbying pressure upon Toldeo to pardon Lori Berenson, a Jew from New York, who had been sentenced by a Peruvian court "to 20 years in jail for collaborating with [Peruvian] terrorists." "California Rabbi Steven Jacobs," noted the Jewish Week, "who sat with the Berensons [parents of Lori] during the verdict, said he intends to put together a delegation of rabbis to meet with Toledo, whose wife and daughter are Jewish.") [GREENBERG, E., 6-28-01]

Montesinos was dismissed from the Peruvian military in 1977 "for selling state secrets to the CIA." He grew to power as a lawyer and became part of the Fujimori government in 1990. He is the alleged "architect" of a military coup in 1992. [LANE, C., 9-22-2000, p. A37] "When an ostensible democracy had been restored," notes Charles Lane, "its revamped institutions were stocked with people Montesinos controlled through classic institutions of espionage: bribery and blackmail. The previously obscure National Intelligence Services, known as SIN, emerged as the true source of power in Peru, and Montesinos ran it ... Even prominent citizens lowered their voices when they mentioned his name ... [There are] credible charges of death squads [against Montesinos], drug payoffs, and, most recently, large scale electoral fraud that the two [Montesinos and Fujimori] had faced." [LANE, C., 9-22-200] "Human rights groups and United States senators," noted the Los Angeles Times, "also have expressed concern over allegations linking Montesinos to slayings and torture of leftists and turncoast spies. Critics accuse him of masterminding the alleged dirty tricks that brought international condemnation on the presidential election." [ROSELLA/TARNAWIECKI, 9-16-2000, pt. 1, p. A1]

An earlier defeated presidential candidate, novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, writes that the Peruvian "regime [is] manipulated from behind the scenes by the all-powerful and sinister Vladimiro Montesinos." [LLOSA, M., 4-4-2000, p. B1] "Brazilian police," reported Deutsche Presse-Agentur, "believe [Montesinos] is involved in drug trafficking." [GROTH, H., 7-25-97]


Boyd, Stephanie. Peru at the Edge? Canadian Business and Current Affairs. Dec. 1997, p. 33-34
Cohen, Chai. Toledo Believes Fujimori Will Carry Through. Jerusalem Post, Sept. 18, 2000, p. 5
Dayan, Aryeh. Israeli Businessmen Suspected of Ties to Peruvian Money Laundering Scheme.      Haaretz, March 5, 2001
Greenberg, Eric. Berenson's Parents Maintain Options. Jewish Week, June 29, 2001
Groth, Hendrik. Peru's President Fujimori Caught Up in New Scandal. Deutsche Presse Agentur
Lane, Charles. May Be Hope for Peru's Republic of Dirty Tricks. Houston Chronicle, Sept 22,      2000, p. A37
Llosa, Mario Vargas. Election Plans Foiled. Peru's Fujimori Not a Shoo-In. The Gazette (Montreal), April 14, 2000, p. B1
Perelman, Marc. A Peruvian Candidate's Wife Defends Jewish Values. Forward, April 20, 2001
Rosella, Sebastian/Tarnawiecki, Natalia. Secret Videos Put Peru's ..., Los Angeles Times, Sept 16, 2000, p. A1