Clinton can't separate herself from foreign-policy buffoons Saban and Adelson
Ronald Nikles
Mondoweiss
In Las Vegas, in early June 2015, pro-Israel billionaire activists, including casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and Hollywood executive Haim Saban, gathered donors willing to pledge at least $1 million over the next two years to fight the boycott, divestment, and sanction (BDS) movement on college campuses in the United States and Europe.
Haim Saban has been an important donor to the Democratic Party and the Clintons personally since 2002. He also supports a pro-Israel think tank at the Brookings Institute and various charitable causes in Israel and the U.S. As outlined by Connie Bruck in a New Yorker profile (May 2010), in 2002 he donated $7 million to the Democratic National Committee for construction of its new building, he donated $2 million to the Clinton library; he has contributed at least $5 million to the Clinton foundation; and he apparently has paid hundreds of thousands to the Clintons for speaking fees.
Where does this money come from? The New Yorker profile traces Saban’s fortune in part to tax fraud. Saban sold his share of Fox Kids Network to Michael Eisner of Disney in late 2001 for a $1.5 billion profit. The New Yorker profile suggests that Saban failed to pay approximately $405,000,000 in capital gains taxes (27%) due on this transaction in 2001. He used a fraudulent tax shelter to avoid paying this tax. In a subsequent tax investigation in 2009, Saban claimed ignorance that this was wrong and that he relied on the advice of counsel. He paid $250 million to settle with the government, although that seems to be considerably less than the taxes that were owed as characterized by Saban’s lawyer in the 2001 transaction and reported in the New Yorker profile. More importantly, according to the Wiki timeline, in the intervening nine years Saban put the money to profitable use. He acquired ProSieben1, a German media conglomerate at 7.5 Euros/share in 2003 and sold it at 22.4 Euros/share in 2007; and he purchased Univision television and other interests that form the basis of his $3.5 billion fortune today. In a lawsuit, Saban’s former lawyer alleged: “Haim Saban, believing he is above the law, has spent decades trying to avoid paying taxes on the many billions of dollars in income he has received, evidencing little restraint in his conduct other than seeking a convenient scapegoat.” I believe the man. Ultimately how many of these tax avoidance schemes that Saban took advantage of skirted the law, and how many outright broke the law, we’ll never know. Either way, Saban seems to have paid far less in taxes on his riches than is fair or reasonable.
In short, it appears Saban is being “generous” with the People’s money!
The Clintons’ are happy to consider Saban a patriot in exchange for some of his loot. Last week Hillary Clinton wrote a fawning letter to Saban, inviting him to “work together” to fight BDS. The letter went on to state that there should be no outside pressure on Israel to solve the Israel/Palestinian issue; that the conflict should be left to the negotiation between the parties; that comparing Israel and South Africa is abhorrent; that the UN report on the 2009 “Operation Cast Lead” Gaza conflict (the “Goldstone Report”) was “biased;” and that, of course Israel should have the right to defend itself “like any other country” (which manages in one blow to imply support both for Israel’s serial destruction of Gaza and Netanyahu’s obsessive raging against Iran).
According to Peter Beinart Clinton sent similar letters “to at least two other Jewish organizational officials.” The letter hits all the buzz-words that any staunch supporter of Netanyahu, the occupation, and ethnocratic Israel at the expense of Palestinians would want to hear.
As Beinart notes, Haim Saban is not an expert on Israel/Palestine or the Middle East. He is a guy with a high school education who has made a lot of money, and appears not to have paid his fair share of taxes and who, by his own description is a one issue guy; and that issue is Israel. Or as Beinart puts it: “He’s a mega-donor who thinks Barack Obama has been bad for Israel. …. Saban was so suspicious of Obama’s views on Iran in 2008 that he considered backing John McCain. Saban’s preferred approach: ‘I would bomb the daylight out of these sons of bitches.’”
On Israel policy there is no daylight between Saban who supports the Democrats, and Sheldon Adelson who supports the Republicans. They are both in bed with Netanyahu, with military occupation, and with ethnocracy. They are not believers in a democracy that includes Palestinians, they are actively opposed to Palestinian rights, indeed they deny the very existence of Palestinians as a people. On Iran, both men don’t want to hear talk of negotiation, they want to hear the sound of bombs falling.
Are Adelson and Saban people that presidents should be looking to for Middle East policy advice? Apparently Hillary Clinton thinks so. It’s not a matter of necessity. As Bruck details in her profile of Saban, Obama kept Saban at a distance. He did not rely on Adelson money or on Saban money for his elections. Hillary Clinton is choosing to dance to a different tune.
All of this brings into question Hillary Clinton’s judgement when it comes to the Middle East. As we know, she voted for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. In the 2008 campaign she refused to acknowledge the vote as a mistake; now she does. However, this letter to Saban leaves one to wonder whether her judgment has improved.
Beinart thinks Clinton’s implicit support of the occupation and the fight against BDS is counterproductive and bad for Israel. Signing up with Saban and Adelson, says Beinart, “is disastrous” because Adelson and Saban are shutting out the very voices and constituencies with whom BDS enjoys credibility. The Adelson/Saban approach, worries Beinart, will be counter-productive and will ultimately make the BDS movement more potent. If Hillary Clinton were serious about fighting BDS, says Beinart, Saban would be the last person she’d ask. She’d be looking for ways to impose a two state solution from the outside.
Source: mondoweiss.net