Visitors to BooMan’s Place ¶ Invited? :: Abramoff Link

bezeqint.net  Hod HaSharon, HaMerkaz  3:28:09 pm 1 0:00
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2006/2/11/18156/2128  

Abramoff Linked to Jewish Ventures

LOS ANGELES (Jewish Journal) Jan. 13 — Specifically, Abramoff allegedly using money from a Washington charity he oversaw to fund military-style programs in the West Bank. Indian tribes donated money to tax-exempt charities, believing they were supporting anti-gambling foundations, but the money was redirected to help a “sniper school” in the West Bank, operated by a friend of Abramoff.

According to congressional documents, Abramoff sought night-vision goggles and a vehicle for the sniper-training facility.

Abramoff also allegedly worked on behalf of an Israeli firm that sought to wire the Capitol for cellular phone use. While leading cell phone manufacturers in the United States settled on JGC Wireless to install antennas in repeaters in House buildings, an Israeli company with ties to Abramoff, Foxcom Wireless, ultimately won the bid.

The country’s press has reported that Gaydamak was set to donate the $50 million to the Jewish Agency, known in Israel as the Sochnut. After stories indicated he had a shady past, Gaydamak said he was withdrawing his pledge and would stop investing in Israel. Now he says his offer to the Jewish Agency stands.

The stories about Arcadi Gaydamak – who reportedly was forced to leave France in the late 1990s, where he had been living since 1972, after an international arrest warrant was issued on the suspicion of tax evasion and bribery – have raised a series of ethical and moral issues.

Should the Jewish Agency, or any Jewish organization, accept a donation when the giver’s background is in question or when the money may be tainted? What is the responsibility of the organization to confront the donor or investigate the charges before accepting the gift? Do the ends (noble acts performed by the organization) justify the means (possibly ignoble acts performed by the donor)?

“It’s a very complicated issue,” said Dr. Heshy Friedman, director of the business program at Brooklyn College and an expert on Jewish business ethics. He says if a “blanket rule” were instituted that donations cannot be accepted from “anyone who has earned money you’re unsure of, we won’t be able to take charity from anyone.”

“In general, one should try to avoid chilul Hashem [publicly desecrating the name of God],” a possible consequence of association with an individual accused of serious crimes, said Rabbi Eugene Borowitz , distinguished university professor at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and former editor of Sh’ma magazine.

LONDON (Indymedia UK) March 29, 2005 — A senior City of London source connected the

Bank Hapoalim case to the recent assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri

, saying: “My view on what is happening in Israel and Lebanon is that it has not only a geopolitical dimension, but a financial one. The background to these developments is the fact that Greek Cyprus joined the European Union in May 2004. What has followed is a phasing-out of Cyprus as a financial center for organized crime, drug traffickers, and money launderers, especially the Russian side of this business. Thus, alternative centers have to be found. In the region, Beirut and Tel Aviv become attractive alternatives, which could explain recent events in those two cities.”

Hariri’s brutal assassination not only doomed the peaceful resolution of the Syrian-Lebanese crisis, but destroyed Hariri’s vision to once again make Beirut the major international financial center, for European and southwest Asian capital, that it had been prior to the civil war of the 1970s and 1980s. In the months before his death, Hariri had travelled to Russia, where he proposed that Russia establish a foreign trade bank in Beirut. He also proposed broad cooperation in gas, oil refining, and real estate projects in Russia, Lebanon, and the rest of Southwest Asia.

Arcadi Gaydamak is a Russian-Israeli who is wanted by the French for fraud. He made his fortune in the arms business, especially in Angola.

Where will the investigation go? Authorities are hinting that at least one other bank is under investigation. One Israeli economic expert speculated that the investigation was an attempt to “clean up” Israel’s reputation as a money-laundering paradise, so as to attract the big boys in the globalized financial markets. Of course, this means that the “robbers” who have profitted most from the dirty deals of privatization and the Israeli gray economy, are being transformed into “respectable barons.”

● Oil, arms and the man

Globes correspondent 5 Feb 06 11:44

This is the second time Arcadi Gaydamak has been questioned in the in Hapoalim money laundering affair. Gaydamak was questioned this morning by police in connection with the money laundering affair at Bank Hapolaim’s Hayarkon branch in Tel Aviv.

This is not the first time that Gaydamak has been questioned in this affair. A month ago, he was questioned under caution, following which he threatened to halt his investments in Israel, among them his support for the Beitar Jerusalem soccer club.

In the course of their previous investigation, the police searched the billionaire’s Caesarea home, seizing documents which they said were material to the investigation.

Last week, Vladimir Gusinsky was also questioned in the affair.

The Democratic standard-bearers dropped the ball in part because Halliburton’s conduct was generally in accordance with the foreign policy of the Clinton administration. Cheney is certainly not the only Washington mover and shaker to have been affiliated with a company trading in Iraq.

Former CIA Director John Deutsch, who served in a Democratic administration, is a member of the board of directors of Schlumberger, the second-largest U.S. oil-services company, which also does business through subsidiaries in Iraq. Despite occasional rhetorical skirmishes, a bipartisan foreign-policy consensus prevails on Capital Hill, where the commitment to human rights, with a few notable exceptions, is about as deep as an oil slick.

Deutsch – A Common Name?