Last week an organization registered as a non-profit, able to receive tax-deductible donations, raised nearly $4 million at a fundraiser in Beverly Hills. The Friends of the Israel Defense Forces will use these funds to benefit the Israeli army, an apparatus of state terrorism, known for its rampant human rights violations and war crimes - including extrajudicial assassinations, collective punishment and ethnic cleansing.
Hosting the event was Haim Saban, most well-known for producing Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. He is also a major backer of the Democratic Party and founder of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.
Supposedly the Center in part works toward Israeli-Palestinian peace, yet its director, Martin Indyk, used to work for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and founded the Washington Institute for Near East Policy as an AIPAC front group. Indyk had to have his U.S. citizenship application sped up so he could become ambassador to Israel.
So an old school pro-Israel lobbyist and a fundraiser for Israeli state terror are running a Center that is promoting "peace." That's rich.
Not to mention that the FIDF was founded by Vidal Sassoon, the hair guy, who fought in the 1948 Arab-Israel war. Also at the event was Avi Dichter, the former head of Shin Bet, the Israeli intelligence service in charge of torturing Palestinians.
The question I have is why isn't this organization receiving the scrutiny that Muslim and Arab charities receive? The Israeli army is a well-documented violator of human rights, and isn't it illegal to fund a foreign army? So where are the Feds on this on? Are they too busy driving around mosques with radiation detectors?
UPDATE: In the most recent Israeli atrocity, soldiers today murdered a 13-year old boy because he was "building a stone barrier across a road." Mundal Abu-Aliya was playing with friends, which apparently is an unacceptable activity punishable by death in the Occupied Territories.
Our army is a violator of human rights as well, i.e. burning people alive with White Phosphorous in Falluja. Nobody can or will do anything about that either.
Posted by: elemental | January 23, 2006 at 02:26 PM
Good point...the Israeli army is certainly not alone when it comes to atrocities.
But are non-profits in Israel holding fundraisers for the US army?
Posted by: scott | January 23, 2006 at 03:53 PM