by Daniel Sieradski
Offering a rare glimpse at the grim realities of 21st century plutocracy, The New Yorker has profiled billionaire casino magnate and top RJC contributor Sheldon Adelson in a lurid epic that should give pause to any Jew who values the precept of Jewish self-determination.
The revelations are staggering. Some highlights:
Strong-arming American Middle East policy
AIPAC is not accustomed to being attacked publicly from the right; its critics generally charge that its conservative policies toward Israel favor the status quo over a peace accord. But AIPAC has traditionally insisted that it seeks to further a close American-Israeli relationship, whether the government of Israel is left, right, or center. In an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Adelson said of AIPAC’s support of aid for the Palestinians, “I don’t continue to support organizations that help friends committing suicide just because they want to jump.” AIPAC has not made any policy shifts, and it is not clear whether Adelson will continue to contribute to the organization.
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Abusing political influence and glossing over human rights abuses for self-enrichment
Weidner, in his deposition, described the relationship between DeLay—“a very religious guy”—and Adelson. “The link between Sheldon Adelson and right-wing religious Christians is the commonality of a strong Israel,” he said. “So it just happens to be Sheldon has taken Tom DeLay to Israel and he’s a friend.” DeLay told Adelson that he supported the resolution because of his concern about China’s record on human rights but added that he would be discussing the legislative agenda shortly. “Sheldon folds his cell phone up and says to the mayor of Beijing, ‘I’m going to do my best,’ ” Weidner said. “About three hours later DeLay calls and he tells Sheldon, ‘You’re in luck,’ ” he continued, “ ‘because we’ve got a military-spending bill. . . . We’re not going to be able to move the bill, so you tell your mayor that he can be assured that this bill will never see the light of day.’ So Sheldon goes and he goes to the mayor and he says, ‘The bill will never see the light of day, Mr. Mayor. Don’t worry about it.’ ” Weidner also instructed the Sands’s lobbyists in Washington, Patton Boggs, to suggest to the Chinese Embassy that Adelson and Las Vegas Sands were involved in the process that stalled the bill.
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Union busting and engaging in the politics of personal destruction
Testifying before the Nevada state ethics commission in 1998, Shelley Berkley, who is now a Democratic congresswoman for Nevada, and who had worked for Adelson in the nineties as his vice-president of legal and governmental affairs, said that Adelson had told her that “old Democrats were with the union and he wanted to break the back of the union, consequently he had to break the back of the Democrats.” Adelson fired Berkley in 1997, just months before she planned to begin a run for her first term in Congress. In a September, 1998, letter to the Review-Journal, Adelson wrote, “She violated attorney/client privilege and after two warnings, I decided to fire her. . . . Shelley Berkley attacks me in order to draw attention away from her own ethical lapses.” Berkley published a letter in the paper a week later, in response, and she explained her firing differently. “My relationship with him began to sour the moment I urged him to hold jobs open at the Venetian for former Sands workers. The more I encouraged cooperation with the workers, the more I incurred Mr. Adelson’s wrath,” Berkley wrote. “Over time, I observed Mr. Adelson plot vendettas against anyone whom he believed stood in his way. However minuscule the perceived affront, he was certain to go ballistic, using his money and position to bully any ‘opponent’—great or small—into submission. . . . He has funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Republican Party to support his handpicked candidate by attacking me on TV.”
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Manipulating Israeli public opinion
In the Israeli media world, [Adelson's newspaper] Israel Hayom is referred to as Bibi-ton, because many believe that it serves as a mouthpiece for Netanyahu, whose nickname is Bibi, and who has long received extraordinarily negative press coverage in Israel. Israel Hayom journalists are reportedly under strict orders not to speak publicly about their paper. “What their spokespeople say is, there is a need for more balanced journalism in Israel, like what Fox News says in the U.S.,” one academic told me. “But, yes, the paper’s objective is to make Bibi Netanyahu Prime Minister,” he went on, stressing that that goal was not quixotic. “In Israel, newspapers have a large impact on the public mind.”
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Strong-arming Israeli public officials
In late December, it was reported in the Israeli press that Adelson had met with two ministers in Olmert’s coalition government—Avigdor Liberman, of the right-wing Israel Beytenu Party, and Eli Yishai, of the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party—to try to persuade them to leave the coalition, a move that would likely bring down the Olmert government. In February, pamphlets were delivered to the synagogues attended by Shas voters throughout Israel, urging them to tell Yishai to leave the government. A spokesman for Shas said that the pamphlets were distributed by One Jerusalem, which is funded in part by Adelson.
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Silencing critics
Adelson would hardly be the first businessman to want to expand his political influence in this country by owning a newspaper. What makes his case seem more anomalous is the fact that in recent years Adelson’s relationship with the press has been distinguished mainly by a marked readiness to sue. In 2005, the London Daily Mail published an article that described Adelson as, among other things, “the ruthless casino baron who rules Las Vegas.” Adelson sued. Last March, the Daily Mail apologized to Adelson for serious errors in the piece, and Adelson won legal costs and substantial damages.
The obscenity of Adelson’s behavior, and that of the institutions he bankrolls, shocks the conscience. It is incredible to me that a man could act with such impunity and such contempt for those with whom he shares a collective fate let alone a human bond.
His committed belief that achieving peace with the Arab world would be “suicide” for Israel betrays the fact that for the last eight years alone, Adelson has contributed the endless spoils of vice he has amassed to pursuing destructive policies that have helped push America and Israel (let alone Iraq and Afghanistan) over a cliff.
All the more confounding is the fact that Adelson defiantly pursues these policies against the will of the vast majority of American and Israeli Jews who strongly favor a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians and a two state solution.
The fact that “a crazy Jewish billionaire,” as George W. Bush has reportedly described him, has such unfettered access to American and Israeli leaders while the Jewish public toils in the shadows, demands that we ask ourselves: Shall one man’s checkbook triumph over the collective will of a people?
