Sheldon Adelson's Long And Malignant Reach

Billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, whose millions of dollars in unchecked donations to conservative Republicans has so poisoned and damaged America's electoral process, is also extending his grubby fingers to Israel, where he's doing what the Chinese do so well to American workers – underselling his product  so the locals can't afford to stay in business.

Sheldon Adelson

In the organized Jewish world, billionaires – no matter how objectionable – are lauded and courted.

Sheldon Adelson is no exception.

His high profile, embarrassing attempts to buy the American electoral process are reviled behind the closed doors of many Jewish federations and Jewish charities. But publicly, Adelson is praised for his donations to Jewish causes. The criticism he so richly deserves is absent, because the federations and the charities want a shot at getting some of Adelson's money.

Israel has strict laws governing campaign donations from non-Israelis. The law has been skirted in years past. But to do in Israel what he's done in America, Adelson would have to hold Israeli citizenship.

So the billionaire found another way to shape Israel's political landscape, and with it the political landscape of Jewish communities worldwide.

He used the Chinese method of illegal trade to legally weaken and in some cases destroy the Israeli media.

The JTA reports:

…The past few months have seen an implosion of the Hebrew press. Maariv, a tabloid founded in 1948 and for its first 20 years Israel’s largest circulation daily, recently was placed in the hands of a court-appointed trustee and could shut down within weeks, leaving 2,000 people jobless. Haaretz, Israel’s leading broadsheet, did not print on Oct. 4 due to a staff protest of 100 proposed layoffs. Israel’s Channel 10 TV is in deep debt to the government and faces possible closure.

Many in Israel blame Israel Hayom, a staunchly conservative, freely distributed paper funded by American casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, for aggravating the crisis in Hebrew media.

The tough environment “is exacerbated by the fact that in Israel we have the most generously funded free newspaper in the world,” said Times of Israel founding editor David Horovitz, who before starting the site in February was editor in chief of The Jerusalem Post. “That’s made life hard for all the publications in Israel.”

The boom in English-language media in Israel is due in part to the limited audience for Hebrew-language news: Israel has fewer than eight million citizens, many of whom prefer the Arabic or Russian press to the Hebrew dailies. Editors of English publications here say Israeli media are looking for audiences overseas to sustain their operations, and there appears to be a limitless appetite around the world for news and opinion on Israel.

“There’s an audience for news coming out of the Jewish world,” said David Brinn, managing editor of The Jerusalem Post. And because most news content is free online, people interested in Israel news will visit any number of news sites — so new publications do not necessarily threaten older ones, Brinn said.…

Adelson put out a free daily newspaper to compete with Israel's established media, a paper with a real (if very politically slanted) reporting staff, a paper that is not ad driven and has no real pressure to make money.

In effect, he gave away free t-shirts, jeans and hoodies at Walmart until most American t-shirt, jeans and hoodie manufacturers went bankrupt, giving Walmart a near monopoly.

But in this case, Walmart is Israel's political right wing.

Adelson is an oligarch, a man who benefited from shady dealings with foreign governments, dealings that have made Adelson exceedingly wealthy – and many of his competitors and customers exceedingly poor.

Adelson also allegedly has ties with Chinese organized crime and is alleged to have laundered money for them along with promoting prostitution and violating a slew of American laws in the process.

If Adelson's money turns out to be dirty – and I suspect that will eventually be the case – that would mean Mob money unduly influenced America's elections and Israel's social fabric and political landscape.

But even if Adelson's money is clean, Adelson isn't. He may not be a criminal under law, but he is still a malevolent actor seeking to buy election results and manipulate public opinion in a country he doesn't even live in.

Thirty or forty years ago, someone behaving like Sheldon Adelson would have been almost universally ridiculed.

Today Adelson is treated like a king.

Money buys Sheldon Adelson many things.

Lets hope that the US election and the State Israel are not among them.

Comments

[steven k]

You are a very sore loser.
Free newspapers who make their money from advertisements are becoming commonplace.Israels old style press is not giving the people what they want, hence they are going out of business.
Tough

[seymour]

can't one not say the same about you blog that you are giving it away for free and influencing people

[Jason]

You miss the point Steven. Adelson's paper is not ad supported, it is supported by Adelson's casino billions. That is, an American citizen is using his business interests in Macau (where there are allegations of corruption and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act) to take over the media industry in Israel. In any other country, that would be shocking, and probably illegal.

[Yosef ben Matitya]

thanks shmarya!

[Dave]

In the organized Jewish world, billionaires – no matter how objectionable – are lauded and courted.

...

The most important men in town would come to fawn on me!
They would ask me to advise them,
Like a Solomon the Wise.
"If you please, Reb Tevye..."
"Pardon me, Reb Tevye..."
Posing problems that would cross a rabbi's eyes!

And it won't make one bit of difference if i answer right or wrong.
When you're rich, they think you really know!

[Bassy the Haredi Slayer]

Something like this happens all over the US, in New York for example the free Conservative New York Press weekly forced the Village Voice to become free paper, in San Francisco the SF weekly did the same to the Guardian. (The New York Press was eventually discontinued.)

In the States local newspapers are forced to shut down not because of free news on the internet but because of Craig's list which cut their their advertising revenues.

Maariv lost a lot of circulation after the new owner Nochi Dankner (of the rav Pinto fame) changed the paper political affiliation from center to left wing.

[John Nagle, Silicon Valley, CA]

Re: "Israel has strict laws governing campaign donations from non-Israelis." If the US enforced its laws in that area, the leadership of AIPAC would be in jail. See "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_Act#Selective_enforcement"

[thelionroars]

i happen to be a gig fan of sheldon
dont think hes doing anything that the liberal leftist billionaires do

go sheldon

[Charlie Runkel]

Shmarya is one of those people who dislikes those who worked hard and only likes those who sit in their parents's basement ruining other's lives.

[Shmarya]

Posted by: Bassy the Haredi Slayer | October 24, 2012 at 01:43 PM

As usual, your comment is a jumble of half truths and distortions.

Legitimate competition precludes behavior like Adelsons.

Dankner is a fool, but Ma'ariv was failing before he bought it, and the editorial policy is not, as you falsely describe it, "left wing." (Pinto is big right wing backer, BTW.)

Papers in the states were crippled by Craig's List because papers made a huge part of their revenue before the Internet from classified ads.

Craig's List, however, is not owned by a foreign national and is N-O-T a new organization. It doesn't publish news.

So your comparison is both facile and misleading.

But you specialize in that, now don't you?

[yztorK]

His high profile, embarrassing attempts to buy the American electoral process are reviled behind the closed doors of many Jewish federations and Jewish charities.

How would you know.

[Shmarya]

How would you know.

Posted by: yztorK | October 24, 2012 at 02:04 PM

I have special supersonic ears and x-ray vision.

Moron.

[Shmarya]

Shmarya is one of those people who dislikes those who worked hard and only likes those who sit in their parents's basement ruining other's lives.

Posted by: Charlie Runkel | October 24, 2012 at 01:59 PM

Charlie Runkel is one of those people who is only very slightly smarter than a tree stump.

[believe]

jelousy
envy
hate

shmarya go to do something positive
stop being a basement fatty rat and
GO TO
WOOOORKKKKKK

[Rocky]

SR wrote: "Billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, whose millions of dollars in unchecked donations to conservative Republicans has so poisoned and damaged America's electoral process,..."

Sheldon Adelson may single handedly spawn an anti-semitic backlash in the US. All it will take will be another US military adventure in the Middle East, this time against Iran.

[SkepticalYid]

So many of the Orthodox posters love Adelson because he funds Republican candidates. They're so quick to overlook how he makes his money- casinos. Casinos are hotbeds of drugs, pornography, prostitution -both straight and homosexual- and immodesty. These are all vices the Orthodox claim to oppose. But that doesn't matter. After all, he's a rich right winger. Hypocrites.

[DerNister]

What's George Soros up to these days?

[Shmarya]

jelousy
envy
hate

shmarya go to do something positive
stop being a basement fatty rat and
GO TO
WOOOORKKKKKK

Posted by: believe | October 24, 2012 at 02:37 PM

Idiot.

There is something called truth, there are actual, real empirical facts and data.

If you are too illiterate to read and understand them, fine.

But don't spew your moronkeit here.

Either learn how to read, to think logically, and to write or put one of your very smelly socks in that gaping whole called your mouth.

[S M L]

America's political system is essentially for sale to the wealthiest. This has been the case to some extent for many years though I think it's worse now than ever before thanks to SCOTUS and the Citizens United decision and super PACs. This country needs to be remade politically through mass action of the 99%. Marches, mass protest, etc. - the 60s all over again. Best to begin soon rather than let the Republicans consolidate a police state.

[FM Fan]

His newspapers are excellent.

The leftist newspapers that are going under?

See ya!

Thanks for the memories.

Don't forget to turn off the lights!

The Times of Israel is kicking the Jerusalem Post's butt just as Yisroel Hayom is doing.

Newsweek just shut down its print edition.

It's an industry problem not an Adelson problem.

[Bassy the Haredi Slayer]

As usual, your comment is a jumble of half truths and distortions.

I am not necessarily disagree with your article nor I am defending Sheldon I just wanted to add a background to the story.

Not sure if Dankner is right wing supporter (probably he is) but the paper obviously turned to be more left wing than center, you can ask any Israeli. this is something the New York Times misses in its article about the concentration of media in Israel.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/05/world/middleeast/concentration-and-politics-hobble-israels-newspapers.html

I did not compare Sheldon ownership of Israel Hayom to craig's list, I just wanted to make a point on the decline of local newspapers not national ones.

In any case, you can hope that just like the New York Press which was Conservative and free went under, maybe Israel Hayom will have the same fate.

Peace,

[Lubavitchers are Christians]

The media in Israel has been left wing from the beginning. The Israeli public was always thirsting for the truth, instead of the left-wing propaganda coming from the media.

They accepted with open arms Israel Hayom, which finally began reporting the truth.

Don't worry, the TV media is still dominated by the left wing.

Sheldon Adelson isn't doing in America anything different than George Soros. Except that George Soros is supporting the left wing, so the media is happy and doesn't make a big deal.

Which again proves that the media is simply biased and left wing. People are thristing for the truth, and that is why Fox News and talk radio have been successful the past twenty years.

The left wing is slowly losing their monopoly on the news, so they will get even more desperate in their attacks, like a dying animal.

[SkepticalYid]

Most of the media is and always has been corporate driven. Nowadays it's corporate owned and run as well. It isn't Leftist, with the exception of a few irrelevant publications such as the Village Voice. Only a far-Right extremist would consider the U.S. media to be Leftist.

[George Walker]

Shmarya you believe in objective truth after Moshe Feinstein came down on the side of shinui ha'teva?
Re: Sheldon, I like the "If" his money turns out to be dirty. It will only be found out if it is investigated.

[Master Mendel]

The New York Press!

Bring back memories of mistress Rubi and her Chassidic clients. Some weird shit the chassidim like...

[Shmarya]

…Re: Sheldon, I like the "If" his money turns out to be dirty. It will only be found out if it is investigated.

Posted by: George Walker | October 24, 2012 at 05:14 PM

If Romney wins, chances are Adelsom will never be investigated – and that may be one of the reasons he gives so much money to Republicans, including Romney.

[Lame article]

OMG!!! Free things being given out...thats terrible. But welfare, ssi, disability, ebt, food stamps, wic, public school, etc. thats good.

Stop treating people like they are dumb. If the free paper contains b.s., people wont pick it up.

[Jeff]

Casinos are hotbeds of drugs, pornography, prostitution -both straight and homosexual- and immodesty. These are all vices the Orthodox claim to oppose. But that doesn't matter. After all, he's a rich right winger.

Of course not. He could be pimping out twelve year-olds. They wouldn't care, and neither would their evangelical buddies.

They're worse than the corrupt kings and priests against whom the prophets railed.

[Shmarya]

Posted by: Lame article | October 24, 2012 at 05:56 PM

I guess in what passes for your mind it would be okay for China to sell good in the US at below their cost of manufacture, then, or to give away the good for free.

After all, what's wrong with that, right?

Moron.

[simpsons fan]

Adelson bad, Soros good. Right?

[Jeff]

The media in Israel has been left wing from the beginning. The Israeli public was always thirsting for the truth, instead of the left-wing propaganda coming from the media.

I knew after the first paragraph who'd posted this. That's also where I stopped reading.

You only know one note, and you sing it at every given opportunity.

[Jeff]

Shmarya, btw - thank you for writing this.

[Shmarya]

Adelson bad, Soros good. Right?

Posted by: simpsons fan | October 24, 2012 at 06:02 PM

Are Chabadniks and haredim really this stupid?

Soros has done nothing like what Adelson has done.

He's put far, far less money into this years elections, and he didn't fund a free newspaper in a country he doesn't live in for the sole purposes of pulling the Israeli public further rightward, and supporting Netanyahu.

[Jeff]

OMG!!! Free things being given out...thats terrible. But welfare, ssi, disability, ebt, food stamps, wic, public school, etc. thats good.

Tell you what - why don't you go stand on a street corner in Crown Heights, Williamsburg, Boro Park, etc. and complain to passersby about the social services system?

[Jeff]

Soros is the knee-jerk recourse of frummies, evangelicals and secular conservatives (an increasingly rare breed). A Republican rich guy could get caught in a hotel room with an underage boy and a goat; their response would be, "Yeah? Well Soros and Obama masterminded the Holocaust!" or whatever was the latest doggie treat they'd been fed by by Rush, Hannity or Fox News.

[SkepticalYid]

Posted by: Jeff | October 24, 2012 at 07:13 PM

You are overlooking the fact that Obama is a fascist/communist, a muslim/black christian racist, an anti-colonial/imperialist and is the reincarnation of both mao tze tung and adolf hitler (with a dash of imelda marcos).

[I can't think of a name yet]

The left had no problem with soros and his ilk. Suddenly they're on the receiving end, and they go bananas. This is hilarious watching lefties lose it.

[SkepticalYid]

Please, Soros is insignificant compared to the likes of Adelson or the Koch brothers. And while it's absolutely true that his stock manipulations crashed the markets in Asia, he never manipulated the US elections process like the Kochs, Adelson and their ilk are doing now.

[Lo K'darkah]

I'm confused by some of the comments here. How could anyone believe that Maariv is a mouthpiece for left-wing propaganda? It is a war-hungry populist rag that has done nothing to stem either the rising tide of fascism in Israeli political culture or the apartheid nature of Israel's illegal occupation. (no, this was not ironic).

[SkepticalYid]

Posted by: Lo K'darkah | October 24, 2012 at 08:40 PM

People who have been propagandized by 30 years of Murdoch papers and broadcasts, RW radio pundits and a mainstream corporatized media can believe it very easily.

[Jeff]

This is hilarious watching lefties lose it.

You see? It goes right over their heads. As I keep saying, we need mandatory testing of intelligence, sanity and developmental level as a prerequisite for reproduction.

Most people probably should not be breeding. Certainly, most Americans shouldn't be.

[I can't think of a name yet]

Jeff you probably think that blacks also shouldn't be allowed to breed. Right? Because so many of them are stupid. Right? You make such moronic statements. Your mother should have aborted you. Hell, your mother should still abort you right now. Freedom of choice for the rest of us. (based on obama's logic and his vote in the IL state senate that a doctor should be able to abort a live baby - freedom of choice for the rest of us)

[...]

Jeff learn to disagree with the opinions of others. Calling for others to be aborted or worse is simply unbecoming of someone of your superior intelligence and character.

[Jeff]

Posted by: I can't think of a name yet | October 24, 2012 at 09:46 PM

You're a moron and not worth responding to.

[Jeff]

Jeff learn to disagree with the opinions of others. Calling for others to be aborted or worse is simply unbecoming of someone of your superior intelligence and character.

What I said was that they shouldn't be breeding. It's a matter of human survival.

As far as disagreement is concerned - not all opinions are of equal value. Every moron in America seems to think whatever meshugas s/he has settled upon is sacrosanct. People don't have the inherent right to be stupid (well, they haven't the right to impose their stupidity upon the rest of society) - e.g., creationism vs. evolutionary theory.

This blog is under constant attack by delusional people of limited intelligence and repressive upbringing who are furious with Shmarya for threatening their fragile hold on their security blankets. I'm sorry, but one doesn't get to dismiss facts simply because they're inconvenient. Adelson is a shady character. The Satmar Rebbe was saved by a Zionist whom he refused to acknowledge. The Lubavitcher Rebbe is dead, and is not sitting in a chair at 770. Wanting desperately for something to be true doesn't make it so.

(And actually, I'm not even really sorry.)

Thank you for your opinion of my intelligence. As far as my character is concerned - you overestimate me.

[chafetz b'ilum shmo]

Is Shmarya too small and insignificant to attract a libel suit from an aggreived Adelson? The UK Daily Mail wasn't. Neither was the Democratic Congressional Campaign committee, which had to issue him an apology for remarks not dissimilar from Rosenbergs!

[Juarchist]

I don't give two shits about Adelson and since I don't vote, I don't care which moron wins the election...but i'm glad to see that along with being the amazing Jewish scholar that you are that you added Economist to your professional title. In your next piece I would love for you to opine on the future of the global economy. baaaaaah baaaaah... here little sheep

[Lubavitchers are Christians]

As far as disagreement is concerned - not all opinions are of equal value. Every moron in America seems to think whatever meshugas s/he has settled upon is sacrosanct. People don't have the inherent right to be stupid (well, they haven't the right to impose their stupidity upon the rest of society)

Posted by: Jeff | October 25, 2012 at 06:07 AM

You sound like the Communists. "All men are equal, but some are more equal than others." Read the book Animal Farm.

Communists, socialists, liberals, Marxists: They want everyone to be equal, but they don't accept others' opinions. So they don't really want everyone to be equal, they just want to be the ones in charge, while supposedly taking care of everyone else.

When liberals aren't in charge, they say, "Hey, who do you think you are, we're all equal, we also get a say."

When liberals take power, suddenly, everyone else should shut up. Because "some people are more equal than others."

[Lubavitchers are Christians]

The Lubavitcher Rebbe is dead, and is not sitting in a chair at 770. Wanting desperately for something to be true doesn't make it so.

Posted by: Jeff | October 25, 2012 at 06:07 AM

You are 100% correct.

[RebMendel]

BH there is a secular Yid out there willing to do the right thing both for Eretz Yisroel and America. If Romney wins every American should kiss this man's tuchus

[Jeff]

When liberals take power, suddenly, everyone else should shut up. Because "some people are more equal than others."

I'm not even saying everyone is equal.

[Lubavitchers are Christians]

I'm not even saying everyone is equal.

Posted by: Jeff | October 25, 2012 at 11:59 AM

And you, like the frumma, don't sense the irony in that.

The frumma look down at those who don't agree with them, and so do you. Now where's the difference?

Typical liberal.

[Jeff]

I've made my opinion known repeatedly - we need to have mandatory testing of intelligence, sanity and developmental level as a prerequisite for voting (along with reproduction). In my view, it should be a privilege, not a right. The Western Europeans handle representative democracy well - they have a much more highly developed sense of community, as evidenced by the form of representation employed in a number of their countries, which is proportional - but we don't seem to.

I'd like to run America as a republic for a while, but instead of the "ruling class" (for lack of a better term) being members of a landed aristocracy, they'd be people with more than a few neurons to rub together.

There are conservatives whom I can't abide who are intelligent and have a reasonable grasp of consensual reality (William F. Buckley comes to mind - yes, I know he's dead) who would be eligible to vote - but the idiots who just know evolution can't be true because they "never saw no monkey give birth to no human being" - no, they don't get to vote.

And yes, that would probably disenfranchise more conservatives than liberals, because according to a recent study, liberals tend to score higher overall on intelligence tests - but then you'd just say the study was unreliable because it was conducted by academics with a liberal bias.

Don't worry, LAC - when Romney wins, you guys will gain even more power, and the next time around you'll be able to put Huckabee or Michelle Bachman into office. Eventually, you'll have enough power to have us all imprisoned or lobotomized or exiled or put to death - whichever strikes your fancy.

And ultimately, we'll all go to hell! That will give you and Korbendallas no end of pleasure. It will be the one thing about which you'll end up agreeing.

[Lo K'darkah]

I've made my opinion known repeatedly - we need to have mandatory testing of intelligence, sanity and developmental level as a prerequisite for voting (along with reproduction).
Posted by: Jeff | October 25, 2012 at 01:19 PM

I'm sorry, Jeff. I know we are often on the same side on many issues, and I admire your passion and your anger (I really do), but this very sentence alone would probably disqualify you from passing the intelligence test of which you speak.

All societies where voting is seen as a privilege and not a right are temporary societies. The young and dumb are still full of cum; and when the revolution arrives you and your elitist mates will be lined up by their offspring against a wall - with a copy of John Stuart Mill's 'On Liberty' taped over your mouth - and shot.

[Jeff]

You think America isn't a temporary society?

[Jeff]

Also, you're wrong - I wouldn't pass the sanity test.