- On Oct. 30, 2001, Edgar Bronfman Sr. delivered a speech
at the Jerusalem Theater, opening the 11th Plenary Assembly of the World
Jewish Congress, in which he called, in effect, for a "Warsaw
Ghetto"
final solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Using somewhat more
discreet
language, Bronfman declared: "Settlements on the West Bank which
cannot
be defended should be dismantled. The Intifada is going to stay, and we
can negotiate endlessly and get nowhere. If there is no peace, Israel
should
separate from the Palestinians." He labeled the Israeli presence
inside
Gaza "a mistake," and, according to the Oct. 31 Jerusalem Post,
called for the construction of a fence, surrounding a Palestinian
territory,
the size and shape to be determined by Israel.
-
- Bronfman insisted that Israel must say to the
Palestinians:
"Do what you want to do, but don't cross the line." He concluded,
if any suicide bombers attack Israel, "we have the moral high ground,
and we will devastate the enemy."
-
- Bronfman's call for unilateral separation--under
conditions
imposed unilaterally by Israel--at the keynote plenary of the WJC assembly,
signaled that a drive is now underway to implement this proposal. It is
a policy that was widely circulated during the Summer, after Bush
Administration
pressure had forced Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the hardliners inside
the Israeli Defense Force command to back down, for the time being, from
their plans to provoke a major escalation in violence, through a July 29,
2001 Temple Mount Faithful assault on the Islamic holy sites in
Jerusalem.
-
- At the time, Lyndon LaRouche had issued a prescient
warning
that the IDF radicals were preparing to play the "Temple Mount
card"
to provoke a major religious war in the Middle East--not on behalf of
Israeli-based
interests, but on behalf of the Anglo-American faction pressing for a
"Clash
of Civilizations" new Thirty Years War, to engulf all of the Eurasian
region in bloodshed and chaos. The provoking of such a Clash of
Civilizations
has been the stated goal of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Samuel Huntington and
Bernard Lewis for years.
-
- The unilateral separation scheme, dubbed by its
proponents
"a war and then a wall," was surfaced on Aug. 10, 2001, in a
Washington Post op-ed by Newsweek magazine editor-in-chief Fareed Zakaria,
who demanded that Israel initiate a "unilateral separation."
On Aug. 16, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer called for an
Israeli invasion of the West Bank and Gaza "Area A" territories,
with the objective of wiping out the infrastructure of the Palestinian
Authority, seizing weapons caches and safe houses of Hamas and Islamic
Jihad--and then occupying the areas only long enough to construct a high
wall, permanently separating the Palestinian area from Israel.
-
- The next day, Aug. 17, Washington Post syndicated
columnist
George Will, who is also a member of the international editorial advisory
board to the Hollinger Corporation, spelled out the scheme in the most
explicit detail, in an Op-Ed titled "War and Then a Wall."
-
- "A short war--a few days: over before European and
American diplomats' appeasement reflexes kick in--should have four main
objectives," he wrote: Kill or capture "the terrorists;"
destroy the Palestinian Authority's "military infrastructure;"
destroy "other physical infrastructure useful to the Palestinian
Authority
including all newspaper and broadcasting facilities;" and then
unilaterally
define Israel's border by building a wall. Will's map envisioned Israeli
permanent annexation of all of Jerusalem.
-
- The same day that the Will column was published, in what
appeared to be a coordinated move, Ha'aretz announced that four Knesset
members (MKs), including new Cabinet Minister Dan Meridor, of the Center
Party, announced the launching of a non-partisan "new movement"
to force unilateral separation. The separation plan was drawn up, according
to Ha'aretz, by unnamed reserve IDF officers, and was presented to Prime
Minister Sharon by Trade and Industry Minister Dalia Itzik. The
"electronic
wall" envisioned in the Meridor-Itzik plan (also endorsed by Likud
Party MK Michael Eitan and Labor Party MK Haim Ramon) incorporated
Jerusalem
and a 90-mile segment of the West Bank in the permanently annexed Israeli
territory.
-
- Such a unilateral separation, whether it began with a
massive IDF military assault on the Palestinian Authority or not, would
be a certain recipe for Mideast War, a fact hardly lost on the authors
of the scheme.
-
- In short, Bronfman kicked off his last session as
President
of the World Jewish Congress by demanding that Israel launch a new Mideast
war--at the very moment that the United States is preoccupied with an
already
out-of-control war in Afghanistan and the ongoing irregular warfare assault
against the U.S.A. itself, which Lyndon LaRouche has identified as nothing
less than a coup d'etat, directed by a powerful "enemy
within."
-
-
- - The `New Sanhedrin' -
-
- Bronfman's call for war was not just issued in his
capacity
as President of the WJC. It was issued on behalf of the Mega Group, a
super-secret,
by-invitation-only group of powerful American and Canadian
"mega-billionaires,"
who meet behind closed doors twice a year, to set the overall policy for
the "official" Israel Lobby in North America, and deploy billions
of dollars a year in "charitable" cash (see EIR Aug. 31, 2001,
"Israeli Spies: `Mega Was Not An Agent--Mega Was lthe
Boss'").
-
- Mega Group was launched in 1991 by Seagrams Corp.
director
Charles Bronfman and Victoria's Secret owner Leslie Wexner. Among the known
charter members were Edgar Bronfman Sr. (Charles' older brother and
Seagrams
co-chairman), U.S. Healthcare founder Leonard Abramson, hedge fund manager
and "New Democrats" moneybags Charles Steinhardt, former Purple
Gang rum runner-cum oil tycoon Max Fisher, bagel magnate Max Lender,
Baltimore
real estate developer Harvey "Bud" Meyerhoff, Tulsa investment
broker Charles Schusterman, and Loews Corp. chairman Laurence Tisch.
-
- As EIR first reported Aug. 31, some Mega Group members
are chary about flaunting their power in public. Charles Bronfman told
the Wall Street Journal's Lisa Miller, "From the beginning, we didn't
want to be seen as a threat to anybody... We don't want to be seen as the
Sanhedrin (the highest court of the ancient Jews)."
-
- Other charter members are less shy about promoting their
power grab. On Nov. 6, 2000, Link magazine published an interview with
Michael Steinhardt by Michael Massing. Massing observed, "Michael
Steinhardt likes to poke and prod. In the world of Jewish philanthropy,
he is known for speaking his mind, and, when I dropped by his office, he
did not disappoint." Massing continued, "When asked about the
current state of Jewish philanthropy, Steinhardt ... declared, `I feel
that the durability of some American philanthropic organizations is far
greater than is justified by their effectiveness. It's a shame some of
these organizations don't just go away.'
-
- "Asked to be more specific," Massing continued,
"he did not hesitate: `The American Jewish Committee, the American
Jewish Congress, the Anti-Defamation League, and the Wiesenthal Center,
which are all dedicated to defense, to protection against anti-Semitism,
to Holocaust memory, rather than to addressing the needs of the next
generation.'"
-
- There may have been more method than madness to
Steinhardt's
frontal assault against the biggest and most prominent of the American
Jewish tax-exempt charitable and educational agencies. On Feb. 17, 1999,
Philanthropy News Digest reported that the three largest Israeli
fundraising
organizations in North America, the United Jewish Appeal, the Council of
Jewish Federations, and the United Israel Appeal, had merged into one
single
mega-charity, called the United Jewish Communities. The first Chairman
of the UJC, which raised $1.9 billion the previous year, was Charles
Bronfman,
the co-founder of Mega Group. When his term expired this year, he was
succeeded
by the son of Laurence Tisch, another charter member of the Mega
Group.
-
- One of Mega Group's other power centers is the Conference
of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, whose executive vice
president, Malcolm Hoenlein, has been a consultant on a number of Mega
Group projects. The just-retired President of the Conference, perfume
magnate
Ronald Lauder, has not responded to calls from reporters asking whether
he is a member of the Mega Group. Lauder is one of the biggest financial
boosters of both Ariel Sharon and Sharon's Likud rival, former Prime
Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu.
-
- Mega Group members also dominate the board of trustees
of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), the semi-official
Israel Lobby think tank in Washington, that has been aggressively pressing
for an all-out war against Iraq, as a cornerstone of any successful
"war
against terrorism." WINEP founder Martin Indyk was one of the most
important figures inside the Clinton Administration, sabotaging the July
2000 Camp David summit between then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak,
Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, and President Bill
Clinton.
-
- The Mega members on the WINEP board included, as of 1999:
Charles and Edgar Bronfman, Max Fisher, Harvey Meyerhoff, Charles
Schusterman
(now deceased, but apparently replaced in Mega by his wife Lynn), and
Michael
Steinhardt.
-
-
- - A Deal With Sharon -
-
- The last known meeting of the Mega Group occurred at
the Manhattan mansion of Edgar Bronfman on May 3-4, 2001. According to
a few scant news accounts, the Mega Group's ranks appear to have swelled
from an initial core of 20 members--when it was formed in 1991 by the
Bronfmans
and Wexner--to nearly 50 super-rich activists today. EIR has so far been
able to confirm the identities of a dozen members of the Mega Group.
-
- However, a review of published material, combined with
interviews with sources and with several Mega Group members and associates,
provides a damning picture of the group's activities in recent months,
and confirms that they are four-square in the camp of those pushing for
a "Clash of Civilizations."
-
- Soon after he was sworn in as Israeli Prime Minister,
Ariel Sharon held a private meeting in Israel with Mega Group member
Leonard
Abramson.
-
- At the meeeting, a scheme was hatched to launch a
propaganda
offensive on behalf of the Israeli war hawks.
-
- Back in the United States several days later, Abramson
met with fellow-Mega Group members Edgar Bronfmanand Michael Steinhardt,
on Feb. 28, 2001. The three men launched "Emet" (the Hebrew word
for "truth"), as both a private propaganda arm of the Prime
Minister's
office, and a recruiting operation for a future generation of Israeli
agents-of-influence
(and possible spies) inside the United States and Canada.
-
- Michael Steinhardt told reporters Yoav Appel and Melissa
Radler of the Hollinger Corp.-owned, pro-Sharon Jerusalem Post, on March
2 that Emet is "not public relations. It's more of a
think-tank."
-
- News reports had indicated that Abramson, Steinhardt
and Bronfman had committed $7 million to a start-up fund, that was to be
bolstered by an initial $1 million kick-in from the budget of the Israeli
Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Foreign Ministry mandarins, and perhaps
Foreign
Minister Shimon Peres--a longtime advocate of a just peace with the
Palestinians
and the Arabs--objected to the idea of a group of hawkish American Jews
shaping Israel's image abroad, and leaked details of the early Emet plans
to Israel Radio, claiming that the Israeli consul general in New York,
Alon Pinkas, was furious at the idea. In fact, Pinkas attended one of the
first Emet planning sessions in New York, and later the Foreign Ministry
was forced to issue a disclaimer about the Israel Radio report.
-
- Such is the power of the Mega Group, with its extensive
ties into the English-speaking media. Not only is Mega Group co-founder
Wexner a director of the Hollinger Corp., owner of the Telegraph newspapers
in Britain, the Jerusalem Post, and the Chicago Sun Times (the Hollinger
Corp. is run by Bronfman-pal Conrad Black); but the Bronfman clan holds
a major stake in AOL/Time Warner, one of the biggest of the American media
cartels.
-
- On Aug. 17, 2001, the Jerusalem Post revealed another
facet of the Mega Group's "Emet" project: the recruitment and
indoctrination of another generation of North American
"tsayonim,"
("Israel's helpers," a technical term for the recruitment of
informal agents, first reported by former Mossad officer and author Victor
Ostrovsky). In July and August of this year, 40 college students from 27
campuses in the United States and Canada, spent three weeks at the
University
of Tel Aviv, receiving training to serve as "informal spokesmen"
for the Sharon regime's policies, when they return for their final years
of school. The program, called EMET Fellows, also known as Education for
Middle East Truth, "is not a propaganda tool," Tel Aviv
University
President and former diplomat Itamar Rabinovich protested, a bit too
much.
-
- - Mega And The Evangelicals
-
-
- One of the biggest boosters of the Emet project is
Zionist
Organization of America President Morton Klein, a certifiable rightwing
war hawk, who has also engaged in an intimate collaboration with
"Christian
Zionists" who are unabashed proponents of a religious war in the
Middle
East.
-
- While EIR has not been able to confirm directly that
Klein's collusions with the evangelicals is a sanctioned Mega project,
the convergence of their joint efforts with the known goals of the
Mega-Sharon
"propaganda offensive" are highly suggestive of just such a
link.
-
- EIR first reported on Aug. 24, 2001 ("Temple Mount
Fanatics Seek To Blackmail Bush," by Anton Chaitkin), that on July
30--the day after Bush Administration and other international pressure
forced the cancellation of Sharon's planned Temple Mount provocation in
Jerusalem--Klein, Americans for a Safe Israel founder Herb Zweibon,
evangelical
Religious Roundtable founder Ed McAteer, Christian Friends of Israel leader
Elwood McQuaide, and representatives of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell,
held a meeting at the White House with President Bush's religious community
liason Tim Goeglein. The delegation bluntly threatened President Bush,
that if he did not give Sharon an unequivocal "green light" to
deal with the "Palestinian terrorist threat," the combined wrath
of the Zionist Lobby and the 70 million-strong evangelical Christian voting
bloc would destroy the Bush Presidency--just as they destroyed George Bush,
Sr.'s 1992 re-election efforts.
-
- EIR confirmed from several participants in the White
House session that the entire group had been hosted by the Israeli
Ambassador
to the United States, David Ivry, at a private embassy luncheon, just
before
they held their "tough love" session with Goeglein.
-
- Anton Chaitkin and Art Ticknor contributed to this
report.
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