[THIS SMELLS TO HIGH HEAVEN. NETANYAHU DOES NOT LOOK GOOD HERE. TED BELMAN]
Congress, White House angry at Israel for decision to back out of trial against Bank of China for involvement in laundering of money for Hamas, Islamic Jihad. The reason: China conditioned Netanyahu’s state visit on Israeli promise not to testify in trial. Now, US threatening to subpoena Ambassador Oren
Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren was called back to Israel to take part in an emergency meeting convened this weekend by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu so that Oren could pass on messages sent by the US administration and Congress in the wake of tensions between the two countries.
The tensions and lightening visit stem from the US’s outrage at Israel’s decision to back out of their commitment to a terror prosecution involving a Chinese bank allegedly laundering monies for Hamas so that Netanyahu and his family could embark on their State visit to the country last May.
This weekend Nahum Barnea and Shimon Shiffer from Yedioth Ahronoth broke the story and revealed that the Chinese government threatened to cancel Netanyahu’s visit if Israel refused to promise that senior Israeli defense officials would refrain from testifying against the Bank of China in a federal court trial currently underway in New York.
According to the report, China conditioned Netanyahu’s visit on the demand the officials retract their promise to testify in the trial being led by the family of terror victim.
The case itself is a civil suit filed by Sheryl and Yekutiel Wultz from Florida, whose son Daniel was killed in terror attack in Tel Aviv in 2006 when he was only 16 years old.
According to the suit, the money used by Hamas to undertake the terror attack reached the terrorist group through a money laundering scheme run the Chinese bank in which some $6 million were laundered through trade.
The story has invoked the rage of the White House, a number of US congressmen and Jewish organizations active in the US who were flabbergasted by the decision to back out of a legal battle against the funding of international terror only in an attempt to prevent harm from coming to Netanyahu’s visit.
On Sunday, during the meeting called by Netanyahu, Oren was meant to stress to the additional participants – among them ambassador designate Ron Dermer – that the Americans view with severity Israel’s decision to cave into China’s pressure and prevent testimonies which would legally link Hamas and the Islamic Jihad to the Bank of China.
Oren was also to convey the American shock that Netanyahu, who the Americans call “Mr. Terror” for his zero tolerance approach to terror, would take such decision.
Congress, Oren was indented to say, sees the move as nothing short of betrayal by Israel of the US, both in regards to the international war on terror and in regards to the struggle for hegemonic control raging between the West and the rising eastern powerhouse.
The crux of Oren’s mission was to inform the Israel administration of the US’s intent on advancing legal procedures against the Bank of China; to inform them that if the security officials fail to show up in court they would be subpoenaed; and additional subpoenas would also be filed against Oren, Dermer and National Security Adviser Yaakov Amidror.
In addition to the suit filed by the Wultz family, the Bank of China also faces a lawsuit by Attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner of the Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center, representing 22 Israel families – the relatives of the victims of the suicide bombing in an Eilat bakery as well the Mercaz Harav shooting – that is being discussed instate courts throughout the US.
According to Darshan-Leitner, these cases are also structured around the testimonies of security officials and could fail should the officials fail to testify.
The Prime Minister’s Office did not respond to the story Sunday evening.
@ Laura:
I for one have not so much “insisted” on a Sino-Israeli alliance, but I have in the past year written here and elsewhere on the likelihood of this occurring, particularly if Obama were to be re-elected, and he has, and this now seems to be at least starting to unfold, as I predicted it would.
I agree with you that there are great potential pitfalls with such a move, but the way things are going here in the U.S., I am not convinced that Israel has too many other options.
I hope that you are right – and I allow that you MAY be right- that ‘Obama will be gone’ someday, the American people will continue to solidly support Israel, and ‘things will return to normal’.
But I’m not so sure that you are right.
First, as a sidenote, Yamit does a good job of elaborating how, in so many other ways, Israeli policy effectivly supports terrorist polities that want the Jews dead. Can you imagine the U.S. and/or NATO feeling compelled to GIVE free electricity to Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan, and even allow aid convoys to pass throught to the same??? While what is elaborated in the article, by itself, sounds bad, taken in context of all the other crazy things the Israeli government does in this vein, it is not terribly surprising.
Second, don’t know about you, but I’ve been involved in organized Israel advocacy at the grassroots level for more than a decade. From my experience, I would say that on the one hand, yes, Americans support Israel more than they do the Palestinians or other Israeli adversaries. But what priority do they put on this support? For most, it is about #20…somewhere after the priority placed on having the favored brand of cold cuts in the fridge. Even many I encounter, both Jew and non-Jew alike, who privately are very supportive of Israel…getting them to DO anything is like pulling teeth. They are afraid to even right a freakin’ letter to the editor of the local paper, let alone anything else.
Now, contrast the above to the extremely well-organized, funded anti-Israel media/academia/govm’t enterprise here. I mean, for cryin’ out loud, Obama got elected…then re-elected…in spite of all the many ways that he is utterly out of sync with the political culture of most Americans, in spite of his failed administration, in spite of his obvious corruption, lawlessness, and incompetence.
What is even worse, I am certain that the election of ’12 was rigged, big time. If we don’t have serious reforms of our electoral processes and laws here before 2016 – and it is anyone’s guess if we will; I am not optimistic – it DOESN’T MATTER how much American voters wind up hating Obama and all he stands for. I submit that they WILL hate him terribly…and that it may very well not matter at all. Welcome to the United States of Venezuela, Laura, or the Saudi States of America. We’ll get Hillary or whomever Obama’s anointed successor is anyway. No matter what America really thinks, or how they even really vote.
So, against that kind of backdrop, what is Israel to do? Stay tied to a primary strategic ally that is sinking in a swamp of corruption, led by a gang of thinly disguised Islamist stooges, collaborators, butt-kissers? Obama is flagrant, but you and I know that he is backed by a long line of them at the national level.
At least the Chinese are not anti-Semites. The Chinese may be internally corrupt – very corrupt – but I don’t think the Arabs/Moslems have so much sway there as they seem to here.
Laura, I hope and pray that things turn out as both you and I want. I hope Obama and what he represents gets trashed completely, I hope we can elect something along the lines of a Rick Santorum or Ted Cruz in ’16, I hope the U.S.-Israeli strategic partnership survives to a degree intact enough by then such that it can be recovered and repaired. Just maybe, that will happen.
Or, it may not. There is a significant chance that it will not. Israel has got to do what she must to survive. And if that means a closer relationship with China at the expense of the U.S. (or what is left of it), then so be it.
stanrevich Said:
I doubt that, I see no evidence for the statement.
stanrevich Said:
the tigers tail is the jews being terrorized. this cannot be done to spite the US when it spites all terrorized jews and undercuts all in the future.
why should Argentina continue to prosecute against Iran when iran will offer a future of oodles of money? after all, Israel has just sold out jews for possible future moneys. All future diplomatic and legal endeavors fighting terror against jews will now be severely undermined. Israeli presented evidence will lack credibility and there will be little motivation to pursue. Terror against jews will become more acceptable as a result of Israels undercutting the fight. This is why it is so credible to believe that corrupt Israeli politicians, and diaspora jews, have been selling out the jews since before the holocaust. We see the evidence renewed on a daily basis. this is not a US/Israel issue: terrorized Jews cannot be sacrificed for such an argument.
@ yamit82:
U.S. officials have for too long assumed that they can dictate to Israel even if it means breaking clear promises and commitments. Notice that Egypt is standing up to Obama as well as Russia and China among others. It is time for a review of Israeli policies to show a stronger willingness to stand up to pressure from any foreign source.
It is ridiculous to think that the US administration cares a whit about a PRIVATE suit involving the relatively minuscule amount of 6 million dollars against the Bank of China. The US ignores far greater amounts of money laundering through European banks and gives far more than that to Hamas yeraly through money laundering within th US itself and via the UN. This is all for show. Countries have national interests, not friendships. The only time the two comities unite is when the two entities are mutually reinforcing and what with the obvious enmity between Obama and BB, the latter will do what is Israel’s interest, not in what is in Obama’s interest.
I agree with Ted. While we must always deal with China with eyes wide open, The USA under the present Obama administration has managed to stab Israel in the back on more than one occasion. It does not hurt to pull the tiger’s tail once in a while to make sure that the tiger knows we are still there.
yamit82 Said:
Oh what?
honeybee Said:
Oh,
yamit82 Said:
Sounds like marriage. You mis-understood me,I wass advocation for Israel to forgo American monies.
honeybee Said:
True but we are talking about a measly 3 billion dollars per year and Israel that’s about 3% of our State budget. For that pittance America gets much more than she gives and it costs Israel several % of or GDP because America prohibits our military sales, mostly to protect American sales and Amerian Industry from Israeli competition.
But that’s why we have to divest from American aid. For Israel it’s a lousy deal and is highly corrupting of our military and politicians, costs us Jobs and holds back our own industrial development. It also creates distortions in our planning and budgets.
American military aid allows our politicians to hide behind American pressure and blame it for their own reticence in decision making.
Bottom line is we don’t need the aid and what we want or need we can pay for or purchase cheaper from other sources or produce ourselves. Aid as you said, gives another sovereign leverage over our own sovereignty limiting our freedom of choices and maneuver.
We can be friends but not master to slave which we ourselves have allowed or too long.
yamit82 Said:
Whom ever pays the pipper, calls the tune.
Laura Said:
I’m not totally comfortable with this idea but I think it’s more beneficial to Israel than with only China or even America. I would call such arrangements just that: arrangements but not formal alliances. It’s based on mutual understandings and on common confluence of interests. This arrangement could also include China.
Curiously, Israel is Russia’s only potential ally in the Middle East. Israeli public opinion is immensely unhappy with Washington’s pressure. The Israeli military has moderate use of American weaponry: Israel even uses much of its US aid to procure trivial goods rather than weapons. The Israeli government must be fed up with routine clashes with the American administration, which bans advanced arms sales to Israel and effectively controls her policy by threatening to cut off the supply of spares.
Russian weapons might be inferior to American ones, but they are sufficient given the IDF’s tactical edge over our Arab enemies. Russian SAM batteries and cruise missiles are not inferior to American ones, and their aircraft are good enough. Turning to Russia wouldn’t affect Israeli economic ties with the West; indeed, it might strengthen our economic relations with Western Europe. Importantly, Russia’s lack of worldwide influence would remove impediments to Israeli arms exports; as things stand now, American hindrance of Israeli weapons sales outweighs the aid we receive from them. Selling to the world’s arms market would allow Israel the economy of scale we need to develop hi-tech weapons.
Russia is the best ally our $2-billion-a-year military procurement can buy.
I don’t see how it can be advantageous to Israel to buckle to such a demand, if it indeed occurred. Relations with china can be expanded according to self-interest and not to threats or butt licking. That is the problem Israel already has with the US in that it always threatens Israel. Why trade one problem for another of the same? This would be very bad because after this no one in the world will give a damn about jews complaining about terrorism. They will simply say that jews must be bullshitting because when they had a chance to do something they didn’t. If we thought there was little interest before about world reaction to terror against Jews then now it will be nothing. The same with Iran: BB’s speeches about Iran terror will fall on completely deaf ears. All jewish talk of terror will be undermined. I hope he is not doing this, it would be a seriously bad decision.
Laura Said:
I am against entering into any alliances either military or political.
Economic agreements in our interests only…..
We must end today American military aid, restructure our economy and economic priorities and that includes our military.
@ yamit82:
Thank-you, very informative,I now understand, more clearly, your case against BB.
Ted Belman Said:
As I said we already are supporting and protecting terrorists. How?
A- By not protesting since Oslo American military aid to the PA including Hamas and from other countries.
B- By not defeating them when on several occasions we had them in our sights and within our capability to defeat them especially in Gaza.
C- We continue to fund them by supplying them gratis basic essentials and even treating Gazans in our hospitals also for free.
D- We allow most of their political and militant leadership freedom to plan and execute their attacks against our people and army.
E- Tax rebates supplied to PA also funds Hamas and terrorism against us.
F- Release of thousands of terrorists from our prisons is better?
I’m not thrilled by BB here and anything else he does but I have always been on this site a consistent and strident opponent of BB and the Likud. I also bear the scars from their leadership in Israel as have many other thousands of Israeli Jews.
So I’m not shocked nor surprised by anything that he does because as a sociopath I believe he is capable of any perfidy against the Israeli people if he determines it is in his own personal interest and lowers the bar of confrontation with anyone else who has power.
You can’t logically attack BB however justly and ignore everything else the government of Israel has done and is doing to support terrorists and terrorism.
@ Ted Belman:
Exactly.
@ yamit82:
A really huge mistake to depend economically on a ruthless China. Obama will eventually be gone and the American people support Israel. You and Arnold don’t know what you are talking about by insisting this move would be good for Israel. This article reveals how its become already dangerous for Israel to align itself with China.
I agree. And to those here at Israpundit who insist Israel form an alliance with ruthless China, you may want to rethink that. If you think Israel’s relationship with the US government is problematic, how do you think it will work out for Israel to be dependent on China?
yamit82 Said:
Yup – this man cannot stand up to his own wife. How on earth do people expect him to stand up to the Americans, never mind Iran?
@ yamit82:
Obam a is not to be trusted
@ Ted Belman:
True that
@ CuriousAmerican</a
Why are you ignoring me Chiquito?
http://youtu.be/Z7PxPVuZLqU
@ yamit82:That doesn’t explain why Israel should protect people who support terror against her or Jews.
yamit82 Said:
Ah come-on Yamit 82 give Sarah a break,at lest she bakes.
Ted Belman Said:
BB looks like he is trying to shift from America and Europe to Asia and China as economic replacements or at least as fallback positions.
America really hurt our relations with China first with our AWACS sale then over our contract with Helicopter upgrades. We had contracts with China to complete those contracts and reneged. The AWACS under American pressure cost Israel over a half billion dollars in penalties. Billions in lost sales to China and other countries and our reputation and reliability came under question.
BB had apparently 2 choices neither good for him or Israel and if the story is true he took the one that he figured he could not refuse if our relations with china are to progress and improve. America has cost us a lot with China and this could also in a way be some form of Payback
The national interest always trumps an individuals or even a small group of individual interests. There may even be ways of supplying necessary information through non official channels, I don’t know the answer to this one but what is obvious to me is that our relationship with America is not sustainable and Israel must diversify and become less dependent on America. If what BB did advances that aim I believe it’s justified.
Americans do not like when their vassals behave contrary to their diktats and demands. If true I say Tough S…T!!!!
Victims would probably not get anything in any event. Hamas has many conduits of funding as well. Hypocritical when Israel transfers billions to the PA which in turn funds Hamas.
It’s probably Sarah Netanyahu behind this. She demands her government funded Trips and shopping shopping sprees. China is a must on her list and BB is more afraid and dependent on Sarah than anyone else.
BB is a henpecked Wuss and a Wimp.
Many in Israel compare Sarah to a famous American icon.
I will wait for Israel’s side to the story.
Do you mean Obama is acting better than Netanyahu?