Israel Matzav

Surprise: US pro-Goldstone lobby funded by Soros

I suppose that it shouldn't surprise anyone that the pro-Goldstone lobby in the United States - which is trying to convince Congress to accept the report - is funded by George Soros.

Consider:

• When Richard Goldstone came to Washington, in his failed, desperate attempt to stop Congress from denouncing his report, the insiders who shepherded the former South African judge through the halls of power were reportedly Mike Amitay, an employee of Soros’ Open Society Policy Center, a 501(c)(4) lobby, and Daniel Levy, employed by the Soros-funded New America Foundation. Amitay has publicly distanced himself from the views of his father, who once headed AIPAC, and has targeted Dennis Ross for not being soft enough on Iran, as Noah Pollak reported here.
• When Goldstone tried to fight the Congressional resolution, he sent a detailed memo to the Foreign Affairs Committee Chair, Rep. Howard Berman. A check of the electronic file’s “properties,” as Michael Goldfarb revealed, lists the author as none other than Morton H. Halperin, a senior adviser and key player at Soros’s Open Society Institute, who also serves on the J Street advisory council. (J Street is an initiative in which Soros reportedly played a major behind-the-scenes role, but then stepped into the shadows over concerns that his support for controversial far-left and anti-Israel causes would become a liability for the new group.
• Human Rights Watch, which, as NGO Monitor reported, was funded by George Soros in 2007-8 to to the tune of $2,353,895 , has been the leading organization lobbying for adoption of the Goldstone Report, in op-eds, letter campaigns, and various other appeals.
• Our friends at the Democracy Coalition Project, who have published some quotable reports on UN issues (though often tainted by excessive apologetics for the Human Rights Council), mobilized with peculiar zeal to defend the Goldstone Report, signing numerous appeals and filling my inbox with passionate emails on its behalf. The odd thing was that I never before saw the DCP lobby specifically for the Palestinian agenda. The group began as an initiative of Soros’ Open Society Institute, and Morton Halperin remains a key player on their board of directors.

There's much more. Read the whole thing.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:16 PM