More on that strange Hong Kong contribution to J Street
You may recall that I raised some suspicions regarding Consolacion Esdicul's $811,697 contribution to J Street
here. Lenny Ben David, who has been on the J Street story since the very beginning, raises some
more suspicions.
Beyond the Soros contributions to J Street, equally troubling is a huge $811,697 contribution from a “Consolacion Esdicul” from Hong Kong. It appears that Consolacion is “Connie” Esdicul, who Google reveals as a member of the Hong Kong Rotary Club and lives in the Happy Valley section of Hong Kong. But little is known about the woman. J Street claims that she was solicited by Bill Benter, “a prominent J Street supporter from Pittsburgh.” Actually, Benter, who is not Jewish, is considered the world’s most successful bettor on horse races, and he hangs out at the Happy Valley horse track in Hong Kong. Racing sheets report that Benter places $250,000 bets on a race. According to Wired.com, “Nobody's more skilled at masking bets than Bill Benter, regarded by many of his peers as the most successful sports bettor in the world.”
Esdicul’s contribution is a strange number unlike all the others which are rounded off to three zeroes. The figure may make sense, however, if it were a foreign currency conversion. What currency does $811,697 equal? Until J Street fesses up, we can only speculate. Using today’s conversion rates, Esdicul’s contribution equals 6,298,308 Hong Kong dollars, or 606,491 Euros, or 517,388 British pounds or 3,044,756 Saudi riyals.
Why would a Hong Kong individual contribute as much as one-half of J Street’s budget? Actually, Esdicul’s contribution is in line with J Street’s corrupt practices of taking money for its political action committee from decidedly non-pro-Israel sources: pro-Saudi activists, Arab-American leaders, Muslim activists, State Department Arabists, a Palestinian billionaire, and even a Turkish American who helped produce the anti-American and anti-Semitic film, Valley of the Wolves. According to the U.S. Federal Election Commission, the largest contribution to J Street’s Political Action Committee is $36,000 from a Latin teacher from Teton Village, Wyoming named Bob Morris. How do you say “strange” in Latin?
...
With such contributions, it’s easy to understand how J Street’s operation on Capitol Hill grew exponentially in the last 12 months. According to lobbying records on file at the Clerk of the House of Representatives and the Secretary of the Senate, J Street’s lobbying budget went from under $5,000 in the first quarter of 2009 with one registered lobbyist to $130,000 in the first quarter of 2010, when J Street registered six lobbyists.
The $811,687 contribution from Hong Kong should raise the question whether under federal law the lobbyists need to register as foreign agents, and not domestic lobbyists.
When Lenny wrote that Benter was not Jewish, that struck me as odd. Naively, since J Street described him as a supporter, and with his not-so-obvious last name, I assumed he was Jewish. So I started searching Bill Benter's name in Google, and one of the associations that came up was Vivian Fung. It turns out that Vivian Fung - who is a native of Hong Kong - is
Benter's wife. (By the way, that article is a doozer. It doesn't quite come out and say it, but apparently Benter arranged for President Obama to meet with the Dalai Lama. The article notes Beijing's objections, says the President can meet with whomever he wants, and wonders why he won't meet with Hamas and Hezbullah. I suspect Benter agrees).
Is there a connection between Connie Esdicul and Vivian Fung Benter other than the fact that they are both in Bill Benter's circle of friends? Pamela Geller
notes:
And this from a commenter:The mysterious large donor, Consolacion Esdicul, is better known as "Connie Esdicul" and even has a Facebook page. She appears to be a middle-aged woman who lives in the wealthy Happy Valley area of Hong Kong.
Ms.Esdicul has some unknown relationship with the New York hedge fund Black Rock and represented them at a charity event in HK. She presented a donation for Quality Camp to actor, Jackie Chan, from the Black Rock Advantage Fund in HK.
Black Rock has close ties to Soros ever since one of its founders, Keith Anderson, was appointed Chief Investment Officer of Soros Fund Management 2 years ago.
Bill Jacobson has more on the Blackrock connection
here.
Vivian Fung and
Bill Benter both have Facebook pages (Benter's lists J Street as a "like"). (Vivian Fung Benter is
not the
composer Vivian Fung, who has born in Edmonton - they look nothing alike).
It occurred to me that Vivian Fung Benter and Connie Esdicul could be sisters, but so far I cannot prove that.
A Google search of Bill Benter's name with Israel turns up 132,000 results. I'm still combing through those. Most of them are related to the recent story, but there was
this curious one written by Steve Clemons of the Washington Note, a pro-Arab publication (I've seen it cited elsewhere but unsourced).
A quick note on schedule. This morning, I am hosting a delegation of the International Women's Commission comprised of Israel, Palestinian and international women calling for final status negotiations between Israel and Palestine as opposed to the imposition of a unilaterally decided border.
This Commission issued a release last night, and I know that I'm their first meeting today as I'm arranging the bagels.
I think that what they are doing is important and will offer more reactions later, but here is the press release.
Later today, I am rushing off to Lisbon, Portugal to drive out to a retreat at the Arrabida Monastery.
The theme of discussion for the weekend are the growing, overlapping arcs of instability and crisis on the Eurasian continent.
Participants include European Parliament Member Cem Oezdemir, Georgetown University Professor and Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Charles Kupchan, Geneva Initiative co-drafter Daniel Levy, Acusis CEO Bill Benter, Peace & Security Initiative Director Deepti Choubey, Brookings Senior Fellow Flynt Leverett, International Policy Director in the Palestinian President's Office Ghaith Al-Omari (still tentative), Princeton professor G. John Ikenberry, UPI Editor Emeritus Martin Walker, New America Foundation Fellow and fast-rising terrorism journalist Nir Rosen, World Policy Institute Senior Fellow Sherle Schwenninger, Al Hayat Diplomatic Correspondent Raghida Dergham, University of Chicago professor and author Robert Pape, Middle East Policy Institute fellow Trita Parsi, former Senator Gary Hart, IPRI-Lisbon scholar Carlos Gaspar, and others.
You all should know why I emphasized the names I did.
That should be enough to think about for a while.
J Street backer Bill Benter bankrolling pro-Hagel campaign
I guess George Soros is a little short on cash. Hong Kong based gambler Bill Benter, whose secretary, Consolacion Esdicul,
donated most of J Street's budget in 2008-9, is
bankrolling the fight to make Chuck Hagel the next Secretary of Defense of the United States.
But over the last two weeks, Hagel's friends in the
Democratic political world have come to his aid, principally by rounding up
senior former officials to write supportive op-eds and funding an advertising
effort to spread the world that Hagel does in fact have bipartisan support.
The
Cable has learned that a large chunk of that pro-Hagel
money is coming from one Democratic donor, gambling legend Bill Benter, who is working with the Podesta Group, a Washington lobbying
firm, to support pro-Hagel advertising. Podesta facilitated Benter's funding of a
week of ads in Politico's Playbook
must-read daily newsletter, written by Mike
Allen, a spokesman for Benter confirmed to The Cable.
"The Bipartisan Group issued its letter to set the
record straight on Chuck Hagel's character and on the positions taken by that
Group. One of the Group's long-time supporters, Bill Benter, paid for the
advertising so that the letter could reach a wider audience," the spokesman
said. "The public interest would be better served if those organizations
which spent much more on attack ads against Senator Hagel would also disclose
their donors."
The so-called Bipartisan Group is really just taking care of one of their own.
"The Bipartisan Group is an
informal grouping of leading foreign policy experts, most of them former senior
government officials, who are connected with various leading policy institutes
and academic institutions, such as the Atlantic Council, the Council on Foreign
Relations, the Aspen Institute, and the U.S./Middle East Project," a
representative of the group told The
Cable.
The group organized its first letter
in 2008 and its members include Zbigniew
Brzezinski, Thomas Pickering, Lee Hamilton, Brent Scowcroft, Paul Volcker,
Frank Carlucci, William Fallon, Sandra Day O'Connor, and ... Chuck Hagel.
"It was a group that got together (for
these kinds of things) and called themselves the Bipartisan Group," said Larry Korb, defense expert at the
Center for American Progress.
And of course the Left thinks this is wonderful.
Steve
Clemons, a long-time supporter of Hagel's, said there's
nothing wrong with Benter's activity and pointed out that the anti-Hagel crowd
is superbly well funded by undisclosed rich donors.
"Sheldon
Adelson and Irving Moscowitz are
regulars at this and I think it is great that progressive funders step forward
to support a fair and honest discourse on these issues," he said. "There's been
too little funding put behind candidates like Hagel and too much funding spent
on the smears. It's nice to see some balance."
Undisclosed? Adelson's donations were much more transparent than Benter's donation to J Street, which has not been acknowledged to this day. And isn't it funny that every time I see references to Adelson's business, they include words like 'mogul' or 'magnate,' while those words are never used about Benter?
Speaking of which, will we see the New York Times editorializing that it's
immoral to take money from Benter as they did about Adelson?
Who says there's no double standard in the United States?
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Bill Benter, Chuck Hagel, Consolacion Esdicul, J Street, Sheldon Adelson
J Street Funder Bill Benter paying MJ Rosenberg's salary at Media Matters?
I'm sure that many of you remember
Bill Benter, the mysterious, Hong Kong-based gambler who financed much of J Street's budget. Well, it seems that there's another US-based organization that has been the beneficiary of Benter's generosity: Media Matters. Specifically, Benter may have contributed money to
keep Jewish anti-Semite MJ Rosenberg on the payroll (Benter wouldn't confirm that part).
“I have been a contributor to Media Matters for many years and am proud to support the important work that it does fighting for truth in media, working for more honest political discourse and promoting our shared progressive values,” Benter told TheDC in a statement.
A source told TheDC that Benter donated to Media Matters, at least in part, so the liberal organization could bring MJ Rosenberg on board as its foreign policy voice.
Rosenberg has become a lightning rod for questioning the loyalty of American supporters of Israel by calling them “Israel firsters,” and for taking other radical positions. Alan Dershowitz, the liberal Harvard Law School professor, has denounced him in a series of recent interviews and articles, saying that Rosenberg’s rhetoric and ideas are similar to what neo-Nazi and pro-Hezbollah websites offer.
According to tax documents obtained by TheDC, the Media Matters Action Network paid Rosenberg $129,568 in 2010, plus $4,505 in other compensation. That organization is one of Media Matters’ political arms. It is tax-exempt under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code.
TheDC wasn’t able to independently confirm the source’s claim that Benter donated to Media Matters with the intent of endowing Rosenberg’s salary, and it appears that Benter contributed directly to the 501(c)(3) — not to its affiliated 501(c)(4) group.
When TheDC asked Benter’s intermediary, Matt Dorf of Rabinowitz/Dorf Communications, whether Benter was in any way involved in bringing Rosenberg on board, and whether Benter possibly solicited funds for Media Matters’ (c)(4) affiliate to help pay Rosenberg’s salary, Dorf said the latter question was “exactly the right question” and that he would ask Benter.
Dorf later replied that Benter would not be providing any further statement.
Read the whole thing. Gee, you think J Street and Media Matters could have the same sources of funding? What a shock that would be.
/sarc
Labels: Bill Benter, J Street funding, Media Matters, MJ Rosenberg
EXCLUSIVE: Who is J Street's mystery donor?
Last September, I published a post in which I asked "
who the heck is Consolacion Esdicul?"
Another lie that was exposed by Eli Lake on Friday was the claim that most of J Street's money came from small donations by American Jews. In fact, aside from the 15% that came from George Soros, 50% came from a woman in Hong Kong named Consolacion Esdicul.The group's 990 forms -- which I've also obtained and put online for the first time here -- show the group's single largest contribution, in the odd sum of $811,697 coming from one Consolacion Esdicul of Happy Valley, a Hong Kong suburb. Esdicul, whose name is Filipino, has no presence on Google or Nexis aside from this story, and people I spoke to in Jewish groups left and right had never heard of her.
Spokeswoman Amy Spitalnick tells me the same thing the group told Lake: She is a business associate of Bill Benter, another J Street supporter from Pittsburgh who solicited Consolacion's gift. It's a large gift, but it should be put in the context of the $11.2 million the J Street family of organizations has raised over the last 2.5 years (full details below).
Esdicul's contribution was just about half of the $1.6 million the group received during the year in question. Spitalnick says that they haven't received any other contributions from Esdicul , and that their operating budget over the last three years for the group's "family of organizations" is $9.5 million.
It is, to say the least, unusual that a group would get half its budget from a foreigner doing a favor to a business associate. I left a message for Benter, who heads a medical transcription company, to ask about how that came about.
Benter, as it turns out, is one of the world's most successful betters on horse races, and Happy Valley, a Hong Kong suburb, is the location of one of the world's largest horse race tracks.
I did a lot of speculating about Connie Esdicul
here and
here. I theorized that she might be the sister of Benter's wife, Vivian Fung, or the widow of Benter's former betting partner Alan Woods. In the course of my research, I discovered that Benter was also a donor to Barack Hussein Obama, the Democratic party of Virginia and
Rabbis for Human Rights.
But the truth came to me from a source I found while in the US. The answer is really quite simple according to my source: Consolacion (Connie) Esdicul is Bill Benter's long-time secretary. She has been his secretary for the last 25 years, and may have been even more than his secretary at one time. So Benter (surprise, surprise!) is the likely source of all that money, which may not have been reported as such to the appropriate US authorities.
Just so you know that the source is authentic, here's a picture of Benter's office building:
I have the address and the phone number. Google Street View did the rest.
When you are a rich man you can buy a lot of things. But honesty cannot be bought.
Hmmm.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Bill Benter, Consolacion Esdicul, George Soros, J Street funding, Jeremy Ben Ami, Rabbis for Human Rights
More Bill Benter donations to radical anti-Israel causes
Bill Benter's donations to J Street were
consistent with his support for other radical anti-Israel causes.
His philanthropy in Hong Kong doesn’t stop there. Mr. Benter is an active member of the Rotary Club, and through an organization called The Advantage Trust, is a donor to charities such as Sowers Action, the Hong Kong Society for the Protection of Children and the Hong Kong Cancer Fund. He is also married to a woman from Hong Kong, Vivian Fung Benter. The two, who married this year, regularly grace the news and society pages of the Pittsburgh press, where Mr. Benter is known as a businessman and philanthropist. Mr. Benter donated US$1 million to the University of Pittsburgh in 2007.
At a fundraiser for Hong Kong charity Camp Quality, Ms. Esdicul was photographed with actor Jackie Chan as a representative of The Advantage Trust, affirming the link between her and Mr. Benter. Camp Quality said it declines to comment on donors as a policy.
...
Mr. Benter has a history of donations consistent with his connection to J Street. According to political campaign contribution records, in 2008 Mr. Benter and Acusis were listed as donors to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and the Democratic Party of Virginia. This year, The Advantage Trust donated to Israeli-based organization Rabbis for Human Rights.
Ah yes.
Rabbis for Human Rights.
More on Bill Benter's connection to Israel
You will recall that Bill Benter was the friend of J Street who allegedly solicited a donation of more than $800,000 from a previously anonymous Fillipina resident of Hong Kong named Connie Esdicul (yes, that's his Facebook picture).
Roger Simon comes up with a bit more about Mr. Benter.
His own foundation is determinedly and publicly apolitical, showing uncontroversial donations like the Boy Scouts. But the Way Back Machine (2007) tells us a bit more about this guy than that he had a Tibetan Buddhist wedding. He was a supporter of a group called CALME, a Middle East peace organization with peacenik rhetoric similar to J Street’s. The list of CALME’s supporters is short, but if you scroll it, you will find William Benter and further up S. Daniel Abraham, another of the small number of donors on the J Street 990. This all happened at virtually the same time Benter’s “associate” Connie made her donation. Does this mean Benter laundered 800k of gambling profits through Esdicul to J Street? Of course not. But it certainly sounds suspicious.
And there’s more. Benter had a partner named Alan Wood, now deceased. Wood made frequent trips to Manila, apparently. I could go on, but I’d like our crack investigating team to do more research.
For those who don't recognize the name, S. Daniel Abraham is the founder of SlimFast and a longtime activist for Leftist causes in Israel. If you scroll down, there are some other interesting names on that list.
But back to Alan Wood (actually Woods), you can find his obituary
here.
Working as an actuary in the late 1970s, Woods learned to count cards at blackjack and became a serious gambler for the first time in his life, travelling the world for three years as a professional card counter and undertaking all kinds of disguises and subterfuge to avoid identification by the world's casinos.
But his earnings at blackjack were tiny compared with his subsequent career in racing. Woods turned to horseracing in New Zealand in 1982 then shifted his life and focus to Hong Kong, and its big pools, in 1984.
A founding partner in the earliest computer betting team in Hong Kong, which split after a dispute between the partners in the early 1990s, Woods established his own hugely successful betting operation, with employees based around the world and had built a fortune estimated at more than US$600 million before his death.
Even as Woods grew to the point of dominating the Hong Kong betting scene in recent years, even over and above other successful computer teams, he also enjoyed his wealth and was famed in Hong Kong racing circles for his bacchanalian parties and celebrations.
Once a regular in Wan Chai's bars and nightclubs, Woods had become more reclusive and relocated to Manila several years ago, but his operation continued to annually lay out between one and two per cent of Hong Kong's entire racing turnover (which totalled US$64 billion in the last completed season).
He is survived by two ex-wives, two sons and a daughter.
Okay Roger, is Connie Esdicul Alan Woods' last significant other? Or one of the ex-wives (which seems less likely)? Or was she just domestic help that he took with him from the Philippines to Hong Kong? Hmmm.
There's another obituary for Woods
here. It mentions another name we have not heard before: Zeljko Ranogajec, who is also known as the
Loch Ness Monster. No connection to J Street yet.
But let me leave you with this: Alan Woods died on January 26, 2008. Connie Esdicul put her money into J Street sometime after June 30, 2008. Hmmm.
Who the heck is Consolacion Ediscul?
Another lie that was exposed by Eli Lake on Friday was the claim that most of J Street's money came from small donations by American Jews. In fact, aside from the 15% that came from George Soros, 50% came from a woman in Hong Kong named
Consolacion Ediscul.
The group's 990 forms -- which I've also obtained and put online for the first time here -- show the group's single largest contribution, in the odd sum of $811,697 coming from one Consolacion Ediscul of Happy Valley, a Hong Kong suburb. Ediscul, whose name is Filipino, has no presence on Google or Nexis aside from this story, and people I spoke to in Jewish groups left and right had never heard of her.
Spokeswoman Amy Spitalnick tells me the same thing the group told Lake: She is a business associate of Bill Benter, another J Street supporter from Pittsburgh who solicited Consolacion's gift. It's a large gift, but it should be put in the context of the $11.2 million the J Street family of organizations has raised over the last 2.5 years (full details below).
Ediscul's contribution was just about half of the $1.6 million the group received during the year in question. Spitalnick says that they haven't received any other contributions from Ediscul, and that their operating budget over the last three years for the group's "family of organizations" is $9.5 million.
It is, to say the least, unusual that a group would get half its budget from a foreigner doing a favor to a business associate. I left a message for Benter, who heads a medical transcription company, to ask about how that came about.
Benter, as it turns out, is one of the world's most successful betters on horse races, and Happy Valley, a Hong Kong suburb, is the location of one of the
world's largest horse race tracks.
The
irony....
President Obama and the White House have expressed concerns about untraced foreign influence on the U.S. political system through donations to tax-exempt "501(c)(4)" nonprofit organizations in recent months.
J Street is a 501(c)(4) organization that is allowed to remain tax-exempt as long its political activities are not the primary purpose of the group. J Street also has formed a political action committee, or PAC, the standard way for interest groups, corporations and labor unions to contribute directly to political candidates and parties.
Mr. Ben Ami said he agreed with Mr. Obama "about the need for overall reform of the influence of money in our system. But 501(c)(4)s are allowed to accept money from foreign nationals."
So as Obama is off crusading against the imagined threat of conservative foreign-funded third-party groups, here’s J Street, with its close ties to the administration, caught red-handed.
And we already know that J Street took Arab money -
Saudi in particular - as well. Can you say "hypocrisy"?
If you'd like to see some pictures of Ms. Ediscul, you can find two
here. Professor Jacobson also asks an important question at the end of that last post:
The commenter who noted these pages referred to The Advantage Trust as being related to Blackrock investments, but it appears to be controlled by or at least related to William Benter, the successful businessman / gambler mentioned in the Ben Smith post. So if the elusive Ms. Esdicul contributed to the charity in Honk Kong on behalf of The Advantage Trust, was her contribution to J-Street also using money from The Advantage Trust and/or Benter?
Or perhaps from someone else. Hmmm.
To
sum up,
So, while JStreet has portrayed itself, and has been portrayed by many in the media, as a reaction of liberal American Jews against AIPAC, half its funding in its launch year came from someone in Hong Kong, and another 15% from the Soros family.
And here's
another lie from J Street:
By the fall of 2006, he and Morton Halperin—former aide to Presidents Clinton, Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson—were meeting with representatives of America’s leading Zionist dove organizations, on the one hand, and of liberal foundations and donors on the other. Perhaps the most eagerly awaited participant at a meeting they held on October 25 was Hungarian-born financier and philanthropist George Soros. Soros had founded the Open Society Institute, where Halperin served as director of American advocacy. Though Jewish and a Holocaust survivor, Soros has rarely donated to Israel-related causes and had provoked an uproar a year earlier by harshly criticizing AIPAC in The New York Review of Books. Still, Ben-Ami hoped the billionaire activist would back his still unnamed project, drawing enough attention and additional donors to amass the several hundred thousand dollars he estimated was needed to launch.
Soros, too, knew what his backing could mean and had his answer ready: It was “no.” He “walked into the room with a prepared statement that announced that he would not be a part of the project because he felt his involvement would be counter-productive,” as Ben-Ami explains (and Soros has confirmed in print). Those concerns were borne out. Some opponents still think of J Street as a covert Soros project. In a rueful nod to J Street’s lingering Soros taint, Ben-Ami gripes good-naturedly, “We got tagged as having his support, without the benefit of actually getting funded!”
But of course, when Moment Magazine published that article in its March/April 2010 edition, J Street had gotten funding from George Soros - and lots of it. More on Soros to come.
Theresa Heinz Kerry underwriting restaurant distributing anti-Israel propaganda
A foundation financed by
Theresa Heinz Kerry - wife of US Secretary of State John FN Kerry - is underwriting a Pittsburgh restaurant that distributes anti-Israel propaganda with its food (picture from
The Federalist Papers via Leah P).
A food cart that hands out anti-Israel propaganda with each of its
sandwiches has received funding from a foundation run by Secretary of
State John Kerry’s wife.
Conflict Kitchen, a pop-up restaurant located at the intersection of Carnegie Mellon University and Pittsburgh University the
University of Pittsburgh, seeks to use food to educate locals and
college students about countries that are allegedly in conflict with the
United States.
It recently began serving Palestinian food wrapped in leaflets that
include quotes from Palestinians defending terrorism and opposing the
existence of Israel.
“How can you compare Israeli F-16s, which are some of the best
military planes in the world, to a few hundred homemade rockets?” states
one quote on the wrapper, a reference to Hamas rocket attacks against Israelis. “You’re pushing them to the absolute extreme. So what do you expect?”
“Palestinians are not going to just let [Israel] in and drop their
arms,” it adds. “No, they’re going to kill and they are going to die.”
The statements on the wrappers were taken from interviews with
Palestinians. They are published without quotation marks and do not
appear to be edited for accuracy.
Another section of the wrapper refers to the creation of Israel as
“an intentional and ongoing offensive.” It also alleges that Israel
deliberately blocks Palestinians from obtaining drinking water, opposes
non-Jews from becoming citizens, and has assassinated or imprisoned all
of the non-corrupt Palestinian leaders.
According to the wrapper, Conflict Kitchen is supported in part by
the Heinz Endowment, which is chaired by Kerry’s wife, Teresa Heinz
Kerry.
A spokesman for the Heinz Endowment told the Washington Free Beacon that it gave Conflict Kitchen a $50,000 grant last April to support its relocation to another site in Pittsburgh.
The Conflict Kitchen claims to be interested in other conflicts. And indeed, it is.
Previously, Conflict Kitchen served Iranian food along with leaflets
that included quotes that claimed a nuclear Iran would not be a threat
and that the United States would profit from any military intervention.
“Iran should equally have the right to develop nuclear weapons,” said one quote on wrapper.
“In general, Iranian people have no issues with the Jews,” said
another quote. “What Iranians resent is the creation of the state of
Israel because of the disaster that it created for millions of
Palestinians. To this day, Israel refuses to recognize the United
Nation’s resolutions for Israel to leave the occupied lands.”
The Heinz Endowment was not listed as a supporter of Conflict Kitchen on the Iranian food wrapper.
According to Conflict Kitchen’s Palestinian leaflets, it also
receives funding from the Sprout Fund, the Benter Foundation, and the
Studio for Creative Inquiry. The Benter Foundation is run by
horse-racing tycoon and Democracy Alliance member Bill Benter, who was revealed to be a major funder of liberal Middle East lobbying group J Street in 2010.
Gee, does anyone see a pattern here?
Oh, by the way, guess where
Benter's home town is....
But no, none of this could possibly color John Kerry's views on Israel.... /sarc
Labels: Bill Benter, Iranian nuclear threat, J Street, John Kerry, Middle East peace process, Palestinians, Theresa Heinz Kerry, two-state solution, University of Pittsburgh
Confirmed: Soros funds J Street
George Soros, who spent World War II confiscating Jewish property on behalf of the Nazis, and then rationalized it by saying "someone had to do it," a significant
source of funds for the 'pro-Israel, pro-peace' J Street according to an article in Friday's Washington Times (which unfortunately did not go online until after the Sabbath started here) by Eli Lake.
Tax forms obtained by The Washington Times reveal that Mr. Soros and his two children, Jonathan and Andrea Soros, contributed a total $245,000 to J Street from one Manhattan address in New York during the fiscal year from July 1, 2008 to June 30, 2009.
The contributions represent a third of the group's revenue from U.S. sources during the period. Nearly half of J Street's revenue during the timeframe — a total of $811,697 — however, came from a single donor in Happy Valley, Hong Kong, named Consolacion Esdicul.
Jeremy Ben Ami, J Street's executive director, said in an interview that the $245,000 was part of a $750,000 gift from the Soros family to his organization made over three years. Mr. Ben Ami also said that in this same period he had raised $11 million for J Street and its political action committee.
...
Mr. Ben Ami said his group had no qualms about getting money from Mr. Soros.
"I am very, very proud that our movement and what we are trying to do is aligned with the values and principles of George Soros and we are proud to have his support," he said.
Mr. Ben Ami said Mr. Soros "made the public decision not to support us once we launched. Once we got started, he provided us with some money."
Mr. Ben Ami's words on Thursday contrasted sharply with statements on the J Street website concerning the group's receipt of funding from Mr. Soros.
In a section of the website called "myths and facts," the group includes a passage that reads: "George Soros very publicly stated his decision not to be engaged in J Street when it was launched — precisely out of fear that his involvement would be used against the organization."
After Mr. Ben Ami spoke with The Times, the website was abruptly amended Thursday night with an addition that stated: "J Street has said it doesn’t receive money from George Soros, but now news reports indicate that he has in fact contributed."
...
When asked about Ms. Esdicul, the Happy Valley, Hong Kong based donor of nearly half the group's revenue for the 2008 to 2009 fiscal year, Mr. Ben Ami said she gave J Street the money in multiple wire transfers at the urging of William Benter, a Pittsburgh-based philanthropist and the chief executive officer of Acusis, a medical services firm.
"She is trying to make the Middle East a Happy Valley," Mr. Ben Ami said. "She is a business associate of Bill Benter and Bill solicited her for the contribution." Happy Valley is a Hong Kong suburb.
President Obama and the White House have expressed concerns about untraced foreign influence on the U.S. political system through donations to tax-exempt "501(c)(4)" nonprofit organizations in recent months.
J Street is a 501(c)(4) organization that is allowed to remain tax-exempt as long its political activities are not the primary purpose of the group. J Street also has established a political action committee, or PAC, the standard way for interest groups, corporations and labor unions to contribute directly to political candidates and parties.
Mr. Ben Ami said he agreed with Mr. Obama "about the need for overall reform of the influence of money in our system. But 501(c)(4)s are allowed to accept money from foreign nationals."
For now, J Street may come under scrutiny in the Jewish community for its connections to Mr. Soros, whose sharp criticisms of certain Israeli policies and of U.S. foreign policy under President Bush have led even some groups and candidates he supports to distance themselves from his activities.
When Mr. Obama, then a senator from Illinois, was running for president in 2008, his campaign was quick to disown some of Mr. Soros' more outspoken criticisms of the Israeli government.
Read the whole thing.
I don't understand how anyone could argue that the main purpose of J Street's activities are 'not political.' If there's a tax lawyer out there who wants to take a stab at that one, feel free.
And who is Consolacion Ediscul? Next post.
Ben Ami: 'So I lied...'
Jeremy Ben Ami
answers the charges made by Eli Lake in Friday's Washington Times.
George Soros and his family decided to donate to J Street in the fall of 2008, well after our launch and two years after he publicly stated that it would not be helpful for him to assist in getting the effort off the ground. The family contributed an average of $250,000 per year over the last three years (2008-2010) and their support amounts to just over 7 percent of the total funds raised by the J Street family of organizations.
I accept responsibility personally for being less than clear about Mr. Soros' support once he did become a donor. I said Mr. Soros did not help launch J Street or provide its initial funding, and that is true. I also said we would be happy to take his support. But I did not go the extra step to add that he did in fact start providing support in the fall of 2008, six months after our launch.
And he didn't go that extra step in the March/April 2010 edition of Moment Magazine. In fact, he
outright lied about Soros not contributing to J Street in that publication.
J Street does not reveal the names of donors to its 501(c)(4) corporation or the amounts of their contributions. Neither do nearly all such entities in the United States. The law guarantees donors their privacy and confidentiality. Nevertheless, my answers regarding Mr. Soros were misleading. I deeply and genuinely apologize for that and for any distraction from J Street's important work created by my actions and decisions.
In other words, he's sorry he lied.
Some press reports have also noted a large contribution on our return from a resident of Hong Kong named Consolacion Esdicul. The explanation for this is straightforward. Bill Benter, a philanthropist and political activist from Pittsburgh, is a major supporter of and contributor to J Street. He is a generous donor to a range of causes related to his hometown, national politics and the Arab-Israeli conflict, and a passionate advocate for peace.
As we were launching J Street, Bill committed to contribute and to help raise substantial funds for the effort should we get it off the ground. One contribution he helped raise was from Ms. Esdicul, a business associate from Hong Kong, where he lives for part of the year and has business holdings.
The Esdicul contribution represents a significant portion of the one tax filing that was leaked - and seems high when viewed in isolation - but it represents just over 7 percent of the $11 million raised by all aspects of J Street since it was launched.
Sorry, you buy a table at a dinner for a business associate. You buy a golden or diamond page in a dinner journal for a business associate. You sponsor an event for a business associate. But an $800,000 contribution from someone with no apparent prior or subsequent connection to Israel or the Middle East? Something smells rotten. Really rotten.
If there are no Muslims involved, who cares?
Hong Kong riot police fired teargas, pepper spray for the first time
since 2005 to disperse pro-democracy demonstrators during clashes after
thousands of protesters blocked the main street to the financial Central
district on September 28.
Let's go to the videotape.
Much more
here.
Still waiting for the first call for China to end its occupation of Hong Kong. Not holding my breath.
Still waiting for
Bill Benter to protest. Not holding my breath.
Labels: Bill Benter, China, J Street, occupation
Tzachi Hanegbi plays dumb
Tzachi HaNegbi (left, with Livni and Olmert) posts on his Facebook page that he was contacted by
Im Tirtzu's Ronen Shoval and
urged not to attend the J Street convention next month (link in Hebrew, translation mine).
This week, in light of my anticipated participation on a panel of six Knesset members at the annual convention of the American Jewish group J Street, I was approached by Ronen Shoval who heads the Im Tirtzu organization.
According to Shoval the organization is an "explicitly anti-Zionist organization that works against the interests of the State of Israel," and therefore it would be proper to refrain from granting it legitimacy.
I set up a meeting with Im Tirtzu in order to better understand their viewpoint. Even so, I find it difficult to accept an approach that prefers boycotts to dialogue. The official website of the American organization defines its member as "American Zionists, pro-Israel and supporters of peace, who are acting out of love and deep concern for the future of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state." I too, like the overwhelming majority of Israel's citizzens, am a pro-Israel Zionist who supports peace. The argument between me and J Street, as with all other supporters of the Left, relates to the red lines on which we must insist during negotiations. It is important that the Likud's voice be clearly and unequivocally heard by them.
I don't believe in boycotts. Our camp was boycotted from the State's early days when Ben Gurion set a principle that was invalid at its core: Without Herut and Maki [two of the former parties that made up the Likud]! This is not our way. I prefer dialogue, strong arguments and mutual listening, especially when we are talking about part of our people.
Either Tzachi has no clue what J Street is, or he is playing dumb. As you can see by the title of this post, I believe that he is playing dumb.
Here are
some of the things that Tzachi didn't bother to learn about J Street:
3. J Street joined with the pro-Iranian lobby, the National Iranian
American Council (NIAC), to oppose congressional efforts to impose
sanctions on Iran. Ben-Ami and NIAC director Trita Parsi co-authored an
anti-sanctions article titled “How Diplomacy Can Work with Iran” in
Huffington Post in June 2009. At the Knesset, J Street Director Ben Ami
lied and said that J Street had never opposed sanctions against Iran.
4.
J Street received large contributions from one of NIAC’s directors,
Genevieve Lynch of New York. She serves on J Street’s Finance Committee,
and her J Street PAC contributions exceed $10,000 per year.
5. J
Street’s PAC received tens of thousands of dollars from one of the
leaders of the Arab American community, Richard Abdoo. J Street’s
relationship with the Arab American Institute is very tight.
6. J
Street PAC repeatedly took contributions from a Turkish American,
Mehmet Celebi of Chicago. The Hillary Clinton presidential campaign
dropped Celebi in 2008 when they discovered he helped produce Valley of
the Wolves, a viciously anti-American and anti-Semitic Turkish film.
7.
J Street recently sponsored a speaking tour for John Ging, head of
UNRWA in Gaza. The raison d’être of UNRWA is to perpetuate the
Palestinian refugees’ status, thus encouraging their “right of return.”
8.
J Street’s visit to Israel in February 2010 was cosponsored by an anti
Israel group called Churches for Peace in the Middle East, an
organization which supports the boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS)
efforts against Israel.
...
11. Anti Israel Career U.S.
Arabists are attracted to J Street, sitting on its advisory board or
contributing to J Street’s PAC. These include Ray Close, contributor to
the J Street. former CIA station chief in Saudi Arabia and then advisor
to the head of Saudi intelligence; Lewis Elbinger, contributor to the J
Street PAC a State Department foreign service officer who had been
stationed in Saudi Arabia but now serves as deputy political advisor
seconded to Gen. David Petraeus at CENTCOM; Nicole Shampaine,
contributor to J street PAC director of the State Department’s Office
for Egypt and the Levant; Amb. Ted Kattouf, members of the J Street
Advisory Board, former ambassador to Syria and the United Arab Emirates;
Ambassador Robert Pelletreau,member of the J Street Advisory Board.
former ambassador to Egypt, Tunisia and Bahrain; and Ambassador Philip
Wilcox, member of the J Street Advisory Board, former U.S. consul
general in Jerusalem and president of the Foundation for Middle East
Peace.
...
15. In January, J Street in Jerusalem held a special meeting to honor Israeli soldiers who refused to obey orders.
16.
In March, J Street lobbied the US Congress against a resolution that
condemned the blatant incitement in Palestinian school books and
Palestinian media, while J Street refuses comment on the curriculum of
the PA which openly promotes the violent struggle to liberate all of
Palestine.
More
here.
Their money isn't Jewish either.
Another lie that was exposed by Eli Lake on Friday was the claim that
most of J Street's money came from small donations by American Jews. In
fact, aside from the 15% that came from George Soros, 50% came from a
woman in Hong Kong named Consolacion Ediscul.
The group's 990 forms -- which I've also obtained and put online for the first time here
-- show the group's single largest contribution, in the odd sum of
$811,697 coming from one Consolacion Ediscul of Happy Valley, a Hong
Kong suburb. Ediscul, whose name is Filipino, has no presence on Google
or Nexis aside from this story, and people I spoke to in Jewish groups
left and right had never heard of her.
According to a source in Hong Kong, Esdicul is J Street donor Bill Benter's
secretary.
Someone needs to get to Tzachi and explain to him that J Street is not made up of or supported by American Jewish peace loving Zionists who are going to advance the one thing he cares about - his career. It's made up of people who are trying to destroy us. And he is about to help them.
Labels: Bill Benter, Consolacion Esdicul, George Soros, Iran, J Street, our friends the Saudis, Tzachi Hanegbi
Played for a sucker
The Atlantic's Chris Good put up
this post about J Street within minutes after
Eli Lake's Washington Times article, which he obviously had not seen. Note Chris' update and what he says in a
subsequent post. This is from an update.
UPDATE II: J Street seemed to distort the source of this donation and its prior openness about donations from Soros. The $811,697 indeed came from Consolacion Esdicul, solicited by Benter. "Bill raised this money for J Street," a spokesman told me, noting that if Benter hadn't solicited it, it wouldn't have been donated. The group also had posted on its website, as of last night, that Soros was not a founder or J Street's primary funder (which is true) and that J Street would be happy to receive Soros's donations should he choose to give them (which seems to imply that he wasn't donating already--which he was). Moreover, J Street had acknowledged that it would welcome Soros's donations and saw no problem with him, but still implied that he wasn't giving money. Ben-Ami had, according to a columnist for the Jerusalem Post, acknowledged Soros's donations while speaking to a small group in Florida. That seems to be the only evidence of J Street's acknowledgement of this. [UPDATE III: A sometimes columnist for the Jerusalem Post wrote, in a comment posted below an op-ed Ben-Ami placed in the paper, that Ben-Ami had acknowledged Soros funding to a small group in Florida.]
And here's what he says in his subsequent post, three hours after Lake's article hit:
Earlier today, I wrote a post about J Street's funding. There is more to the story.
A set of half-truths, non-truths and ambiguities from J Street lead a reasonable person to conclude that the group tried to conceal that George Soros has been one of its largest donors for years, and to falsely claim that it had been "open" about those donations over the past three years. J Street also seemed to distort the fact that it received a large contribution from a donor in Hong Kong. Some of this happened on the phone with me earlier today.
J Street called me up this morning and disclosed that it had successfully grown its fundraising since forming in 2007 and that Soros and his family have given the group $250,000 a year over the past three years, a fact that was in the process of being verified and reported by The Washington Times' Eli Lake.
"That was very public," J Street Executive Director Jeremy Ben-Ami told me of J Street's history with Soros, explaining that Soros came to an earlier donor conference and told the group he wouldn't give money at first. "What he said was, if you get going, I'll take a look at it again."
This was after a J Street spokesman told me on the phone today that Soros's donations are something the group has "always been up front about." This point was reiterated on a three-way call with spokesman Matt Dorf and Ben-Ami. The group has been "open" about it over the past three years, J Street told me.
Last night, on its website, J Street had this to say about Soros donations: that Soros had not been a founding or primary funder of the group, and that it would be happy to take his money were he to offer it. Which implies that Soros was not giving money to J Street, even though he was.
And here are a couple of tweets of Good's earlier post a few moments after Lake's article went up:
Do you see how J Street was trying to use Good? Mideast Channel is run by some of the pro-Arab people at Foreign Policy.
I actually knew that the Lake article was going down on Friday morning. But I wasn't allowed to report on it until it was up on the Times' website and that didn't happen until a little over an hour after the Sabbath started.
/sigh
You may recall that I raised some suspicions regarding Consolacion Esdicul's $811,697 contribution to J Street here. Lenny Ben David, who has been on the J Street story since the very beginning, raises some more suspicions. 
