Saturday, August 18, 2012

If the New York Times is giving an editorial warning to the GOP to back away from Adelson it's a safe bet that something like an indictment is soon to come

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/17/opinion/in-thrall-to-sheldon-adelson.html?_r=2#comments

EDITORIAL

In Thrall to Sheldon Adelson

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Three days after Paul Ryan became the presumptive Republican vice presidential candidate, he made a pilgrimage on Tuesday to the Las Vegas gambling palace of Sheldon Adelson, the casino tycoon who is spending more than any other donor to try to send Mr. Ryan and Mitt Romney to the White House. No reporters were allowed, perhaps because the campaign didn’t want them asking uncomfortable questions about the multiple federal investigations into the company behind Mr. Adelson’s wealth.

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Those questions, though, aren’t going away, and neither are the ones about the judgment of Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan in drawing ever closer to a man whose business background should lead them to back away — fast. By not repudiating Mr. Adelson’s vow to spend as much as $100 million on their behalf, the two candidates seem more eager to keep the “super PAC” dollars flowing than to preserve the integrity of their campaign.
The issues swirling about Mr. Adelson’s business practices are not new and can hardly come as a surprise to the Romney campaign. Last year, his company, the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, announced that it was under investigation by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission for possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act — specifically, that it bribed Chinese officials for help in expanding its casino empire in Macau. Later, the F.B.I. became involved, and even Chinese regulators looked askance at the company’s conduct, fining it $1.6 million for violating foreign exchange rules, The Times reported on Monday.
Then there’s an unrelated investigation by the United States attorney’s office in Los Angeles into whether the Sands Corporation violated federal money-laundering laws by accepting millions from high-rolling gamblers accused of drug trafficking and embezzlement.The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that federal authorities are examining whether the casino should have reported the suspicious funds to the government. Instead, the company accepted $100 million from one of the gamblers and gave him free hotel rooms, plane rides and large lines of credit.
The company has denied all allegations of improper behavior. But, since Mr. Adelson’s financial future is riding on the outcome of these federal investigations, it is legitimate to ask whether he has motivation for supporting the Republican ticket so lavishly, beyond his sharp disagreement with the Obama administration’s position on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Mr. Adelson has certainly not hesitated to throw around his weight and wealth with Republicans before.
In 2001, when China was making a pitch to hold the Olympics, it was worried about a resolution pending in the House that would oppose the bid because of its “abominable human rights record.” To curry favor with China, Mr. Adelson called Tom DeLay, then the House majority whip — and another recipient of Mr. Adelson’s campaign generosity — and urged him to block the resolution, according to a court deposition by William Weidner, then the president of Sands. Mr. DeLay quickly promised the bill would never see the light of day, and he was true to his word.
The next day, a Chinese vice premier promised Mr. Adelson an endless line of gamblers to the Macau casino.
A careful presidential campaign would put distance between itself and a businessman like Mr. Adelson. Instead, this one is cultivating him. Mr. Romney recently met with him in Israel, and Mr. Ryan this week paid homage to him and other big donors in a private casino for high-rollers on the 36th floor of Mr. Adelson’s Venetian hotel. By allowing Mr. Adelson to have such an outsize role in their race, the candidates themselves are placing a very risky bet.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Sheldon Adelson: Planning a Pottersville for Spain? He wants the Spanish to allow smoking, minors, immigrants that he chooses and money laundering in his proposed casino?! Unreal?!



http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/spain/120803/gambling-Spain-Adelson-EU-EuroVegas


BARCELONA, Spain — Laid-off businesspeople in designer clothes eating in soup kitchens. Young people flocking to study German in the hope of emigrating. Frantic regional governments battling to outdo each other to attract scant investment.
Spaniards are desperate.


Enter American casino magnate Sheldon Adelson.
The controversial owner of the Las Vegas Sands Corp. and third-richest American wants to build a version of the Nevada gambling mecca in the outskirts of Madrid or Barcelona. A mega-resort dedicated to entertainment and business conferences, it would include 12 hotels, six casinos and three golf courses spread across 2,000 acres — the biggest urban development project in Spain since the 1992 Olympics.
The main hook: EuroVegas would create up to 250,000 jobs in a country where almost 6 million people, up to a quarter of the workforce, are unemployed.
At least that was the pitch until the projected number fell to 14,000 when the company’s directors visited Spain in June, when they also announced a drop in investment from $21 billion to $7.3 billion, two-thirds of which would have to come from Spanish banks.
Nevertheless, Spain’s two largest cities are lobbying hard against each other for the bid.
“EuroVegas is very important,” said Andreu Mas-Colell, economy minister for Catalonia, of which Barcelona is capital. “We are making the necessary efforts to bring it here.”
But despite the project’s attractiveness to officials, it's generating heated opposition from a growing number of critics who question its viability and criticize what they say would be its harm to society.
More from GlobalPost: Welcome to Creepytown, Spain
Among the grassroots organizations to have joined the protest, "EuroVegas No" represents more than 30 unions and environmental NGOs, as well as the indignados movement that inspired the Occupy movement in New York.
“This project is based on the same economic model that delivered Spain into the crisis to begin with,” says the platform’s spokesperson Maria Fernandez, “speculation in construction and real estate.”
However, she is most unhappy about exceptions to dozens of laws and regulations that Adelson is believed to be demanding for his casinos. Adelson — who is the largest individual financial donor to Republican candidates in the US 2012 presidential campaign — has already opened resorts abroad in Singapore and on the Chinese island of Macao.
Las Vegas Sands has asked the Spanish government to ease labor, immigration and money laundering laws, give minors access to casinos and suspend the national smoking ban in enclosed public spaces, according to the newspapers

sheldon adelson justice department prostitution

sheldon adelson justice department prostitution google those words and you will see the shamelessness the the right wing in America. They are demanding that Adelson not be investigated because he is a donor to the Republican Party. This logic would have had Al Capone and Bugsy Siegel immune from prosecution and police scrutiny. They'd just have had to pay off the Republican Party. The investigation, (and I hope it has teeth and is not backed away from by the DOJ and SEC under this intense fire) has plenty of basis to exist. Just peruse this blogsite and you'll see.

I notice that the Press was vbarred from Romney's fundraiser in Israel and Ryan's in Vegas. Easy to understand. They don't want any news fotogs catching them with Adelson. Never can tell what that would bring....

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Jewish Democratic Party Group Refuses Adelson's Unrefusble Offer

http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/breaking-news/sheldon-adelson-sues-jewish-democrat-group-alleged-defamation



Sheldon Adelson Sues Jewish Democrat Group For Alleged Defamation

Thursday, August 9, 2012
Sheldon Adelson's $60 million defamation lawsuit against the National Jewish Democratic Council describes extensive efforts by his representatives, including Alan Dershowitz, to talk the group into apologizing for intimating that the casino magnate approved of prostitution.
The 16-page lawsuit was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in New York.
Lawyers for Adelson, one of the worlds' wealthiest men, a major Republican donor and among the largest U.S. givers to Jewish and Israeli causes, had sent a warning letter to the NJDC and to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee last month after each body quoted news reports alleging that Adelson had approved of prostitution at his properties in Macau, China. 
The allegation appeared in a lawsuit filed by a former Adelson employee, Steven Jacobs, who had managed Adelson's Macau business until he was fired in 2010.
The DCCC apologized last week for referencing the allegation in news releases sent June 22 and July 2. 
Under pressure from Jewish groups, the NJDC removed an online petition calling on Republicans to stop accepting money from Adelson -- but it would not apologize.
"We don’t believe we engaged in character assassination," said the July 11 statement announcing the petition's removal and signed by NJDC President David Harris and Chairman Marc Stanley, who also are named in Adelson's lawsuit. "We stand by everything we said, which was sourced from current, credible news accounts."
Instead, Stanley and Harris said, they were removing the petition in the name of "shalom bayit," the Hebrew term for peace in the home.
The original NJDC petition had cited an Associated Press story quoting parts of the Jacobs lawsuit. Nothing in the AP story aside from the quote from the Jacobs lawsuit validated the prostitution claim. 
The AP story notes that federal investigators are interested in claims by Jacobs in the lawsuit that Adelson's business authorized bribes to Chinese officials. In addition to the prostitution allegation, the NJDC petition cited the bribery investigations as well as Adelson's clashes with unions to bolster its claim that Adelson's money was "dirty."
Adelson's publicist, Ron Reese, had no immediate comment, but the lawsuit suggests that the NJDC's non-apology made matters worse. The lawsuit cites not just the July 3 petition but the July 11 statement removing the petition to make its case. The claim by Harris and Stanley that they "stand by" what they described as "credible news accounts" was in itself "false and defamatory," the lawsuit said. 
The lawsuit details how, through an interlocutor, Adelson tried to show Harris that Jacobs was lying. It quoted what it said was a 2009 email from Jacobs to Michael Leven, Adelson's chief operating officer, asking whether Adelson had approved of prostitution. The lawsuit does not quote the email at length or explain why Jacobs would make such a query, but it does quote him as saying that allowing prostitution would "seem at odds with what I know to be Sheldon's 'no tolerance' policy."
Leven responds the next day, May 12, 2009, and says "there is no evidence that can be found that anyone here supported in anyway (sic) a different policy than we have in las vegas (sic)." 
The lawsuit says that Harris was contacted after the July 3 petition was posted and that the email exchange between Jacobs and Leven was described to him.
Alan Dershowitz, the prominent First Amendment lawyer and Harvard professor, told JTA on Wednesday that he was the interlocutor who reached out to Harris on Adelson's behalf.
"I had a conversation with David Harris in which I personally told him the same man whom they quote as having made the allegation in an email had said he doesn't believe the allegation to be true," Dershowitz said.
Jacobs' email, at least as quoted in the lawsuit, does not address the veracity of the prostitution allegation; it only notes that the allegation would seem at odds with Adelson's stated policies. Harris would not comment on his conversation with Dershowitz. 
Dershowitz, a Democrat who was among the notable Jewish individuals who had called on Harris and NJDC to rescind the petition as soon as it appeared, said Harris' refusal to apologize disqualifies him to represent Democrats or Jews.
"He is now doing more harm to Democrats and the Jewish community than good. They are willfully spreading a 'lashon hora' that they know to be false," Dershowitz said, using the Hebrew term for malicious gossip.
Dershowitz said he could not comment on the freedom of speech merits of the NJDC case because he may be called upon to act as a witness should the lawsuit go to trial. 
Organizations associated with Adelson have paid Dershowitz twice: for speaking at the Jewish day school founded by Adelson and his wife, Miriam, in Las Vegas, and as a lawyer helping to represent Adelson's Venetian casino in its efforts to keep union picketers off sidewalks adjacent to the hotel. The Venetian lost that 2001 case, which Dershowitz said occurred before he met Adelson.
"The work he does for Jewish education is unmatched," Dershowitz said.
Adelson seems particularly galled in the lawsuit by the prostitution allegation because of the work he and his wife fund in Israel to rehabilitate prostitutes.
"The Adelson clinics work to support these women, provide them with drug abuse treatment, and end their involvement in prostitution," the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit notes Adelson's continued efforts to have the NJDC stand down, including the July 17 warning letter, and then outreach from Adelson's lawyers to the NJDC on Aug. 3 to note the DCCC apology issued the day before.
The NJDC said in a statement Wednesday announcing the lawsuit that it would stand its ground.
"Referencing mainstream press accounts examining the conduct of a public figure and his business ventures -- as we did -- is wholly appropriate," NJDC said in the statement. "Indeed, it is both an American and a Jewish obligation to ask hard questions of powerful individuals like Mr. Adelson, just as it is incumbent upon us to praise his wonderful philanthropic endeavors."
The statement called Adelson's lawsuit a "strategic lawsuit against public participation," or SLAPP, a term used for legal maneuvers aimed not at obtaining justice but silence.
"We know that we were well within our rights, and we will defend ourselves against this SLAPP suit as far and as long as necessary," NJDC said. "We simply will not be bullied, and we will not be silenced."
Bad blood between Harris and Adelson runs deeper than the usual Republican-Democrat square-off. Harris appeared at the Jewish Federations of North America TribeFest gathering in Las Vegas for young leaders on March 25 as a surrogate in a debate on the merits of the presidential candidates. Adelson walked into the event, which took place at his Venetian hotel, and berated Harris for six minutes, using insulting terms to describe Obama and harrumphing out loud when Harris attempted to respond.
Late Wednesday, NJDC blasted followers with an email fundraising off the lawsuit.
"Your support at this moment is more important than ever," said the email, which carried the subject line "We've been sued for $60 million."

Adelson asked Romney to demand release of Israeli spy Jonathan Polard

http://occupywallst.org/forum/adelson-asked-romney-to-demand-release-of-israeli-/



Posted 22 hours ago on Aug. 14, 2012, 4:05 a.m. EST by frogmanofborneo (434) from Bronx, NY
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

http://www.haaretz.com/news/u-s-elections-2012/report-adelson-asked-romney-to-publicly-demand-release-of-jonathan-pollard-1.456378

Report: Adelson asked Romney to publicly demand release of Jonathan Pollard Daily Beast says Romney refuses request, saying he 'could not consider the Pollard situation because he doesn’t have access to the classified information.” By Barak Ravid | Aug.06, 2012 | 5:24 PM | 8
In this April 12, 2012 file photo, Las Vegas Sands Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson speaks at a news conference for the Sands Cotai Central in Macau. Photo by AP
THIS STORY IS BY Barak Ravid RELATED TAGS Jonathan Pollard Mitt Romney
Sheldon Adelson, the American Jewish billionaire and close friend of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has asked U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to publicly demand the release of Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, according to the U.S. website The Daily Beast.
Romney refused the request, saying he “could not consider the Pollard situation because he doesn’t have access to the classified information,” the report said, quoting an unnamed source.
According the report, Romney has also refused other Israel-related requests from Adelson, who reportedly also asked Romney to state that the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are a waste of time because the Palestinians are unwilling to make peace, and also to make a firm commitment to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.
Romney has not said that the talks are a waste of time, and with regard to moving the embassy, he said he would make that move only in consultation with the Israeli government. Many believe that moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem would be widely seen as de facto recognition of Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem.
The Daily Beast report, which was based on information received from a Republican donor and associates of both Adelson and Romney, seems to be aimed at demonstrating that Romney is not controlled by Adelson, even though the latter has already donated tens of millions of dollars to Romney’s campaign. These donations have generated substantial criticism, given Adelson’s right-wing views regarding the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
Adelson spokesman Ron Reese told the website that the two men do not agree on everything and stressed that Romney does not expect any quid pro quos for his campaign contributions other than “to be invited to a Hanukkah party at the White House.”
Adelson, regarded as the richest Jew in the world, made his fortune from the gambling industry, and owns several casinos in Las Vegas and Macau. Adelson is also considered one of the American Jews closest to Netanyahu. Past investigative reports by Israeli media revealed that Adelson contributed to Netanyahu’s prime ministerial campaign in 1996. Adelson owns the Israel Hayom newspaper, which promotes Netanyahu’s positions.

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Declaration of Steven Jacobs


http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/404606-declaration-of-steven-jacobs


Declaration of Steven Jacobs


Makes for good reading.   On August 30, 2012 Sheldon Adelson's lawyers will appear in District Court in Clark County, Nevada to explain and produce some oddly missing documents.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Dems forced to "apologize" by BIG MONEY- here's the truth

Macau launches prostitution investigation on LVS’ China Sands owned by GOP moneyman Sheldon Adelson


:) hi shelly!
Kirby Garlitos August 2, 2012 0 Comments and 4 Reactions Las Vegas Sands’ China Sands casino is now in the crosshairs of the Macau government after the latter launched an official investigation on the Sheldon Adelson-owned company regarding the wrongful termination suit filed by Steve Jacobs, the company’s former CEO, according to CNBC.
Jacobs was fired in July 2010 after butting heads with the Sands owner over what the former alleged was improper business practices that included letting prostitution to run loose in the Macau casinos. After Jacobs launched his Project Clean Sweep back in May 2009 to purge the practice out of the casinos, Adelson unceremoniously cut ties with Jacobs, forcing the latter to take action and file a lawsuit against his former employer.
In the lawsuit, Jacobs also claimed that the casino withheld financial documents that tied Adelson up with personally approving prostitution at Sands’ Macau properties.
Sands has also come under fire for apparently withholding these documents from the Securities and Exchange Commission, saying that it couldn’t be brought to the US because they fell under Macau’s Personal Data Protection Act. However, the company’s lawyers eventually recanted that and acknowledged to District Court Judge Elizabeth Gonzales back in June that they were actually in possession of these documents from Jacobs’ computer hard drive as early as 2010.
CNBC also reported that it was the nonprofit investigative-journalism organization ProPublica that blew the lid on the documents’ whereabouts last week, citing a court filing and a deposition of Sands Assistant General Counsel Michael Kostrinsky where, according to these filings, the documents in question were supposedly transported “in error” on a hard disk to the US back in November 2010 without notifying Macau authorities.
As the company continues to vehemently deny all the charges made by Jacobs, Sands lawyers will still have to show up for a hearing on August 30 in the US where Judge Gonzales will determine whether the company knowingly withheld these documents. Sands spokesman, Ron Reese, also told CNBC that Sands has nothing to hide, saying that the “questions will be answered in due course in the most appropriate forum—namely the courtroom.”
Having said that, we’ll be very interested to see how the company’s lawyers can explain their way out of this mess. Lord knows they’ve got their work cut out for them.
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Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Sheldon Adelson's Sands Targeted in Money Laundering Investigation

http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml



185
 
54
 
 
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It’s turning out to be a very busy summer for theLas Vegas Sands legal team.
Sands, led by billionaireSheldon Adelson, has already been defending itself against a wrongful termination suit by a former executive and is also entangled in a Chinese bribery scandal. Now the Wall Street Journal reports that the gaming giant is embroiled in a money laundering probe.
The WSJ wrote that the U.S. Attorney’s office in Las Vegas is looking into whether Sands and its executives violated U.S. anti-money laundering laws by failing to report suspicious activity by two big-spending gamblers.
The investigation involves Zhenli Ye Gon (who has been indicted on counts of trafficking methamphetamine ingredients) and Ausaf Umar Siddiqui, (a former executive of Fry’s Electronics who went to jail on bribe charges) who wired tens of millions of dollars to the Sands Venetian casino in Las Vegas during the mid-2000s.
According to the WSJ, the government is investigating whether the Sands ignored the wire transfers or failed to have the right systems in place to flag sketchy activity. Sands chief Sheldon Adelson is not under investigation. Sands spokesman Ron Reese did not comment on the  current allegations but did tell the Journal: “The company believes it has acted properly and has not committed any wrongdoing.”
The case is one more legal headache for Sands CEO Adelson, a major Republican donor who has given more than $10 million to the Super PAC of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney andpledged to give a “limitless” amount of money to defeat Barack Obama.
Adelson has been locked in a court battle with his former CEO of Sands China, Steve Jacobs. As I wrote earlier, Jacobs is suing Sands for breach of contract and alleging he was let go after refusing orders from Adelson to break the law. He has since accused the Sands of promoting prostitution, working with mafia figures, bullying banks and potentially violating the  Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by putting a government official on its payroll. Jacobs is reportedly seeking roughly $100 million in damages.  The suit also kicked off a Federal investigation into whether the Sands broke the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by bribing Chinese officials in Macao where Sands runs a lucrative gaming empire. Sands and Adelson have denied all charges.
After remaining silent about the suit Adelson spoke to Forbes about the allegations saying: “[Jacobs] is abusing the court and the court system to protect himself while he sues us for a hundred or two hundred million dollars that he obviously doesn’t deserve.”
These days what’s bad for Adelson is also bad for Romney.  News of the bribery and prostitution investigations had many political groups, most famously the National Jewish Democratic Council, calling on Romney to give back any donations from Adelson.  Although Adelson has not been named in this latest laundering charge, it strikes another blow  to Adelson and the Republicans. Romney supporters will likely question whether the timing of the U.S. Attorney’s investigation is a just political move set to damage the image of the Republican’s “limitless” money man.

The world according to Sheldon Adelson


http://mondoweiss.net/2012/08/the-world-according-to-sheldon-adelson.html

Here's a photo album from my recent trip to Israel and Palestine. First, Romney's rich backer Sheldon Adelson, on the right, comes to Jerusalem to host a fundraiser of mostly-American Jews for Romney:
Sheldon AdelsonSheldon Adelson
Adelson's shaking hands with Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat. That's Adelson's wife in the background, Miriam. I saw her in the King David Hotel. She has a nice smile.
Next is another American Jew deeply involved in Israel's political life, Dore Gold, the former ambassador of Israel to the United Nations under Netanyahu, arriving at the same event Adelson was going to, Romney's speech a week back.
Dore Gold
Dore Gold
Like Sheldon Adelson, Dore Gold has worked hard to block the creation of a Palestinian state.
So has the American-born Israeli ambassador to the United States. Michael Oren once worked at the Adelson-backed Shalem Center in Jerusalem. During Romney's visit he was always hanging round the King David Hotel, where Adelson was staying. At midnight last Sunday, Oren kindly stopped to be photographed-- below. I guess we were both drunk on Jewish nationalism.
Michael Oren
Michael Oren
Inside the hotel the next day, I met Mitt Romney's brother Scott:
romneys brother Scott 1
Romney's brother Scott
You can't really see his button. Here it is on the right:
romney button
Romney button in Hebrew
Among Sheldon Adelson's other causes is the Holocaust Memorial, as you can see in the picture below.
sheldon
At Yad Vashem
Another Adelson cause is getting young Diaspora Jews to come to Israel. I doubt he's responsible for this bar mitzvah boy's trip; but I thought Salomon Moishe Weinberg's banner, hanging outside one of the big West Jerusalem hotels, was impressive. Maybe some day he'll be an Israeli ambassador.
Bar mitzvah
Bar mitzvah banner
Change of scene, to the West Bank.
Below is a Palestinian street in occupied Hebron that Dore Gold, Benjamin Netanyahu and Michael Oren have all worked to Judaize. It's the central market street, Shuhada Street. You can see the apartheid conditions: Palestinians on the left, Jews on the right, in this short section of the road that Palestinians are allowed to walk on.
Jews own the road in occupied Hebron Palestinians must walk on the side
Jews in Shuhada Street in occupied Hebron. Palestinians must walk on the side.
Here's another shot of Shuhada Street where Palestinians aren't allowed to walk. In fact, the settlers and Israeli government closed down all the Palestinian businesses. You can see the settlers' propaganda about Arabs and the peace process and the "Oslo War" at left.
The Oslo War
The Oslo War
Below is a Palestinian school in Hebron with a peace mural outside it. Jewish settlers have put angry graffiti on the school walls, including the legend, "Free Israel" -- meaning they want to take over Palestine. I was told that one of the Hebrew messages reads Death to Arabs.
Free Israel graffiti in Hebron
A month ago settlers held a conference in Hebron about annexing Palestine. You can see the agenda on the poster next to the settlers' horse and buggy: Jewish sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, the West Bank. How is this related to Sheldon Adelson? Well he's supported the endless colonization project, and stood by Newt Gingrich last spring when he said that Palestinians are an invented people.
settler horse and agenda
Settler horse and agenda
I first heard of Adelson when he helped found One Jerusalem in 2000 to keep the Palestinians from getting a capital in Jerusalem. The fruits of his labors are visible in the photograph below of the separation wall at the eastern edge of occupied east Jerusalem, cutting off the community of Abu Dis on the other side. Abu Dis was supposed to be the Palestinian capital under the two state solution. Well, you can't get from Abu Dis to Jerusalem. This wall is deep inside occupied territory and at 26 feet high is twice the height of the Berlin Wall, according to Jeff Halper. Also the top is electrified and has concertina wire spread on it. Halper says Palestinian children were managing to climb over it, to get from one part of their lands to another. No longer.
Wall at Abu Dis
Wall at Abu Dis
palestine poster
Palestine poster
Above is a revision of a famous travel poster for Palestine from the 1930s. I took the picture in the Jerusalem market.
In the next picture, you can see what people mean by "apartheid roads." The faint road traveling up the tree-topped prominence in the left foreground, about a third of the way from the left, is a Palestinian road. Palestinians only. The big black one on the right is going to be for Israelis only, which is to say Jews traveling to settlements deep inside the West Bank. Separate roadways, and starkly different standards.
Apartheid roads in Palestine
Apartheid roads in Palestine
More evidence of apartheid. The wall below is in the West Bank outside Jerusalem. It separates the Jewish settlement of Har Gilo on the right from the Palestinian village whose lands Har Gilo has taken, Al-Walaja. The Jewish settlers want to be separated from that village. The outside of the wall facing the Palestinians is gray concrete. The side of the wall facing the settlement is neatly tiled with limestone-style tiles. Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh, who brought me to the wall, calls the different faces "visual apartheid".
Wall at Har Gilo settlement deep in West Bank
Wall at Har Gilo settlement, tiled on the Jewish side
Yet another form of separation. You should be able to make out the signs hanging in the middle ground over the left and right lanes of this checkpoint in Bethlehem. The sign on the left says MEN. The one on the right says WOMEN. The Israeli authorities are separating men and women, for some reason.
men and women separated at Bethlehem checkpoint
Men and women separated at Bethlehem checkpoint
We're getting to the end of my pictures. Here are some Zionist images from the departure ramp at Ben Gurion Airport. First a famous athlete, 1947.
Zionist iconography at Ben Gurion
Zionist iconography at Ben Gurion
I like this one because I like the Zionist project of bringing Jews to the land:
Zionist watermelon
Zionist watermelon
Here is a picture of a grandmother and granddaughter returning to the Jewish "homeland."
Zionist return
Zionist return
The idea of Jews returning to a land where they had not had sovereignty in more than 2000 years is of course problematic. It involved forcing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians off their land. And as this billboard in Bethlehem shows, the right of return is precious and resonant for Palestinians.
bethlehem university
Wall at Bethlehem University in occupied territories