Sheldon Adelson
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The meeting was not exclusively Republican. Haim Saban, a Los Angeles billionaire, is a major Democratic donor who enjoys what the Forward terms "close ties to the Clintons."
Those ties include Saban funding for the Clinton Foundation as well as for Hillary Clinton's campaign for the White House.
Variety, the show business publication, reported that Saban declared his strong support for Clinton in May with a major fundraiser for her in his home.
Saban apparently has no qualms crossing party lines to join forces with Adelson where Israel is concerned. Saban was an early prime mover behind the weekend strategy sessions. Accordimg to the Forward:
"[Saban] has been discussing the idea for more than a year, one source with firsthand information of the initiative said. Saban has spoken to Israeli officials, including the former ambassador to Washington Michael Oren and top officials in the Israeli foreign ministry, about setting up a special task force to deal with increased calls on campuses to adopt measures of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, measures commonly referred to as BDS."
According to "an official in the Jewish community, it was another California philanthropist of Israeli background, [Adam] Milstein, who put together the initiative. He got mega-donor Adelson and [Heather] Reisman, who in recent years has been increasingly involved in initiatives to support Israel, on board."
In his second analysis of the weekend's goals, the Forward's Nathan Gutman wrote that New Jersey Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who has close ties to New Jersey's two Democratic senators, "will act as the new initiative's point man," a further indication that both U.S. political parties have their strong Zionist components.
In contrast to the grassroots beginnings of the BDS movement, the Vegas anti-BDS program is structured from the top down. Participant groups were asked to prepare a 10-minute TED-style presentation to donors. In effect, the anti-BDS groups will make their case to the donors, seeking funds for their programs, which will be blessed by the donors who approve of the direction the groups promise to go.
At the end of the conference, the donors were expected to "develop the conceptual framework for the anti-BDS action plan, assign roles and responsibilities to pro-Israel organizations, and create an appropriate command-and-control system to implement it," again a top to bottom structure.
The donors attending the conference were expected to make a prior commitment for an "average donation of $1M over the next two years."
David Palumbo-Liu (above, left) one of the few media voices to report on the Vagas gathering, describes it as a "collusion of conservatives and Clintonites, and U.S. and Israeli state operatives, to heavy-handedly interfere in campus discussions is pernicious and distasteful."
In keeping with Israel's practice of naming its numerous wars after biblical events, this new organization will be called "the Macabees," a name derived from the Jewish group of "patriots who freed Judea from Seleucid oppression (168-142 bc)."
Palumbo-Liu traces the more recent history of the BDS movement which began with "the nearly 200 civil organizations in Palestine who put out the call for Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions in 2005, and those in the U.S. and elsewhere who have answered that call.
The organizations which heard and acted on the call began with the Association for Asian American Studies, followed by "the American Studies Association and several other academic organizations, progressive Jewish groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace, student organizations throughout the country that have passed divestment resolutions (including the student government body representing the entire University of California system), and now labor unions."
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