Ghislaine Maxwell - Twisted Sister

[thinbluemime2]

Isabel Maxwell fights back
By Alan D. Abbey Jerusalem Post December 12, 2003


The last stop on Isabel Maxwell's recent, typically whirlwind trip to
Israel is to her father'sgrave on the Mount of Olives. She visits every
time she is here, now once a month. She directs us through the winding,
unmarked narrow streets of east Jerusalem to the cemetery,steps out of
my car, grabs her bag and turns her back to the world-class view of the
Temple Mount.

Maxwell, a slim, fit woman with short brown hair flecked with gray,
flaring cheekbones, and steely eyes that hunt down and trap the person
she is addressing, won't be distracted from her visit to her father, who
received a state funeral here in 1991 after dying in mysterious
circumstances off his yacht.'I'll be fine,' she says. She will get the
Temple Mount view from her father's grave. 'I watch it all the time and
it never ceases to move me.' Afterward, she tells me she had a good
visit. She doesn't talk about what she does or says at the gravesite of
her father, the flamboyant and controversial onetime press baron Robert
Maxwell, whose mixed legacy here and elsewhere is being debated even
today (see below).'I wasn't brought up in the Jewish faith, and I'm not
now, but the fact that my father is buried here is something that drew
me here that I hadn't expected,' she says. 'I have always felt at home
here. It's something I can't explain by any particular, normal means, I
suppose, but I just feel a connection more than if somebody gave you a
good job or invited you to somewhere that was nice and enjoyable. I
don't know what it is. There is something that is not very definable. It
is made up of a complicated, complex web of things.'

Just how complex Maxwell's relationship is to the Jewish state becomes
evident during her visit. She reluctantly agrees to let me follow her
around, because the coverage will provide a platform to push her
business and philanthropic efforts in Israel.She provides limited
access, and sets strict ground rules. But her reluctance to talk
evaporates quickly: Her narrative becomes nonstop, and ranges over her
companies, herphilanthropic ventures, her son, the peace process, the
prominent people she knows, and,eventually, her father.

Her visit begins after a 24-hour trip from San Francisco. Traveling
coach and bringing only acarry-on bag to speed her way, Maxwell flies to
Tel Aviv and continues on to Tiberias without a break.'I sleep standing
up now,' she jokes the next morning during a board meeting of Israel
VentureNetwork at the upscale Galei Kinneret Hotel. The group of
Israeli, US, and European hi-techexecutives is developing initiatives it
hopes will strengthen democracy, create economic growth, and improve
education for those on society's fringes. The group is in Tiberias to
get a progress report on its projects here.Maxwell is wearing dark-green
stretch pants, a simple shirt, and a quilted vest. Her long fingers, as
usual, it turns out, are covered in chunky silver jewelry. We sit
together on the hotel's balcony, and she orders a platter of fruit and
cheese, water, Coke ('for electrolytes'),and coffee, fracturing the
words, 'cafe hafuch' in her extremely limited Hebrew.

She starts out by giving a canned answer about Israel Venture Network,
but quickly slips into a more revealing speech pattern.'Our most
valuable resource here is human,' she says, including herself among
Israelis. 'We don't have oil, don't have natural resources. When the
fabric of society is harmed by the unrest of the last three years, it is
easy to get radicalized where there is no education.'The board meeting
ends as we talk, and the members mill about the hotel's entrance,
anxious to leave for lunch at a lakeside cafe . A waitress rushes out
with a doggie bag. But Maxwell has disappeared, and the harried waitress
thrusts the bag into my hands.The executives talk of 'specific, baseline
goals,' 'program scalability,' and 'leveraging equity' as we walk to
lunch. I carry Maxwell's bag of fruit. She reappears a few minutes
later, grabs the bag from me, opens it up and begins eating it along
with the grilled St. Peter's fish and endless supply of salads.

Maxwell's frugality is in sharp contrast to her father's lavish
lifestyle. She lives in a condominium near the Golden Gate Bridge, close
to Mount Tamalpais State Park, where she rides a mountain bike for
relaxation. She crashes with friends in Tel Aviv, and has no immediate
plans to buy her own place.The twice-divorced Maxwell was raised in a
palatial home about 40 kilometers southwest of London. She and her
siblings grew up entertaining royalty and gentry.'You are right that my
lifestyle is not lavish,' she tells me. 'I don't need it; I prefer to
spend what resources I do have on the philanthropy that can help make a
difference.'

Over lunch, Venture Network founder Eric Benhamou, chairman of
California hi-techcompanies 3Com Corp. and PalmOne Inc., tells us of a
recent conversation with his new governor. Maxwell, sitting across from
him, grimaces, and calls the actor-turned-politician a term she won't
let me put on paper. The soft-spoken Benhamou says he thinks Governor
Arnold Schwarzenegger will do more for California business than his
predecessor.'I truly hope you're right,' Maxwell says. 'I would love it
to be true.'Her tone of voice conveys the distinct impression she
remains unconvinced of the Terminator's suitability for the post.

Benhamou and Maxwell met five years ago after he failed to show up at a
private breakfast Maxwell hosted for Labor Party chairman Shimon Peres.
She is close to Peres, a relationship forged by her father, and is a
Peres Center board member.Benhamou subsequently recruited Maxwell not
only for Israel Venture, but also for Israel 21c,a Silicon Valley-based
group of Jewish and expatriate Israeli hi-tech entrepreneurs that
promotes stories about Israel 'beyond the conflict' with a Web site and
public-relations efforts.The two also work together for Soroka Hospital
in Beersheba and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.Later, Benhamou
tells me he gained respect for Maxwell as he watched her organize
fund-raising events in California.'While she drove everyone else crazy,
she pulled off superb events, with significantly more attendance than I
would have expected,' he says. Benhamou likes having Maxwell on his
organizations' boards.'She gets things done, and knows more people than
I do, or at least, she remembers them,'he says. 'She has a very rich
address book.'

Lunch drags, and the group is late for its visit to the school it is
helping. People are being hustled away as dessert arrives. Maxwell grabs
a parfait and begins offering tastes to everyone like a Jewish
mother.'Don't let it go to waste,' she says.

A short ride later, the group is tramping up a dank school staircase.
Maxwell sits near someone who will translate from Hebrew. The executives
fidget in the uncomfortable seats and try to stay awake after the heavy
meal. Maxwell, despite her earlier protestations of exhaustion, leans
forward as the teachers and students talk, eager to absorb everything
they say.The next day it is off to work at iCognito in Petah Tikva, the
Internet security software company she joined four months ago. Maxwell
had been a consultant for venture capital firm Apax Partners before
being asked to take on iCognito by Blumberg Capital, another VC, as it
became the lead investor in a group putting $3.1 million into the
company.Maxwell grew interested in iCognito because it is in Israel, and
because of its technology.

The company uses artificial intelligence to filter Internet content so
businesses, companies, and Internet service providers can manage what
employees, students, or family members see on the Web. Maxwell says
other companies in the field rely on databases that do not cover all
possible pornographic, gambling, shopping, and other undesirable Web sites.

This is the second try for Maxwell with an Israeli hi-tech company. From
1997 to 2001 she was president of Commtouch Software Inc., a provider of
private-label e-mail services. Commtouch ran afoul of the Internet crash
in 2000 after growing to more than 400 employees. Its stock peaked at
$60 a share in early 2000, but has traded as low as nine cents.Commtouch
CEO Gideon Mantel recruited Maxwell after she and her twin sister,
Christine,sold their company, The McKinley Group, an early Internet
search engine, to Excite Inc. in 1996.Maxwell was more than a bit player
in the early Internet years. McKinley almost went public in a big way.
An abortive deal to buy McKinley appears in Michael Woolf's seminal
book, Burn Rate, a chronicle of Silicon Valley's heady days.

But Woolf's description of Maxwell is at odds with her 2003 persona.'At
45, she was an intelligent and somber-looking woman, plainly dressed,
who seemed to me more like someone you might meet in an academic
setting,' Woolf wrote in a 1998 Wired article that preceded his book.
'There was something hair shirt about her.'Woolf was more wowed by
Christine.'Here, I thought, was the genetic thing at work,' he wrote,
harking to their father's imposing presence. 'She was much more
commanding than her sister.

[Ed Stasiak]

> thinbluemime CAN"T KEEP A GOOD MIME DOWN
>
> Isabel Maxwell fights back

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ0ftoiIQxU&frags=pl%2Cwn

[thinbluemime2]

LOL, I Like it ED!

BTW, the article in the top post has be EXPUNGED from the internet, with
one exception. Wonder why it has been disappeared from public consciousness?

[thinbluemime2]

On 2020-07-27 9:49 AM, thinbluemime2 wrote:
> Isabel Maxwell fights back
> By Alan D. Abbey Jerusalem Post December 12, 2003

> But Woolf's description of Maxwell is at odds with her 2003 persona.'At
> 45, she was an intelligent and somber-looking woman, plainly dressed,
> who seemed to me more like someone you might meet in an academic
> setting,' Woolf wrote in a 1998 Wired article that preceded his book.
> 'There was something hair shirt about her.'Woolf was more wowed by
> Christine.'Here, I thought, was the genetic thing at work,' he wrote,
> harking to their father's imposing presence. 'She was much more
> commanding than her sister.

Isabel Maxwell seemed fragile,thoughtful. Christine seemed alarmingly
solid and beyond reproof.'Maxwell bristles at Woolf's assessment to this
day.'Due to the tensions in the company, and my own terribly difficult
personal situation at that time, I was doing all I could to keep myself
operating professionally,' Maxwell says. 'I appeared cold and collected
because I felt frozen emotionally inside at that time. Woolf was not
remotely perceptive enough to understand any of that or what was truly
going on internally.'The McKinley sale ruptured her relationship with
her sister. The company's board fired her husband, and the couple later
divorced. He eventually set up a company that competed with Commtouch.
She says, however, the experience led her to realize she was ready to
take on a chief executive role.'It was the hardest joint personal and
professional experience of my life, and I had managed to come through it
in a way that did not tear my core apart,' she says. 'I grew immensely
out of a searing experience.'

A year later, a very different Maxwell, more like the one I see,
appeared in her own Wired profile. Writer Po Bronson described her then
as 'a woman who is not going to disappear into the noise. You get an
ultra-professional demeanor, you get a Take Me Seriously ray beam
focused on you like radar. You get the big guns.'Bronson, author of
several recent best-selling books, tells me Maxwell still impresses
him.'She's a good person,' Bronson says. 'I know that's boring, but
she's stayed in contact with me for four years, even though I left tech
writing in 1999. She keeps her friends. She respects and values
loyalty.'Maxwell's combination of accomplishment and celebrity is what
brought her to Commtouch.'We were looking for someone to help us
navigate Silicon Valley,' Mantel says. 'It went exceptionally well. She
helped the company a lot in its early days, both in the US and in the
Internet space.'When times got tough after three years, Maxwell did not
flinch from the difficult task of downsizing the company almost to
nothing.'She is a tough lady,' Mantel says. 'There was no whining. It
was a very difficult process, and a very difficult time. It is a test of
character to stand all of those pressures and win at the end of the day.'

After the restructuring, Commtouch focused its remaining funds on
developing anti-spamsoftware, which left little room for Maxwell's brand
of expertise and contacts.'We agreed it was better for everyone to stay
in touch, but not on a full-time basis,' Mantel says. Maxwell became
president emeritus of Commtouch, a title she holds to this day. As she
was at Commtouch, Maxwell is not a caretaker CEO at iCognito. So far,
she has reorganized the staff, incorporated it in the US, hired a
US-based president and sales force,moved Israeli headquarters to a new
location and prospected for new clients. She hints at other significant
changes soon. At work, Maxwell, 53, is dressed in a sharply tailored,
navy pinstriped suit with large white cuffs and collar. She is the
anomaly at iCognito - speaking English with her upper-crust British
accent - where the cubicles are filled with young, hip staffers. She
boasts that the office, in an anonymous, unfinished building tucked
behind the Big Mall in Petah Tikva, was in move-incondition, cost less
than the previous headquarters, and came equipped with desks, chairs,and
wall hangings.There's that frugality again, but she is not immune from
seeking some CEO perks. She says the air in the previous office was
filthy from an adjacent chemical plant.'That was it,' she says. 'I said
that if I am going to be working long days and I cannot go out for a
breath of fresh air, then we have to move.'The new office also overlooks
a chemical plant, but this one is abandoned.

After a few days at iCognito, Maxwell jets off to London, where she
gives a lecture at Oxford's business school and spends a rare, quiet day
with her brother Kevin and his family in the English countryside,
watching television with nieces and nephews.She tells me afterward how
someone at Oxford asked her what would be 'the next big thing.'In
response, she whips out a Palm Zire 71 handheld computer, a gift from
Benhamou. It contains a camera, among other features. Maxwell pulls out
the stylus, leans across her desk,and begins showing me her photo
gallery. It is a rapid-fire run-through of the life of Isabel Maxwell.

In short order I see photos of rare manuscripts in Oxford's library,
former US president Bill Clinton at Shimon Peres's 80th birthday party,
Palestinian leader Sari Nusseibeh (she supports his peace plan), Justice
Minister Yosef Lapid, Israeli hi-tech pioneer Yossi Vardi,Muhammad
Darwashe (local representative of the high-profile One Voice
organization shealso supports), her son Alexander, Israeli Ambassador to
the UN Danny Gillerman, a full lunar eclipse seen from the hills of
Sausalito, north of San Francisco, and Tel Aviv's Love Parade,which she
watched from a friend's apartment.

The images are telling: Maxwell travels in the same circles as her
father, but she is more comfortable behind the camera, not in front of
it. Robert Maxwell never went any where without making headlines. Isabel
Maxwell runs from them. Further, she is carrying on her father's legacy
in Israel, albeit in her own way. Even her politics, decidedly dovish
when it comes to Israel, reflect her father's left- wing political
orientation.

At our next meeting, Maxwell introduces me to her latest Israeli
project, K94G. She is helping the small team of former IDF dog trainers
that comprise K94G to develop a company seeking to crack the global
security market with their product: highly trained, bomb-sniffing
dogs.'One day, I got an e-mail from someone I know who wanted to place
an order for 100 security dogs, and the same day I heard from these
folks,' she says. She became involved with security dogs by helping the
group 'Pups for Peace' place a front-page feature story about their
bomb-sniffing dogs in The Wall Street Journal.

The night before I get to see the dogs, I receive a call from someone
who gives me a mysterious set of directions to the meeting, which will
take place about one hour from Jerusalem in a location I cannot
disclose. After a series of confusing turns off Highway 1, I think I am
on the right road. My car tires crunch on gravel as the path
deteriorates to a nearly impassable track. I see a small installation in
the distance. I get on my cellphone and ask for the final directions.
The voice on the other end tells me he sees me, and I should stop my
car.In the distance, I spy a half-dozen, hard-looking, ex-army types
with short, graying hair and tight black T-shirts. Maxwell is a slight
figure among the burly men. Gone is her pin striped suit. In its place
are forest-green leather pants, a brown suede vest, and black clogs. The
ubiquitous silver rings remain.Two rangy Belgian Malinois dogs sit
nearby, quivering with anticipation, barking at movement in the
distance. An Arab boy gives the group a nervous glance as he leads a
flock of goats past.'Avner' (he won't give me his last name) sets up the
demonstration. The dog, Lyka, will identify and attack a suicide bomber
long before he has a chance to approach a crowd.

We form a rough, Israeli-style queue at one of the installation's
buildings, as if we are waiting to enter a cafe. One of the dog trainers
slips on a vest packed with explosives, so as to give off the proper
scent. The dog ignores us as we stand near her, but quickly snaps to
attention as the vest-clad 'bomber' gets within 20 meters. She strains
at her leash, bounds away, and leaps on him within seconds. Her mouth
clamps on the protective sleeve he wears on his left arm.Maxwell's eyes
light up.'Now it's your turn, Isabel,' Avner says. He wants her to see
just how good the dogs are. Maxwell obediently slides her left arm into
the sleeve.'I've never done this before,' she says nervously. 'But I
never get involved in anything I don't experience directly.'Once she is
set, Avner gives the command, and Lyka goes after the protective
sleeve.Maxwell gamely struggles with her. Each has her eyes locked on
the other in a seeming test of wills. After a few seconds that seem
longer, Avner gives another command and the dog lets go. Now that Lyka
has been 'switched off,' Maxwell pets her as if they are the best of
friends.

The tension dissipates, and the dog is sent to her handler's car.'There
is a huge security market,' Maxwell says, flushed from the encounter.
'Not only is this one of the answers to terrorism and security here, but
it is one of the things someone like Bechtel or Haliburton would love to
have.'Maxwell offers handshakes all around. She will be in touch. She
grabs her bag and heads to my car for the trip to the Mount of Olives.
Isabel Maxwell has another story to tell her father.

[thinbluemime2]

On 2020-07-27 8:25 PM, thinbluemime2 wrote:
> On 2020-07-27 9:49 AM, thinbluemime2 wrote:
>> Isabel Maxwell fights back
>> By Alan D. Abbey Jerusalem Post December 12, 2003

> The tension dissipates, and the dog is sent to her handler's car.'There
> is a huge security market,' Maxwell says, flushed from the encounter.
> 'Not only is this one of the answers to terrorism and security here, but
> it is one of the things someone like Bechtel or Haliburton would love to
> have.'Maxwell offers handshakes all around. She will be in touch. She
> grabs her bag and heads to my car for the trip to the Mount of Olives.
> Isabel Maxwell has another story to tell her father.

Robert Maxwell: A mystery wrapped in an enigma

Robert Maxwell publicly acknowledged his Jewish roots late in life. He
was a World War II refugee from Czechoslovakia who metamorphosed during
the war from impoverished Jan Hoch to Capt. Ian Robert Maxwell, a
British soldier and intelligence officer. He later became a member of
parliament and an internationally known media kingpin worth hundreds of
millions of dollars.In the 1980s he made a number of highly publicized
investments in Israel, including the newspaper Ma'ariv. Many other
plans, including one to purchase Jerusalem's Betar soccer team, and one
to buy The Jerusalem Post, never materialized, despite enormous press
coverage here.

Maxwell died in 1991 after slipping off the deck of his yacht, the Lady
Ghislaine, as it was anchored off the Canary Islands. He received a
state funeral in Israel and is buried on the Mount of Olives. His death
came just as his media empire was crumbling and securities and financial
investigators were closing in on him.

An entire industry has grown up about Maxwell in the wake of his
mysterious death, primarily in the British media. A daily check on
Google News shows at least one if not several articles evoking Maxwell's
memory or legacy, usually in a negative context.

Geoffrey Goodman, a former Daily Mirror of London journalist, says in a
new book he now suspects that agents of one of several governments
murdered Maxwell.'The possibility that Maxwell could have ended up in
the Old Bailey [London's Central Criminal Court) on charges of criminal
fraud raised critical questions for a number of countries involved in
the Maxwell triangle of international dealings,' Gordon wrote in the
Guardian newspaper in November.'Bob Maxwell in the dock of the Old
Bailey was not a prospect any of these groups, which included the US,
Britain, Soviet Russia, Israel, and France, would have appreciated. The
intelligence services in all of these countries were aware of the
dangers. My own theory is that any one of them - or even a combination
of several - could have been responsible for Maxwell's death.'Gordon
concedes that the truth likely will never emerge.'But of one thing I can
remain quite certain,' he writes. 'Bob Maxwell was an unlikely suicidal
figure. Indeed, he believed he could walk on water.'

The 2002 book, 'Robert Maxwell, Israel's Superspy: The Life and Murder
of a Media Mogul,'alleges the Mossad murdered Maxwell after he asked it
for money to cover his business debts. It also alleges Maxwell had
participated in previous covert projects for the Israeli spy agency, as
well as other Western and even Eastern European spy agencies.Robert
Maxwell's daughter Isabel cooperated with one of the authors of that
book, but today feels deceived by its writers. She says the authors
exaggerated her level of involvement with them, and she withdrew her
cooperation when she found out that one of the authors was a well-known
Maxwell basher and conspiracy theorist.

'I have talked specifically to two former Mossad heads, to Shimon Peres,
and many other high-up people who would know about this very matter and
they all deny and completely scoff' at the book's central premise, she
says. 'My father was certainly a 'patriot' and helped in back business
and political channels between governments. But that did not and does
not make him a 'spy.' It's just that it's so much sexier to call him
that and it sells more copy.'Maxwell says she would prefer that her
father be remembered for his accomplishments, chief among them the
spreading of scientific knowledge through his publishing company,
Pergamon Press, as well as by loans and grants to scientists around the
world.

'The really large footprint that I think he really left, which I think
is enduring, is in science and education,' she says, 'because the
knowledge he helped disseminate, in every branch of science, enabled
scientists all over the world to bring their knowledge to the service of
all mankind. The reason why people are talking about him all the time in
a 'pop' sense is because people can make money out of sensationalism.'

She concedes that her father died in 'mysterious circumstances,
unexplained to this day,' but she bristles at the people making a living
off the end of his life. She says they lazily repeat,over and over,
unproven or disproved allegations of wrongdoing.'Some day, someone will
write the definitive biography of my father,' she says. 'But let me tell
you, it hasn't been done yet.



Isabel Maxwell CV

Personal

Born: 1950, France.Raised: A rural area of Surrey, 40 kilometers SW of
London.Lives: San Francisco (currently spending 10-14 days a month in
Israel).Parents: Ian Robert (died 1991) and Elisabeth (lives in UK)
Maxwell.Siblings: Six surviving, including twin sister, Christine. Two
siblings have died.Marital status: Twice divorced.Children: Alexander,
19, sophomore at an East Coast university.Education: BA and MA in
history and modern languages from Oxford University, with
honormoderations in jurisprudence.

Professional

Early years - 15 years in journalism and entertainment, including
Yorkshire and SouthernIndependent Television networks, UK.1988 -
Co-producer, '68, an independent feature film distributed by New World
Pictures.1993-1996 - Co-founder, senior vice president, International
Business Development,Corporate Affairs and Investor Relations, McKinley
Group, creator of Magellan on- line searchengine. Sold to Excite in
1996.1997-2001 - President, Commtouch Ltd. (Nasdaq: CTCH), Netanya and
California.2001-2003 - Consultant, Apax Partners, venture capital
firm.2003 - CEO, iCognito, Petah Tikva and California.Board Memberships
American Friends of Soroka Medical Center; Avocet Aircraft Inc. (Israel
and New York), Advisory Board;BackWeb Technologies (Nasdaq: BKWB);Israel
Venture Network;Israel 21c;K94G Ltd. (international canine
anti-terrorist prevention);OneVoice;Peres Center for Peace





https://www.academia.edu/40635328/Isabel_Maxwell_fights_back

[thinbluemime CAN"T KEEP A GOOD MIME DOWN]

On Monday, July 27, 2020 at 9:49:55 AM UTC-4, thinbluemime CAN"T KEEP A GOOD MIME DOWN wrote:
> Isabel Maxwell fights back
> By Alan D. Abbey Jerusalem Post December 12, 2003

Alan D. Abbey
@alanabbey

with interest in #GhislaineMaxwell rising, people have been searching for an article i wrote in 2003 about her sister #elizabethmaxwell. here's a link to ease your searches -
Isabel Maxwell fights back
Academia.edu is a platform for academics to share research papers.
academia.edu

8:56 AM · Jul 28, 2020·Twitter Web App

https://twitter.com/alanabbey/status/1288096064386605059