How settlers control Israeli policy - US Non-Profit bankrolled West Bank colony that is hotbed for accused terrorists
Domingo the Avenger
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwrskVXpOs4&feature=player_embedded
Max Blumenthal presents a disturbing inside look at the largest annual
gathering of radical Jewish settlers. A Mondoweiss exclusive with
David Jacobus and Jesse Rosenfeld. Mondoweiss is a news website
devoted to covering American foreign policy in the Middle East,
chiefly from a progressive Jewish perspective.
US Non-Profit bankrolled West Bank colony that is hotbed for accused
terrorists
by Max Blumenthal on November 3, 2009
Yaakov "Jack" Teitel, a resident of the Jewish settlement outpost
Shvut Rachel, was arrested by Israel�s Shabak for his alleged murder
of two Palestinians and planned terrorist attacks on a left-wing
academic and homosexuals. Teitel, an immigrant from Florida who was
granted Israeli citizenship through the country�s "right of return"
policy for Jews, is the second accused terrorist to emerge from Shvut
Rachel. The first, Asher Weisgan, murdered five Palestinian co-workers
in 2005 in an effort to derail the Gaza disengagement.
So what�s the matter with Shvut Rachel? Was Teitel a lone wolf, as
many, including Amos Harel, have argued? Or was the settlement an
ideological seedbed for acts of terror against Palestinians and their
allies?
Until Shabak�s investigation has concluded, there will be no way to
know if Teitel had operational assistance, though the fact that it
took Israeli security forces over 12 years after Teitel�s first
killing spree to arrest him, and the ease with which he transported a
fearsome cache of explosives and weaponry into his settlement, raise
serious questions. What is clear, however, is that Shvut Rachel was
founded on an ideology consistent with the radical beliefs Teitel
apparently attempted to translate into violent action.
Ronit Shuker and her late husband Yosef founded the settlement in the
hills east of Shiloh with explicitly political motives; they claimed
to have been incited to action by the Palestinian murder of Jewish
Shiloh resident Rachel Druck. For the Shukers, Shvut Rachel�s
expansion became a means to send a message to the surrounding
Palestinian population.
When I interviewed Ronit Shuker in May 2009, she spoke the same
eliminationist language that might have resonated with Teitel. "The
government doesn�t know how to deal with [the Palestinians]," Shuker
told me. "If I was Prime Minister, I would send all of them to Iran,
to Sudan, to Egypt, to Jordan. I would wish them all the best, but not
in the land of Israel."
Shvut Rachel founder and Moskowitz grantee Ronit Shuker appears at
2:23 to call for forcibly transferring Palestinians out of the "Land
of Israel"
I interviewed Shuker immediately after she was honored at the 2009
Moskowitz Awards For Zionism ceremony in Jerusalem with $50,000 and
the "Lion of Zion" prize. The gala, which brought together hundreds of
radical settlers with sympathetic Israeli political bigwigs, from MK
Benny Begin to National Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau, was made
possible by the financial generosity of the 501(c)(3) non profit of
Irving Moskowitz. So who is Moskowitz?
A close confidant of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
Moskowitz has funneled millions in profits from his California-based
Hawaiian Gardens casino, where he has been sued for exploiting
undocumented workers, into settlement construction projects in the
West Bank, including Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem. He
has also funded several neoconservative think tanks including a
research center named after Netanyahu�s brother, Yonatan, who was
killed while leading the Entebbe rescue raid in 1976. Moskowitz and
Netanyahu have remained close since he established the center.
In 1996, Moskowitz convinced Netanyahu, in his first round as prime
minister, to open a tunnel adjacent to the Temple Mount, a
controversial act that led to several days of rioting and 70 deaths.
Four years later, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon�s provocative visit to
the tunnel set off the so-called Al-Aqsa uprising, the opening salvo
of the Second Intifada. Now, Moskowitz�s imprint on the West Bank�s
landscape is most clearly reflected from the settlement he bankrolls
called Kiryat Arba, a center of Orthodox Jewish radicalism that was
once home to the terrorist Baruch Goldstein, to Shvut Rachel, the
colony that spawned the terrorists Weisgan and Teitel.
The Moskowitz Foundation makes no mention on its website of its
support for radical Jewish settlements. The extent of Moskowitz�s
support for settlements is difficult to track because he does not
disclose his grant recipients. I was only able to connect Moskowitz to
Shvut Rachel through my interview with Shuker. Despite his preference
for operating under cover of darkness, Moskowitz has been exposed once
again by his connection, however peripheral, to acts of Jewish
terrorism against Palestinians. Yet he has never been held
accountable. Why has Moskowitz been allowed to funnel money through a
tax-exempt non-profit into radical settlements that pose a clear and
present danger not only to Palestinian civilians, but to US security
interests as well? If the White House is serious about restricting
settlement growth and imposing a two-state solution, it should arrange
a visit by the IRS to the Moskowitz Foundation.