Israel's War Against George Soros

[Eugene]

Source: New York Times

Israel’s War Against George Soros

By MAIRAV ZONSZEIN JULY 17, 2017

JAFFA, Israel — As a Holocaust survivor, a successful financier who embraces free market capitalism and a philanthropist who champions liberal democracy, George Soros should be a darling of the Israeli establishment. But Mr. Soros has failed the only litmus test that seems to count for Israel’s current leadership: unconditional support for the government, despite its policies of occupation, discrimination and disregard for civil and human rights.

For years Mr. Soros largely avoided Israel-related philanthropy, but he became involved in 2008 when he contributed to J Street, a moderate pro-Israel, pro-peace lobbying group based in Washington, after it was founded. Through his Open Society Foundations, Mr. Soros also contributes to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem and the anti-occupation group Breaking the Silence, which have been subjected to a growing delegitimization campaign by the Israeli government.

But Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, raised the stakes in this feud last week when his foreign ministry issued a statement that, in effect, backed a Hungarian government propaganda effort against Mr. Soros and joined its denunciation of him. This contradicted earlier remarks by Israel’s ambassador to Hungary, Yossi Amrani, who had expressed dismay at the $21-million billboard campaign by the ruling party of Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, that has targeted Mr. Soros for his support of services for refugees and immigrants. The poster campaign, which has also attracted explicitly anti-Semitic graffiti, “evokes sad memories but also sows hatred and fear,” said the ambassador, referencing the fate of Hungarian Jews in the Holocaust.

The foreign ministry spokesman denied that the Israeli ambassador’s comments “meant to delegitimize criticism of George Soros” by Mr. Orban’s government. Instead, the spokesman went on to attack the billionaire philanthropist for “continuously undermining Israel’s democratically elected governments,” by his funding of organizations “that defame the Jewish state and seek to deny it the right to defend itself.”

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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/17/opinion/george-soros-israel-hungary.html

[aranthus]

1. At least be honest about who Soros is and what he believes.

Anyone with a cursory understanding of Soros knows that the description of him in this article is false. A "holocaust survivor?" Well technically I suppose, since he was alive at the time and was living in Hungary in 1944. But don't get the idea that he survived the camps, or was subjected to the physical hardship of the Holocaust. His wealthy father bought fake ID's for the family that showed them to be Christian, and he lived for that year with a Christian family who's father was one of the men who's job was to deport Jews and seize their property. Connie Bruck, “The World According to Soros” (The New Yorker: January 23, 1995); Peter Schweizer, Do As I Say (2005), p. 157. Soros' political beliefs are decidedly Leftist, not Liberal.