{"id":5053,"date":"2006-01-05T00:51:00","date_gmt":"2006-01-04T22:51:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2024-12-14T19:15:12","modified_gmt":"2024-12-14T17:15:12","slug":"epalestine-newsweek-fund-raising-take","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/2006\/01\/epalestine-newsweek-fund-raising-take\/","title":{"rendered":"NEWSWEEK: Fund-Raising: Take It to the (West) Bank – A MUST READ"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fund-Raising: Take It to the (West) Bank<\/strong><\/span><\/font>  <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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Money meant for the inner city went to fight the intifada.<\/em><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

What donors to Jack Abramoff’s charity didn’t know.<\/em><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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By Michael Isikoff<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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Newsweek<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

2 May 2005<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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May 2 issue – The pitch from superlobbyist Jack Abramoff was hard to resist: a good way to get access on Capitol Hill, he told his clients a few years ago, was to contribute to a worthy charity he and his wife had just started up. The charity, called the Capital Athletic Foundation, was supposed to provide sports programs and teach "leadership skills" to city youth. Donating to it also had a side benefit, Abramoff told his clients: it was a favored cause of Rep. Tom DeLay.  <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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The pitch worked especially well among a group of Indian tribes who, having opened up lucrative gaming casinos, had hired Abramoff to protect their interests in Washington. In 2002 alone, records show, three Indian tribes donated nearly $1.1 million to the Capital Athletic Foundation. But now, NEWSWEEK has learned, investigators probing Abramoff’s finances have found some of the money meant for inner-city kids went instead to fight the Palestinian intifada. More than $140,000 of foundation funds were actually sent to the Israeli West Bank where they were used by a Jewish settler to mobilize against the Palestinian uprising. Among the expenditures: purchases of camouflage suits, sniper scopes, night-vision binoculars, a thermal imager and other material described in foundation records as "security" equipment. The FBI, sources tell NEWSWEEK, is now examining these payments as part of a larger investigation to determine if Abramoff defrauded his Indian tribe clients. The tribal donors are outraged. "This is almost like outer-limits bizarre," says Henry Buffalo, a lawyer for the Saginaw Chippewa Indians who contributed $25,000 to the Capital Athletic Foundation at Abramoff’s urging. "The tribe would never have given money for this."  <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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Abramoff, a legendary lobbyist particularly close to DeLay, is also a fierce supporter of Israel–"a super-Zionist," one associate says. That may explain why Abramoff’s paramilitary gear ended up in the town of Beitar Illit, a sprawling ultra-Orthodox outpost whose residents have occasionally tangled with their Palestinian neighbors. Yitzhak Pindrus, the settlement’s mayor, says that several years ago the town was confronting mounting security problems. "They [the Palestinians] were throwing stones, they were throwing Molotov cocktails," Pindrus says. Abramoff’s connection to the town was Schmuel Ben-Zvi, an American emigre who, the lobbyist told associates, was an old friend he knew from Los Angeles. Capital Athletic Foundation public tax records make no mention of Ben-Zvi. But they do show payments to "Kollel Ohel Tiferet" in Israel, a group for which there is no public listing and which the town’s mayor said he never heard of.  <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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Pindrus says Ben-Zvi was an outspoken proponent of beefing up security and even began organizing his own freelance patrols. "He used to bring in this equipment–night-vision goggles, telescopes," says Pindrus. At least some of the equipment appears to have come from Abramoff’s law firm. An August 2002 invoice obtained by NEWSWEEK shows that $773 worth of paramilitary gear–including sniper shooting mats and "hydration tactical tubes"–was shipped to one of Abramoff’s aides at the law firm where the lobbyist then worked. Reached last week, Ben-Zvi angrily denied any knowledge of Abramoff or being involved in any efforts to obtain security gear.  <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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The West Bank security payments are not the only foundation expenditure being eyed by investigators. The bulk of the foundation’s money, about $4 million, was used for a now-defunct Orthodox Jewish school in suburban Maryland that two of Abramoff’s sons attended. Buffalo says his tribe had no idea its donations were being used for this purpose, either. A spokesman for Abramoff vigorously defended all of the expenditures. Abramoff, says spokesman Andrew Blum, "is an especially strong supporter of Israel and has tried to find ways to help Israelis and others to be less susceptible to terrorist attacks." Still, the increasing attention from the news media and investigators is causing even old friends like DeLay to back away. A spokesman last week vigorously disputed that DeLay had anything to do with Abramoff’s charity. Although he had been scheduled to attend a planned gala fund-raiser for the foundation two years ago, DeLay never went. As for the security shipments to the West Bank, DeLay knew nothing about it, the spokesman said.  <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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With Dan Ephron in Jerusalem  <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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(c) 2006 Newsweek, Inc.  <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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http:\/\/msnbc.msn.com\/id\/7615249\/site\/newsweek\/<\/span><\/font><\/a><\/p>\n

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epalestine-subscribe@lists.riseup.net<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fund-Raising: Take It to the (West) Bank  Money meant for the inner city went to fight the intifada. What donors to Jack Abramoff’s charity didn’t know. By Michael Isikoff Newsweek 2 May 2005 May 2 issue – The pitch from superlobbyist Jack Abramoff was hard to resist: a good way to get access on Capitol […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":"","_ppma_block_editor_authors":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[936],"class_list":["post-5053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"authors":[{"term_id":936,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"sambahour","display_name":"Sam Bahour","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/bca109c333bf6d8ae807746dd512adde46265d37c923f6cd0fc4aab437f8e9aa?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"1","first_name":"Sam","last_name":"Bahour","user_url":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour","job_title":"","description":"

Sam Bahour<\/strong> is a Palestinian-American business consultant, writer, and commentator based in Al-Bireh\/Ramallah, Palestine. He is the principal of Applied Information Management (AIM)<\/a>, a consultancy specializing in business development and startup advisory services.<\/p>\r\n

Bahour was instrumental in establishing two of Palestine\u2019s publicly traded companies: the Palestine Telecommunications Company (PALTEL) and the Arab Palestinian Shopping Centers (APSC). He co-founded Americans for a Vibrant Palestinian Economy (A4VPE), of which he is now an emeritus member, and served as an independent director on the board of Arab Islamic Bank P.L.C. from 2004 to 2025. He currently serves on the board of Just Vision<\/a> and The Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS)<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n

He frequently gives talks to delegations visiting Palestine on the subjects of Palestine\u2019s political economy, Palestinian Politics 101, and a general orientation to the state of affairs under Israeli military occupation.<\/p>\r\n

A prolific writer on Palestinian affairs, Bahour has been published in major international outlets including The New York Times, The Guardian, Haaretz, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, Al Jazeera America, Le Monde diplomatique, Al-Monitor, +972 Magazine, The Hill, and Arab News. He has appeared as a commentator on NPR, CNN, BBC, and other broadcast media.<\/p>\r\n

Bahour is the co-editor of Homeland: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians<\/a><\/em> (Olive Branch Press, 1993) and was profiled in the bestselling anthology Kingdom of Olives and Ash<\/a><\/em>, edited by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, in a chapter authored by Chabon titled \u201cThe Tallest Man in Ramallah<\/a>.\u201d He holds an Associate\u2019s and Bachelor\u2019s degree in Computer Technology from Youngstown State University, and a Kellogg-Recanati International Executive MBA \u2014 a joint program of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and the Recanati Business School at Tel Aviv University.<\/p>\r\n

He tweets at @SamBahour<\/a>, blogs at www.epalestine.ps<\/a>, and may be reached at sbahour[AT]gmail[DOT]com.<\/p>"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5053"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10025,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5053\/revisions\/10025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5053"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=5053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}