Sore Over Soros
Rich Man’s Rantings Stir Strife
by Shelton Hull
Uriel Huffman of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported on an appearance Nov. 5 by George Soros, the billionaire fund manager and professional philanthropist, before the Jewish Funders Network in New York City. Who, you ask, is George Soros? Like so many of the very, very rich, it’s hard to say exactly, and that is an advantage to his position. Now, I’m not saying that because he’s Jewish; on the contrary, some of his public antagonists have accused him of being insufficiently supportive of Israel.
[Link: (http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=13428&intcategoryid=4)]
The crowd at JFN speech got an earful. “When asked about anti-Semitism in Europe, Soros, who is Jewish, said European anti-Semitism is the result of the policies of Israel and the United States,” writes Huffman: “There is a resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe. The policies of the Bush administration and the Sharon administration contribute to that . . . It’s not specifically anti-Semitism, but it does manifest itself in anti-Semitism as well. I’m critical of those policies. . . . If we change that direction, then anti-Semitism also will diminish . . . I can’t see how one could confront it directly.”
Such comments are hard to place in their proper context without understanding that George Soros is one of the world’s richest men, and one whose voice carries more weight than most nations. One journalist once described him in relation to another billionaire by saying that Soros is the Warren Buffett of hedge funds, and Buffett is the Soros of mutual funds. And we all know what Buffett’s been up to, more or less.
Besides his own Open Society Fund, founded in 1979, he has taken an unusually active role of late as a public patron of Democratic Party politics. According to Glen Justice of the New York Times (11-16-03), Soros has pledged over $15 million to a trio of liberal activist groups: MoveOn.org ($2.5M), America Coming Together ($10M) and John Podesta’s emerging Center for American Progress ($3M). The Open Society Fund, says Justice, has put $18 million into financing the push to change campaign fnance laws, laws that people like Senator George Allen (R-VA) accuse him of flouting.
Soros is also one of the major financial supporters of the decriminalization of marijuana in America through the Drug Policy Institute. When Ashcroft’s Justice Department began its run in violation of conservative principle by overruling the mandates of voters who’d approved medical marijuana in one-fifth the nation’s states, he was acting to reverse the work of Soros and others. This association gives Soros a powerful inroad to the hearts and minds of younger, more apathetic voters who tend to view the political scene in terms of their interaction with the police.
Democrats are now faced with the possibility of being outfinanced by the “opposition” by three-to-one or more, and have made a public show of appealing to the megabucks they will need in absence of a message or coherent strategy. So, when Soros suggests that Israel is not 100% correct in its policies, regardless of what those policies are, he complicates things for Democrats, Republicans, and himself.
The fact that Soros himself is Jewish would tend to insulate him from the scarlet- letter label of “anti-Semitism.” But comments like: “I’m also very concerned about my own role because the new anti-Semitism holds that Jews run the world . . . As an unintended consequence of my actions, I also contribute to that image,” uttered in more official settings, could render his money poisonous to those who accept it. If opposing interests pursued the notion, he could conceivably be ameliorated as a factor in the 2004 elections. Surely he knows that–so why say it?
Another way to interpret the remarks is that Soros sincerely believes that current Israeli and American policies are dangerous to Jews, in that they arouses antithetical energies that acts against the most basic interests of his people, while simultaneously providing an easy scapegoat for a world already in crisis. He would know more about the reality of the global economy than all but a handful of humans, and he would also have the answers to many of the most pressing questions here at the ground-level of society. He is only alive today by the grace of God, and may be acutely sensitive to the likelihood that an inestimable sum of people are going to die in the next few years, the vast majority of whom will have done nothing to deserve it. But that’s conspiracy theory.
The emerging European consensus over the Middle East conflict is best described by Dominique Moisi, a senior adviser at the French Institute for International Relations, in an October 8 op-ed in London’s Financial Times: “Under the respective guidance of Mr. Sharon and Yassir Arafat, the Israeli and Palestinian peoples are committing suicide in front of our eyes. Their conflict has turned into a bloody vendetta, driving young people on both sides away from the region.” Moisi’s proposed solution may be familiar to students of Scripture–a Western security force, which was once unspeakable but is now slowly slipping out into the ether. “Israelis and Palestinians have to be stopped by external forces that can impose a solution they are incapable of finding by themselves. . . . Both will have to accept a difficult trade-off between security and soveriegnty.”
Soros referenced the scandal over Malaysian PM Mohathir bin Mohammed, who was widely denounced for saying the “Jews rule the world by proxy.” He left office soon after, either because of the controversy or on his own schedule. (You never really know in that part of the world.) In the latter case, one could presume he chose to utter his slur when he was nearing retirement, for obvious reasons. Unfortunately, the quote usually ran out of context; the context was of admiration for the Jewish people and their return to glory after centuries of European-style violence, culminating in one of the most notorious slaughters of all time. That he may have slipped into stereotype with his characterization of the present power dynamic does not mean their accomplishments as a people in the 20th century were not remarkable or worth studying by other demographics.
Indeed, it could just be that this stereotype of Jews as the arbiters of global influence provided the model for the current terrorist infrastructure. Radical Zionism and Islamic fundamentalism and linked by their demand for total commitment. There is no room in either for negotiation; compromise is capitulation. These are not just religions; they are political and social movements which have both been astonishingly successful in recent years. The reality is that these two methodologies, once unleashed and empowered by the excesses of European wars (radical Islam by WWI, radical Zionism by WWII), have been headed directly toward each other.
This almost magnetic conflict has overruled all other elements of global policy since at least 1979, and the very concept of moderation has disappeared since 9/11. Malaysia’s Mohammed could be considered a moderate Muslim, but the country he ran for 22 years spearheaded the push for Islamic central banking (worth at least $1 trillion) and the use of the gold Dinar. This was done in part as a hedge against current US in the region, which fairly or not, is widely viewed through the prism of Israeli interests. If anyone knows about hedging or currencies, it is George Soros.
The core of Soros’ public philosophy, both its appeal to some and the fear it provokes in others, can be gleaned from the lead of a February 1997 essay in the Atlantic Monthly. (http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/97feb/capital/capital.htm) “Although I have made a fortune in the financial markets, I now fear that the untrammeled intensification of laissez-faire capitalism and the spread of market values into all areas of life is endangering our open and democratic society. The main danger of the open society, I believe, is no longer the communist but the capitalist threat.” When a man like him says things like that–or anything else–one is well-served to pay attention.
Huffman reports that Soros teased an elaboration on his comments concerning the roots of contemporary anti-Semitism, but refrained after asking if there were reporters present. He had just been interrupted by a man named Michael Steinhardt, “who arranged for him to speak to the group.” I guess they’re friends, but I don’t know. I do know that Steinhardt contributed a one-liner that, all things considered, may have been the weirdest thing anyone has said in the 21st century to date: “George Soros does not think Jews should be hated any more than they deserve to be.” What? Only a Jewish man could make that joke, and still it’s utterly shocking. It almost makes me want to put the names “Michael Steinhardt” and “George Soros” into Google, but I will not.
