ZOA:
It's Troubling To See Jewish Leaders Defend
Israel/U.S. Basher George Soros
Against Glenn Beck's Criticism
November 16, 2010
November 16, 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Morton A. Klein
Soros: 1944 (Nazi occupation) “was happiest time of my life … adventure …
fun”
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has expressed its concern over the
strong criticism that a number of American Jewish leaders and other
prominent Jews in recent days have directed at Fox broadcaster, Glenn Beck,
for his criticism of Israel/U.S.-basher, financier George Soros, regarding
his behavior in Nazi-occupied Budapest in 1944.
In that year, George Soros’ father obtained forged papers and bribed a
government official to save his son, George, then 14 years old, by taking
him in as his alleged godson under a falsified Christian identity. In this
capacity, George Soros accompanied his fake godfather on his appointed
rounds as a government official, confiscating property from Jews who were to
be deported to their deaths in Auschwitz. George Soros later said that he
felt no guilt, remorse or difficulty whatsoever for being in this situation.
In fact, he wrote in a forward to his father’s book, “these ten months [of
the Nazi occupation] were the happiest times of my life ... We led an
adventurous life and we had fun together.”
Regarding this circumstance, Mr. Beck said that Soros “used to go around
with this anti-Semite and deliver papers to the Jews and confiscate their
property and then ship them off. And George Soros was part of it. He would
help confiscate the stuff. It was frightening. Here’s a Jewish boy helping
send the Jews to the death camps. I am certainly not saying George Soros
enjoyed that, even had a choice -- I mean, he’s 14 years old. He was
surviving. So I’m not making a judgment, that’s between him and G-d.”
A number of American Jewish leaders condemned Mr. Beck for these remarks,
yet a 1998 interview with Soros conducted by Steve Kroft on ‘60 Minutes’
shows that Beck did not misstate the facts:
KROFT: My understanding is that you went out with this protector of yours
who swore that you were his adopted godson.
Mr. SOROS: Yes. Yes. [Ed. note: Right here, George Soros acknowledges the
accuracy of Beck’s statement]
KROFT: Went out, in fact, and helped in the confiscation of property from
the Jews.
Mr. SOROS: Yes. That’s right. Yes.
KROFT: I mean, that’s–that sounds like an experience that would send lots of
people to the psychiatric couch for many, many years. Was it difficult?
Mr. SOROS: Not–not at all. Not at all. Maybe as a child you don’t–you don’t
see the connection. But it was–it created no–no problem at all.
KROFT: No feeling of guilt?
Mr. SOROS: No.
KROFT: For example that, ‘I’m Jewish and here I am, watching these people
go. I could just as easily be there. I should be there.’ None of that?
Mr. SOROS: Well, of course I c–I could be on the other side or I could be
the one from whom the thing is being taken away. But there was no sense that
I shouldn’t be there, because that was–well, actually, in a funny way, it’s
just like in markets–that if I weren’t there–of course, I wasn’t doing it,
but somebody else would–would–would be taking it away anyhow” (‘Interview
with Steve Kroft,’ ‘60 Minutes,’ December 20, 1998).
The following is a sampling of anti-Israel, anti American statements by
George Soros:
· In the introduction to his father’s Tivadar Soros’ book,
Masquerade: Dancing Around Death in Nazi-Occupied Hungary, which Soros
himself wrote, Soros said of the months that he lived under Nazi occupation
“these ten months [of the Nazi occupation in 1944] were the happiest times
of my life ... We led an adventurous life and we had fun together.”
· “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” (Uriel Heilman, ‘In rare
Jewish appearance, Soros says Jews and Israel cause anti-Semitism (Bush
policies too!),‘ JTA.org, November 7, 2003).
· “‘The true motives for the Bush administration’s determination to
overthrow Saddam Hussein remain shrouded in mystery …Oil and Israel likely
loomed large in the administration’s policy deliberations, but these were
not the reasons publicly offered by Bush and his advisers for the invasion
of Iraq’ … In his chapter ‘The Iraqi Quagmire,’ a section on ‘the motives’
describes Israel as an ‘important consideration’” (Ira Stoll, “Soros Says
Israel Was Likely Motive For War,” The New York Sun, December 4, 2003).
· “‘He [Soros] also says that the Nazis, Israel, Arab terrorists, and
America after September 11 are all cases of ‘victims turning perpetrators’…
He writes that, ‘Under the Bush administration, the United States has also
become a victim-turned-perpetrator, although the American public would be
loath to recognize it’” (Ira Stoll, “Soros Says Israel Was Likely Motive For
War,” New York Sun, December 4, 2003).
· “The Bush Administration is actively supporting the Israeli
government in its refusal to recognize a Palestinian unity government that
includes Hamas” (George Soros, ‘On Israel, America and AIPAC,’ New York
Review of Books, Vol. 54, No. 6, April 12, 2007).
· I am not a Zionist” (George Soros, ‘On Israel, America and AIPAC,’
New York Review of Books, Vol. 54, No. 6, April 12, 2007).
· “Then came the blunder I am talking about. Israel, with the strong
backing of the United States, refused to recognize the democratically
elected Hamas government… no progress is possible as long as the Bush
administration and the Ehud Olmert government persist in their current
position of refusing to recognize a unity government that includes Hamas…”
(George Soros, ‘On Israel, America and AIPAC,’ New York Review of Books,
Vol. 54, No. 6, April 12, 2007).
· “I don’t think that you can ever overcome anti-Semitism if you
behave as a tribe; the only way you can overcome it is if you give up the
tribalness” (Connie Bruc, ‘The World According to Soros,’ New Yorker,
January 23, 1995).
· “NEWSWEEK: You say that the main obstacle to a stable and just
world is the United States. That’s a pretty strong statement.
George Soros: Yes, but it happens to coincide with the prevailing opinion in
the world … By declaring a ‘war on terror’ after September the 11th, we set
the wrong agenda for the world” (‘America the Dangerous?, ‘Interview with
George Soros, Newsweek, June 28, 2006).
“More recently, since September 11, Mr. Soros has made it his goal to burst
what he has called ‘the bubble of American supremacy.’ He has said that
having helped to liberate Communist countries, he now views America as the
gravest threat to world freedom” (Editorial, “Who Is George Soros?” Wall
Street Journal, November 10, 2003).
The Abu Ghraib affair was a “moment of truth” for the U.S. that “hit us the
same way as the [September 11, 2001] terrorist attack itself” (Peter
Wallsten, ‘Distaste for Bush Spurs Liberals to Push for Kerry,’ Los Angeles
Times, June 4, 2004).
· “‘When I hear Bush say, ‘You’re either with us or against us,” it
reminds me of the Germans.’ It conjures up memories, he said, of Nazi
slogans on the walls, Der Feind Hort mit (‘the enemy is listening’). ‘My
experiences under Nazi and Soviet rule have sensitized me” (Laura
Blumenfeld, ‘Soros’ Deep Pockets Vs. Bush,’ Washington Post, September 11,
2003).
· “The crisis now, the one that I’m predicting, the crisis of global
capitalism, latest version, is a political and military crisis,” an agitated
Soros told me. “It has been brought about by the exploitation of Sept. 11 by
the Bush administration to pursue its policy of dominating the world in the
guise of fighting terrorism” (Mark Gimein, ‘George Soros Is Mad as Hell,’
Fortune, October 27, 2003).
· “The Bush dream of American supremacy is both unattainable and in
contradiction with the principles that America has traditionally stood for.
It endangers our values as well as our security” (George Soros, ‘The Bubble
of American Supremacy: the cost of Bush’s War in Iraq,’ 2004).
In addition:
· Soros has also been a massive contributor to Human Rights Watch, to
which he pledged $100 million last month and which international law
authority Professor Anne Bayefsky has described thus, “Human Rights Watch
defended the U.N.’s ‘anti-racism’ Durban Declaration despite its blatant
discrimination against Israel and cast its lot with those who have painted
the defenders of Jewish self-determination as racists. HRW supported the
U.N.’s Goldstone report, a modern-day blood libel that claims Israel
‘deliberately’ aimed to murder Palestinian civilians under the guise of
defending its own people against Hamas terror. HRW championed the U.N. Human
Rights Council and strongly advocated U.S. membership, in the full knowledge
that the council has adopted more resolutions and decisions condemning
Israel than all the other 191 U.N. member states combined. Last year,
representatives of Human Rights Watch unashamedly traveled to one of the
world’s worst human-rights abusers, Saudi Arabia, to raise money by casting
the organization as an antidote to what they labeled ‘pro-Israel pressure
groups.’ Since HRW had, as [HRW founder Robert] Bernstein put it, itself
produced ‘far more condemnations of Israel . . . than of any other country
in the region,’ he rightly concluded that it had turned its back on its
founding mission and significantly diminished its moral force” (Anne
Bayefsky, ‘Soros’ Anti-Human Rights Agenda,’ National Review Online,
September 20, 2010).
· Soros is a major funder of J Street, an anti-Israel group which
supported the Goldstone Report and came out against sanctions against Iran.
Leaders of J Street understood just how anti-Israel was the reputation of
George Soros that they denied that Soros was a contributor. Only last month
did this fact come to light.
Syndicated columnist and broadcaster Dennis Prager has written, “What do
Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Noam Chomsky and George Soros have in common? They
were/are all radicals, born to Jewish parents, had no Jewish identity and
hurt Jews (not to mention non-Jews)” (Dennis Prager, ‘George Soros and the
Problem of the Radical Non-Jewish Jew,’ Dennisprager.com. February 27,
2007).
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “It is painful, troubling and
disquieting to see Jewish leaders defending any actions by George Soros,
someone who has shown himself to be an active antagonist of Israel and the
U.S., whom he blames for the world’s troubles. But, unfortunately, this is
nothing new or unusual. It is painful to see Jewish leaders time and again
defend virulent critics of Israel – not only George Soros, but figures like
Yasser Arafat, of whom one Jewish leader said when Arafat received the Nobel
Peace prize that he ‘deserved it and earned it’ and even that Arafat’s use
of the term ‘jihad’ merely meant ‘jihad for peace.’
“Or anti-Israel figures like Desmond Tutu (whose vicious statements about
Israel the ZOA has previously listed), whom one Jewish leader defended when
Tutu was disinvited from speaking at a Minnesota university on account of
his record of virulent anti-Israel words and actions, thereby regaining a
speaking platform for Tutu. After ZOA exposed Tutu’s vicious hostility
towards Israel, students at the campus went to work and were able to get the
invitation rescinded. At that point, a Jewish leader called the president of
the university as well as publicly proclaiming that Tutu was merely a
‘harsh critic of Israel, not an anti-Semite’ and therefore should be allowed
to speak.
“Then there is also the case of Professor John Roth, who was appointed to
direct studies at the U.S. Holocaust Museum, but who had equated some
Israeli policies with Nazi policies) and had also urged Israel to stop
aliyah on the grounds that it provokes Arabs, but who was defended by many
Jewish leaders, rabbis and academics when his hostile record was exposed by
ZOA (and which finally led to Roth’s resignation).
“And at the drop of a hat, when the perennial Israel-basher Jimmy Carter
made a statement that they misconstrued being an apology, several Jewish
leaders immediately made statements like this is ‘the beginning of
reconciliation,’ ‘we must look at it seriously,’ and ‘Carter should be
congratulated an encouraged.’
“It is also readily apparent that George Soros shows a callous, indeed,
chilling lack of human empathy for the unspeakable fate of his Jewish
brethren in Hungary which he witnessed first-hand. This is noteworthy,
because this lack of empathy is also remarkably rare among those who
witnessed the Holocaust but were lucky enough to have survived it.
“I, myself, am the son of Holocaust survivors who met in a German Displaced
Persons camp, where I was born. I know from personal knowledge that my
father, whose parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and all eight siblings
were murdered by the Nazis, felt constant pangs of guilt about having
survived while his family, friends, Jewish neighbors and Jewish brethren
were murdered by the millions. Obviously, he bore no moral responsibility at
all but, like other survivors, could not escape feelings of guilt, for being
the sole survivor, which haunted and plagued my father to end of his life.
As attested to many times by clinicians who have studied Holocaust
survivors, it is a normal, understandable reaction of those in such
situations. It is deeply chilling that Mr. Soros never felt any grief,
horror, or guilt over the loss of so much of his Jewish brethren and
comfortably proclaims such.
“In light of Soros’ hatred of Israel and the United States; his continuous
efforts to harm them; the absence of any subsequent remorse and feeling as
an adult over the events he witnesses in Nazi-occupied Hungary as a 14-year
old; as well as the fact that Glenn Beck’s comments were essentially
accurate, George Soros merits no defense or sympathy from Jewish leaders. We
are truly puzzled that some Jewish leaders have chosen to defend this and
other Israel-bashers from their critics.”
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