His name is Sheldon Adelson. He's Jewish, right leaning, and loaded!
Sheldon Adelson, the CEO of the Las Vegas Sands Corp. and one of the wealthiest men in the world, is an important financial backer of a number of individuals and organizations who promote hardline security policies for the United States and Israel. He is a member of the Board of Directors the conservative Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) and a financial supporter of Freedom's Watch, a neoconservative-aligned advocacy outfit created in 2007 to push public support for an aggressive U.S. posture on Iran and continued U.S. military involvement in Iraq. Through his charitable foundation he funds Israeli causes and groups. He has reportedly also tried to influence Israeli policy away from negotiating a peace with the Palestinians.
Although a supporter of the interventionist policies of the George W. Bush administration, Adelson opposed administration efforts to jump-start peace talks on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including the Condoleezza Rice-pushed Annapolis talks that took place in late 2007. After the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) issued a statement supporting the talks, which were aimed at a creating a framework for a two-state solution to the conflict, Adelson told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he would withdraw his support for AIPAC. He said: "I don't continue to support organizations that help friends committing suicide just because they say they want to jump" (Inter Press Service, November 21, 2007). In December 2007, he was reported to have urged the heads of two right-wing Israeli political parties to leave the coalition government headed by Ehud Olmert, who favored negotiating with the Palestinians at Annapolis. The same report said that "Adelson also met with Olmert and warned him against the consequences of the Annapolis process, and Olmert responded that not having any diplomatic plan would be more dangerous for Israel" (Jerusalem Post, December 31, 2007).
Adelson's affiliation with Freedom's Watch, whose other supporters include former Bush White House spokesman Ari Fleischer and real estate developer Melvin Sembler, drew public attention to his political leanings. Reported the Washington Post (January 20, 2008): "Many in Freedom Watch's [sic] donor base-including Adelson, the chairman and chief executive of the Las Vegas Sands Corp., and Sembler, the strip-mall magnate from St. Petersburg, Fla.-- have always been strong supporters of Israel. The group's initial ad blitz in defense of Bush's troop buildup in Iraq came naturally out of those interests." But as reporter Jim Lobe pointed out, labeling Adelson (or Sembler) as a "strong supporter of Israel" could be called a mischarachterization: "[Adelson and Sembler] are strong supporters of former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party, which ... constitute
the government's chief political opposition and is maneuvering to bring it down. So, if they oppose the current government of Israel, in what way are they 'strong supporters of Israel'?" (LobeLog.com, January 20, 2008).
In mid-2007 Adelson founded the free daily newspaper Yisrael Hayom, which he created after failed attempts at taking over other newspapers in Israel. According to Forward (August 15, 2007), as of its first day in operation, Yisrael Hayom was "already one of the largest-circulation papers in the country. Adelson's new paper is drawing questions from other journalists, who worry about the mogul's connections to Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, and also from the owners of other Israeli newspapers, who are a famously tight-knit club." Reporter Asaf Carmel of Haaretz wrote of Yisrael Hayom: "This is not just a newspaper, it is a newspaper with an agenda." He added that it "emanates a tone of sharp criticism of Olmert. ... Opposition leader MK Benjamin Netanyahu (Likud) is a crony of Yisrael Hayom's proprietor Adelson and also a close friend of editor Amos Regev. The inevitable question concerns whether and to what extent the newspaper will be harnessed to serve Netanyahu in his efforts to depose Olmert and re-conquer the premiership" (Haaretz, August 6, 2007).
Anshel Pfeffer of the Jerusalem Post wrote: "Everything indicates that [Adelson's] main motive is to create an influential media platform to back Binyamin Netanyahu's campaign to regain the country's leadership. ... If Adelson believes Netanyahu is the only leader who can steer Israel through the perilous straits ahead, he is perfectly justified in financing a newspaper to back him, and it will be good for local journalism and democracy to have another powerful daily paper especially one with a right-of-center agenda to create some balance." But Pfeffer then wondered, "Will Yisrael Hayom be capable of calling Netanyahu out when he makes inevitable mistakes?" (Jerusalem Post, July 27, 2007).
Through his Adelson Family Charitable Foundation, created in January 2007, Adelson supports a range of Jewish and Israeli initiatives (Haaretz, December 9, 2006). He donated $25 million to Taglit-Birthright Israel, which provides trips to Israel for Jews between the ages of 18 and 26, and gave $4.5 million to the Likud-aligned Shalem Center in Jerusalem (Haaretz, February 7, 2007; Shalem Center press release, April 29, 2007). The gift to the Shalem Center established the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies, a Natan Sharansky-directed project. According to the center, "the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies will examine some of the most profound questions facing the Jewish state, including such subjects as how to advance freedom and democracy in the Middle East; a re-examination of international law in the light of new forms of warfare and terrorism; the establishment of a credible deterrent against guerilla and terror organizations and the states that sponsor them; planning for the likely impact of political and social change on the future map of the Middle East; the meaning of "stability" in a time of changing strategic realities; the appropriate response to weapons of mass destruction; the question of how Israel's Arab citizens can most effectively integrate into a Jewish state; and the strengthening of Israel's relations with the United States."
In mid-2007, Adelson attended the Democracy and Security conference in Prague. The conference-cosponsored by the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies, the Czech Foreign Ministry, the Prague Security Studies Institute, and Spain's Foundation for Social Studies and Analysis (FAES), which is headed by former conservative prime minister Jose Maria Aznar-counted among its participants Sharanksy, former Czech president Vaclav Havel, and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the "independent Democrat" from Connecticut who is closely associated with the neoconservative faction in the United States. Also in attendance were a number leading U.S. hawks, including Foundation for Defense of Democracies' president Clifford May; the American Enterprise Institute's Richard Perle, Michael Rubin, Michael Novak, Joshua Muravchik, and Reuel Marc Gerecht; Herb London, John O'Sullivan, and Anne Bayefsky of the Hudson Institute; Bruce Jackson, a former director of the Project for the New American Century; and Tod Lindberg of the Hoover Institution (see Democracy and Security Conference website). Jim Lobe assessed that "the conference constituted a kind of 'Neo-Conservative International' designed to rally support for 'dissidents,' primarily from the Islamic world, and give them hope that 'regime change' in their countries is possible much as it was in the former Soviet bloc almost 20 years ago" (LobeLog.com, June 9, 2007).
Adelson is a major political donor, having donated more than $1 million to candidates between 1984 and 2007, according to data gathered by campaign donor search engine NewsMeat.com. The vast majority of Adelson's donations have gone to Republicans, including George W. Bush, former Sen. Rick Santorum, former Rep. Tom Delay, and most recently the presidential run of Rudy Giuliani, whose team of campaign foreign policy advisors was weighted heavily toward neoconservatives and included Norman Podhoretz, Ruth Wedgwood, Daniel Pipes, Michael Rubin, and David Frum. Another Giuliani advisor, Martin Kramer, is a senior fellow at the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies.
Adelson also helped raise money for the Republican Party. In late January 2008, he hosted President Bush "at a Nevada GOP fundraiser at his home in the Tournament Hills gated community" (Washington Post, February 4, 2008). He has also supported political campaigns through a $1 million donation to the Newt Gingrich-run "527" organization, American Solutions for Winning the Future, a so-called soft-money political action committee (PAC) that is not subject to the Federal Election Commission's PAC regulations (New York Times, January 17, 2008).
Adelson's net worth, as of March 2007, was an estimated $26 billion, making him the sixth wealthiest person in the world (Forbes.com, March 8, 2007). Forbes described Adelson's business history: "Son of a Boston cabdriver borrowed $200 from his uncle to sell newspapers at age 12. Made first fortune in trade shows. Created computer industry's premier show, Comdex, mid-1980s; ran 70% profit margin renting space for 15 cents a square foot and leasing it to exhibitors for up to $40 a square foot. Sold show to Japan's Softbank for $862 million in 1995. Then Las Vegas: bought old Sands casino for $128 million, demolished it to build the $1.5 billion all-suites Venetian casino resort and the 1.2-million-square foot Sands Convention Center. Changed the way Vegas does business by enticing conventioneers to Sin City midweek, taking emphasis off gambling. Sold suites for $250 a night, added high-end retailers, celebrity-chef restaurants. Old guard mocked him: 'I loved being the outsider. I didn't care what those guys said.' Took Las Vegas Sands public December 2004. Building $1.8 billion Palazzo resort adjacent to arch-rival Steve Wynn's Wynn Las Vegas. Big bet on Asia: opened $265 million Sands Macau casino May 2004, recouped entire investment in one year. Ramping up construction on Cotai Strip: $6 billion project will place 7 hotel-casinos on Macau's 2 islands, Taipa and Coloane. Cornerstone of project will be $1.8 billion Venetian Macau. Last May won coveted Singapore gaming license. Plans to build $3.5 billion Marina Bay Sands on 51-acre site with a view of the city's skyline."
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