The Passionate Attachment

In a potentially important piece in The Algemeiner, editor Dovid Efune wonders, “Can Sheldon Adelson be the Conservative Answer to George Soros?”

Efune, also director of the Gershon Jacobson Foundation, which describes itself as “a Media organization dedicated to fighting ignorance, apathy and divisiveness in bringing fair and honest information on Jews and Israel,” doesn’t quite live up to the foundation’s mission in his characterization of the two “behemoth givers,” however.

According to The Algemeiner editor, Soros is a “post-American globalist, patron of myriad liberal causes and anti-Israel groups” despite the fact that the billionaire financier has been revealed as a substantial donor to J Street. Although it calls itself “the political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans,” the organization has been more accurately dubbed “AIPAC Lite,” in reference to its slightly more progressive positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than the hardline American Israel Public Affairs Committee. With “anti-Israel groups” like J Street, the self-described Jewish state hardly needs pro-Israel ones.

Even more startling is Efune’s description of Adelson as “an American patriot.” What kind of patriot regrets not having served in another country’s military? Speaking at a press conference on his free pro-Netanyahu Israeli newspaper in 2010, the casino magnate left little doubt where his loyalties lie:

I am not Israeli. The uniform that I wore in the military, unfortunately, was not an Israeli uniform. It was an American uniform, although my wife was in the IDF and one of my daughters was in the IDF … our two little boys, one of whom will be bar mitzvahed tomorrow, hopefully he’ll come back — his hobby is shooting — and he’ll come back and be a sniper for the IDF.

Presumably, that’s not the kind of “fair and honest information on Jews and Israel” that Dovid Efune has in mind.