Muhammad Idrees Ahmad

The media has been at war with Palestinians for some time and the charge has been led by the likes of Rupert Murdoch, Conrad Black and Haim Saban.

Citizen Saban

Haim Saban is an Israeli-American media mogul with business holdings spanning four continents. He outbid Murdoch to acquire ProSiebenSat.1 Media, the largest private TV network in Germany, putting him ‘in control of a company that owns the rough equivalent of CBS, ABC, TBS and Nickelodeon’. In 2006, he acquired Univision Communications, the largest Spanish-broadcasting television company in the US for the price of USD 12.3 billion. He has a controlling stake in the Israeli telecommunications monopoly Bezeq. According to Forbes, his personal fortune stands at $2.8 billion.

One Issue Guy

The man described by the New York Times as as “tireless cheerleader for Israel” has been quoted as saying “I’m a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel”. 

Why is he so supportive of Israel? “I hate quoting Tom DeLay, I really do, Mr. Saban said. “If you’re going to quote me quoting Tom DeLay, say I hate quoting him.” He continued, apparently quoting Mr. DeLay, the House Republican leader: “He said: ‘It is the right thing for us to do to be supportive of Israel. The reasons go back to the beginning of time.’ “

Saban donated 12.3m dollars to establish the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings Institution to produce pro-Israel propaganda and appointed Martin Indyk, founder of the AIPAC’s inhouse thinktank, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, as its director. Explaining the rationale behind the Center, Saban told the New York Times:

“I’ve heard from leaders on both sides of the aisle in the United States and leaders in Europe about what Sharon shouldn’t do,” he said. “I’ve haven’t heard one educated suggestion about what he should do.”

Ha’aretz reports:

Since he lost the hold he had in the White House through his good friends Bill and Hillary Clinton, the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution and the Saban Forum have become his levers of influence on political Washington and on Jerusalem…the ability of the colorful Israeli-American billionaire to bring together Ariel Sharon and Bill Clinton, Shimon Peres and Henry Kissinger, Tzipi Livni and Condoleezza Rice has become one of the achievements of which he is proud.

Only recently, Saban had courted controversy when he was mentioned as one of the people who had approached Nancy Pelosi on behalf of AIPAC to get Jane Harman, a pro-Israel loyalist, appointed as chair of the House Intelligence Committee.

Besides his political contribution Saban tells Ha’aretz that he also intends to donate money to Israel. In a country where 40% of the holocaust survivors live below the poverty line, even as the state spends nearly $5bn a year on arming the military to combat stone-throwing Palestinian youth, such generosity should clearly be welcome. So who is his intended beneficiary?

“Mainly to combat units, that is the most important thing: Housing for lone combat soldiers, free education for combat soldiers, things like that.”

The Best Democrat Money Can Buy

As the single largest donor to the Democratic Party, Saban ensures that the gratitude is acknowledged:

“Haim Saban has been a very good friend, supporter and adviser to me,” Mr. Clinton said in an e-mail message. “I am grateful for his commitment to Israel, to a just and lasting peace[1] in the Middle East and to my foundation’s work, particularly on reconciliation issues.”

Effusive praise, of course, is not the only service Clinton renders in return. New York Times reveals:

Mr. Saban has not been shy about calling on his political friends to help sell advertising, too. This year, he invited Germany’s most prominent advertising executives to his home in Los Angeles for dinner with Mr. Clinton. The executives, he said, were stunned…

He and his wife, Cheryl…, slept in the White House several times during President Clinton’s two terms.

So how did this relationship come about?

“I know how it began. I began as a regular donor. A friend asked if I wanted to have breakfast in the White House. I said fine. And when I sat there, every time Clinton’s eyes met mine something started spinning in my gut. One thing led to another. Afterward, the whole family was invited to the White House. In the 2004 elections we watched the results together. Should I tell you that I don’t pinch myself? I’m sitting here, he’s sitting there, Hillary is there. Chelsea and her boyfriend are on another couch. And she keeps getting up to bring me Diet Coke and San Pellegrino bottled water. And both of us have our feet up and are watching the results in state after state until three in the morning. Yes, I pinch myself.”

The relationship is odd enough to make even Saban wonder:

‘Sometimes I tell myself that there’s something a bit nutty here. He’s the president of the United States. I sell cartoons. So he is going to serve me and ask if I want regular or fizzy water?”‘

While Saban’s funds generally oil the Democratic machine, his politics would be quite at home with even the most reactionary fringe of the GOP. In the wake of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, however, Saban, along with Steven Spielberg, has shifted his loyalties to Arnold Schwarzenegger for his unequivocal support of the destruction of Lebanon.

“On the issues of security and terrorism I am a total hawk,” he said. “I’m a Democrat for the reinforcement of the Patriot Act. It’s not strong enough. The A.C.L.U. can eat their heart out, but they are living in the 1970′s. We should all have ID’s. You betcha. What do you have to hide? Some friends of mine on the left side think I’m crazy.”

Friends in High Places

Clinton is hardly the only world leader taken by Saban’s “charms”. His ultra-Hawkish views endeared him at another Middle East “peace maker”: Ariel Sharon:

“To me he will always be a dear personal friend. Haim Saban is a great American citizen and a man who always stood by Israel and the Jewish people in times of need. His contribution to strengthening ties between Israel and American political leaders from all parties has been quite remarkable and outstanding.”

The love, of course, is reciprocated:

“Sharon was a terrific prime minister. First of all as a human being. He’s a sweetheart. I would phone him and he would get back to me in five minutes.”

Of the new German Führer, Saban has the following to say:

“I do not belittle the fact that I can go to Angela Merkel in the Chancellory and say, ‘Hi, Angela, how are you?’ And she replies, ‘Haim, nice to see you.’ I don’t minimize that. That’s a great pleasure.”

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[1]  Saban’s vision for the “just and lasting peace”, in true sense of the word, is awe-inspiring.

“I think that any resolution will have to go both on the Palestinian side and Israeli side to some form of civil war. It’s not going to be without spilling blood.”