Haim Saban (on the right) is a guy we should all get to know since he plays quite a pivotal role in US politics. He has dual citizenship with Israel & calls himself a one-issue guy whose mission is to influence US politics favorably toward Israel by donations to political parties, setting up think tanks (i.e., propaganda machines), & controlling media outlets. Since he’s a billionaire whose politics correspond with those of the US government, he’s been quite successful at all that.

He made his fortune as a producer of children’s television in Hollywood. Power Rangers is just one of his many productions. He now owns Univision, the main Spanish-language network in the US. From that perch, he can do a lot of damage to Palestinian justice among Latino Americans–& he intends to.

His financial contributions to the Democratic Party & to the Clintons go back decades. He’s poured millions of dollars into the coffers of both Clintons & the Clinton Foundation. That partly explains her shameless groveling in the love letter to Israel that she published last week titled “How I would reaffirm unbreakable bond with Israel–& Benjamin Netanyahu.” She said “The alliance between our two nations transcends politics” & claimed Americans believe “Israel is more than a country–it’s a dream.” When big money is at stake, no sentimental drivel is too unseemly for this war criminal without an ounce of human compassion. Even Obama hasn’t stooped that low.

Our man Saban is the prime mover behind Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF), a nonprofit organization founded in 1981 that operates 15 regional offices in the US & Panama. They claim their purpose is charitable support to IDF soldiers & veterans. For the ninth year in a row, under the aegis of Saban who has connections in Hollywood & the entertainment industry, FIDF sponsored a gala fundraising event (on Nov 8th) in Beverly Hills for film industry moguls & movie stars & other elite moneybags. The event raised $31 million. A similar FIDF event at the same time In NYC raised $24 million. The regional offices all held fundraisers that raked in several million more.

This year 1,200 people showed up in Hollywood including Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein (who plays a central role in organizing support for Israel among Evangelical Christians); actors Mark Wahlberg, Liev Schreiber, Antonio Banderas; Gene Simmons & Jason Alexander (both longtime Zionists); Paul Marciano (of Guess Jeans); Gabrielle Giffords (former Arizona congresswoman) & her husband Mark Kelley, (NASA astronaut); Serge Azaria (Joie designer); & Michael & Susan Dell (owners of Dell computers).

All of the nearly $60 million raised for FIDF is tax-deductible although the programs it sponsors are associated with the Israeli military & are not just a charitable adjunct to it. Consider what would happen if the Indian or Pakistani militaries (both US allies) or the Japanese or Ukrainian governments or any other regime set up tax-exempt front groups in the US to raise money. They would be legitimately denied nonprofit status.

The tax-exempt status is one way we know the politics of Saban & the FIDF are in accordance with US policies for Israel & the Palestinians. They are not driving US government policies so much as profiting from it & strengthening its hold in Hollywood. The money they raise is a propaganda supplement to the billions the US Pentagon dishes out to Israel for armaments.

Good to know all this; unwise to be daunted by it. It only makes our work of building BDS, the boycott of Israel (barcode beginning 729) more imperative. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Ask the Vietnamese about the impregnability of US military might. The Palestinians have stood alone against all this for nearly 68 years. It’s time for the big battalions of international solidarity to arrive.

Photo is Antonio Banderas the dope on the left & Haim Saban on the right.

“Trumbo” is a newly-released film based on the life of Dalton Trumbo, one of Hollywood’s most successful screenwriters in the 1940s who was blacklisted with other screenwriters in the 1950s during the McCarthy witch-hunt. The film is based on a 1977 biography by Bruce Cook which is considered hagiographic.

I’ve not read the book nor seen the film so cannot review the merits of either. But I listened to an interview on PBS with Bryan Cranston, the actor who plays Trumbo. Cranston seemed to have a sense of the contradictions of Trumbo’s character. He was an immensely wealthy guy who had a brief relationship to the Communist Party in the 40s when it had long been a political mess. Apparently he had one of those rah-rah for the workers complexes.

But he also had some character because when called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947, he insisted on his First Amendment right to free speech & refused to answer questions about his politics or to incriminate others in Hollywood. Ten (known as the Hollywood Ten) were sentenced to six months to one year in prison for contempt of Congress. Trumbo served 11 months. They were then all fired by the studio bosses & blacklisted for a few years but continued to write under pseudonyms.

Trumbo was indeed a contradictory guy politically during the extremely contentious period of WWII & after his return from political exile. He was the screenwriter for the 1944 film “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo,” a laudatory film about a retaliatory US bombing of Tokyo. He was also the screenwriter for the 1960 abomination “Exodus” about the myth of Israel’s foundation which portrays terrorist death squads driving Palestinians from their lands as freedom fighters. “Exodus” was a dreadful film & no testimony to his talents but it has a done a lot of damage as propaganda.

The film “Trumbo” isn’t likely to give much insight into the McCarthy witch-hunt which was a hell of a thing to go through even for a kid. It cast a pall over everything–especially in a household like mine where my right-wing mother got caught up & saw communists behind every liberal impulse. It was the hey-day of conspiracy thinking.

What’s important, less about Trumbo than the era, is understanding the role Hollywood plays in US politics–almost as an adjunct to the State Department–& the role the US government plays in Hollywood. Many insist Jews run the film industry & this explains the Zionist bias in so many films. There may be a preponderance of Jewish studio heads but that is not what’s driving the politics. We need to get straight that it isn’t Jews driving the pro-Israel politics in film so much as Zionists (of whatever religion or ethnicity) whose right-wing politics give them preeminence in the film industry. Essentially sycophancy to state power has its own rewards.

The US government came down like a ton of bricks on Hollywood during the Cold War & punished those it considered errant–even fairly conforming guys like Trumbo because he wouldn’t buckle on the Bill of Rights. That political environment prevails in Hollywood. If you want to work, you toe the State Department line–& the line today requires pro-Israel sentiments. In many regards, it’s not that different from many occupations where being a radical or gay can get you canned. Except that it’s the handmaiden of state power.

(Photo is poster of “Trumbo” film with Bryan Cranston.)