Oakland, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment) – Though the Israeli and American power elites have for the most part declined to take action against Epstein associates, unlike those in Europe, former Israeli PM Ehud Barak is at least being publicly rebuked, only because the ruling Likud Party perceives him as an enemy of their MAGA agenda, and therefore an enemy of the state. We learned from the Epstein files that Barak thought out loud about luring a million Russians to Israel, to dilute the Palestinian and Arab presence; as well as that of East African and Mizrahi Sephardic Jews. Barak said essentially that Israel can now afford to be more selective than in the early days of the nation, when they “had to take everybody.” Barak proposed giving preference to attractive young women, and offer them a fast-track to Jewish conversion in the process.
Part of Barak’s demographic aim was to outnumber and further marginalize the Mizrahi or Sephardic Jews in Israel. These Sephardic Jews, from Middle Eastern and African countries faced discrimination from the politically and socially dominant Ashkenazi Jews who hailed from Europe. The Sephardim include the Falasha Jews allowed in from Ethiopia and Somalia 20-30 years ago. They are not Barak’s favored demographic, so his proposal was to minimize them and other eastern Jewish communities.
The Israeli government was also invested in Epstein, to the point of installing and managing security for an apartment in one of Epstein’s buildings, where Barak and his wife stayed. The unit at 301 East 66th Street was owned by Epstein’s brother Mark, and used to house some of the underage “models,” subjected to abuse. The security detail there was controlled by Rafi Shlomo, the late, former director of protective services at the Israeli mission, who also served as head of Barak’s security team. Shlomo controlled access to the apartment, and vetted Epstein employees on the property with background checks. This began in 2016, eight years after Epstein’s conviction for sex crimes in Florida. That the Israeli government supported an association with him can’t reflect well, and may point to other activities not to be proud of.
Barak was deeply enmeshed with Epstein. In her memoir, published after her tragic suicide, Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre told of being badly beaten and raped in 2002, aged 18, by a “well-known prime minister” on Epstein’s private island. She depicted the assault as the most brutal she experienced, writing that she begged Epstein to keep the ex-head of state away from her but that he said icily that this sort of abuse was “part of the job.” She revealed that it was at that point that she determined to flee him. She did not name him in the book, but Giuffre had previously accused Barak. The former prime minister has denied wrongdoing.
Some suspect that Epstein was a secret Mosad operative, gathering information and luring powerful men to his island; in order to create obligations to him, and to gather compromising information on world and business leaders. Powerful women including Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York are also in the Epstein files for their associations. She sought his counsel for enriching and promoting her foundation Mother’s Army. So his influence was about more than sex. Apparently, Barak used Epstein as a go-between for communicating with Donald Trump. Barak’s his wife Nili Priel is also named in the files.
Meanwhile. PM Benjamin Netanyahu is spinning the Barak-Epstein relationship as a reflection only on Barak, and not on the Israeli government. Considering that his Likud Party has become an adjunct of Trump’s MAGA movement, and an Israeli version of the same, Netanyahu may be protesting too much. That appears to be especially true as Netanyahu accused, “Barak of working with the ‘anti-Zionist radical left’ to undermine Israel’s current government.” Theatrical accusations indeed, in the spirit of Queen Gertrude and Hamlet.
But Netanyahu’s grandstanding effort to distance Israel is undermined by Yoni Koren, the late bureau chief for the Israeli Defense Ministry. He also enjoyed hospitality in the same building as Barak. Epstein’s ties to Israel were considerable, and were most profound under Likud governments.
The incomplete trove of documents released thus far reveal that Epstein financed right-wing settler organizations, including the Jewish National Fund (JNF). The JNF began with the intent to help Jews escape the pogroms and later the Holocaust, but it soon became active in displacing native Palestinians. Epstein also paid for some of Israel’s “overseas intelligence services.” If Epstein was not was likely what is called in intelligence work an “asset” for Mossad rather than a field officer himself. Epstein also had extensive contacts with Koren in his governmental capacity, aside from his residency on East 66th Street, and paid for his cancer treatments. Then there’s the connection with Ghislaine Maxwell’s father Robert Maxwell, who has been linked to Israel intelligence, and whose support for Israel goes back to 1948, when he supplied weapons to the Irgun terrorist gang to defeat the British. Maxwell’s standing and loyalty to Israel was reflected by his receiving an Israeli State funeral.
File photo, detail. Ehud Barak at the Pentagon in 2012. (DoD photo by Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo). Public Domain. Via Picryl.
The Epstein Files reveal a deeply complex and tangled web. Epstein’s great wealth afforded him access and influence to highly placed government, business and academic superstars; and opportunities to exact quid pro quo benefits. His trafficking of underage girls as “honey traps” gave Epstein “something on them,” which elevated his manipulative capabilities. For those interested in this web of corruption, there is plenty to mine for in this summary from Al-Jazeera.
Perhaps the most embarrassing revelation about former Israeli PM Barak has been his open discussion about demographic engineering, in order to dilute the influence and presence of Palestinians, Israeli Arabs and the Mizrahi Jews. For all of Israel’s “orthodox” and unyielding restrictions about conversion, immigration and “who is a real Jew,” it’s astonishing to read about his willingness to compromise those standards, while Israel still refuses to recognize the legitimacy of Conservative, Reconstructionist and Reform Judaism. Israel wouldn’t allow one of their great Olympian Gold Medalists to marry in Israel, because they weren’t satisfied with his Jewish bonafides. But Barak encouraged recruitment of attractive young women from Russia and Belarus, to offer a quick conversion to meet his preferred demographic ideal. Haaretz quoted Barak saying to Epstein: “Many people will apply to come to Israel,” adding: “We can control the quality much more effectively, much more than the founding fathers of Israel did.” Those founders took in hundreds of thousands of Mizrahim – Jews with roots in North Africa and the wider Middle East. “They took whatever came. They had to save people. Now, we can be more selective.”
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