A Scandal of Irony -- Abramoff Used DeLay to Fund Anti-Intifada Militia

By Joshua Frank -- World News Trust

"These elaborate hesitancies, far from being an obstacle, were like a cobweb bridge ... an invisible passage over which one knew that silver-footed ironies, veiled jokes, tiptoe malices, were stealing to explode a huge laugh."
--Edith Wharton

It shouldn't come as much of a shock that Jack Abramoff, the infamous DC super-lobbyist who has been accused of ripping off millions from his Native American clients, is a rabid Zionist.

Abramoff, in the late 1990s, set up a pro-Israel charity front called the Capital Athletic Foundation. Sounds jovial enough. "The pitch ... was hard to resist," Michael Isikoff reported for Newsweek last summer. "A good way to get access on Capitol Hill, he told his clients ... was to contribute to worthy charity ... was supposed to provide sports programs and teach 'leadership skills' to city youth. Donating to it also had a side benefit, Abramoff told his clients: it was a favored cause of Rep. Tom DeLay."

So Abramoff dangled a carrot in front of his clients, advising them to donate to his philanthropic venture. Why not, it was for a good cause. Plus, he boasted, it would buy them access to Rep. Tom DeLay. It may indeed have bought them access, but what Abramoff's customers didn't realize was that a large portion of their money would never be spent on gearing up inner city kids to shoot some b-ball -- rather, their dollars were shipped overseas to help arm Israeli settlers in the occupied territories.

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http://worldnewstrust.org/modules/AMS/article.php?storyid=1747

I enjoy Joshua's stuff. He's often willing to question conventional wisdom. Cheers

Here's a link to a WaPo article that cover's almost all of them:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/17/AR2005101701918_pf.html

This is a many-headed hydra.

It is deceitful and manipulative.

I generally side with Israel, but deceiving people into donating money to a 'charity' where the money doesn't go where they say it will is wrong.

Charity cash for Palestinian poor was siphoned to suicide bombers

Disgusting all around.

The issues of the Middle East aside.

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