17 September 2010By Gari Baldi
Much has been said about the disproportionate
Zionist presence in the world of
organized Islamophobia. Now we learn
that there is more to that claim than unfounded
conspiracy theories. It turns out the main funder of
anti-Muslim blogger/anti-Park51 organizer Robert
Spencer and his hate site JihadWatch are husband and
wife duo Aubrey and Joyce Chernick,
the same couple are ardent supporters of Zionist
causes and major funders of pro-Israel groups across
the country.
Aubrey Chernick according to Politico
A onetime trustee of the
hawkish Washington Institute for Near East Policy,
Aubrey Chernick led the effort to pull together $3.5
million in venture capital to start Pajamas Media, a
conservative blog network that made its name partly
with hawkish pro-Israel commentary and of late has
kept up a steady stream of anti-mosque postings,
including one rebutting attacks by CAIR against
Spencer — who Pajamas CEO Roger Simon called “one of
the ideological point men in the global war on
terror.”
Politico lists some of
the Zionist propaganda organizations and
pro-occupation front organizations that Aubrey and
Joyce Chernick have funded over the years:
- The Zionist Organization of
America
- MEMRI, a group that
distributes translations of inflammatory Arabic
language material
- The Investigative Project on
Terrorism (IPT), a group that tracks what it depicts
as the threat of radical Islam, run by notorious
Islamophobe Steven Emerson
- CAMERA, a group that tracks
what it says is anti-Israel bias in the media and
that is associated with Daniel Pipes
- The Central Fund for Israel, a
clearinghouse for moneys directed to
pro-settler groups
- A number of conservative think
tanks that are aligned with the Likud.
The Chernicks are also major funders of Jewish
groups including: The American Jewish Congress, The
Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles, and
The Anti-Defamation League.
Lauren Rozen goes into more depth
as far as the contributions and think tanks such as
the Hudson Institute, Defense of Democracies, Central
Fund of Israel, etc. (via. Richard Silverstein),
including some well-known anti-Muslim and Islamophobic
initiatives (in bold below).
Laura Rozen has discovered that
Chernick's charity-giving is done through the
Fairbrook Foundation ($66-million in assets).
According to its 2008 IRS 990 report, among the
far-right pro-Israel groups he's funding are:Ateret
Cohanim ($30,000), involved in the
Judaization of East Jerusalem through “appropriation”
of Arab homes
- Muslim-basher
Bridgette Gabriel’s American Congress for Truth
($50,000)
- Aish HaTorah, funders
of the anti-Muslim films Obsessed and
Third Jihad ($14,000)
- the anti-Palestinian
media advocacy group MEMRI ($100,000)
- American Freedom
Alliance, another Muslim-bashing group, founded by
Avi Davis, which defends western
civilization from the unwashed hordes ($120,000)
- Gary Bauer’s American Values
($80,000)
- Horowitz’s Center for
the Study of Popular Culture ($160,000)
- The anti-Arab media
advocacy group CAMERA ($25,000)
- The Council for
Democracy and Tolerance, an Arab-bashing group
established by a Pakistani neocon ($160,000)
- Defend the West, yet
another Muslim-turncoat group founded by Ibn Warraq
($130,000)
- Hudson Institute ($50,000);
Heritage Foundation ($50,000)
- The Jewish neo-con
security think tank JINSA ($15,000)
- The anti-Arab media
advocacy group Second Draft ($40,000)
- Stand With Us ($20,000); and
Daniel Pipes’ Middle East Forum ($180,000).
- In 2005, Chernick gave $60,000
to the Central Fund of Israel, one of the
largest pro-settler ‘philanthropic’
advocacy groups.
This information is quite disturbing on a number of
levels, foremost amongst them being the scant media
attention being given to it as opposed to hyped-up
stories such as the most recent attempt to sabotage
the Park51 project with ten degrees of seperation/guilt-by-association
smears against one of the investors in Park51,
Hisham El-Zanaty.
The non-news story smears Zanaty by claiming that
his one time donation to the Holy Land Foundation (HLF)
of $6,050 in 1999 indicts him as a
terror supporter. HLF was accused of giving aid to
Hamas in the guise of charitable work.
So Zanaty was supposed to have foreknowledge about
the HLF that even the US government didn’t have? Is it
reasonable then to assume that everyone who gave money
to the HLF in 1999 knew that the HLF was giving money
to Hamas?
This AP news story sums it up quite nicely,
Many other donors to the foundation gave
thinking their donations would fund humanitarian
programs.
Other people and companies who donated money,
equipment or services to the foundation the year
Elzanaty gave included NBA star Hakeem Olajuwon, the
Microsoft Corp., and a medical equipment company owned
by General Electric, according to tax records.
When the foundation’s leaders were indicted,
Attorney General John Ashcroft said, the case was not
“a reflection on the well-meaning people who may have
donated funds to the foundation.”
Even the Attorney General under George Bush, the
one who was instrumental in the implementation of the
Patriot Act affirmed what is obvious common sense, the
case was not “a reflection on the well-meaning people
who may have donated funds to the foundation.”
However, for some reason this non-story about
Zanaty eclipses the very real story about the
implications surrounding the funding of leading Jewish
and Zionist organizations, JihadWatch, and
Conservative groups many of which are the chief
proponents behind the anti-Mosque drive.
How comfortable do the leaders of the ADL, AJC and
others feel about receiving money from a couple who at
the same time are the chief funders of an organization
and a group of anti-Muslim bigots who are leading the
charge in fomenting anti-Muslim sentiment across the
United States?
Will they be coureagous enough to return the money
they have received from the Chernicks and say that
they do not want to be tainted by people such as
Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer who as we have
documented are thoroughly anti-Islam and anti-Muslim?
Will the media drop its willful ignorance and double
standards and begin to look into the glaring data out
there?
©
EsinIslam.Com
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