Jerusalem Post 50 Most Influential Jews: Number 17 - George Soros

Soros has the financial wizardry that has earned him more than enough money to get his point across.

By GREER FAY CASHMAN
George Soros (photo credit: REUTERS)
George Soros
(photo credit: REUTERS)
To some Jews, especially Israelis, Hungarian-American tycoon, philanthropist, political activist and author Gyorgy Schwartz better known as George Soros is considered to be a self-hating Jew.
Soros, 86, is not happy with Israeli government policy and makes no secret of it. But to say that he is totally anti-Israel is untrue, considering that he has investments in Israel, and that in May 2014, a statement on the BDS website read, “The Palestinian BDS National Committee, the largest coalition in Palestinian civil society that is leading the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement for Palestinian rights, called today for a boycott of the Soros Fund Management and the Open Society Foundations due to the recently announced... investment by Soros in Sodastream stock and increased investment in Teva Pharmaceuticals, both Israeli companies that are deeply involved in violations of international law.”
It’s true that the Soros Open Society Foundation happens to fund Palestinian organizations such as Al-Haq, Al-Mezan, and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights as well as Israeli political NGOs such as Breaking the Silence, Yesh Din and Adala. In the US, Soros is a generous donor to J Street and the New Israel Fund When you’re worth around $23 billion, much of which you donate to many causes, it’s somewhat difficult not to be influential.
Yet for all his support of anti-Israel and anti-Israeli government policies, it doesn’t seem to bother Soros that an Israeli company in which he invested was located in disputed territory.
However, he sold his Sodastream shares along with his Teva shares, then bought Teva stock again as well as in other Israeli companies, most recently in mid-August when he invested in a troubled Israeli technology company Allot Communications.
He buys and sells shares in Israeli companies just as in any other.
Business is business and politics are politics.
A few weeks back, the Iranian media branded him as “a Zionist billionaire,” putting him in the same category as Haim Saban and Sheldon Adelson.
Yet even though Soros invests in Israel, it is difficult to ignore what his Open Society Foundation has been doing to undermine Israel by lobbying political and judicial circles in the US and Europe to hold Israel accountable for violations of international law.
Whatever the reason for his backing of anti-Israel movements, Soros has earned the enmity of numerous pro-Israel organizations which have flooded the Internet with data related to where his money goes.
Many things have changed in the world, but among those that remain constant is the fact that money talks, and Soros has the financial wizardry that has earned him more than enough money to get his point across..


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