[Marxism] Counterpunch:....Russia, Israel and Media Omissions

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February 17, 2005
Do Americans Even Care? Russia, Israel and Media Omissions By ALISON WEIR
As is often the case with AP's coverage of news having to do with Israel, 
there's a
serious omission in its reporting on the Russia-Israel connection even when it
involves oil and the United States.
The day after the State of the Union Address, two Interpol fugitives attended 
the
"National Prayer Breakfast" held in Washington DC. The day before that, these
fugitives from the law were the guests of honor at an hour-long meeting of the
International Relations Committee on Capitol Hill, invited by ranking Democrat 
Tom
Lantos (Calif.)
You would think it would be hot news when wanted men being hunted by European
police suddenly pop up in the US particularly on Capitol Hill and at events 
attended
by the US president.
Yet, there was not a single AP story in the US on any of this. [1] Not a single
national network television or radio news program even mentioned these facts. In
fact, Google and LexisNexis searches four days after these events took place
turned up only three newspaper articles on them anywhere in the entire country. 
[2]
Who are these fugitives from the law, wanted by Interpol, who are meeting at the
highest levels of the US government? And why didn't we learn of them?
Therein lies the story. These two men, it turns out, are just the tips of a 
colossal
iceberg. And this iceberg doesn't just have 90 percent of its mass hidden under
water; this iceberg is almost entirely submerged.
They are Mikhail Brudno and Vladimir Dubov, Israeli-Russian partners in the 
giant
Russian oil company Yukos. They, along with a number of their cronies, are 
wanted
by Interpol for allegedly bilking Russian citizens out of billions of dollars. 
To elude
Russian prosecution, these men have taken up residence in Israel. [3]
As the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz explains: "In recent years Russian authorities
began investigating [Yukos], its managers and major stockholders, many of whom
are of Jewish origin. The probes caused several of the managers to flee to 
Israel,
and resulted in Khodorkovski's [Yukos CEO] arrest and a Kremlin attack on 
Yukos."
The fact is that Israel is an important factor in the ongoing, nation-shaking 
power
struggle now going on in Russia. Yet AP virtually never reports this 
connection. For
example, a few months ago in a typical AP story on this power struggle, "Report:
Russia again charges Berezovsky," [4] Moscow AP Bureau Chief Judith Ingram
makes no mention anywhere that Berezovsky is an Israeli citizen, or of his many
connections to Israel.
Such omissions by AP and large swaths of the American media leave Americans
seriously disadvantaged in deciphering what is going on in Russia, and its 
profound
significance for the world.
In order to make sense of this Russian power struggle, and to understand its
importance to the rest of us, it is necessary to understand the usually omitted 
Israeli
subtext. When this is understood, the friendship of such pro-Israel 
Congressional
leaders as Rep. Lantos to fugitive Russian oil tycoons begins to make sense.
To explore this background it is often useful to turn to the Israeli press. In 
July a
major Israeli publication, the Jerusalem Post, carried an article headlined: 
"Boris
Berezovsky: Putin's Russia dangerous for Israel." Before describing what this
contained, let us first go into a little of the background.
The Oligarchs
Boris Berezovsky is one of seven "oligarchs," as they are known both inside and
outside Russia: massively rich, powerful manipulators who through violence, 
theft
and corruption acquired a mammoth percentage (reports range from 70 to 85
percent) of Russia's resources, from its oil to the auto industry to mass media
outlets.
At the same time, the group steadily gained control over much of the country's
political apparatus. Using extraordinary financial resources and insider 
dealing, the
oligarchs handpicked prime ministers and governmental leaders and barely even
bothered to do this behind the scenes.
In 1997 Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky, one of the group and Russia's
sometimes richest man (several of the oligarchs trade the top spot back and 
forth)
told an interviewer before he was arrested and imprisoned by Putin last year:
    "If we rank all the fields of man's activity by profitability, politics 
will be the
    most lucrative business. When we see a critical situation in the government,
    we draw lots in order to pick out a person from our milieu for work in 
power."
    [5]
Almost all of these oligarchs, it turns out, have significant ties to Israel. 
In fact,
Berezovsky himself has Israeli citizenship a fact that caused a scandal of 
Watergate
proportions in Russia in 1996 when it was exposed by a Russian newspaper. [6]
Do Berezovsky's dual loyalties really matter? Yes. In the realm of global
dominance, Israel's interests and Russia's are considerably divergent. It is in 
Israel's
interests to bring to power a regime in Russia friendly to Israel, rather than 
the
current one under Putin, which Israeli leaders feel is supportive of its 
enemies. Not
long ago, for example, Putin met with Syrian leaders an action highly 
disturbing to
Israel.
Having an Israeli citizen at the highest levels of the Russian government is 
ideal,
from Israel's point of view. In Berezovsky they had such a man. The Jerusalem 
Post
article mentioned above is revealing. It describes Berezovsky as "the Godfather 
of
the Oligarchs' and Kingmaker of Russia's Politics'" and reports Berezovsky's
statement that "Putin's Russia is dangerous for Israel." Berezovsky goes on to
assert that Putin "supports terror" in the Middle East through Russia's previous
relations with Iraq and current relations with Iran. [7]
While Israelis may have been delighted at Berezovsky's position in Russia, It 
is not
surprising that Russian citizens were somewhat less so. Finding that a powerful
leader and member of the Russian Security Council was an Israeli citizen was
disconcerting, at best.
As a result of the media uproar over Berezovsky's Israeli citizenship and other
events, the Oligarchs' connections to Israel are widely known in Russia and
elsewhere. In Israel they are covered frequently, often with adulation, 
including a
recent hit Israeli TV series called "The Oligarchs."
"Some of its episodes," according to Israeli writer Uri Avnery, "are simply
unbelievable or would have been, if they had not come straight from the horses'
mouths: the heroes of the story, who gleefully boast about their despicable 
exploits.
The series was produced by Israeli immigrants from Russia."
Avnery writes that the oligarchs used "cheating, bribery and murder," as they
"exploited the disintegration of the Soviet system to loot the treasures of the 
state
and to amass plunder amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars. In order to
safeguard the perpetuation of their business, they took control of the state. 
Six out
of the seven are Jews." [8]
According to a Washington Post story by David Hoffman, the group bought and
controlled Russian governmental officials at the highest levels. After financing
Yeltsin's election in 1996, Hoffman writes: "The tycoons met and decided to 
insert
one of their own into government. They debated who and chose [Vladimir] Potanin,
who became deputy prime minister. One reason they chose Potanin was that he is
not Jewish, and most of the rest of them are, and feared a backlash against the
Jewish bankers." [9]
In Russia, the oligarchs are deeply loathed, considered villains who worked to 
bleed
the country dry; during their reign many Russian citizens saw their life savings
disappear overnight. A new term was coined for their dominance,
"semibankirshchina" (the rule of the seven bankers), and they were widely known 
to
have wielded small, murderous armies. There are rumors that Berezovsky, subject
of the respectful AP article, was even responsible for the gunning down of an
American journalist, Forbes Moscow editor Paul Klebnikov.
While no one has been charged with the murder of Klebnikov, who had written a
book on Berezovsky, many suspect a Berezovsky connection. As a friend of
Klebnikov wrote: "Experienced expatriates in Russia shared an essential rule: 
Don't
cross these brutal billionaires, ever, or you're likely to go home in a box." 
[10]
The Chechnya Connection
There is evidence that Berezovsky's responsibility for death and tragedy may be
vastly greater.
"Berezovsky boasts that he caused the war in Chechnya," Avnery reports, "in 
which
tens of thousands have been killed and a whole country devastated. He was
interested in the mineral resources and a prospective pipeline there. In order 
to
achieve this he put an end to the peace agreement that gave the country some 
kind
of independence. The oligarchs dismissed and destroyed Alexander Lebed, the
popular general who engineered the agreement, and the war has been going on
since then.
"In the end," Avnery writes, "there was a reaction: Vladimir Putin, the 
taciturn and
tough ex-KGB operative, assumed power, took control of the media, put one of the
oligarchs (Mikhail Khodorkovsky) in prison, caused the others to flee 
(Berezovsky is
in England, Vladimir Gusinsky is in Israel, another, Mikhail Chernoy, is 
assumed to
be hiding here.)"
Yet, apart from the Washington Post, American media report on almost none of
this. Instead, US coverage largely portrays Berezovsky and his crowd as 
American-
style entrepreneurs who are being hounded by a Russian government whose
actions are, to repeat the media's commonly used phrase, "politically 
motivated."
US news stories, even when they occasionally do hint at questionable practices,
tend to use such phrases as "brash young capitalists" to describe the 
oligarchs. [11]
For example, a long series co-produced by FRONTLINE and the New York Times
referred to these men as "shrewd businessmen," and asked "what it's like to be
young, Russian and newly affluent?" [12] Massive violence, dual loyalties, and
control of resources are rarely, if ever, part of the picture.
Full: http://www.counterpunch.org/weir02172005.html

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