Israel’s Two Faces at the White House

Who does the United States’ first billionaire president turn to when he needs advice? To other billionaires, so says today’s Jerusalem Post. And the two billionaires whom Donald Trump trusts most, especially when needing to define America’s policy with Israel, are Sheldon Adelson and Ronald Lauder.

Adelson was born into a Jewish family in 1933. From a young age, he established himself as a skilled entrepreneur, inclined to begin investing in the world of information technology, although it was in Las Vegas that Adelson had his true business success. In 1988, he purchased the Sands Hotel and Casino and founded the Las Vegas Sands Corporation. He revolutionized the entertainment capital by building The Venetian resort, which features replicas of the most beautiful monuments in Venice. In 2008, when Adelson was the third richest man in America (behind only Bill Gates and Warren Buffett), he gave $25 million to the M.I.S. Hebrew Academy in Las Vegas to build a Jewish high school. In 2005, he donated $500,000 ($250,000 from him and $250,000 from his wife) to George W. Bush’s second presidential campaign and later to Jeb Bush. In 2006, he allocated $25 million to Birthright Israel, an organization that sponsors trips to Israel for young Jews. In 2007, he was one of the founders of Freedom’s Watch, “a group that finances America’s continued involvement in the Iraq war, and is managed and supported in part by former Bush administration officials,” according to Wikipedia. He met Trump in the mid-2000s and their friendship continues to grow.

Lauder is currently president of the World Jewish Congress. Having always been passionate about politics, he ran for mayor of New York in 1989 against Rudy Giuliani but lost. In 1998, he joined Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an attempt to ease tensions with Syria under Hafez Assad. The negotiations continued even after Israel’s election of Ehud Barak. Lauder has been a part of many organizations that support Israel, such as the Anti-Defamation League and the World Jewish Congress.

But Lauder and Adelson, whose biographies may seem so similar, actually give different counsel to the president. Adelson represents the most controversial line in the American Jewish community and believes that the creation of a Palestinian state would be a boomerang for Israel. The Jerusalem Post even speaks of “catastrophe” for the Jewish state. Lauder, on the other hand, is such a friend of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that during his trip to the United States, the Arab leader dined at the billionaire’s home. With a hint of malice, the Jerusalem Post noted, “Notably present at the dinner: representatives of the Trump administration. Notably absent: anyone from the Israeli Embassy.”

Trump would thus seem to have available two different positions—diametrically opposite—to confront. And that, perhaps, also explains the double life of the new White House policy in the Middle East.