JTA is keeping a running blog on items in the WikiLeaks cables of interest, concern or entertainment to Jews. Please send in your own drips to tips@jta.org. The index of what we’ve turned up so far follows:
* How will the WikiLeaks revelations impact the Middle East? Matthew Brodsky, director of policy for the Jewish Policy Center to Political Insider.
* Read assessments about what Russian Jewish emigres are doing for the motherland, Russian arms sales to the Middle East and why Russian Jewish immigration to Israel has dried up.
* "Deteriorating ties between Tel Aviv and Ankara are “attributable exclusively” to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s hatred of Israel, U.S. and Israeli diplomats agreed, according to a confidential cable by the U.S. embassy," Turkey’s Hurriyet Daily News reports in a dispatch about material in the WikiLeaks trove.
* For Ron Kampeas’ rundown of cables on Iran, Hamas, regional concerns and more, read "Cables show shared Israeli, Arab concerns about Iran."
* The Jerusalem Post reports on cables about the concerns of Venezuelan Jewry under Hugo Chavez.
Arabs clamor against Iran
* The king of the Persian Gulf nation of Bahrain in a Nov. 2009 meeting with U.S. Gen. David Petreaus, commander of international forces in Iraq:
King Hamad pointed to Iran as the source of much of the trouble in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He argued forcefully for taking action to terminate their nuclear program, by whatever means necessary. "That program must be stopped," he said. "The danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it." King Hamad added that in light of these regional developments, Bahrain was working to strengthen GCC coordination and its relations with allies and international organizations. He specifically mentioned NATO and confirmed that Bahrain had agreed to the Alliance’s request to use Isa Airbase for AWACS missions, although the detail on numbers and timing have yet to be discussed.
* April 2009: A U.S. Treasury official urges Europeans to take more economic action to isolate Iran:
During a March 2-3 visit to Brussels, Daniel Glaser, Acting Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, assured an uncertain European Union that the United States remains committed to the dual track approach to Iran and said we would welcome additional EU designations targeting Iran’s proliferation and sanctions evasion activities. Delivering an unprecedented classified briefing to over 70 Middle East
and nonproliferation experts from all 27 EU states and institutions, Glaser encouraged the EU to move forward on specific designations to support the current international framework targeting Iran’s illicit conduct through financial measures.
Hamas
Abu Dhabi State Security Director Sheikh Hazza bin Zayed talks to U.S. officials in April 2006:
The UAE leadership, which has told us they consider Hamas a terrorist organization, plans to uphold its previous commitments of humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people… Hazza assessed that Iran is also a threat due to its ties to international terrorist organizations, including al-Qaida, as well as their financial support to Hamas. He added that the relationship between Iran and Syria, and their links to Hizballah, was also of concern, as was Iran’s attempts to expand its influence in Iraq and elsewhere in the world. [Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed] also expressed to A/S Welch March 28 the concern that Hizballah was supporting Hamas.
Russia and the former Soviet republics
* On Alexander Mashkevich, the Kazakh-Israeli oligarch who heads the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress: At a dinner Mashkevich threw for Kazakhstan’s foreign minister and two U.S. congressmen, the cable reports: "It is not clear what Mashkevich is spending his billions on, but it is certainly not culinary talent." The menu is described as consisting of boiled meat and noodles, served by surly waiters from the "Soviet cafeteria training academy." The cable author writes: "The wine, at least, was somewhat upscale."
* August 2006, at a wedding in Dagestan:
On August 22 we attended a wedding in Makhachkala, Dagestan’s capital: Duma member and Dagestan Oil Company chief Gadzhi Makhachev’s son married a classmate. The lavish display and heavy drinking concealed the deadly serious North Caucasus politics of land, ethnicity, clan, and alliance. The guest list spanned the Caucasus power structure — guest starring Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov — and underlined just how personal the region’s politics can be…
Another group of Gadzhi’s boyhood friends from Khasavyurt was led by a man who looked like Shamil Basayev on his day off — flip-flops, t-shirt, baseball cap, beard — but turned out to be the chief rabbi of Stavropol Kray. He told us he has 12,000 co-religionists in the province, 8,000 of them in its capital, Pyatigorsk. 70 percent are, like him, Persian-speaking Mountain Jews; the rest are a mixture of Europeans, Georgians and Bukharans…
he couple’s entry was the signal for the emcee to roll into high gear, and after a few toasts the Piter "gypsies" began their performance. (The next day one of Gadzhi’s houseguests sneered, "Some gypsies! The bandleader was certainly Jewish, and the rest of them were blonde." There was some truth to this, but at least the two dancing girls appeared to be Roma.)
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