This is a cartoon by Biderman, one of Israel’s pre-eminent political cartoonists. It’s a commentary on the toll the global economic meltdown has taken on Israeli tycoons. Pictured are Lev Leviev (playing sax) and two other industrialists who went belly up recently. Behind the panhandlers is the phrase Klezmer in Hebrew, denoting traditional eastern European Jewish musicians who traveled from town to town eekeing out a meager living.
Leviev’s real estate subsidiary, Africa Israel, is on the verge of insolvency and the settlement builder and diamond tycoon could lose control. It remains to be seen whether this economic implosion will hinder his firm’s major investment in propping up the settler enterprise.
Haaretz reports that Lev Leviev’s Africa Israel Investments faces insurmountable debt obligations and will be forced to negotiate a restructuring with his creditor banks. This means that Leviev could lose control of his empire or, at the very least, that he will be forced to cede a large portion of his company to the banks. Depending on how they view his leadership, he may or may not remain with the company.
Despite the fact that AI’s share price has rebounded handily in recent months it is still down 75-80% from a year ago. Further, Leviev’s real estate portfolio has taken a tremendous pounding, with one property alone, the old New York Times Building, falling in value from $690 million t0 $315 million. AI lost $1 billion in 2008. Its 2nd quarter 2009 statement will report an estimated $350 million loss.
Earlier this week, Global BDS activists announced that a British subsidiary of the Wall Street investment house, Blackrock, had divested of its Africa Israel holdings, putting further financial pressure on Leviev. This action came as the result of pressure from Norwegian banks which offer Blackrock funds to their customers. The banks had investigated AI’s participation in settlement building projects in the West Bank (Maaleh Adumim and a number of others) and determined that such violations of international law would not be acceptable to their clients.
Thus, Leviev has become the first financial victim of the BDS movement: the first Israeli company to suffer a substantial hit. No doubt, he will not be the last. This puts other Israeli companies which profit from the Occupation on notice that they are vulnerable.
If there are any economists among my readers could you e mail me or comment below. I’d like to discuss in greater detail what the economic repercussions could be for Leviev.
Maaleh Adumim, one of Africa Israel's settlement projects
The British subsidiary of Blackrock, one of Wall Street’s major banking firms, announced under pressure that it had divested itself of Lev Leviev’s Africa-Israel Investments. Leviev is an Israeli diamond merchant who has branched out into real estate properties as far-flung as New York (where he owns the former N.Y. Times Building) and the West Bank (including Maaleh Adumim).
A number of anti-Occupation groups including Adalah-NY have taken Leviev on for his major investments in building Israeli settlements and his poor human rights record as a diamond magnate in the mines of Angola . Three Norwegian banks who are major marketers of Blackrock investment funds pressured it to rid itself of Leviev’s stock because of his serial violations of international human rights laws. At one time, the Wall Street firm was the Israeli companies second-largest shareholder. The Norwegian government pension fund may not be far behind. It is the sixth largest investor in AI and pressure is mounting on the government also to divest.
Africa-Israel has faced some very hard times during the global recession both because the wealthy have been less inclined to purchase diamonds and because luxury real estate has taken a huge hit. His stock price has fallen between 75-80% over the past year (though recently it has improved somewhat). As an example of his continuing woes, one of the his lenders has sued him over the N.Y. Times Building deal, claiming that he’s planning to put the property into receivership (it declined in value by almost 50% after Leviev bought it and contributed to a $600-million corporate loss last quarter). If he did this, then the lender (along with Blackrock which invested $40 million) would be wiped out.
Earlier, the British cancelled a proposed lease for its Tel Aviv embassy in a Leviev-owned luxury office building, under pressure from British human rights groups demanding that the government not do business with a settlement builder and supporter of the Occupation.
At one time earlier this year, the company seemed in danger of financial collapse. But it seems to have at least partially regained its footing. Losing the backing, however, of as august a financial firm as Blackrock has got to hurt AI and undermine its stability in the eyes of investors. It remains to be seen, though, whether as confirmed a supporter of the Israeli Occupation and settlements as Leviev will withdraw from his right-wing political commitments for the sake of financial expediency.
There is an even broader issue here to which we should pay attention. There is no doubt that the Global BDS movement is picking up steam and credibility. Israeli professor Neve Gordon just announced his support for divestment in the pages of the L.A. Times and the Guardian. Companies and organizations which in the past would have ignored the calls to avoid doing business with human rights scofflaws like Leviev are sitting up and taking notice. I am not saying that BDS is THE answer to ending the Occupation. I don’t even know if it’s the right or best solution for the problem at hand. But to the question of whether it has utility, we must answer at least partially: yes.
And this victory in the battle against Leviev’s settlement empire is one of the first that involves a major financial blow to a company benefiting from the Occupation. This is how divestment began as an effective tool against the South African apartheid regime. There were victories in small increments initially, which gradually gained momentum and turned into an insurmountable force working to topple the regime. I do not know whether this is the path the current campaign will follow. But I am watching with interest.
Susan Sarandon, Denise Rich & Isabella Rosselini at Leviev opening (Scott Wintrow/Getty Images)
I hope that title grabbed your attention. They shouldn’t have anything in common, right? The first a progressive, the second a troglodyte. Well, unfortunately they do. They both like diamonds. Nothing wrong with that you might say. Unless the diamonds come from African conflict zones and unless their proceeds are used to build West Bank settlements on confiscated Palestinian land. All of which is true.
Susan Sarandon has a taste for diamonds and the high life and so attended the glittering opening of Lev Leviev’s new Madison Avenue jewelry emporium. She was joined in the crowd by other celebrities like Isabella Rosselini, Dr. Ruth Westheimer and Denise Rich (maybe she was there to arrange a “pardon” for Leviev as she did for her ex, Marc Rich). Problem was that to enter the store Sarandon had to cross a picket line established by Adala NY, a group of human rights adherents who oppose the Israeli Occupation. Despite the cause, Sarandon crossed. Not only that. Jewish Voice for Peace wrote a subsequent letter asking her to voice her opposition to Leviev’s pro-settlement activities. The response–silence. Well, not exactly. The NY Post’s Page Six quotes a representative saying that Sarandon has no “tie” to Leviev and thus nothing to renounce. Which is basically a casuistic non-answer.
Roman Abramovich & Lev Leviev, Tel Aviv (Nir Keidar/Getty Images)
Lev Leviev grew up in Tashkent as a member of the Bukharan community. He came to Israel as a teenager and eventually joined the Israeli diamond industry producing polished diamonds. He has become wealthy in his chosen profession by trafficking in Angolan diamonds. Walter Ruby, writing in Jewish Week, notes that Forbes lists him as the 210th richest person in the world worth $4.1 billion (Zev Chafets says that Leviev’s associates estimate his real worth as closer to $8 billion). He also funds the Chabad-dominated Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia.
Also disturbing is Leviev’s participation in the Land Redemption Fund, which purchases land under false pretenses from Palestinian owners in order to transfer them to settlement ownership. Leviev’s development company is also building several settlements including a $230 million project on land confiscated from the Palestinian village of Bilin, which is in the international news because of weekly protests there against the Apartheid Wall. Leviev and the LRF use Palestinian stooges to approach Palestinian farmers, many of whom can no longer farm their land anyway due either to the Wall or settler intimidation, offering to pay many times what the land is worth. As far as the farmers know the land is being purchased by a fellow Palestinian. Instead, the land reverts to LRF and then becomes land that Leviev can build settlements on, further increasing his empire after selling the homes to settlers.
The residents of Bilin and Jayyous recently wrote to Sarandon asking her to take up their cause against settlements encroaching on their land.
I should amend my post title by acknowledging that Lev Leviev is not a member of the Russian mob. He’s way beyond that. His money has bought him respectability that every shady character craves, even as he continues pillaging poor Palestinian farmers as he makes hundreds of millions of dollars and perverts the chances for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Recently, Leviev decided to expand his diamond and real estate business to New York, where he owns property worth well over $1 billion including the Plaza Hotel and New York Times building ($525 million). The store opening and accompanying protest was covered by The Forward and JTA, which indicates a rapidly changing political climate in the American Jewish community. Until recently, such a story would’ve been met with skepticism or derision by much of the Jewish community and press. It also indicates that Adalah NY had created dramatic protest imagery that would appeal to New York’s mass media.
As the photo above indicates, Leviev is linked with former Russian mobster and now oligarch, Roman Abramovich in the diamond business. Abramovich, in attempting to smooth his path into international business and social circles also purchased the Chelsea football club. Leviev, not to be outdone, also owns an Israeli football club. According to Haaretz, Leviev and Abramovich are among the two largest donors to Elad, whose goal is the “Judaize” East Jerusalem by buying up Arab property and transferring it to Jewish ownership. Elad refused to disclose its donor list publicly and is in danger of being dissolved by the government.
Surprisingly, the NY Post’s Page Six has kept the story alive with periodic updates–probably because the right-wing paper seeks to embarrass the progressive Sarandon. What is a shame is that with a short note to the public Sarandon could reaffirm her commitment to support ending the Occupation and tell the world she knew nothing about Leviev’s right-wing agenda and had no intention of shopping in his store again. Instead, she’s trying to fudge the issue.
As for Dershowitz, ever the entertaining clown, Dersh must’ve seen the brouhaha and decided he needed to get a slice of Sarandon’s PR. So he went down to the Leviev showroom and came out swinging his shopping bag as if it contained Norman Finkelstein’s head. All of which is quite interesting when you consider that during his Democracy Now debate with the latter he said that he opposed Israeli settlements. How quickly they forget. After watching Dershowitz’s pathetic primping performance in this video you realize that he’s nothing more than an ambulance chaser for political notoriety, a Jewish Ann Coulter.
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This is a cartoon by Biderman, one of Israel’s pre-eminent political cartoonists. It’s a commentary on the toll the global economic meltdown has taken on Israeli tycoons. Pictured are Lev Leviev (playing sax) and two other industrialists who went belly up recently. Behind the panhandlers is the phrase Klezmer in Hebrew, denoting traditional eastern European Jewish musicians who traveled from town to town eekeing out a meager living.
Susan Sarandon, Denise Rich & Isabella Rosselini at Leviev opening (Scott Wintrow/Getty Images)
Roman Abramovich & Lev Leviev, Tel Aviv (Nir Keidar/Getty Images)
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