Will Congress recognise Bernie's services to Israel?
I remember someone arguing many years ago that Stalin was the greatest anti-communist of the 20th century. What is the proof? I asked. "Look at the millions of communists he killed!" was the reply.
By the same logic, Bernie Madoff is the greatest anti-semite of the 21st century. Look how many Jewish families he ruined financially.
Like most personality cult investment managers, Bernie was in the "giving" business. The arch-swindler diverted tons of supposed fee income from stellar investment performance to his favourite Jewish charities. In reality, the "fee income" was the vast sums handed over by his gullible country club acquaintances many of whom thought they were investors in the Madoff bonanza and who are still coming to terms with the fact that they were not Bernie's best friends. To paraphrase the old Gentile saying, Bernie robbed Hymie to pay Shlomo. Surely this proves there was no religious bias to the scam.
Not so fast. We still don't know where most of the money went. Did he lose it in the markets? Is it hidden in a Swiss bank account? Or did it travel to Israel? The last possibility is the most intriguing because it is the one that could bestow Robin Hood status upon the crook of the century (and perhaps for eternity). What if Bernie diverted money from those stingy East Coast Jews and funneled it all into special offshore Jewish causes, ie. Mossad front companies? What would the reaction be in the States? One can picture the headlines in the New York Times: "The Madoff Affair: All For A Good Cause" accompanied by Tom Friedman in the op-ed pages explaining how if only Congress would give more to Israel, then people like Madoff wouldn't feel the need to steal on behalf of our deserving little democratic ally in the Middle East.
Of course things will never be allowed to go so far. The Bernie Madoff scandal represents the biggest threat to Israel's image as an unimpeachable ally of the United States since the Pollard case. The longer the silence on the whereabouts of the missing funds, the more suspicious we should be that the money has left the country for good and that a water-tight alibi is being prepared under the guidance of AIPAC and their useful idiots in Congress, this time with the full cooperation of the "slumbering" SEC.
