Israeli Body Snatchers and Disappearing Palestinians

[SinoIndusFriendship]

Israeli Body Snatchers and Disappearing Palestinians

West Bank, 8th of February 1988

Nineteen years old Khader Elias Tarazi, a Christian Palestinian, went shopping for groceries in the Gaza. Upon returning with two bags on his bicycle he crossed a road near a demonstration where stone throwers were fleeing Israeli Army soldiers. The soldiers grabbed Khader and beat his head and body with truncheons. Shopkeepers shouted that Khader wasn’t involved but soldiers broke one of Khader's arms and a leg. They continued the beating then threw him onto the bonnet of their jeep handcuffing the now unconscious Khader to the front crash bar. They drove off continually braking hard whereupon he sustained further injuries including a broken back, skull injuries and his face kept banging against the bonnet.

The Israeli doctor at the Military Prison in Gaza refused to attend Khader because of his serious injuries and inadequate paperwork. He was taken to Ansar Two prison and thrown into a prisoner tent holding thirty to forty prisoners. The other Palestinian prisoners screamed that he must be taken to hospital and the guards responded by forcing them to strip naked and stand outside in the winter cold. Khader died in the tent and later was taken to Soroka Hospital in Beer Sheva and pronounced dead.

Khader’s mother was outside the prison where Israeli officials denied they had a prisoner by his name inside. Later, they admitted he was inside but said he must have been very sick when he went out shopping because he was now dead.

Israeli officials refused to hand over the body and it was transferred to Abu Kabeer hospital, officially for a post-mortem. Mrs Tarazi told David Yallop that during this time many of his organs were illegally removed from his body.

No inquiry was made into the death and the Tarazi family were told if they continued to ask for an inquiry they would be looking for trouble. Five months later soldiers and secret police visited the Tarazi house at midnight, beat up Khader’s brother and father and threw the former into Ansar Three prison.188

2nd of April, 1988

Twenty-three year old Salim Khalef Al Shaer, of Bethlehem, joined a Saturday demonstration against the Israelis. One soldier shot him in the face from fifteen metres. To stop the Israeli soldiers taking the body for organ removal his friends rushed the body to the closest mosque and called for the family. The funeral service began immediately. When the procession came out of the mosque for its trip to the gravesite the Army was waiting. Helicopters dropped teargas canisters and large stones onto the mourners. Ninety minutes after walking out of his house Salim was buried in his grave.189

According to a story which was published in Ha'aretz (a source not open to charges of anti-Semitism), Romanian authorities have accused an Israeli adoption agency of being part of a global organ theft conspiracy.

The Romanian Embassy in Israel has asked for, and received from the Labor and Social Affairs Ministry, a list of all children born in Romania who have been brought to Israel for adoption in recent years. The Romanian officials are trying to ascertain if all such children arrived in Israel with all organs in their bodies.

Mary Barrett, identified as a Boston-based photo-journalist wrote this piece in 1990.

Dr. Abu Ghazalch attributes the widespread anxiety over organ thefts which has gripped Gaza and the West Bank since the intifada began in December of 1987 to several factors. "There are indications that for one reason or another, organs. especially eyes and kidneys, were removed from the bodies during the first year or year and a half'. There were just too many reports by credible people for there to he nothing happening. If someone is shot in the head and comes home in a plastic bag without internal organs, what will people assume'?

posted by Greg Bacon @ Tuesday, July 28, 2009

 

[Mig-29]

What purpose does it serve to start a thread with an article written in 1988.

 

[Zulfiqar]

Authorities arrest 44 in N.J. corruption case

2 lawmakers, 3 mayors, and rabbis accused
A two-year corruption and international money-laundering investigation stretching from the New Jersey shore to Brooklyn to Israel and Switzerland culminated in charges against 44 people yesterday, including three New Jersey mayors, two state assemblymen, and five rabbis, authorities said.

The case began with bank fraud charges against a member of an insular Syrian Jewish enclave centered in a seaside town. But when that man became a federal informant and posed as a crooked real estate developer offering cash bribes to obtain government approvals, it mushroomed into a political scandal that could rival any of the most explosive and sleazy episodes in New Jersey's recent past.

It was replete with tales of the illegal sales of human organs; of furtive negotiations in diners and parking lots; of nervous jokes about "patting down'' a man who turned out to indeed be an informant; and, again and again, of the passing of cash - once in a box of Apple Jacks cereal stuffed with $97,000.

"For these defendants, corruption was a way of life,'' Ralph J. Marra Jr., the acting US attorney in New Jersey, said at a news conference.

The authorities laid out two separate schemes, one involving money laundering that led to rabbis and members of the Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn and in the Jersey Shore town of Deal, where many of them have summer homes. The other dealt with political corruption and bribery and involved public officials mostly in Hudson County towns where the pace of development has been particularly intense in recent years.

Linking the two schemes was the federal informant who was not named in court papers but who people involved with the investigation identified as Solomon Dwek, a failed real estate developer and philanthropist who was arrested in May 2006 on charges of passing a bad $25 million check at a bank in Monmouth County, N.J.

Early on, Dwek led investigators to an extensive network of money launderers including rabbis in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, where the Syrian Jewish community is based, and in Deal and Elberon, shore towns where many in the community spend their summers.

Dwek, a member of the Syrian Jewish community whose parents founded the Deal Yeshiva, never concealed that he was facing bank fraud charges, instead telling targets, which included three rabbis in Brooklyn and two in New Jersey, that he was bankrupt and trying to conceal his assets, according to people involved in the case. The targets, in turn, accepted bank checks Dwek made out to charities that they oversaw, deducted a fee, and returned the rest to him in cash.

Much of the cash came from Israel, where a man arrested as part of the inquiry yesterday said he obtained the money from a Swiss banker, prosecutors said. All told, some $3 million was laundered for Dwek since June 2007, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors say one of the accused money launderers, Moshe Altman, was a developer in Hudson County, and introduced Dwek to John Guarini, a building inspector in Jersey City, beginning the corruption phase of the case.

Guarini, who lost a bid for Congress in 2006, was charged with taking $40,000 in bribes from Dwek. From there, Dwek - now operating under an assumed identity, according to people involved in the case - branched out to a web of public officials, mayoral and council candidates, and their confidants.

Dwek told local officials in Jersey City, Hoboken, Ridgefield, Secaucus, and Bayonne that he was looking to build various projects and was seeking allies who would expedite the approval and make sure there were no obstacles. In exchange, he would offer $5,000 in cash for an upcoming campaign, or as a straightforward bribe, with the promise of more to come, and with earnest pleas that the requests be "taken care of.''

Most of those arrested were public officials and included Mayor Peter J. Cammarano III of Hoboken, who was elected in June and who took office July 1, and Mayor Dennis Elwell of Secaucus, both Democrats; Assemblyman L. Harvey Smith of Jersey City, also a Democrat; and Assemblyman Daniel M. Van Pelt, a Republican from Ocean County. Van Pelt also serves as mayor of Ocean Township and administrator of Lumberton Township.

Smith, a former schoolteacher, ran for mayor of Jersey City in 2004 on an anti-corruption platform. He is charged with taking $15,000 in bribes.

As a result of the money-laundering scheme, the rabbis arrested included Saul Kassin, 87, the chief rabbi of the Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn and New Jersey; Mordchai Fish and Lavel Schwartz, both rabbis in Brooklyn; and Eliahu Ben Haim and Edmund Nahum, who lead congregations in Deal.

Another man in Brooklyn, Levy-Izhak Rosenbaum, was accused of enticing vulnerable people to give up a kidney for $10,000 and then selling the organ for $160,000.

© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.

3 NJ mayors, 5 rabbis arrested in corruption case - The Boston Globe

 

[Zulfiqar]

Massive N.J. corruption sting targets mayors, legislators, rabbis

by Ted Sherman and Joe Ryan/The Star-Ledger Friday July 24, 2009, 5:05 AM

NEWARK -- The bribes went down in diners, living rooms and parking lots. New Jersey Assemblymen took them, mayors took them, and so did dozens of others.

Orthodox rabbis, acting more like crime bosses than religious leaders, laundered millions through synagogues and yeshivas in Deal, one of the state's wealthiest towns. And a Realtor tried to sell an informant a black market kidney for $160,000.

Those were some of the allegations federal prosecutors made today in what could prove to be the biggest New Jersey scandal of them all.

The revelations came after hundreds of federal agents swept across the state, arresting public servants and religious leaders as part of a two-year investigation into corruption and international money-laundering that authorities described as unprecedented - even in a state known for its scandals.

It was a sting operation that could have been taken from the pages of an Elmore Leonard novel: the FBI and IRS agents arrested five rabbis, two New Jersey state legislators, three mayors, political operatives, and many others, as part of a probe that spanned from Hoboken to Israel.

Other records were taken from Saint Peter's College in Jersey City and from at least one synagogue in Deal. Meanwhile, a top member of the Corzine administration unexpectedly resigned after agents arrived at his home and office with evidence boxes.

The arrests were the result of two separate investigations that used the same informant, a man who moved easily between the world of the rabbis and the world of Jersey politics. The rabbis are charged with operating money laundering network by funneling cash through yeshivas and non-profit organizations they were associated with. The politicians are accused of taking outright bribes in exchange for favors.

And at the center of it all was an unnamed informant who sources and defendants later identified as Solomon Dwek - once a high-flying Monmouth County developer and son of a prominent Monmouth County rabbi who remains on bail for a 2006 bank fraud case that has never come to trial. Dwek , according to the federal complaint, secretly taped those targeted in the investigation for more than two years.

Prosecutors said the case began when the informant infiltrated an existing international money laundering network being run by a group of rabbis in New York and New Jersey. It then expanded into a public corruption case through a middleman who moved in both worlds, officials said.

Some of the bribes to elected officials were paid through political contributions, the complaint said, often through "straw" donors who wrote checks in their names or businesses to comply with campaign finance regulations.

Acting U.S. Attorney Ralph Marra Jr. said the arrests underscored the continuing pervasiveness of public corruption in New Jersey, where more than 130 public officials have been prosecuted in recent years.

"For these defendants, corruption was a way of life," Marra said. "They existed in an ethics free zone. And they exploited giant loopholes in the state's campaign contribution rules."

Among those charged included newly elected Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano, 32, and rabbi Saul Kassin, the 87-year-old spiritual leader of the close-knit Syrian Sephardic Jewish community in Deal and Brooklyn. Others were Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell, 64; Anthony Suarez, 42, the mayor of Ridgefield; Leona Beldini, 74, the Jersey City deputy mayor; Assemblymen L. Harvey Smith (D-Hudson), 60 and Daniel Van Pelt (R-Ocean), 44; rabbi Edmund Nahum, 56, of Deal; and rabbi Eliahu Ben Haim, 58, of Long Branch. In all, 44 people were charged, 29 of them from New Jersey.

The case had immediate political ramifications, particularly for Democrats in Hudson County and the administration of Gov. Jon Corzine. By the end of the day, Joe Doria Jr., the Commissioner of the Department of Community Affairs, abruptly resigned from his cabinet post after his Trenton office and his home in Bayonne were searched by the FBI.

The team of agents who arrived at Doria's 8th floor office at 9:30 a.m. left hours later with several boxes they loaded into a beige car. They declined to comment. Doria missed a meeting with mayors and others on municipal shared services and consolidations earlier today and was not seen at the office all day. He has not been charged.

Smith and Van Pelt were both asked by leadership officials to resign their committee posts.

In a hastily called press conference, a grim-faced Corzine, who is running for re-election against Republican Chris Christie, the former U.S. Attorney who launched the federal investigation more than two years ago, said he was sickened to learn of the arrests.

"Any corruption is unacceptable any time, anywhere by anybody," he said, calling the scope of the corruption outrageous.

"There's no other word that fits than outrageous," he said.

Christie called for the resignation all public officials involved in the sweeping investigation.

"If you're charged with a crime and you hold public office, you should resign. Resign immediately," Christie said, addressing the media in a barber shop at what was to have been a campaign block walk along a West New York street. He called the arrests "just another really tragic day for the people of New Jersey."

Weysan Dun, head of the FBI's Newark office, called the case unprecedented in its scope.

"The fact that we arrested a number of rabbis this morning does not make this a religiously motivated case. Nor does the fact that we arrested political figures make this a politically motivated case," he said. "This case is not about politics. It is certainly not about religion. It is about crime and corruption."

In the charging documents, the single informant is named only as a "cooperating witness." Officials would not identify him, but several sources with knowledge of the investigation separately confirmed that it was Dwek, who was indicted in May 2006 for a $50 million bank fraud.

According to court documents, Dwek was accused of depositing a bogus $25 million check at the PNC Bank in Eatontown and spending $22 million of it before he was caught. He then tried to deposit a second bogus $25 million check at a different PNC branch before he was confronted.

That case is still pending. His criminal defense attorney did not return calls to his office.

The brazenness of the intertwined schemes played out in stark language, captured by hundreds of hours of hidden surveillance tapes recorded by the FBI.

In May, for example, Cammarano sat down at a Hoboken diner, talking about a $5,000 payment with the informant, who portrayed himself as a big-spending developer willing to pay cash to grease the way for building approvals. During the meeting, Cammarano discussed the prospects of winning the June 9 runoff election.

"Right now, the Italians, the Hispanics, the seniors are locked down. Nothing can change that now... I could be, uh, indicted, and I'm still gonna win 85 to 95 percent of those populations," Cammarano declared.

When the informant told him he would pay another $5,000 cash for help with development approvals, Cammarano replied: "Beautiful," according to the criminal complaint.

Cammarano is charged with accepting $25,000 in cash bribes, including $10,000 as late as last Thursday.

At a restaurant in Staten Island, the same informant met with Smith, the Democratic Assemblyman and a three-term Jersey City councilman, and an unnamed city official, seeking help expediting an anticipated zoning change. After Smith briefly left the table, the informant, carrying a courier envelope stuffed with $5,000, asked the unnamed official, "So what are we going to do? Give it to him after?"

He replied, "Give it to me and I'll have to give it to him."

"But the guy understands I'm looking to get expedited?"

"Oh yeah," assured the official.

Smith is charged with conspiracy to commit extortion.

Officials arrested in corruption ring leave federal court

Massive N.J. corruption sting targets mayors, legislators, rabbis - NJ.com

 

[Thomas]

Massive N.J. corruption sting targets mayors, legislators, rabbis

by Ted Sherman and Joe Ryan/The Star-Ledger Friday July 24, 2009, 5:05 AM

NEWARK -- The bribes went down in diners, living rooms and parking lots. New Jersey Assemblymen took them, mayors took them, and so did dozens of others.

Orthodox rabbis, acting more like crime bosses than religious leaders, laundered millions through synagogues and yeshivas in Deal, one of the state's wealthiest towns. And a Realtor tried to sell an informant a black market kidney for $160,000.

Those were some of the allegations federal prosecutors made today in what could prove to be the biggest New Jersey scandal of them all.

The revelations came after hundreds of federal agents swept across the state, arresting public servants and religious leaders as part of a two-year investigation into corruption and international money-laundering that authorities described as unprecedented - even in a state known for its scandals.

It was a sting operation that could have been taken from the pages of an Elmore Leonard novel: the FBI and IRS agents arrested five rabbis, two New Jersey state legislators, three mayors, political operatives, and many others, as part of a probe that spanned from Hoboken to Israel.

Other records were taken from Saint Peter's College in Jersey City and from at least one synagogue in Deal. Meanwhile, a top member of the Corzine administration unexpectedly resigned after agents arrived at his home and office with evidence boxes.

The arrests were the result of two separate investigations that used the same informant, a man who moved easily between the world of the rabbis and the world of Jersey politics. The rabbis are charged with operating money laundering network by funneling cash through yeshivas and non-profit organizations they were associated with. The politicians are accused of taking outright bribes in exchange for favors.

And at the center of it all was an unnamed informant who sources and defendants later identified as Solomon Dwek - once a high-flying Monmouth County developer and son of a prominent Monmouth County rabbi who remains on bail for a 2006 bank fraud case that has never come to trial. Dwek , according to the federal complaint, secretly taped those targeted in the investigation for more than two years.

Prosecutors said the case began when the informant infiltrated an existing international money laundering network being run by a group of rabbis in New York and New Jersey. It then expanded into a public corruption case through a middleman who moved in both worlds, officials said.

Some of the bribes to elected officials were paid through political contributions, the complaint said, often through "straw" donors who wrote checks in their names or businesses to comply with campaign finance regulations.

Acting U.S. Attorney Ralph Marra Jr. said the arrests underscored the continuing pervasiveness of public corruption in New Jersey, where more than 130 public officials have been prosecuted in recent years.

"For these defendants, corruption was a way of life," Marra said. "They existed in an ethics free zone. And they exploited giant loopholes in the state's campaign contribution rules."

Among those charged included newly elected Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano, 32, and rabbi Saul Kassin, the 87-year-old spiritual leader of the close-knit Syrian Sephardic Jewish community in Deal and Brooklyn. Others were Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell, 64; Anthony Suarez, 42, the mayor of Ridgefield; Leona Beldini, 74, the Jersey City deputy mayor; Assemblymen L. Harvey Smith (D-Hudson), 60 and Daniel Van Pelt (R-Ocean), 44; rabbi Edmund Nahum, 56, of Deal; and rabbi Eliahu Ben Haim, 58, of Long Branch. In all, 44 people were charged, 29 of them from New Jersey.

The case had immediate political ramifications, particularly for Democrats in Hudson County and the administration of Gov. Jon Corzine. By the end of the day, Joe Doria Jr., the Commissioner of the Department of Community Affairs, abruptly resigned from his cabinet post after his Trenton office and his home in Bayonne were searched by the FBI.

The team of agents who arrived at Doria's 8th floor office at 9:30 a.m. left hours later with several boxes they loaded into a beige car. They declined to comment. Doria missed a meeting with mayors and others on municipal shared services and consolidations earlier today and was not seen at the office all day. He has not been charged.

Smith and Van Pelt were both asked by leadership officials to resign their committee posts.

In a hastily called press conference, a grim-faced Corzine, who is running for re-election against Republican Chris Christie, the former U.S. Attorney who launched the federal investigation more than two years ago, said he was sickened to learn of the arrests.

"Any corruption is unacceptable any time, anywhere by anybody," he said, calling the scope of the corruption outrageous.

"There's no other word that fits than outrageous," he said.

Christie called for the resignation all public officials involved in the sweeping investigation.

"If you're charged with a crime and you hold public office, you should resign. Resign immediately," Christie said, addressing the media in a barber shop at what was to have been a campaign block walk along a West New York street. He called the arrests "just another really tragic day for the people of New Jersey."

Weysan Dun, head of the FBI's Newark office, called the case unprecedented in its scope.

"The fact that we arrested a number of rabbis this morning does not make this a religiously motivated case. Nor does the fact that we arrested political figures make this a politically motivated case," he said. "This case is not about politics. It is certainly not about religion. It is about crime and corruption."

In the charging documents, the single informant is named only as a "cooperating witness." Officials would not identify him, but several sources with knowledge of the investigation separately confirmed that it was Dwek, who was indicted in May 2006 for a $50 million bank fraud.

According to court documents, Dwek was accused of depositing a bogus $25 million check at the PNC Bank in Eatontown and spending $22 million of it before he was caught. He then tried to deposit a second bogus $25 million check at a different PNC branch before he was confronted.

That case is still pending. His criminal defense attorney did not return calls to his office.

The brazenness of the intertwined schemes played out in stark language, captured by hundreds of hours of hidden surveillance tapes recorded by the FBI.

In May, for example, Cammarano sat down at a Hoboken diner, talking about a $5,000 payment with the informant, who portrayed himself as a big-spending developer willing to pay cash to grease the way for building approvals. During the meeting, Cammarano discussed the prospects of winning the June 9 runoff election.

"Right now, the Italians, the Hispanics, the seniors are locked down. Nothing can change that now... I could be, uh, indicted, and I'm still gonna win 85 to 95 percent of those populations," Cammarano declared.

When the informant told him he would pay another $5,000 cash for help with development approvals, Cammarano replied: "Beautiful," according to the criminal complaint.

Cammarano is charged with accepting $25,000 in cash bribes, including $10,000 as late as last Thursday.

At a restaurant in Staten Island, the same informant met with Smith, the Democratic Assemblyman and a three-term Jersey City councilman, and an unnamed city official, seeking help expediting an anticipated zoning change. After Smith briefly left the table, the informant, carrying a courier envelope stuffed with $5,000, asked the unnamed official, "So what are we going to do? Give it to him after?"

He replied, "Give it to me and I'll have to give it to him."

"But the guy understands I'm looking to get expedited?"

"Oh yeah," assured the official.

Smith is charged with conspiracy to commit extortion.

Officials arrested in corruption ring leave federal court

Massive N.J. corruption sting targets mayors, legislators, rabbis - NJ.com

it's good law and order won out and they were arrested.