FROM AUGUST, 2005--KHASHOGGI AND GAZA

I am reposting this previous blog entry from my initial, now publicly blocked, blogspot, karlmarxwasright, for reference.

Saturday, August 13, 2005

Khashoggi and Gaza
I made reference in a previous blog, July 26, 2005, "Israeli Casino.." to an article in the WSJ detailing the above subject.

Here's more extensive excerpts from this article.
The article is from February 4, 1994, Wall St. Journal.
The heading is, "Guns and Butter: Khashoggi Is Back, Angling for a Profit From Mideast Peace," subheading, "Saudi Arms Dealer Teams Up with an Israeli Partner, Pushing Industrial Plans Covering Gaza's Waterfront."
It's a long article. I'll quote as much as I can from it:

"Khashoggi and Nimrodi are angling to become the leading industrialists in the Gaza Strip...their plans cover the waterfront.
In the works are a telecommunications system, electric-power generator, desalinization plant, pipe factory, a Muslim-pilgrimage company, investment bank, railroad, even an airline...the two adventurers are working with each other, and with the World Bank, to form several large industrial companies that would be owned by Israeli, Palestinian and other Arab investors...Khashoggi says he is focusing on Russia, Iran and the Mideast.
In the past two years, he says he has made nearly $3 million on the Tel Aviv stock exchange...
Khashoggi says he has been secretly sowing seeds in Israel...as far back as 1967, the confidant of Saudi kings opened clandestine links with Western Jews, Mossad agents and Israeli politicians...
'Adnan has always had this notion of marrying the energy and business acumen of the Israeli with the capital of the Arab world,' says Kenneth Bialkin, the financier's longtime US lawyer and a partner in the NY firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.
As a former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Bialkin has introduced Khashoggi to many powerful Israelis over the years...
In the mid 1950s, Nimrodi was sent to Tehran as Israel's secret military attache to Iran...the young colonel remained in Tehran for 24 years-the first 14 for Israel, the last 10 for himself. He built the Shah's intelligence agency while earning huge commissions on some $250 million a year in arms sales to Iran...
They [Khashoggi and Nimrodi] met in Paris in 1975. The rendezvous was arranged by the late Herman 'Hank' Greenspun, publisher of the Las Vegas Sun...Greenspun knew Khashoggi thru Eugene Warner, another Jewish activist in Las Vegas and an advisor to the Saudi tycoon.
Warner...didn't return calls for this article. Khashoggi says he met Warner in 1958...as a guest of Howard Hughes...At their 1975 introduction, Khashoggi and Nimrodi were joined by Adolph 'Al' Schwimmer, the Israeli-American founder of Israel Aircraft Industries, the country's largest defense contractor...
According to Arabs and Israelis who know both men, Khashoggi and Nimrodi arranged arms transactions long before the first Iran-Contra deal in 1985...in the late 1970s, Khashoggi floated a proposal by King Fhad, then the Saudi crown prince, for peace in exchange for Saudi control of the Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem.
As an added incentive, says Nimrodi, the Saudis dangled some $100 billion of investment capital for the region to underwrite development. Nimrodi took the offer to Israeli PM Menachem Begin...who said Jerusalem wasn't for sale.
The plot thickens.
According to Nimrodi, in 1981, after many fortunes were wiped out in the Iranian revolution, Khashoggi, Nimrodi and Schwimmer decided to overthrow Khomeni...they recruited the late Shah's son, Reza Phalavi, to lead the effort. The mercaneries would be funded by Riyadh, armed by Israel, trained in Sudan, according to Nimrodi. There followed a gathering...in May 1982. Along with Nimrodi and Schwimmer came Sharon, the Israeli defense minister and David Kimche, then director general of Israel's foreign ministry...Khashoggi brought along Sudanese President Gafaar Numeiri...The CIA, which was kept abreast of the plan, didn't interfere, Nimrodi says.
The CIA declines to comment. But the Mossad Intelligence service, despite Sharon's involvement, ultimately killed the scheme....The intifada...bred still more initiatives.
In 1989, at the height of the rebellion, Khashoggi proposed that Israel simply abandon the Gaza Strip. He and some Arab backers would step in and with #20 billion or so, turn the swath of sand dunes and refugee camps into a cross between Las Vegas and Hong Kong...Nimrodi explored the concept further with Bassam Abu Sherif, a close PLO associate of Arafat...After the Gulf War and the Mideast peace conference in Madrid, Khashoggi began investing heavily in Israeli stocks...Their Gaza plans began churning nearly a year ago...Khashoggi himself is raising capital for an Arab-Israeli investment bank. Nimrodi recently visited Kuwait...to by a 10% stake in Shorouk Airlines, a Kuwaiti-Egyptian venture that plans to fly to Jerusalem from Cairo and Kuwait..."

I deleted and skipped over some background material on the Iran-Contra deal. Also, apparently, Nimrodi alreadys owns a desalination-technology company in Israel, but, the article didn't state the name of the company.