Do You get Tsurus from Soros aiding Refugees and Migrants?

by Jerry Gordon (October 2016)


George Soros

In St. Cloud, Minnesota, 22 year old Dahir Adan, a Somali émigré and private security guard at the Crossroads Mall attacked 10 victims with a kitchen knife and eventually was shot and killed by an off duty police officer from an adjacent community, after the assailant lunged at him with the knife.

That was capped by Monday’s shootout and arrest of Afghan émigré, 28 year old Ahmad Khan Rahami. He was identified as the likely suspect who created pipe and pressure cooker bombs, several of which exploded in a trash can at a Marine 5k race in Seaside Park, New Jersey. More threateningly, a bomb planted by Rahami blew up under a dumpster at 23rd Street and Sixth  Avenue in the Chelsea section of Manhattan on Saturday evening injuring 31 persons.

President Obama in his press conferences on these terrorist attacks thanked the FBI and local law enforcement, forensic technology and surveillance photos and sharp-eyed citizens who saw something and called the police quickly ending the episode. More information keeps coming out about what motivated these émigré terror plots.

That was the inadvertent prelude to the September 20, 2016 World Leaders’ Refugee Summit where President Obama was host. In his final Presidential appearance at the UN General Assembly he referred to the necessity of helping refugees, only making an oblique reference to Islamic terror groups like ISIS. He blasted Russian President Putin. His speech did not mention the weekend terror events in Manhattan, New Jersey and Minnesota caused by émigré Islamic terrorists. Following the UN General Assembly meetings, there was a third refugee terrorist incident on September 24, 2016 at the Cascade mall 60 miles north of Seattle, Washington. Arcan Cetin, a 20 year old Turkish immigrant with green card status, shot and killed four women and a man at a Macy’s in the mall.

Soros Migrant Investment Proposal

As noted in a Fox News report:

“We have to open our hearts and do more to help refugees who are desperate for a home,” he said. “We have to have the empathy to see ourselves.”

The Administration focused on ramping up refugee aid by more than $3 billion and as announced two weeks ago increased US refugee admissions in fiscal year 2017 to 110,000, a 30 percent increase over the 85,000 in 2016.

As if on cue, 86 year-old hedge fund mogul George Soros published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal saying that he was prepared to invest $500 million in businesses, including $100 million for tech start ups, for migrants, especially the migrant flood of over 1.7 million that created a crisis for EU member countries. It also created a security crisis given the estimated 5,000 ISIS foreign fighters who infiltrated that refugee migrant stream. Several of whom may have been involved with the Paris Massacres in November 2015 and bombings in Brussels in March 2016. Then there were refugee émigré attacks in Nice, the beheading of a Catholic priest at a church in Rouen, France. There were continuing refugee and migrant rampages in Calais, Paris and sexual assaults in Germany and Sweden. 

Soros in his op-ed said:

In response, I have decided to earmark $500 million for investments that specifically address the needs of migrants, refugees and host communities. I will invest in startups, established companies, social-impact initiatives and businesses founded by migrants and refugees themselves. Although my main concern is to help migrants and refugees arriving in Europe, I will be looking for good investment ideas that will benefit migrants all over the world.

This commitment of investment equity will complement the philanthropic contributions my foundations have made to address forced migration, a problem we have been working on globally for decades and to which we have dedicated significant financial resources.

Soros went on to say who would benefit from any profits of this investment pool:

All of the investments we make will be owned by my nonprofit organization. They are intended to be successful—because I want to show how private capital can play a constructive role helping migrants—and any profits will go to fund programs at the Open Society Foundations, including programs that benefit migrants and refugees.

As longtime champions of civil society, we will be focused on ensuring that our investments lead to products and services that truly benefit migrants and host communities.

We will also work closely with organizations such as the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Rescue Committee to establish principles to guide our investments. Our goal is to harness, for public good, the innovations that only the private sector can provide.

We suspect, because of the close relationship between Rupert Murdoch and Soros on such matters, the Wall Street Journal decided to grant Soros a media soap box to make this announcement.

Soros’ Financial Exploits

As a send up on the ancient warning in the chronicle of the Trojan Wars, “beware Soros bearing gifts.” Soros has used his enormous wealth to further his open society goals to create a borderless international government and avoided philanthropic commitments to Israel. Forbes Magazine’s current listing of the world moguls, currently ranks Soros as No. 24 with an estimated net worth of $24.9 billion.

After WWII, he moved from war torn Hungary to the UK to attend the London School of Economics where he was an acolyte of philosopher Karl Popper, who espoused the achievement of an open world society. He learned his risk arbitrage investment practices first in the City of London, then moved to New York in 1950 where he established a reputation at the boutique investment firm of Bleichroder Bing subsequently founding a series of successful hedge funds culminating in the Quantum fund.

After all his Quantum Fund earned a cool $1 billion profit in 24 hours in 1992 when he cornered the Sterling market, “breaking the Bank of England.” That was followed by similar billion dollar  profits in currency risk arbitrage in Sweden and on the Tokyo Stock Market. 

Soros’ Peculiar Views on his Holocaust Experience, the New Anti-Semitism and Israel

Soros nee Schwartz (the family’s original name changed in the 1930’s) survived the Holocaust in Hungary. At age 14, young George was engaged to assist fascist officials expropriating Jewish properties. That background was covered in a 1998 CBS 60 Minutes interview with Soros conducted by Steve Kroft. Soros expressed no feelings of guilt considering it, “the happiest time of my life.”

The moguls of the Jewish Funders Network made the mistake of inviting Soros to speak at a meeting at the Harvard Club in 2003, thinking that he might join in the group’s philanthropic endeavors. They were flummoxed, when they heard him say, “European anti-Semitism is the result of the policies of Israel and the United States.” The JTA article on the rare appearance of Soros before a Jewish Group noted:

That is a point made by Israel’s most vociferous critics, whom some Jewish activists charge with using anti-Zionism as a guise for anti-Semitism.

Soros’ attitude towards his fellow Jews and Israel, doesn’t prevent him, on occasion, from investing in Israel start ups, usually in partnership with others like General Electric and Google.  He has also co-investing in several Palestinian software startups.

Soros’ Anti-Israel Philanthropy

It is his philanthropy with regard to Israel that made it the title of a 2013 NGO Monitor book, A Bad Investment: The Philanthropy of George Soros and the Arab Israeli Conflict. The book dissects Soros’ views of philanthropy, Judaism, Israel and the Middle East. In delves into the key instruments of his philanthropy, the Open Society Foundation (OSF), Soros Family Foundations and the beneficiaries of his largess. The family foundations have funded anti-Israel groups like J Street, Human Rights Watch and the Institute for Middle East Understanding. The OSF recipients are more problematic. Among the anti-Israel NGOs who have received funding are B’Tselem, Breaking the Silence, New Israel Fund, and Rabbis for Human Rights. Palestinians NGOs include Adalah- the Legal Center for Arab Rights in Israel, I’Lam: Media Center for Arab Palestinians in Israel, Mada al-Carmel – Arab Center for Applied Social Research and Palestinian Center for Human Rights.


David Milliband of the IRC and George Soros

Soros, The International Rescue Committee and Welcoming America

In the US, Soros has funded refugee and immigrant resettlement groups closely tied to the US Refugee Admissions Program of the State Department and the Department of Health and Human Services. Two of note are the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and Welcoming America.

The IRC has given him two humanitarian awards, the first in 1993, the second in 2013. Soros charities have contributed $1.2 million to the IRC over the past decade. The IRC is the largest beneficiary of the State Department Voluntary Agencies (Volags) processing refugees. Its most recent IRS Form 990 revealed over a half billion in fees and grants under the US non-competitive program. Its current executive director is former British foreign minister and Labor party figure, David Milliband, who receives over $600,000 in annual compensation. According to a Guardian report in May 2016, Milliband urged closure of UN run refugee camps and suggested that the wealthier nations accept 2 million of the most vulnerable refugees. Just before the UN Refugee Summit in Manhattan, he called for the U.K. to increase its acceptance by more than 4 times to upwards of 25,000 a year. Despite this, the IRC has been the subject of an investigation into contractual practices connected with the Syrian refugee program by the Inspector General of the USAID. The U.K. Telegraph reported in May 2016:

The United States is investigating an international aid group headed by David Miliband over allegations of corruption in projects intended to help Syrian civilians and refugees.

The IRC is one of three international groups to have had millions of pounds in funding withdrawn over alleged bid-rigging and bribery.

This includes International Medical Corps, one of the largest providers of medical aid to Syrians, and GOAL, an Irish NGO.

Allegations relate to the organizations systematically overpaying for goods in Turkey. A senior USAID official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said private Turkish companies had sold cut-rate blankets and other basic materials at vastly inflated prices and pocketed the difference.

The items were meant to ensure the survival of hundreds of thousands of Syrian civilians, many of whom have been left with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

Welcoming America (WA) was initially funded by a $300,000 grant from Soros. It was an outgrowth of a Welcoming Tennessee program headed by WA’s director David Lubell that sought to facilitate the entry of Somali, Iraqi, Sudanese  and others refugees into the Volunteer State. They received annual federal grants from the Office of Refugee Resettlement seeking to overcome opposition to the placement of refugees in certain communities. They work with these communities endeavoring to mollify them regarding the absorption problems of refugees. These problems include public health practices, treatment of women and lack of tolerance toward prevailing community values. Rupert Murdoch is a member in Partnership for a New American Economy, with luminaries like former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg and JW Marriott, Jr. They are involved in a joint program with WA targeting so-called Gateways for Growth integrating new Americans, meaning refugees and migrants. 

Conclusion

George Soros has been doing quite well with his philanthropy and his hedge fund investments.  He can well afford to give away a half billion dollars to invest in businesses, including high tech projects, spawned by the stream of refugees and migrants from largely Muslim countries inundating Europe and now North America. We don’t think the track record of largely unskilled Muslim refugees escaping those conflict zones are likely to develop meaningful investment opportunities. As demonstrated by what happened in Minnesota, New Jersey, New York and Washington state in September 2016 some of them may turn radical and commit acts terror against us. You are likely to get tsurus (Yiddish for trouble) as returns on the investment.

 

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The West Speaks.

 

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