Haim Saban, the Israeli whose capital group owns Univision, often boasts of his support for Israel. Yet Saban held a fundraiser for President Barack Obama Monday only two days after Obama announced a deal with Iran that puts Israel in mortal danger as it enables the Iranians to escape sanctions and continue with their nuclear plans. Saban actually had the chutzpah to say Obama’s “commitment to Israel’s security has never been stronger.”
At his palatial Beverly Hills home, Saban introduced Obama like this:
We’re out of Iraq, we’re out of Afghanistan and the military and intelligence cooperation with Israel — our staunchest ally in the Middle East, arguably in the world, has never been deeper and the president’s commitment to Israel’s security has never been strongerAnd if the Iranians are at the negotiating table today, make no mistake about it, it is only as a result of President Obama’s resolve in striking down the most strict sanctions ever.” The event was the second fundraiser of the night for Obama and the first Saban has hosted for the President directly.
Just last month, Southern California’s Public Radio reported that Saban used to be distant from Obama:
But it took him a long time to start writing checks to Barack Obama, whom he viewed as soft on Israel. “Saban was very hesitant and very suspicious that Obama was, at the worst, anti-Israel and the best, neutral on Israel,” said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, senior fellow at USC’s Price School of Public Policy. “And that didn’t cut it.
Saban used to be tough on the Iranians. What happened? He told Haaretz in 2006,
When I see Ahmadinejad, I see Hitler. They speak the same language. His motivation is also clear: the return of the Mahdi is a supreme goal. And for a religious person of deep self-persuasion, that supreme goal is worth the liquidation of five and a half million Jews. We cannot allow ourselves that. Nuclear weapons in the hands of a religious leadership that is convinced that the annihilation of Israel will bring about the emergence of a new Muslim caliphate? Israel cannot allow that. This is no game. It’s truly an existential danger.
Contacted by TruthRevolt.org, Saban would not comment on why he still supported Obama despite the new Iranian deal. But when one examines statements he’s made in the past, it’s all too clear that his statement to the New York Times in 2004, “I’m a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel,” is not where his heart truly lies. To understand that it’s proximity to power, not Israel, that matters to Saban, check out this bit from a 2004 interview with Haaretz:
But I do not belittle the fact that I can go to Angela Merkel in the Chancellory and say, ‘Hi, Angela, how are you?’ And she replies, ‘Haim, nice to see you.’ I don’t minimize that. That’s a great pleasure. And that I sit with Clinton in the White House and he goes to the refrigerator and asks me if I want regular water or fizzy? Sometimes I tell myself that there’s something a bit nutty here. He’s the president of the United States. I sell cartoons. So he is going to serve me and ask if I want regular or fizzy water?
When he was asked if a President Hillary Clinton would be capable of making tough decisions on Iran, he replied:
Her policy will be different. She believes, and I agree, that it’s a mistake to conduct negotiations through the European envoys. As I told you about Hamas, we have to talk with everyone, including Ahmadinejad. Hillary Clinton intends to engage with Iran in order to try to find a political solution that will ensure a non-nuclear Iran.
As long as Obama is president of the United States, Saban will suck up to him. Even if the “one issue” that matters to him has its very existence threatened.