Holocaust profiteering. (Insider Report).

Michael Kleiner, a member of the Israeli Knesset (legislature), has condemned several prominent Jewish organizations for "rak[ing] into their coffers" an estimated $1 billion in unclaimed Holocaust compensation funds set aside by Swiss banks, reported the January 15th Jerusalem Post. An estimate obtained by Kleiner indicated that only three percent of the $1.25 billion in settlement funds "is likely to be paid to the legal heirs of the assets," observed the Post.

Under the 1998 settlement agreement, the Swiss banks were not required to publish lists of bank account and insurance policyholders purportedly entitled to a share of the money. This arrangement was supported by the World Jewish Congress (WJC) and other organizations. However, Kleiner accuses the WJC and its allies of "a conflict of interests ... since they cut a deal under which all unclaimed moneys would go to them."

"There are heirs, and it is not too late to find them," maintains Kleiner. "If the Jewish organizations had any morals, they would push for the publication of the names, instead of making plans ... to spend the money on projects." The Jewish organizations "have done everything to ensure that the looted funds and Jewish property will end up in their coffers, instead of going to the legal heirs," Kleiner insists.

Kleiner should be commended for trying to expose such shameless profiteering. However, as professor Angelo Codevilla of Boston University documented in his book Between the Alps and a Hard Place, Switzerland's accusers have not provided a single molecule of evidence that the Swiss government or banking system stole the assets of Holocaust victims. And as previously reported (see the Insider Report item "The Nazis' Nonexistent Swiss Bank Accounts" in our December 3, 2001 issue), the Zurich Independent Claims Tribunal reported last October that it had failed to find evidence supporting the charges against the Swiss.

In THE NEW AMERICAN'S 1997 examination of the anti-Swiss campaign ("Goodbye Gold," October 13, 1997), we quoted Israeli journalist Tom Segev's perspective: "Getting excited about private people's bank accounts trivializes the Holocaust. Israelis get an unpleasant feeling from the bombastic language the people of the World Jewish Congress are using. There's a feeling that says, 'Don't use me, don't use the Holocaust for your own P.R.'" The WJC remains deaf to such pleas, having collaborated with the Clinton administration and powerful internationalist forces in a successful extortion scheme.