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Not
All Politics Is Local:A Colorado Race
And the International Kahanist Network
The Washington Report on Middle east
Affairs
By The DC Investigative Journalism Collective
On March 1, 2008, a Palestinian-American woman named Rima
Barakat Sinclair raised her hand at a Denver meeting of the
Colorado Republican Party. Little did she know that her simple
action would initiate a string of unforeseeable consequences,
with the potential of substantively changing the terms of
the Israeli- Palestinian debate in U.S. politics.
About 50 party members attended the meeting, held in Colorado’s
overwhelmingly Democratic, and Jewish, 6th House District.
They were there to choose a candidate for the seat of Colorado
House Speaker Andrew Romanoff (D), who was ineligible to run
for re-election due to term limit restrictions.
By a vote of 25 to 23, Barakat Sinclair defeated the one other
contender for the position. Her candidacy was then con- firmed
in a unanimous second vote. Then the trouble started—thanks,
perhaps, to individuals associated with Denver-based Jewish
Republicans of Colorado, or J-GOP, which has a history of
support for Israel’s most extreme right-wing politics.
Just days after the March 1 meeting, Denver Republican blogger
Joshua Sharf expressed his dismay at President George W. Bush’s
efforts to achieve before leaving office a framework agreement
for a Palestinian state. “Will someone please explain
to me exactly why we’re supposed to help broker a base
of operations[crossed out in original] state for these jackals
and hyenas?” Sharf wrote.
A few weeks later, Sharf issued a challenge to the state party’s
nomination of Barakat Sinclair, labeling her an “Islamist”
and a “terror apologist.” Since he had referred
to her in a 2006 post as a “terrorist financier,”
this ad hominem attack actually showed relative restraint
on Sharf’s part. An article in the InterMountain Jewish
News entitled “Daggers at Israel: Unusual House Primary”
describes Sharf as a supporter of “Americans Against
Terrorism” (AAT), a “grassroots pro-Israel group
based in Denver.” Records at the Colorado secretary of
state’s Web site indicate that AAT was registered in
March 2003 by Boulder attorney Matt Finberg, with directors
William P. Eigels and Neil Dobro—only to be “administratively
dissolved” in September 2004.
On June 3 of this year, Sharf announced that he had turned
in the required signatures allowing him to challenge Barakat
Sinclair’s nomination. The now candidate also noted that
his “close friend and supporter, Dr. Neil Dobro, will
be the speaker at the monthly dinner of the Jewish Republicans
of Colorado on June 19. Neil, the founder of Americans Against
Terrorism, will be speaking on Israel’s Prospects Against
Terror for the Next 60 Years.” Dobro has accused Barakat
Sinclair of being a champion of “terrorist gangs.”
His view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is clear cut:
“Arab ‘victims,’” he writes, “are
killed inadvertently and in part for their bad choices. Israelis
are killed purposely by terrorists.”
His solution is equally straightforward: Palestinians who
do not want to get killed should “do as thousands of
other Arabs have done: get away from what surely will be the
line of fire.” In other words, Palestinians who wish
to stay alive should leave their homes and flee, as thousands
did during 1948. When contacted via e-mail, Barakat Sinclair
shared with the authors (dc-ijc) an April e-mail exchange
with Sharf’s current manager, Ruth Prendergast, discussing
the latter’s “concerns” about Islam. In her
e-mail, Barakat Sinclair expressed her “shock and pain”
over Prendergast’s claims in a conversation during a
monthly breakfast meeting of Colorado Republican Women that
“Muslims have a plan to infiltrate the U.S. government
and that [they] believe that all infidels should be killed.
Your suggestion,” Barakat Sinclair writes, “that
Muslims should, first, renounce their beliefs before they
run for office was outrageous.” Pendergast does not deny
in her response that she holds those views. “Quite naturally,”
she writes, “I am not the student of Islam as you are,
however, I do have concerns.”
Barakat Sinclair also showed Rocky Mountain News columnist
Bill Johnson a “raft of angry mail and anti-Muslim Web
postings” about her, some mirroring the same Islamophobic
views. The attacks have elicited letters of concern from local
interfaith groups, including the Interfaith Alliance of Colorado,
which lamented the use of “religiously incendiary statements
in the political arena,” and the Denver–based Abrahamic
Initiative, which issued a letter cautioning that “Islamopho-
bic rhetoric has been used in the District 6 campaign.”
An e-mail petition circulating worldwide, which includes signatures
from Israel, asserts that “Christian right and Jewish
extremists have launched a character assassination campaign
against [Barakat Sinclair]. She has been called ‘a Palestinian
cockroach,’ ‘a terror apologist’ and worse.
The silence of religious moderates and secular organizations
has magnified the influence of this small group.”
In an e-mail to the dc-ijc, Sharf stated that “I have,
in the course of the campaign, said nothing disparaging about
Ms. Sinclair’s religion or ethnicity. Period. And I challenge
her or her supporters to show where I have because they cannot.
Period.”
In his initial blog calling for a challenge to Barakat Sinclair’s
nomination, however, entitled “Islamist Trouble in House
District 6,” Sharf writes that “Mrs. Barakat Sinclair
is a local Muslim activist” and that she “has a
stated goal of getting Muslims involved in the political process.”
Sharf ends his call to action with the following: “What
we don’t need is a Barakat in Sinclair’s clothing.”
In April, the J-GOP itself weighed in, asking whether a Republican
candidate with an “anti-Israel bias” could be elected.
An Unexpected Turn
As a local cautionary tale, the events described above are
instructive in their own right. But the story extends well
beyond Denver. Matt (Moshe) Finberg, the registered agent
for Americans Against Terrorism, is a wealthy former Boulder
real estate attorney who in 2007 made aliyah (immigrated to
Israel) and now lives in the illegal settlement of Shiloh,
“near Jerusalem and outside the [1967] Green Line”—i.e.,
in the occupied West Bank.
On March 8, 2004 Finberg also registered “Israel’s
Best Friend” (IBF) with the Colorado secretary of state’s
office as a non-profit corporation, listing his law firm as
the registered agent. A May 20, 2007 posting by “Yekutiel”
under the heading http://israelsbestfriend.org on the Web
site Kahane.org—designated an alias of the banned foreign
terrorist organizations (FTOs) Kach and Kahane Chai by the
U.S. State Department—explains that “At one time
we went by name Gedud HaIvry and IBF...now we call ourselves
the Israel Canine Unit or Dogs for Israel’s Defense...”
Gedud HaIvry is Hebrew for “Jewish Legion”—also
listed by the State Department as an alias of Kach and Kahane
Chai.
The State Department list includes The Judean Legion, Jewish
Legion and Kahane.org, as well as numerous other aliases (see
November 2007 Washington Report, p. 31). The Jewish Legion
is headed by Mike “Yekutiel” Guzofsky, former CEO
of Kahane Chai. Nor did Finberg stop with Israel’s Best
Friend. In 2005, in the wake of the Israeli government’s
unilateral removal of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip,
Finberg registered two other nonprofit groups with the Colorado
secretary of state: Revava and Hameir L’David, associated
with former Kahane Chai activist David HaIvry (aka David Axelrod).
The filings for Revava and Hameir L’David state that
their business is to “receive donations.” Both groups
are registered as “trade names” of B’Nai Elim,
another nonprofit founded by Finberg, who served as its “international
chairman.” Finberg also served a stint as “international
chairman” of a revival of Rabbi Meir Kahane’s Jewish
Defense League, also registered (in August 2004) as a nonprofit
with the Colorado secretary of state, but now delinquent.
In 2005 Finberg defended his association with HaIvry/Axelrod,
stating that HaIvry was a member of Kach and Kahane Chai “10
to 20 years ago when the parties were no more controversial
than the Green Party in the U.S.” In 2006, Finberg was
a guest on “Voice of Judea,” the Internet TV show
of Mike Guzofsky, former CEO of Kahane Chai. According to
the U.S. State Department, Kach, Kahane Chai and its aliases
continue to engage in terrorist activity by:
• using explosives or firearms with intent to endanger
the safety of individuals or cause substantial damage to property
(including an attempt to leave an explosive-packed trailer
outside a Palestinian girls school and hospital in East Jerusalem)
• threatening and conspiring to carry out assassinations
• soliciting funds and members for a terrorist organization
Meanwhile, Back in Colorado...
In Denver last October, the J-GOP hosted Marc Prowisor, described
in a 2005 Boston Globe article as commander of volunteer “quick-response
teams of settlers armed and funded by the [Israeli] government”
in the settlement of Shiloh. The discussion topic at the J-GOP
event was “Tactical Response in Israel: Equipment for
first responders and perimeter systems.” According to
one participant, “equipment” included weapons. Checks
were signed and handed over. One month after Prowisor’s
appearance at the J-GOP, the “Boulder Jewish Republicans
Special Israel-Topic event” hosted another speaker from
Shiloh—Matt Finberg. In his e-mail Sharf informed dc-ijc
that he supports “the actions of both the State Department
and the Government of Israel, which also banned the Kach Party.”
When asked whether he supports the current Republican administration’s
efforts to achieve a framework for peace based on a two-state
solution, his response was: “no comment.” Sharf
also stated that he supports the entry of Muslims into the
American political process, “as the great strength of
our system is its ability to incorporate people from all backgrounds
into that process.”
His stated support of bringing Muslims into the political
process will be put to the test by how he responds to statements
(and actions) from his supporters at odds with that position.
Whoever wins the August primary, or even the November general
election, one local issue will remain to be addressed: how
did a small group of Coloradans establish a funding network
for designated terrorist organizations banned by the governments
of both the U.S. and Israel, and establish it through nonprofit,
U.S.-tax payer subsidized corporations certified by the Colorado
secretary of state? Colorado taxpayers may be surprised to
learn whose money is being used to finance terrorist organizations
in the Middle East.
The DC Investigative Journalism Collective
can be contacted at <dcinvestigate@ yahoo.com>.
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