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Miriam Adelson, widow of billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, listens to Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump speak to prominent Jewish donors during an event titled "Fighting Anti-Semitism in America" at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill on September 19, 2024 in Washington, DC.Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

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(LifeSiteNews) — In 2015, Donald Trump boasted that he was owned only by the American people – unlike his rival in the nomination, Marco Rubio, who Trump said would become a “puppet” for taking the money of wealthy Zionist backer Sheldon Adelson.

Trump explained his appeal to the American people in an interview with Fox News. He was different from people like Rubio, he said, because “nobody controls me but the American public.”

Trump had vowed to remain his own man, using his own money to fund his campaign. Naming Adelson and the Koch brothers as examples of billionaires whose money had bought his rivals, he stressed his independence.

“I’m self-funding. I don’t want anybody’s money. But if Sheldon gives to him, he will have total control over Rubio.” 

Trump went on, “Sheldon or whoever — you could say Koch. I could name them all. They’re all friends of mine, every one of them. I know all of them. They have pretty much total control over the candidate.”

READ: Trump’s pivot on abortion is having a ripple effect on the Republican Party

Yet two months later, a report in December 2015 said “Republican donor Adelson and Trump may be aligning on Israel.” Reuters said the meeting “could pave the way for a deeper relationship between the two men.”

Adelson described Trump as “charming.” Trump replied with a comment to warm Adelson’s heart.

On the subject of Israel, Trump added, ‘Sheldon knows that nobody will be more loyal to Israel than Donald Trump.'” 

The next year, the same Sheldon Adelson offered Trump $100 million.  

He took it. 

Since 2016, Sheldon and his wife Miriam Adelson have donated over $500 million to back Trump and the Republicans around him.

What do the Adelsons want for their money? Israeli-born Miriam Adelson explained in August 2024. Donald Trump has kept all the promises he made – to the Adelsons.

In November 2018, Miriam Adelson was presented with the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, by Donald Trump. 

She was described as a philanthropist, the medal awarded in recognition of “her incredible career and record of service to her community – and the country.”

Sheldon Adelson died in 2021. His estimated $33 billion fortune is now managed by his wife, Miriam – one of the richest women in the world. 

While he lived, those who noticed his influence seldom noticed who was in charge. 

“Everybody says it’s Sheldon, but it’s Miriam,” close Adelson associate Michael Cherry said in the Times of Israel. Other friends have openly declared her beliefs. 

Her “close friend” Rabbi Shmuley Boteach said Miriam was implacably opposed to the two-state solution in Israel. Adelson reportedly refused to back Trump whilst Nimrata “Nikki” Haley remained in the nomination race. 

So who is Miriam Adelson? 

Miriam Ochshorn Farbstein was born in Jaffa, Israel, in 1945 to Polish Jewish parents. The suburb of her birth was called Tel Aviv, which became the Israeli capital following the end of the British Mandate of Palestine in 1948. She served the mandatory time in the Israel military and has been a highly committed Zionist. She married the American Sheldon Adelson in 1991 and convinced him to join in her “Israel First” aspirations. 

As the Daily Telegraph wrote in answer to the question “Who is Miriam Adelson?” she supported Trump when he moved against the peace process in Israel: “In 2019, she praised Trump for dispensing with the ‘useless mould of the so-called peace process.’” 

Her warm words came in response to Trump’s 2019 plan for the Middle East. Welcomed by Benjamin Netanyahu as “the deal of the century,” it delivered nothing for Americans, and most of the occupied territories for Israel. As the Daily Telegraph wrote:

“Titled ‘Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People’, it gave Israel the green light to annex about 30 per cent of the territory, which Israel [editor’s note: illegally] captured in 1967 in the Six Day War.”

RELATED: USS Liberty – When Israel attacked the U.S.A.

This included the Syrian Golan Heights and green-lit moves to annex much of the West Bank – land reserved for a future Palestinian state. Sympathies aside, these moves simply make peace impossible while non-Jews remain in Israel.

The Adelsons’ money comes mainly from the Las Vegas Sands casino chain, which was reported in 2018 as generating over $13 billion annually in revenue.  

Yet it was revealed in 2019 by the Times of Israel that Miriam not only had more money than Sheldon, but that she was the “driving force” behind Sheldon Adelson’s “political activities.”

What were those activities? 

Before his death in 2021, Sheldon Adelson was known not only as a leading backer of the GOP, but also as a man with only one policy – Israel First. A 2018 report says, “After decades as a major Republican donor, Adelson is known as an ideological figure, motivated by his desire to influence U.S. policy to help Israel.” 

As ProPublica recorded in its 2018 piece “Trump’s Patron in Chief,” Adelson only had one aim. 

“I’m a one-issue person. That issue is Israel,” he said.

ProPublica’s report continued: “On that issue – Israel – Trump has delivered. The administration has slashed funding for aid to Palestinian refugees and scrapped the Iran nuclear deal. Attending the recent opening of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, Adelson seemed to almost weep with joy, according to an attendee.”

For more on the Adelson-Trump relationship, see “Who Is GOP Mega-Donor Miriam Adelson & What Does She Want? by Jewish-American journalist Glenn Greenwald.

Another useful Greenwald report is “Repressive Terrorism Act Weaponized Against Israel’s Critics.” Unfortunately, Greenwald, an admitted homosexual, refers once to his “husband” in the program. However, he has been a frequent, professional reporter, with many guests, on the Israel-Palestinian conflict and rarely brings his personal life into his programs.

How influential was Sheldon Adelson? Craig Holman of the watchdog group Public Citizen said of Adelson’s influence in the first Trump administration: “I’ve never seen anything like it before, and I’ve been studying money in politics for 40 years.” 

“I would put Adelson at the very top of the list of both access and influence in the Trump administration.”  

On Adelson’s death, his wife Miriam said, “He crafted the course of nations. Some of the historical achievements he helped effect – in the United States, Israel, and elsewhere, are publicly known. Others are not.”

Miriam Adelson was the driving force behind Sheldon Adelson’s craft, which has shaped the course of the nations of Israel and America. History shows that the leaders of both nations have long been subject to the Adelsons’ joint “achievements.”

The Adelsons are not widely known, and when they are, their Israel First zealotry is downplayed. Publicly, President George W. Bush praised Adelson upon his death as “An American patriot and a strong supporter of Israel.”

Netanyahu was blunt, describing the late Adelson as “a champion of the Jewish people.”

In 2010, Adelson himself lamented having served in the U.S. – and not in the Israeli – army: “The uniform that I wore in the military, unfortunately, was not an Israeli uniform.” 

Why? He explained the sentiments which motivated him – and his Israeli-born wife Miriam: “All we care about is being good Zionists, being good citizens of Israel, because even though I am not Israeli-born, Israel is in my heart.”

Crafting the fate of nations

Privately, Bush recoiled from the Adelsons’ pressure on him to overrule sitting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, whose moves towards a two-state solution infuriated the Adelsons in 2007.

“I can’t be more Catholic than the Pope,” said Bush, according to Adelson, saying that it was for the Israeli prime minister to decide the policy of Israel – not the wealthy donors to the Bush campaign. 

Adelson money has not only moved against the ruling government of Israel itself, but also against AIPAC, the former American Zionist Political Action Committee whose widespread sponsorship of presidents, senators and congressmen has delivered enormous political influence.

Despite funding AIPAC himself, Adelson threatened to defund the lobby group, whose tentative move in 2007 to send aid to Palestine saw “Adelson liken AIPAC to a friend assisting Israel’s suicide.” 

The Jewish Telegraph Agency in 2007 also said, “Adelson’s criticism of the pro-Israel lobby comes as the Israeli government heads into U.S.-convened peace talks with the Palestinians…”

No nation for Palestine

Adelson’s attacks on the Israeli government and on its lobby in that of the U.S. were timed to sabotage peace. As such, Bush was only highlighting a piece of missing information about the Adelsons, which Israeli news has documented for years. The Adelsons do not believe in the existence of indigenous Palestinians at all.

Haaretz reported on the 2015 Israeli-American Council, at which Sheldon Adelson spoke. The report summarized the gist of his remarks as follows: “Palestinians are a made-up nation which exists solely to attempt to destroy Israel.”

Jewish Israeli historian Ilan Pappé and numerous other anti-Zionist Jews, including many orthodox rabbis, contradict this fallacy as stated in the following short video interview with Jewish journalist Max Blumenthal that was recorded in 2017.

Adelson was told that his extreme position meant the end of democracy in Israel, as measures he pushed would see voting rights removed from non-Jews, with their collective designation as terrorists signalling their physical removal as well.

“So Israel won’t be a democratic state, so what?” he said, adding that “democracy, after all, is not mentioned in the Torah.”

Adelson had used his money to pressure George W. Bush to veto the peace process in 2007. After the Obama years saw him isolated, he returned with his sponsorship of Rubio in 2015, leading Trump to call Rubio Adelson’s “perfect little puppet.”

Adelson wishes, granted by Trump

By May 2016, it was obvious that Trump had the nomination. By 2020, Adelson had invested $100 million in Trump. What did he get for his money?

The Intercept reported in 2021: “In return, Adelson got everything he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could ever dream of.”

Adelson’s wish list has been granted. His demands have all been met so far. 

Adelson wanted to end diplomacy with Iran, and Trump stopped the Iran deal in June 2018. Adelson also wanted the U.S. Embassy moved to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv—Trump did this in the same month. Adelson wanted the U.S. to recognize Israel’s claim to the Golan Heights. Done. 

Why does this matter? East Jerusalem is internationally recognized as the future capital of a Palestinian state. To recognize it as that of Israel helps to erase the two-state solution’s future. 

READ: How Israel uses atrocity propaganda to sell its war in Gaza to Americans

The expansion of the armed seizure of land and homes in the West Bank has also occurred. The Intercept explains why Adelson wanted Trump to back this move: “Adelson wanted the U.S. to legitimize Israel’s policy of building settlements in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem; Trump did so in January 2019, reversing long-standing bipartisan U.S. policy that saw settlements as illegitimate obstacles to peace because they make a geographically viable Palestinian state impossible.” 

Finally, in his “last political act” as president in 2020, Trump lifted travel restrictions on Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, who flew to Israel on a plane provided by Adelson. He was greeted on arrival by a jubilant Netanyahu.

Pollard had spent 30 years in jail for giving top-level U.S. intelligence to Israel.  

He has been described as “one of the most damaging spies in US history.”

On his release in 2015, the Los Angeles Times reported that “Pollard said that he acted out of love for Israel and that the U.S. was not sharing crucial intelligence about Arab countries with its ally.”

“But prosecutors and U.S. intelligence analysts said that he did it for cash and that spies for the U.S. in the Soviet Union were discovered and probably killed because of Pollard’s actions.”

The LA Times added: “During his first term as prime minister, Netanyahu attempted to make Pollard’s release a condition of agreeing to a peace deal with Palestinians.” 

When Pollard – celebrated as a “hero” in Israel – was freed, the New York Times recalled how “[i]n 1998, President Bill Clinton considered releasing him to seal an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, only to back off after George J. Tenet, the C.I.A. director, threatened to resign.”

In 2017, Netanyahu again tried to make a deal with Trump to secure Pollard’s right to travel to Israel. He offered to make “goodwill gestures” towards the Palestinians, having been elected on a promise to destroy the peace process. 

Three years later, Trump delivered again for Israel, liberating one of the greatest traitors to America in return for… what? 

Between 2016 and 2021, Sheldon Adelson had given $424 million to Trump and to the Republicans around him. 

Since Adelson’s death in 2021, Miriam Adelson has attached conditions.

Since July, she has supported Trump’s Preserve America PAC with $100 million. Yet the funding was withheld pending assurances of permission for Israel to annex the West Bank. Miriam Adelson is buying U.S. foreign policy on her terms and conditions. 

What does the U.S. get from these trades? 

Pollard’s flight to Israel was described as a moment to “heal the rift” over the question of divided loyalties – between Israel and America.  

Will a new Trump administration seal this deal for good? 

“If Trump wins, Adelson could once again be instrumental in shaping American policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” says the Times of Israel, remarking on the art of the deal to put Israel first.

The Adelsons have always opposed the peace process and the “two-state solution” of a Palestinian state being created with its capital in East Jerusalem and including the West Bank and Gaza.

Mondoweiss reported that “[Sheldon] Adelson saw Olmert’s actions [towards the two-state solution] as a betrayal of principle. He had long wanted to see the Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu returned as Prime Minister, but a revived peace process gave that goal new urgency.” 

Sheldon Adelson bought an Israeli newspaper to promote Netanyahu, who has vowed for years to destroy the two-state solution. This news, openly reported in Israel, will be as shocking to U.S. readers as the fact Netanyahu “for years” supported Hamas, knew in advance of the October 7 attacks, and has made “relentless efforts” to halt any deal to return the Israeli hostages. 

This last revelation, made as with all the others in Israeli news, led the families of the hostages to storm Netanyahu’s house last week. The Israeli government has said to the families that the war will not be stopped to free the hostages. 

Why would Netanyahu do all this? To destroy the possibility of peace. Why does this matter? This is also the goal of the Adelsons, whose hundreds of millions have sponsored the shift from America – to Israel First.

Netanyahu’s strategy is leading Israel into a war with Iran, which even a former IDF general says it cannot fight without the U.S., let alone win.

Yet the goal may not be winning at all. Like America First, winning wars seems to be a relic of American history. None of the wars in the Middle East have been won.

People like Dennis L. Fritz have declared that Iraq was simply “a proxy war for Israel.”

Starting them and keeping them going has cost Americans $9 trillion since the War on Terror was declared after 9/11. Will Trump deliver another forever war in Iran to grant another Adelson wish?

Americans like what Trump is selling. His battle against a corrupt elite, his opposition to globalism and open borders, and his obvious victimization by a weaponized legal system have mustered MAGA-hatted Americans in their millions to his campaign. Some polls have him leading in key states by significant margins, recalling his remarks in 2015:

“I think that’s why I’m leading so much because nobody controls me but the American public. I’m going to do the right thing for the country – not the right thing for the company I represent as a lobbyist or whatever it may be.” 

Trump has signalled in recent days that he fully backs Netanyahu – whatever he “has to do.” Trump claims Biden has “held Netanyahu back” as Israel escalates its genocide in Gaza and launches a further war in Lebanon. 

Israel now faces another war with Iran it cannot survive without direct U.S. intervention. The stakes are high in a moment that will once again craft the shape of nations.

With freedom of choice in elections on the line, it is obvious why so many Americans prefer Trump’s deal to that of Kamala Harris. A Trump win looks ever more likely. Only when the celebrations are over will we know the nature of the deal, and whether “buyer beware” has become buyer’s remorse for the American people.

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