Final_Judgment

148 Israel’s Godfather [87]
Both Stephenson and Bloomfield were integral to gunrunning
operations on behalf of the Jewish terrorist underground that later emerged as
the government of the new Jewish State in 1948.
It was in 1947 that Rudolph Sonneborn (husband of New York
publisher Dorothy Schiff) set up an entity known as the Sonneborn
Institute. It was this institute that provided the Jewish Haganah, and later
the Irgun, in Palestine with arms and money. The Institute's coordinator for
arms smuggling to the Jewish underground was Louis Bloomfield.
Working with Bloomfield were liquor baron Samuel Bronfman, one Hank
Greenspun (about whom we shall see much more later in Chapter 17) and
Lansky himself. 237
It was during the 1947-1948 period that Teddy Kollek, later mayor of
Jerusalem, was in charge of the Haganah station in Lansky's then-base of
operations, New York City. He was said to be the formal liaison with
American organized crime. 238 Kollek worked with the Lansky Syndicate
and ultimately had contact with yet another key player in our story, one
James Jesus Angleton—a controversial figure indeed. 239
It was Angleton, an OSS man, who later became a top-ranking figure
in the American CIA and Israel's chief contact—some would say co-opted
agent and loyalist—within CIA ranks. Angleton worked closely with
Jewish underground activities both in London and in Italy and was
instrumental in orchestrating U.S. intelligence collaboration with the
Corsican Mafia and the Sicilian Mafia in intelligence operations during
these same years and thereafter.
(In Chapter 8 and Chapter 16 we shall examine Angleton's CIA
activities, working closely with Israel and of his pivotal role in the JFK
assassination and cover-up conspiracy in detail.)
Clearly, during the period of the establishment of Israel, Meyer Lansky
was directly and intimately involved with all of the major players. Many of
these same people would later be involved with Lansky in what some call
"the crime of the century." The Russian-born Jewish immigrant had come a
long way from the slums of Brooklyn to a singular and pre-eminent role in
global power politics. Indeed, Lansky was emerging as the "godfather" of a
newly born nation: Israel.
ISRAEL: A BASE OF OPERATIONS
The real key to the Lansky connection with Israel is money. The
newly-established State of Israel not only needed money to exist, but the
organization of a new government was an ideal opportunity for Lansky and
his confederates to establish their own worldwide financial—and criminal—
network. In its early years Israel was "untouchable." The emotional
memories of the experiences of the Jewish people during World War II—
indeed throughout history—were the foundations upon which Israel had been
established. Criticism of Israel was verboten. The new Jewish