Genie Energy Ltd. is a US energy company headquartered in Newark, New Jersey. It is a holding company comprising Genie Retail Energy, Genie Retail Energy International, Genie Energy Services, and Genie Energy Oil and Gas. It has extensive interests in the Occupied Territories of the Golan Heights, which is in Syria but is currently illegally annexed by Israel.
If readers would are curious about the shady deals that are made by international profiteers, then the following should help shed some light on a few of main actors. Some of the most prominent individuals officiating for Genie Energy are as follows:
Genie’s founder and former chairman is Howard Jonas (also founder of IDT with approx. 5000 employees of which it is estimated 25-40% are Orthodox Jews), Michael Stein is the company’s Chief Executive Officer of Genie Energy and Chief Executive Officer of Genie Retail Energy. He is also a trustee of the Etzion Foundation, which supports Yeshivat Har Etzion, a project which includes one of the largest Hesder programs in Israel, “combining advanced Talmud studies and military service.” Avi Goldin serves as the company’s CFO (also vice-President of Corporate Development at IDT). The president of its Israeli subsidiary is Effie Eitam, a former Brigadier General with the Israeli military.
Genie Energy’s Strategic advisory board is composed of: Dick Cheney (former vice president of the USA), Rupert Murdoch (media mogul and chairman of News Corp); James Woolsey (former CIA director); Larry Summers (former head of the US Treasury); Bill Richardson (former Governor of New Mexico, ex-ambassador to the United Nations and former US Energy Secretary); Michael Steinhardt (co-founder of Taglit-Birthright, a strongly Zionist organisation that arranges tours of Occupied Palestine for US Jews who support Israel); Jacob Rothchild (of the banking family, who also sat on the Council for the Duchy of Cornwall for the Prince of Wales, and has been a member of the international advisory board of Blackstone (this corporation, valued at approx. US$880 billion, bought the mortgage for 7 World Trade Center, which was destroyed 11 months later)), and Mary Landrieu, former United States Senator for Louisiana, and treasurer for that state; she is also a member of AIPAC (American Israeli Public Affairs Committee).
In February 2013, Israeli authorities awarded Afek Oil and Gas an exclusive petroleum exploration license for the Golan Heights, which the UN recognises as Syrian territory. Human rights groups have said the drilling violates international law as Golan Heights is an occupied territory.
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It will be seen from the above that the world of international finance and oil exploration is a grubby affair. The main movers and shakers come from a relatively small pool, and circulate within their own little fetid world. Politicians dance with bankers who dance with military commanders who dance with politicians. Round and round they go, as they get richer and many others suffer the consequences of their insatiable greed.
It seems almost laughable that a former vice-President of the USA would be mired in this type of corruption. Here we have an US company drilling for oil in territory being illegally occupied by Israel. The US administration facilitates this endeavour by refusing to oppose it. An Israeli general is involved. US bankers, corporate investors and politicians hop on board. We get the scenario whereby politics, religion and profit seamlessly conflate to produce a smorgasbord of avarice.
Rebel Voice wishes that highlighting these oily connections was enough. It’s not. There are so many instances of groups, corporations, organisations, trusts, foundations and projects that corrupt and deceive ,that it appears to be an acceptable practice. Maybe wider population groups just don’t care. Maybe they just don’t understand the nature and impact of the dirty deals being made in secret. Maybe the truth needs to be packaged in a well-funded and glossy TV mini-series to attract and hold the attentions of the citizenry. Whatever the cause, until the global population awakens to the hold that a small percentile have on the rest, then the wars, the famines, the homelessness, the injustice, the Apartheid and the inequality will continue ad nauseam.
Rebel Voice 