Ofergate: Pack Your Bags, We're Going on a Conspiracy Trip!
Sami Ofer has died at the age of 89.
Now, on the face of it, this is not that surprising: A lot of people die at the age of 89. But if you want to make the entire Middle East wrap its collective mind around a conspiracy-telephone-pole, you die directly after it is revealed that your Israeli shipping company has been sanctioned for dealing with Iran's energy sector:
In one case, a company was alleged to have been involved in providing a tanker to Iran. Additionally, at least eight ships belonging to Ofer companies are alleged to have docked in Iran in recent years.
It gets better: Richard Silverstein, the Jewish-American blogger behind Tikun Olam--which is the unhinged-progressive's answer to DEBKAfiles--claims his "Israeli source" is telling him what any good conspiracy-theorist would suspect:
A veteran Israeli politician has confirmed to my Israeli source that the note came from a “very high-ranking security official.” The same source also notes that Ofer Brothers ships docked in Iranian ports “dozens” of times in the past few years, thus allowing “numerous” Mossad agents to sneak ashore for secret missions. Interesting to note that some of the Mossad agents involved in the al-Mabouh assassination escaped via a ferry to Iran. That always struck me as odd given Iran’s animosity toward Israel. But if there was an Ofer Brothers ship waiting to take them home it wouldn’t be strange at all.
I’m betting even money that the note came from Mossad director, Tamir Pardo. All of this would mean that government protestations that they didn’t approve of such visits are lies unless of course they’re merely claiming the civiliangovernment didn’t approve of such shenanigans. Indeed, the Ofer Brothers may and will argue that they were only doing their patriotic duty in trading with Iran. How’s Israel gonna get out of this one I wonder?
This would indicate that Israel utilized a web of legitimate commercial interests to pursue its intelligence activities inside Iran. And it was willing to exploit such commercial ventures despite the fact that they were in direct contravention of an international embargo. The only reason the Mossad got caught was that the Obama administration had been crossed one time too many by Bibi and wanted to bring him down a peg or two. The Ofer Brothers blacklist story broke the same day Bibi came to Washington and this could not have been an accident.
Well, maybe: It sounds as plausible as the idea that the Ofer brothers just decided to violate the sanctions out of avarice, I suppose.
Now, let me add a detail that may have escaped the international conspiracy theorists who do not yet realize that if your conspiracy doesn't focus on Turkey, it's strictly amateur-hour.
The Ofer Brothers Group was the winner of Turkey’s controversial “Galataport” privatization bid with an offer of 3.5 billion euros. The Galataport privatization bid was first brought to the table in 2005, but the Chamber of Urban Planners took the process to the Council of State, which canceled the project in 2006 due to improper conduct, not due to the particulars of the bid.
When they say "controversial," they're not kidding:
But it was after his wrestling of the Galataport project, with his Turkish partners Global Yatırım Holding's Mehmet Kutman and the Çeçen Group, away from two other bidders for a 49-year build-operate-transfer scheme that he was fully investigated by the media and opposition political parties about his ties with the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government.
“Is Sami Ofer a fork-tailed, cloven-hoofed financial Satan, or a serious businessman? Has he arrived in Turkey to suck blood or is he an investor to be sought after?” columnist Metin Münir asked in Vatan newspaper.
(Note to Metin Münir: I'm sure you did not mean it that way, but the words "fork-tailed, cloven hoofed blood-sucking financial Satan" could be misinterpreted as an invocation of an unfortunate stereotype. I understand that you're not an anti-Semite, though--just an anti-forked-tail, anti-cloven-hoofed-bloodsucker with a strong conscience when it comes to Jewish financial Satans. Needless to say, you have every right to criticize forked-tail, cloven hoofed Jewish bloodsuckers without being called an anti-Semite.)
So, of course, as I left Turkey, everyone was speculating feverishly that Ofer had been offed. I doubt that highly--elderly men do tend, alas, to die of natural causes, and I'm sure the stress did not help his health.
But man, what timing.
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Comments :
Oct '10
Re: Ofergate: Pack Your Bags, We're Going on a Conspiracy Trip!
Be careful; your Turkish friends may think you did it, that your "cruise" is a cover for a CIA assignment!
Jan '11
Re: Ofergate: Pack Your Bags, We're Going on a Conspiracy Trip!
So who killed him? The CIA? Mossad? MISIRI? MİT? Some retired KGB agent longing for the good ol' days farming it out to the Bulgarians? A humorless Talinnese suicide blonde?
Edited on Jun 4, 2011 at 10:13pm