PrintMay 7, 2007
Soros plans European version of CFR
George Soros has infamously criticized American foreign policy and has been particularly harsh in faulting America's support for Israel. He has been one of the most active and generous contributors to the Democratic Party (and especially Barack Obama) and has supported politically potent 527 groups such as MoveOn.Org. In the international arena, he has funded, among other groups, Human Rights Watch, which has been dominated by an anti-Israel and anti-American bias and agenda. Soros has also written a controversial New York Review of Books piece that lambasted American supporters for Israel and criticized their purported influence on the Capitol. Apparently he believes only his voice should be heard by political leaders.
Now he appears to be taking his Road Show to Europe: he is planning to establish a European version of the Council of Foreign Relations. In America, the CFR has become an influential forum for those seeking to influence discussion of diplomacy and for those seeking to influence foreign policy. The CFR publishes the most influential foreign policy journal in America, Foreign Affairs, considered a must-read among many diplomats and political leaders. The CFR has often become a place where former diplomats can find a sinecure and a megaphone in to broadcast their views regarding diplomacy.
The State Department often hires people from the Council of Foreign Relations to staff its desks. Among other recent moves, the Council of Foreign relations extended an invitation and hosted Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and thus granted him a modicum of respectability -- despite his Holocaust denial, rejection of UN demands, and his repeated promises destroy Israel. The CFR has had an outsized influence on the formulation and conduct of American foreign policy
Europe, especially with a Germany headed by Angela Merkel and Sunday's election of Nicholas Sarkozy in France (both of whom replaced fierce critics of America) has been a hopeful sign for trans-Atlantic relations. Both leaders are, incidentally, supportive of Israel.
Clearly, George Soros must find this state of affairs distasteful and he is now seeking to derail Europe's move toward the center. I doubt these are favorable developments for America or Israel.
