A most curious television documentary, Girls for Sale, was broadcast on 18 March 1998, over the ABC television network, by the investigative-journalism show, Prime Time. The host of the show was Diane Sawyer, producer Beth Osisek, editor Ed Delgado, and investigator Cynthia McFadden.
The focus of the story was the use of Former Soviet Union (FSU) girls in prostitution in Israel, where in fact 80% of the prostitutes are from the FSU. It appears that the majority of these girls were lured to Israel with false promises, are not paid, are treated brutally, raped, drugged, beaten, strangled, locked in a room without food or water, and are bought and sold by their owners, essentially slaves without rights and outside the protection of the law. Their situation is so dire that "prostitution" is a less appropriate description for it than is "white slavery," and the girls themselves are less accurately described as "prostitutes" than as "sex slaves."
What distinguishes the documentary in my mind is the questions that it implicitly raised but failed to answer.
Why Did Jacob Golan Grant the Interview?
The first question is why Jacob Golan gave the interview to Prime Time. Jacob Golan is the owner of the Tropicana brothel in Tel Aviv. Fortunately for Jacob Golan and unfortunately for his sex slaves, both prostitution and slavery are legal in Israel; but unfortunately for Jacob Golan, the Slavic sex slaves are in Israel illegally, for which reason one might have expected that he would have learned over the course of building his criminal empire certain habits requisite for survival. One of these habits would be to avoid attracting attention, to not draw the spotlight onto himself, to avoid getting splashed onto the front pages. Another habit would be to plead poverty, to proclaim that his little family business (his son pimps as well) brought him next to nothing, barely covered expenses, in fact often fell short of meeting expenses so that it was for him a losing proposition. That is what we would expect Jacob Golan to plead because that helps keep away the police and the tax authorities, because it helps to dissuade other criminals from muscling in on his action, because it helps to portray the volume of sin as so small that it is unworthy of attention by anti-vice activists.
And yet that is not at all what Jacob Golan does. What he does do is to brag that his is one of the busiest and most profitable brothels in Israel. He estimates that he services 30,000 visitors yearly. On a good day, he reports grossing $20,000. Jacob Golan does not at all seem to shy away from notoriety. He has no fear of the police. No fear of the taxman. No fear of other Israeli mobsters. No fear of having his brothel closed down. No fear of losing his lucrative income. In Israel, apparently, public confession by a prominent criminal places him in no appreciable jeopardy.
But Jacob Golan went even farther than that. Jacob Golan actually disclosed to the world that he is able to function only because he has a contact within the Interior Ministry whom he bribes at the rate of one thousand dollars per FSU sex slave for fake Israeli identification papers.
A Long String of Impossibilities
Jacob Golan not only draws attention to his own criminal empire, but brings discredit on the State of Israel, and guarantees the arrest of the bribe-taking contact within the Interior Ministry. Given this demonstration of Jacob Golan's inability to keep his own counsel, he guarantees that no other Interior Ministry official will ever take his bribes in the future. Having confessed his own criminal activities, Jacob Golan invites the raiding of his brothel, the deportation of his sex slaves, the closing down of his business, and his own imprisonment. If the Prime Time story is taken at face value, then Israeli police should have held correspondent Cynthia McFadden, and her crew, as witnesses, and ABC tapes of the Jacob Golan interview should have been confiscated and held as evidence. These are among the many things that one might expect if the Prime Time story was the investigative journalism documentary that it purports to be.
And yet none of these things happen. Even as part of this same documentary, Cynthia McFadden flaunts her information in the face of the Israeli government � she confronts an Interior Ministry official with "We interviewed a man who operates a very large brothel here in Israel, and he told us that he has a source inside the Ministry of the Interior � for which you work � who he can pay a thousand dollars and get false papers to bring girls in." The Interior Ministry official listens with an unperturbed perturbation, and says "This is just unbelievable!" without evincing surprise. Perhaps this scene had to be rehearsed a few times before he got it right, and by the final take he was getting bored. Carrying to perfection his duty of flak catcher, he shows the spontaneity of reading from a prompt card when he offers the following assurance: "I am certainly ready to check this information. And I promise that if this information is indeed accurate, we will do everything � and I mean everything � to check this and deal with this in order to stop it at its roots."
The American viewing public hears the flak catcher's promise, but having a short memory, neglects to wait for its fulfillment. We do not hear of Jacob Golan being stopped in his roots. The naive viewer � the viewer asking to be manipulated, begging to be gulled � at whom this program seems to be directed does not stop to ask whether an enterprise one of whose outlets grosses $20,000 on a good day can possibly be unknown to Israeli authorities; whether a story that has travelled across the Atlantic to reach the ears of American television producers can be unknown to Israeli intelligence and to Israeli police; whether it is possible for a single individual within the Interior Ministry to issue false papers, or whether internal cross-checks would necessitate the cooperation of a number of such officials.
Our best bet is that nothing will happen to Jacob Golan as a result of his public confession. For having bribed a government official, we may venture to expect that he is today neither in jail, nor a fugitive from Israeli justice. His criminal enterprise has been disclosed to the Interior Ministry, but the cameras do not show us any ensuing raid on the Jacob Golan brothel, and do not show us Jacob Golan being led away in handcuffs. In his public confession Jacob Golan shows as much anxiety over the safety of his criminal enterprise as the Interior Ministry Official shows sincerity in intending to bring it to a halt. No, when Jacob Golan looks to the future, it is to a bright, unperturbed, and expanding future. Just as his government boldly builds settlements to house the flood of Ukrainian and Russian scientists and engineers who come to help build the Israeli state, so Jacob Golan boldly expands his brothel to house the flood of Ukrainian and Russian sex slaves who come to satisfy Israeli lusts. Just as television news shows us Prime Minister Netanyahu proudly overseeing the construction of new settlements, so Prime Time shows us Jacob Golan proudly leading investigator Cynthia McFadden through the construction of expanding facilities: "Jacob Golan is doing so well, he is expanding his operation, which means soon he will be buying even more young women, he hopes from the Former Soviet Union."
Why Did the State of Israel Allow Jacob Golan to be Interviewed?
Israel must have known in advance of the visit of the Prime Time investigative journalism team, and must also have known what topic this team intended to cover, and who they intended to interview, and so was in a position to deny the team entry, or to interfere with its work, or at least to warn interviewees as to the dangers of being too candid. Also, the Israeli government could have monitored the taping of the Jacob Golan interview. Or, if the Israeli government found out the contents only after the taping had taken place, it could still have confiscated the tapes prior to their leaving Israel. Finally, even if uncensored tapes had been smuggled out of Israel, there would still be ample opportunity to suppress them during production or prior to broadcast. Why, in short, did Israel permit this story to be filmed?
The damage to Israeli prestige was substantial. Israel was portrayed as "One of the biggest markets per capita for women from the Eastern Block." The Israeli sex slave trafficking was portrayed not as the work of a few isolated individuals who had managed to elude Israeli justice, but rather as being large scale, as being conducted in a vile and reprehensible manner, as involving the complicity of the Israeli government, and as even being not entirely illegal, as Israel has no statutes prohibiting either prostitution or slavery. Nor did the documentary make any effort to deflect responsibility at the consumer end � that is, we are not told that the customers are foreign workers, forced to seek satisfaction in a brothel because they are far from homes and families. No, the only mention of Jacob Golan's customers is "His best customers may surprise you � Orthodox Jews!" This documentary is not going out of its way to help Israel save face.
Hypotheses
I offer the following hypotheses which might help explain the mysteries concerning Prime Time's documentary Girls for Sale. To many, these hypotheses will be unfamiliar, and for that reason alone will seem to be implausible. However, perhaps these unfamiliar hypotheses will seem less implausible than that Jacob Golan was gratuitously risking the loss of a business that grossed him $20,000 on a good day. Perhaps these unfamiliar hypotheses will seem less implausible than that Israeli authorities had overlooked a vast criminal enterprise under their very noses which, however, came to the attention of American television producers across the Atlantic ocean. Perhaps these unfamiliar hypotheses will seem less implausible than that Israel has been unable to arrest Jacob Golan following his public confession because it failed to find any evidence of his wrongdoing.
The unfamiliar hypotheses which perhaps are not so implausible after all are: That Jacob Golan knew in advance that his public confession would not threaten his income and his personal safety. That Jacob Golan knew that his public confession was given under a blanket of immunity from prosecution. That Jacob Golan, in fact, was ordered to make this public confession. That this documentary, filmed in Israel, testified to by Israelis, broadcast over Jewish-influenced North American television, is in fact the only thing that it can be � an Israeli infommercial, commanded by the Israeli government.
Unless Jacob Golan was given a formal order by officials so senior that their authority could not be questioned, Jacob Golan's interview would have been suicidal, professionally and personally. Crime bosses do not ordinarily lay bare to the public the nature and the extent of their criminal activities. The circumstances of crime boss Jacob Golan's laying bare, therefore, must have been extraordinary, and must have included the extraordinary guarantee that his criminal activities would not be brought to a halt and that he would be immune from prosecution.
But how can such a situation arise? Two principles might help explain it: (1) Jewish ideology permits the exploitation of non-Jews, and (2) anti-Semitism promotes the immigration that Israel needs.
(1) Jewish Ideology Permits the Exploitation of non-Jews
The Israelis will not close Jacob Golan's brothel down in part because � despite what their legislation says � they cannot bring themselves to view its activity as terribly wrong. These are, after all, Slavic girls, and the men they are servicing are Jews. The Untermenschen give, the Ubermenschen take. That is God's law. That is no more than one of the rewards for being a Jew that his religion promises him.
Whether Judaism does contain such laws is a question addressed by Israel Shahak in his book Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years, Pluto Press, London and Boulder Colorado, 1994, ISBN 0 7453 0818 X. The reader can find an outline of these laws � which Shahak describes as the Jewish religious laws against Gentiles � in my letter of 27 September 1997 to rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich of Kyiv. Of particular relevance is the question whether the Jewish religious laws against Gentiles discussed by Shahak had to be dug up out of medieval tomes buried in forgotten archives � and are no more than the sort of vicious and benighted beliefs that once characterized all religions � or whether these are laws that find some application even today and which find no parallel in at least contemporary Christianity. Shahak argues that the latter is the case, and provides several examples, of which the following is one:
| I had personally witnessed an ultra-religious Jew refuse to allow his phone to be used on the Sabbath in order to call an ambulance for a non-Jew who happened to have collapsed in his Jerusalem neighbourhood. Instead of simply publishing the incident in the press, I asked for a meeting with the members of the Rabbinical Court of Jerusalem, which is composed of rabbis nominated by the State of Israel. I asked them whether such behaviour was consistent with their interpretation of the Jewish religion. They answered that the Jew in question had behaved correctly, indeed piously, and backed their statement by referring me to a passage in an authoritative compendium of Talmudic laws, written in this century. ... Neither the Israeli, nor the diaspora, rabbinical authorities ever reversed their ruling that a Jew should not violate the Sabbath in order to save the life of a Gentile. ... It became apparent to me ... that neither Zionism, including its seemingly secular part, nor Israeli politics since the inception of the State of Israel, nor particularly the policies of the Jewish supporters of Israel in the diaspora, could be understood unless the deeper influence of those laws, and the worldview which they both create and express is taken into account. (Shahak, 1994, pp. 1-2) |
And that is why I � following Israel Shahak's lead � venture to suggest that one cannot understand the phenomenon of Israel's toleration of Jacob Golan � perhaps even Israel's protection of Jacob Golan � without an appreciation of the Jewish religious laws against Gentiles which permeate not only Jewish religious teaching, but also to some degree Israeli secular thinking as well. Below, I excerpt one of the many Israel Shahak quotations describing Jewish religious laws against Gentiles that I forwarded to rabbi Bleich for his comment in the above-mentioned letter. Although this quotation concerns sex laws, it does not address prostitution directly. Nor is the quotation offered as expressing laws that are followed in Israel today � such is obviously not the case. The relevance of this quotation, rather, lies in its demonstrating the superior rights which Jews have shown themselves capable of arrogating in the area of sexual behavior, and leads us to ask whether some weaker manifestation of this arrogation does not continue to this day:
|
Sexual intercourse between a married Jewish woman and any man other than her
husband is a capital offence for both parties.... The status of Gentile women is
very different. ... According to the Talmudic Encyclopedia: "... although a
married Gentile woman is forbidden to the Gentiles, in any case a Jew is exempted." This does not imply that sexual intercourse between a Jewish man and a Gentile woman is permitted � quite the contrary. But the main punishment is inflicted on the Gentile woman; she must be executed, even if she was raped by the Jew: "If a Jew has coitus with a Gentile woman, whether she be a child of three or an adult, whether married or unmarried, and even if he is a minor aged only nine years and one day � because he had wilful coitus with her, she must be killed, as is the case with a beast, because through her a Jew got into trouble." The Jew, however, must be flogged.... (Shahak, 1994, p. 87) |
The bad publicity, the stain on the name of Jews and of Israel, which result from the Prime Time broadcast Girls for Sale are small prices to pay for the benefit of inciting anti-Semitism among Slavs. Inciting anti-Semitism among Slavs is a benefit? Yes, from the point of view of Israel, it may be indeed. How so?
Because the flow of immigrants from the FSU to Israel is insufficient to meet Israeli targets, it needs prods to augment it. Anti-Semitism is one such prod. The image of the Jew as pimp, as brothel owner, as slave master, as ravager of Christian girls � is incendiary. And that is precisely the image that this documentary � filmed in Israel and broadcast over the Jewish-influenced North American media � painted. As a result, anti-Jewish antagonism within the Slavic world is bound to increase. As a further result, Jews within the FSU are bound to feel themselves less welcome in what they until recently regarded as their own home. And as the end result, more Jews will emigrate to Israel. The last great colonial outpost of the West, increasingly beset with threats to its survival, Israel tries to attain the critical population mass which will indisputably raise it from the insecure category of "colonial experiment which can be aborted if unsuccessful" to the secure category of "nation state which is here to stay."
With a vast amount of effort, Israel managed a one-time augmentation of its population over a number of years by some one million immigrants from the FSU. However, in Egypt alone, one million new babies are added to the population every eight months. Thus, Israel must labor unceasingly to increase its population in order to delay the day when it is swallowed up in a sea of Arabs. The day that the Israeli population stops growing, or even begins to shrink, is the day that Israel can begin the official countdown to its own demise.
The scientists and engineers which Israel acquires through immigration are enduring benefits. The damage to Israeli prestige of the Prime Time broadcast, in contrast, will be of short duration, and in any case brings no tangible loss. Jewish influence over the North American media guarantees that talk of Slavic sex slaves in Israeli brothels can be cut off as soon as desired. Soon, too, there must come a point at which no appreciable number of scientists or engineers remains in the Slavic world who are willing to come to Israel, and thus the benefit of Slavic anti-Semitism will be reduced, and at that time � if world opinion demands � Jacob Golan's brothel, and all the other Israeli brothels, can be shut down, or maybe just sized down, or at least asked to procure or abduct girls from some less complaining part of the world. Israel will then be able to step forward to take credit for having intervened in defense of the purity of Slavic womanhood. Israel will then be able to portray Golan's sex slave empire as an incongruous criminal operation within a largely non-criminal society, and not as a natural byproduct of Jewish ideology. The thousands � if not tens of thousands � of Slavic girls who have served as sex slaves in Jewish brothels or for Jewish pimps � well, every society has crime, every society has prostitution, so why should Israel be held to any higher standard?
An index of several articles on the sexual exploitation of Slavic women can be found by clicking on PLUNDER WOMEN either right in this sentence, or at the very bottom of the present page, or else at the very top.
PostScript: Is Ukraine's Weak Economic Performance in Anybody's Interests?
Jacob Golan's vice empire is possible only because Slavic women are poor. Jacob Golan makes money only because the economies of Ukraine and Russia have collapsed. Jacob Golan will continue to make money featuring Slavic sex slaves only as long as these economies stay collapsed. Thus, Ukraine's weak economic performance is in the interests of Jacob Golan and his fellow criminals, and all those whom he employs, and all those whom he bribes, and all those who directly and indirectly profit from his enterprise. For example, the Israeli electricians and carpenters and plumbers and painters who expand Jacob Golan's brothel profit, and so a weak Ukrainian economy is in their interests. Ultimately, the Jewish customers who satisfy their lusts on the Ukrainian sex slaves have the weak Ukrainian economy to thank for supplying them with such choice victims.