Columbia University President Opposed Academic Boycott Of Militaristic Israel's Universities In 2007

As the Stop The Wall website (www.stopthewall.org) notes in its boycott section:

“The academic boycott calls upon universities, academic institutions, students, and scholars to stop cooperation with their Israeli counterparts. Israeli academic institutions and scholars are not only instrumental in perpetuating and teaching Israeli racist and colonial ideologies and repressing internal dissent, but these institutions are also places where the theories, plans, and projects of Israeli Occupation and Apartheid are elaborated and intellectually supported. The academic boycott asks the student movements and the international academic community to take up their responsibility as intellectual leaders to uphold and promote the ideals of justice, freedom, and equality and to oppose colonial apartheid policies such as those inflicted upon the Palestinian people. Academia can never be “neutral”; academics need to choose between supporting the status quo or being part of a movement to promote social change and justice.”

But on June 12, 2007, Washington Post Company board member and Columbia University President Lee Bollinger said:

“…I am profoundly disturbed by the recent vote by Britain’s new University and College Union to advance a boycott against Israeli academic institutions. …At Columbia I am proud to say that we embrace Israeli scholars and universities that the UCU is now all too eager to isolate….Therefore, if the British UCU is intent on pursuing its deeply misguided policy, then it should add Columbia to its boycott list, for we do not intend to draw distinctions between our mission and that of the universities you are seeking to punish. Boycott us, then, for we gladly stand together with our many colleagues in British, American and Israeli universities against such intellectually shoddy and politically biased attempts to hijack the central mission of higher education.”

Yet as the Stop The Wall website’s boycott section reveals:

“Noted Israeli historian and University of Haifa Professor Ilan Pappe has estimated that only 100 out of 9,000 Israeli academics have `raised their voice against the occupation,' and some of those 100 are in danger of losing their jobs because of their stated political positions. (Quotation from www.inminds.com).

“Over the last 50 years, during which Israel has committed incessant crimes against the Palestinian population, no clear opposition has come from Israeli universities…. Instead, Israeli academic institutions have continued to maintain their strong ties with the state’s political and military elite through close cooperation, developing research, strategies, and projects for the oppression of the Palestinian people…..

“The Palestinian population, as well as other political opponents of Israeli state ideology, cannot see these institutions as anything but instruments for perpetuating discrimination and apartheid rule…. Israeli academics who support the boycott understand and accept this as a temporary personal inconvenience that is incomparable with the systematic suffering of the Palestinian people.

“At this very moment, Israel is destroying the Palestinian academy and educational system as a whole through closures, the targeting of students and professors, and the denial of access to educational facilities through the construction of the Apartheid Wall and other forms of Bantustanization of the Palestinian people. At such a moment, safeguarding an Israeli academy that is supportive of these crimes is not supporting intellectual freedom, but rather supporting its destruction.”

Coincidentally, the apparent supporters of Israeli militarism in the Middle East who sit on the board of trustees of tax-exempt, "non-profit" Columbia University paid Washington Post Company board member and Columbia University President Lee Bollinger an annual salary of over $1.4 million during the 2006-2007 academic year.

Why Are Israeli Troops Still In East Jerusalem?

According to Jerusalem: Arab Origin and Heritage by M.A. Aamiry, “the period of uncontested Arab habitation and rule in and around Jerusalem and Palestine covers at least 800 years” and “in 1948,the population of Jerusalem was about 160,000, half of them Arabs, half Jews.” The same book also observed:

“After the war of June 1967, the Zionists proclaimed the annexation of Old Jerusalem to add to the sectors of the city which they had occupied from 1948. In spite of resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, Israel has persisted in its arbitrary measures and has lost no time in converting the city to its own purposes, bulldozing Arab houses, driving out their owners and rendering them homeless, expropriating Arab land and erecting tall new skyscrapers, `match-boxes six stories high,’ thus disfiguring the Holy City and destroying its unique character…”

The New York Times (11/18/94) also reported in 1994 that “the Palestinians accuse Israel of violating the 1993” peace “agreement by building blocks of new housing in East Jerusalem.”

(Downtown 12/7/94)

Does Israeli Intelligence Agency Operate Within The United States?

Although the espionage and covert action organizations of foreign governments are not supposed to be allowed to operate on U.S. soil, the Israeli government’s Mossad may have set up, historically, a secret division called “Al” in New York City, under the direction of Ury Dinure, to spy on both Arab-Americans and U.S. weapons manufacturers, according to former Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky’s book By Way of Deception. In this same book, Ostrovsky wrote: “It seems that even the CIA believes that the Mossad, except for liaison, simply does not operate actively in the United States itself. Well, they’re wrong…”

According to Ostrovsky, between 24 and 27 veteran Israeli secret agents were employed by the Mossad’s super-secret Al division in the 1980s to engage in “spying, recruiting, organizing and carrying out covert activities—mainly in New York and Washington, which they refer to as their `playground.’” The former Mossad case officer also wrote that the Mossad’s Al unit “is so secretive, and so separate from the main organization, that the majority of Mossad employees don’t even know what it does and do not have access to its files on the computer” and that “one of the more famous of Al’s activities involved the theft of research material from some major U.S. aircraft-manufacturing firms.” “Al” is the Hebrew word for “above” or “on top.”

(Downtown 8/26/92)

Did Obama Give Green Light To His Israeli Allies' Attack On Palestinians?

When then-U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Member Barack Obama was campaigning for president in 2008 he marketed himself as an “anti-war candidate.” Yet during the last three days, U.S. President-Elect Obama has not been that eager to quickly condemn the Israeli war machine’s current war against the Palestinian people in Gaza. One reason might be because the pro-Israeli establishment lobbying group, AIPAC, began to support Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign after Obama failed to condemn Israeli militarism when he spoke at a 2008 AIPAC gathering.

The Israeli allies of AIPAC and the Obama-Bush Administration have a long history of using their U.S. government-supported Israeli military machine to wage war against Arab civilians in the Middle East and to eliminate Arab political activists who are involving in resisting Israeli militarism in the Middle East, as indicated by some of the following column items that appeared in the now-defunct Lower East Side alternative weekly, Downtown, during the early 1990s:

Your Tax Money At Work: Israeli Military Bombs Lebanon In 1993

Despite its alleged shortage of money, the U.S. government has been using our tax money for many years to provide billions of dollars in military and financial aid to the government of “Nuclear Israel.” Between 1974 and 1982, for example, the U.S. government shipped $22 billion worth of military and economic aid to the Israeli Establishment and, in 1986, around $12 million worth of aid per day was being shipped to the Israeli government by the U.S. Establishment. As the International Commission To Enquire Into Reported Violations Of International Law by Israel During The Invasion Of Lebanon noted in its 1983 report, Israel In Lebanon:

“The relationship with the United States allows Israel to receive nearly half of the total foreign and military aid provided each year by the United States. It is also the recipient of large-scale military hardware, the most sophisticated which was intensively tested and used in Lebanon…”

In the Summer of 1993, the Israeli government once again used this U.S. tax money to engage in some “ethnic cleansing” activity in southern Lebanon. As the New York Times (7/30/93) noted:

“Across southern Lebanon today, Israeli warplanes, helicopters and artillery rained bombs, rockets and shells on towns and villages. Planes bombed the market town of Nabatiyeh and villages in the Tyre district…Helicopters rocketed the Palestinian refugee district of Rashsidiyeh and Bus, near Tyre, while gunboats attacked Miyeh-Miyeh, a refugee district near Sidon…”

As a result of this U.S. government-financed “ethnic cleansing” activity by the Israeli military—which included the bombing of 80 Shiite Muslim villages—“nearly 500,000 refugees—more than 10 percent of Lebanon’s population”—had “fled northward to Beirut” by the end of July 1993, according to an Associated Press report (7/30/93).

After the Israeli military bombed some of these same southern Lebanese towns, villages and refugee camps during its 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the Israel In Lebanon report of the International Commission also asserted that “If the Israeli argument is that it is entitled to `eliminate,’ `cleanse,’ and `purify’ areas of violence and terrorism, its reactions have always been…out of all proportion to any initial `wrong,’’ “the massive bombardment of Rashidiyeh, Ain el Hilweh, Ronri el Brajneh, Sabra, Chatila, Bourj el Shamali, Al Basa and others is a horrific fact,” and “most of their inhabitants were civilians, largely women and children.”

(Downtown 8/18/93)

Israeli War Crimes In Lebanon In 1982?

With regard to the Israeli government’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Israel In Lebanon stated the following:

“The Commission, having considered the evidence and the relevant rules of law, concludes:

“1. The Government of Israel has committed acts of aggression contrary to international law.

“2. The Israeli armed forces have made use of weapons or methods of warfare forbidden by international law, including the laws of war;

“3. Palestinian, Lebanese and prisoners of other nationalities have been subjected to treatment forbidden by international law, including inhuman and degrading treatment…

“4. There has been deliberate or indiscriminate or reckless bombardment of a civilian character, of hospitals, schools and other nonmilitary targets…

“5. There has been systematic bombardment and other destruction of towns, cities, villages and refugee camps.

“6. The acts of the Israeli armed forces have caused the dispersal, deportation and ill-treatment of populations, in violation of international law.

“7. The Government of Israel has no valid reasons under international law for its invasion of Lebanon, for the manner in which it conducted hostilities or for its actions as an occupying force.

“8. Israeli authorities or forces were involved, directly or indirectly, in the massacres and other killings that have been reported to have been carried out by Lebanese militiamen in the refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila in Beirut area between 16 and 18 September [1982]…

A possible motive for the Israeli government’s “ethnic cleansing” activity in Lebanon in 1982 was also indicated in the 1983 Israel In Lebanon report:

“The Commission received evidence that Israel harbored certain territorial aspirations towards Lebanon, the most significant of which may have been its intention to obtain access or possibly control over the waters of the Litani River, the major sweet water source in Lebanon. The commission’s attention was drawn to Israel’s urgent need for access to water as its needs cannot be met even after appropriating the water resources of the Occupied Territories…

“Israel, since 1978, has in effect established a `security zone’ in South Lebanon [as of 1983]…”

(Downtown 9/1/93)

Israeli Allies of AIPAC & Obama-Bush Administration Massacre Palestinians

From 2001-2006, the U.S. transferred to Israel more than $200 million of spare parts for its F16 fleet. In July 2008, the U.S. gave Israel 186 million gallons of aviation jet fuel. Last year, the United States signed a $1.3 billion contract with Raytheon to transfer to Israel thousands of TOW, Hellfire, and "bunker buster" missiles. In short, Israel's attacks on the Gaza Strip could not happen without the active military and political support of the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee( on which Barack Obama sat between 2005 and November 2008) and U.S. tax dollars.

The Israeli allies of AIPAC and the Obama-Bush Administration have a long history of using their U.S. government-supported Israeli military machine to deny the Palestinian people their full self-determination rights and their right of return, to continue the illegal Israeli government occupation of the West Bank, the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem and to eliminate Palestinian political activists who are involving in resisting Israeli militarism in the Middle East, as indicated by some of the following column items that appeared in the now-defunct Lower East Side alternative weekly, Downtown, during the early 1990s:

Torturing Women In The Holy Land In The 1990s?

In the early 1990s the Israeli government was accused by Israeli human rights organizations of torturing some of the 400 Palestinian activist it then locked up without trial on charges of being members of the outlawed radical Hamas organization.

A 1992 Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights Report, Making Women Talk: The Interrogation of Palestinian Women Detainees by Teresa Thornhill, described how the Israeli government’s General Security Services (GSS)—Shin Beth—also apparently tortured Palestinian women in the 1980s and early 1990s:

“Most interrogation work is carried out by the General Security Services (GSS), Israel’s internal intelligence agency…

“The GSS feel no taboo against using physical violence against Palestinian women…

“Male detainees are regularly subjected to most of the same forms of physical abuse as women. However, it is important to remember that, throughout her time in the hands of the GSS, the female detainee is made to feel sexually threatened. Many women detainees report having been threatened with rape…

“Women are routinely slapped, and kicked during interrogation sessions if they do not readily answer questions. Sometimes an interrogator will bang the woman’s head against the wall…”

The same report concluded that “the stories quoted in this report, although they represent the experience of a relatively small number of women, suggest that the Israeli practice of torturing female security detainees is widespread” and observed that “the torture of male Palestinian detainees has been widely documented elsewhere by…Amnesty International…”

A Hamas spokesperson in Gaza, Mahmond al-Zahar, told a New York Times correspondent in late 1994: “Is there anyone in Gaza who does not realize that Israel still occupies [in 1994] 40 percent of the Gaza Strip with settlements and troops to protect the settlements, that it controls our shorelines, that its surveillance planes patrol the skies, as you can see them now, that Arafat [now-deceased] himself needs permission by Israel to leave and come, and that we are locked up in here periodically under curfew whenever Israel feels like it?” (NY Times 12/3/94)

(Downtown 12/21/94)

97 Women Killed In 1980s & 1990s Intifada By Israeli Occupation Troops

According to Shoot The Women First by Eileen MacDonald, “Palestinian women” were “well aware that they” were “on the frontline in every aspect of the Intifada” in the Israeli military-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip territories during the 1980s and early 1990s. The same book also noted the following in the early 1990s:

“Israeli soldiers have been ordered not to open fire on women, but in the heat of battle and because of the way in which bullets are fired indiscriminately into crowds…inevitably women are killed…

“By January 1991, 97 females (12 percent of those killed) had been shot dead. Many had been killed in demonstrations either as participants or as innocent bystanders, after being hit by rubber bullets or live ammunition.

“Thousands more women were injured, some crippled or maimed for life, by beatings. It is women who form the largest group of those requiring hospital treatments after beatings. They are attacked as they try to protect children and are particularly targeted when soldiers break into their homes searching for suspects…”

Between October 1992 and May 1993, Israeli authorities in the Occupied Territories also arrested or detained at least 22 Palestinian journalists without charge or trial, according to the Censorship News (5/3/93) publication of the Article 19 human rights organization.

(Downtown 6/9/93)

10,000 Books Banned By Israeli Government In 1980s & 1990s

Although the Yuppie Democrats often pose as champions of human rights, when it comes to human rights violations committed by the government of “Nuclear Israel”, the Yuppie Democrats are usually not too vocal. In a 1991 report, titled Information Freedom And Censorship, the Article 19 human rights organization observed that in the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the 1980s and early 1990s it was “estimated that more than 10,000 books” were “banned” by the Israeli government and “among the banned books” were “Can The Palestinian Problem Be Solved? By Alouph Har Even, Studies In The History Of Palestine During The Middle Ages by PP Bartholdy and At The End Of The Night by Mahmoud Darwish.” The report also noted that the Israeli government “banned the use of equipment such as fax machines in the Gaza Strip from August 27, 1989.”

The Article 19 human rights organization also revealed that the Israeli government has historically targeted Palestinian journalists as special objects of repression in the following ways:

“It is estimated that about 30 percent of members of the Arab Journalists’ Association (AJA) have been detained or placed under administrative restrictions (without charge or trial) during the Intifada. The Jersualem Post (May 21, 1989) reported that during 1988, 30 Palestinian journalists were in prison. During the uprising, 39 journalists have been placed under administrative detention (extended from 6 months to 1 year in August 1989). Sama’an Khoury, AJA member and journalist for Agence France Presse, was placed under 6 months’ administrative detention in January 1988. Mutawakil Taba, president of the Union of Palestinian Writers (UPW) and editor of Abeer women’s magazine, was also given six months in February 1988. At least 10 journalists have served more than 6 months’ detention under renewal orders. Journalists have also been detained for periods from 48 hours to 18 days under `preventive’ detention.

“Palestinian journalist have been attacked in the field, in their offices and at their homes by soldiers and by Israeli civilians. In March 1980, 60 bullets were fired into the house of the editor of al-Bayader al-Siyyast, while the editor of al-Quds has had his house raided on over 10 occasions.”

(Downtown 11/18/92)

Israeli Allies of Bush-Obama Administration Continue War On Palestinians

The Israeli allies of the Bush-Obama Administration have a long history of using their U.S. government-supported Israeli military machine to deny the Palestinian people their full self-determination rights and their right of return, to continue the illegal Israeli government occupation of the West Bank, the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem and to eliminate Palestinian political activists who are involved in resisting Israeli militarism in the Middle East, as indicated by some of the following column items that appeared in the now-defunct Lower East Side alternative weekly, Downtown, during the early 1990s:

Did Rabin Order Assassination Of Publisher?

A 35-year-old Palestinian newspaper publisher, Hani Abed, was assassinated in early November 1994, when his “car blew up…in the southern Gazan city of Khan Yunis as he opened its trunk.” (LA Times 11/4/94). The Palestinian Authority’s minister of justice, Freih Abu Medein, asserted that “this is the first bullet in the dirty war the Israelis are beginning” and “cited a report…in the British newspaper The Observer” that [the now-deceased] Nobel Peace Prize Winner Yitzhak Rabin “had authorized an assassination campaign against leaders of the militant organization Hamas.” ( LA Times 11/14/94).

(Downtown 11/23/94)

Israeli Government Shut Gaza Press Office

One reason why it’s often hard to get much information about Palestinian resistance to the Israeli military occupation of the Gaza Strip is that the Israeli government has had a habit of shutting down the Gaza Office for Press Services. As the London-based Article 19 human rights organization noted in its 1991 report, Information Freedom And Censorship:

“The closure of Palestinian press agencies has further deprived foreign journalists of valuable information from Palestinian sources. The Gaza Press Office was shut for a month in January, 1988. The Palestinian Press Service [PPS]…was closed in March, and in the same month the Bethlehem Press Office was closed for six months. In August, Haya Press Service was shut down for a year and its co-owner…Nabil Joulani, was served with six months’ administrative detention. The Gaza Office for Press Services was closed in January, 1989 for a year…The Holy Land Press Service was closed for two years from June…”

(Downtown May 26, 1993)

Peace In The Middle East?

According to PLO Foreign Minister Farouk Khadoumi, “Israel has not fulfilled the program contained in the peace agreement” and “the most important issues now are the return of the refugees, the liberation of the prisoners, an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories, an end to the policy of confiscating more land and the return of East Jerusalem to Palestinian sovereignty.” In Khadoumi’s views, talks between the PLO and the Israeli government “have not been successful up until now because the principal issues have not been resolved, Israel continues to hold 40 percent of the territory, and the refugees are not returning.” (Granma International 12/20/95)

After a 29 year-old Palestinian activist named Yehya Ayyash was killed in early January 1996 “by a booby-trapped cellular telephone that blew up the right side of his head,” Israel Radio “quoted unnamed sources as saying Israel had carried out the killing” (Boston Globe 1/7/96); and Hamas’ military wing charged that Ayyash had been “assassinated” by “the Israeli Secret Service, the Mossad” (NY Times 1/6/96). According to the Times, “if Mr. Ayyash’s killing was an Israeli hit, there was little doubt that it was approved by [then-] Prime Minister Shimon Peres, since the secret service would not conduct so sensitive a mission on its own.”

(Downtown 1/24/96)

Israeli Human Rights Violations

The Israeli Establishment has a history of violating the human rights of folks who live on land it occupies in violation of UN Security Resolution 242. As Amnesty International observed in its 1990 Report:

“About 25,000 Palestinians…were arrested in connection with the Intifada (uprising) in the Occupied Territories. Over 4,000 served periods in administrative detention without charge or trial…Thousands of Palestinians were beaten while in the hands of Israeli forces or were tortured or ill-treated in detention centres. At least eight were reported to have died as a result. Over 260 unarmed Palestinian civilians—including children—were shot dead by Israeli forces, often in circumstances suggesting excessive use of force or deliberate killing. Others died in incidents where tear-gas was possibly deliberately misused…”

Despite its policy of continuing to violate human rights in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, the Israeli Establishment still gets “$3 billion a year in aid” from the Democratic Clinton regime because “no American Administration wants to pick a fight with Israel during an election year,” according to the NY Times (9/28/96).

Coincidentally, as Downtown observed in its Jan. 15, 1992 issue (“Holy Land Nuclear War Preparations: A Look At Nuclear Israel and Its Special Influence”), “Seventy-eight pro-Nuclear Israel PACs donated more than $5.7 million to 477 candidates for the U.S. Congress during the 1988 U.S. election campaign;” and [former] U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg, for instance, received over $272,000 in pro-Nuclear Israel PAC campaign contributions between 1978 and 1988.

(Downtown/Aquarian Weekly 10/9/96)

Caroline Kennedy's Finances & Kennedy Dynasty's Economic Empire In 1980s

The daughter of the now-deceased Jackie Kennedy-Onassis and JFK apparently now has a good chance to soon join JFK’s brother in the U.S. Senate—despite her lack of legislative experience, her lack of experience previously working at a U.S. government job and her reluctance to reveal much information about her personal financial worth. But if you’re a daughter of Jackie Kennedy-Onassis, a grandchild of Joseph P. Kennedy and a member of the Kennedy Dynasty, not much experience is apparently needed to start a U.S. political career at the top with one of New York State’s seats in the U.S. Senate.

Despite the mysterious premature deaths of JFK and Robert Kennedy in the 1960s due to gunshot wounds, the Kennedy Dynasty apparently continues to control its own private economic empire. In his book The Kennedys: Dynasty and Disaster, John Davis described how the Kennedy Dynasty’s family holding company, Park Agency Inc., and its Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation operated in the early 1980s:

“The Kennedy enterprises that are managed in room 1850 at 125 Park Avenue represent money accumulated by Joseph P. Kennedy during the years 1920 to 1969 and consists of trust funds the patriarch established for his wife and children, several charitable foundations, and a string of businesses that feed those trusts and foundations. The aggregate value of these enterprises, which, taken together, constitute `the Kennedy fortune,’ has never been revealed, but it is thought to amount to something in the neighborhood of $350 million [as of 1983] …

“Since John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy are dead, their trusts have passed on to their children. John F. Kennedy Jr. [now-deceased] and Caroline Kennedy receive income from Kennedy trusts worth from $7.5 million to $10 million each, in addition to the substantial trusts established for them by Aristotle Onassis, and the children of Robert F. Kennedy receive income off trusts worth about $1 million…

“Feeding the Kennedy trusts, foundations, and memorials are the various Kennedy-owned businesses that are either held or managed by the Park Agency.

“The largest of these, by far, is the Merchandise Mart, a 24-story structure in Chicago with 1,000 tenants, currently [as of 1983] worth about $200 million, which generate an annual income of about $25 million a year. Other Kennedy businesses include the Corpus Christi-based Mokeen Oil Corporation, and the Kenoil Corporation, worth around $20 million, with oil-producing properties in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and California. These are the principal moneymakers. Other Kennedy-controlled businesses include the Park Agency’s considerable real estate holdings, the Sutton Producing Corporation, a small oil company based in San Antonio, and the Forest Oil Corporation of Bradford, Pennsylvania, which is wholly owned by Senator Edward Kennedy. Finally, rounding out the Kennedy holdings is a substantial portfolio of stocks and bonds containing such standard blue chips as Exxon, IBM and Eastman Kodak.”

(Downtown 3/25/92)

Caroline Kennedy's Finances & Jackie Kennedy-Onassis' Wealth

The daughter of the [now-deceased] Jackie Kennedy-Onassis and JFK apparently now has a good chance to soon join JFK’s brother in the U.S. Senate—despite her lack of legislative experience, her lack of experience previously working at a U.S. government job and her reluctance to reveal much information about her personal financial worth. But if you’re a daughter of Jackie Kennedy-Onassis, a grandchild of Joseph P. Kennedy and a member of the Kennedy Dynasty, not much experience is apparently needed to start a U.S. political career at the top with one of New York State’s seats in the U.S. Senate.

After Caroline Kennedy’s father was mysteriously eliminated in Dallas, Texas in 1963, JFK’s “First Lady”—Jackie Kennedy-Onassis—apparently was more interested in accumulating and spending money than in finding out who actually was responsible for JFK’s death. As Good Ted, Bad Ted by Lester David recalled in the early 1990s:

“The Kennedys were appalled when, in the Spring of 1968, Jackie told them of her intention to marry the elderly Aristotle Onassis, the billionaire Greek shipping tycoon…

“Jackie…inherited about $70,000 in cash from President Kennedy, plus his personal effects and the Cape Cod house, and the income from a trust fund, which amounted to $200,000 a year. When she married Onassis, she asked for—and received—what amounts to a bride price: a cash payment of $3 million and $1 million for each of her children…

“Ari gave Jackie a huge ruby-and-diamond ring with matched earrings. She also wore two new 24-karat gold bracelets, one inlaid with diamonds and rubies. The cost: $1,200,000…

“…Ari…was angered at the amount of money Jackie was spending. He had given her an allowance of $30,000 a month, in addition to charge accounts, but she always exceeded the limits…

“Ari’s death [in 1975] made Jackie a very wealthy woman. She…received a $20 million settlement, plus an extra $6 million to pay the taxes on the inheritance…”

The same book also noted, however, that “Jackie, who insisted on separate sleeping arrangements, would not allow Ari into her bedroom without permission…”

Jackie Kennedy-Onassis’ first father-in-law and Caroline Kennedy’s grandfather—Joseph P. Kennedy—was the ninth wealthiest person in the United States around the time JFK was elected president in 1960. The Kennedy Dynasty’s wealth in the 1990s was estimated to be around $350 million.

(Downtown 2/16/94)