Arcadi Gaydamak during a press conference

Arcadi Aleksandrovich Gaydamak, (Hebrew: ארקדי אלכסנדרוביץ' גאידמק‎; Russian: Аркадий Александрович Гайдамак; born 1952 in Moscow, USSR) is a Russian-Israeli billionaire businessman. Gaydamak is also a French citizen, having lived mainly in France from 1973 until his return to Israel in 2000. He possesses Canadian and Angolan passports and has travelled, in the past, in the capacity of a representative of the government of Angola. He was awarded the Order of the Legion of Honour by the French Republic. His son, Alexandre Gaydamak, is the owner of English Premier League football club Portsmouth.^[1] In February 2007 he announced the establishment of an Israeli social movement, Social Justice,^[2] which became a political party in July 2007.^[3].

[edit] Biography

Arcadi Gaydamak was born in 1952 in Moscow, the capital of the former USSR. At the age of 20, Gaydamak was one of the first Jews to emigrate to Israel from Leonid Brezhnev's Soviet Union and receive Israeli citizenship. He lived in Kibbutz Beit HaShita, learned Hebrew at an Ulpan. He was later employed as a sailor by the Israeli national shipping company ZIM, and disembarked from one of its ships in France in 1973. He lived in France until the age of 48 and returned to Israel in 2000^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] Career

After Gaydamak settled in France, lacking an academic education, he began his early career working as a gardener and a bricklayer. In 1976, Gaydamak opened a translation bureau near Paris, servicing Russian commercial delegations visiting France and made contacts at a number of French companies. By 1982, Gaydamak Translations was a highly successful business, and he opened a branch in Canada. During that period he commenced international business, in import and export. After the collapse of the USSR, he built up ties in Russia and Kazakhstan to further his business and sequentially formed various business organizations across Europe. Gaydamak's wealth is currently estimated at between $700 million and $4 billion^{[citation needed]}. He was awarded with several honorary rewards from the French government, including the prestigious Order of the Legion of Honour for obtaining the release of two French pilots from the Bosnian Serb government during the War in Bosnia.

During the 1990s, Gaydamak made significant donations to Jewish and Israeli causes, including the Association for the Welfare of Soldiers in Israel^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] Angolagate

Gaydamak left France after many years, after an international arrest warrant was issued for him in connection with Angolagate, an arms-dealing scandal. He is wanted on two charges; illegal arms dealing with Angola, and tax evasion. France has unsuccessfully attempted to obtain his extradition from Israel, but this has been declined by the Israeli judiciary on the grounds that the factual allegations could not be considered as an offense under the laws of the extraditing country (in this case, Israel) at the time that they were allegedly committed, this being an international prerequisite of extradition, and that other alleged offenses, such as fiscal ones, are not extraditable by nature.

[edit] Sport clubs and media ownership

In July 10, 2005 Gaydamak announced his entry into the sports business and became the sponsor of the Hapoel Jerusalem basketball team. About a month later he decided to donate $400,000 to the Israeli Arab Bnei Sakhnin football club. On the same day Gaydamak also announced the purchase of 55% of the ownership of Beitar Jerusalem, and two days later he announced the acquisition of full ownership of the team. Gaydamak is the patron of several Jewish charities, and is president of the Congress of Jewish Religious Communities and Organizations of Russia (KEROOR), Russia's oldest religious Jewish umbrella group. In the summer of 2008, Arcadi appeared to claim that it was him, not his son Alexandre, who was the owner of Portsmouth F.C. - but this was refuted in statements by both the club itself and the Premier League.^[1]

In March 2006 he announced his offer to buy the French newspaper France Soir via his company Moscow News.^[4] He had purchased the Russian Moskovskie Novosti newspaper in 2004, fired some senior journalists, and changed the paper's mandate to a firmly pro-government one, appointing a pro-Putin journalist as editor in chief. This was widely viewed as hostile to free speech and raised questions about Gaydamak's possible ties to the Kremlin.^[5]

[edit] Donations

Gaydamak has donated to many Israeli organizations, of which many are charity and have religious characteristics. He has donated to Magen David Adom, Hatzolah and many others.

Gaydamak also pledged $50 million to the Jewish Agency for Israel, but withdrew the offer when the Jewish Agency was warned about money laundering allegations. He ended up donating $10 million.

During the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict Gaydamak constructed a tent-village on the beach of Nitzanim, that hosted thousands of families who fled the rocket ridden North and had otherwise no place and means to go to. Gaydamak's contributions totaled $15 million (about $500,000 a day) and earned him considerable praise among some Israelis, although they were viewed by others as a populist act.

In November 2006, he funded a one-week long vacation in Eilat for hundreds of Sderot residents, who have been under constant Palestinian rocket attack for the past seven years.^[6].

[edit] Politics

On February 20, 2007 Gaydamak announced he would found a party based solely on socio-economic issues. The next day he announced its name, Social Justice.^[7]

Although Gaydamak has said the organization would initially be established as a social movement, he noted that it could become a political party at any time, "based on the circumstances." In the past he has stated that the movement does not seek ultimate power for itself, but will run in tandem with Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud, hoping to pick up votes from former Likud members alienated by Netanyahu's financial policies. It is not clear, in early 2008, how relevant that statement is, given that Gaydamak's policies on territorial issues and on the conflict with the Palestinians appears to be more moderate than those of Netanyahu's Likud.

In late 2007 it became apparent that the party intended to run candidates for mayor and council members in tens of Israeli municipalities and local authorities in the 2008 municipal elections.^[8]

Gaydamak himself ran for Mayor of Jerusalem in the November 2008 election and lost, getting only 3.6% of the votes and the "Social Justice" party getting no seats on the city council. During the campaign Gaydamak courted the East Jerusalem Palestinian vote, who had boycotted the elections since the 1990's. Gaydamak approached grand mufti of Jerusalem, Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, Palestinian political figures and media, and came away with as close to an endorsement as one could hope for^[9]. That apparently did not help him. In interviews following his defeat Gaydamak denounced Beitar Jerusalem's followers for their lack of support in the elections.

Gaydamak's politics are what he labels as outreach, encompassing very differing segments of Israeli society. Although this outreach has boundaries, as attested in an August 2008 speech where Gaydamak told an audience that he is prepared to die to prevent the Jerusalem gay pride parade from taking place again ^[10].

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Report Alleges US Role in Angola Arms-for-Oil Scandal CorpWatch
• Press clippings on Arcadi Gaydamak (French)
• Israeli Police Work Cast Under Discredit AIA
• Former chief of Mossad not Beware of Gaydamak