The Cohen Questions
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
The New York Times has worked itself into a lather about the way in which Henry Kissinger’s business interests supposedly undermine his independence as chairman of the commission to investigate the September 11 attacks. Funny how there hasn’t been a peep out of the Gray Lady on the question of the business interests of Stephen P. Cohen, the “Middle East expert” who has been quoted no less than 39 times since 1995 in the columns of the Times’s Pulitzer Prizewinning foreign affairs columnist, Thomas Friedman. Mr. Cohen’s partner Yossi Ginossar’s former assistant, Ozrad Lev, told the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv that the company made Mr. Cohen and Mr. Ginossar millions through commissions on gas and cement deals between Israeli companies and the Palestinian Authority. After days of stonewalling, Mr. Cohen finally came out Tuesday with a statement acknowledging that he and Mr. Ginossar created a company that concluded a deal, though he insists money paid to this company came only from the Israeli side. Mr. Lev claims that Mr. Ginossar also helped funnel $300 million of Palestinian Authority money into Yasser Arafat’s Swiss bank accounts, a claim Mr. Ginossar denies and Mr. Cohen says he knows nothing about. As The New York Sun’s David Twersky reported yesterday, Mr. Cohen’s statement did not name the company he formed with Mr. Ginossar, does not name the Israeli company that paid him, does not explain what services were provided, and does not explain what Mr. Cohen means when he says the company engaged in one deal “of this kind.” Did the company engage in other deals of another kind? Nor does Mr. Cohen’s statement disclose the amount of the compensation, even as a range, or over what period it was received. Mr. Cohen has so far declined to respond to the Sun’s follow-up questions on these matters. Until he does, readers of his “expert” advice would be wise to discount for these matters. As would the politicians and policymakers who encounter Mr. Cohen and the work he does in his capacity as a consultant to the Israel Policy Forum, a dovish American Jewish group.
