Solidarity the illegally occupied people of palestine. Palestine de classified as previously covered the zin stranglehold on the Music Industry, and were looking at the topic again todays show because weve uncovered more damming evidence. Ill be discussing this in detail with my studio guests after this exclusive report by latifa abus been looking at the impact on the Music Industry of one influential oligarch in particular. Who is the single most powerful person in the music . Industry today, certainly a contender for the title would be sir lucian grange, the ceo of Universal Music Group. In 2019, he was believed to have more than 123 Million Pounds from the role, that was believed to be more than all uk swits put together in the same year. Grange was pictured happily next to carnier in the infist picture of him donning the America Great again, donald trump. While west got significant backlash for wearing the hat, grange received zero suitiny. However, close inspection of grange and his family members reveals a political orientation. Universal ceo lussion range was pictured in november 2016 a fundraizer for the Israeli Occupation forces in beverly hills, california. It is highly unlikely that a man of his prestige would attend such an event without donating. Grange is very Close Friends with former israeli soldier and prolific zinust lobbyist heim saban. So much so that grange recently upon. Sababan as a director of Universal Music Group. Over the years, heim saiban has raised hundreds of millions for the Israeli Occupation forces and other Israel Lobby Groups too. Seban also f the democrats and has been described as scripting us president bidens policy on israel. Lucian grangers wife, Caroline Lewis, is a trustee of the Bernard LewisFamily Charitable trust. The familys assets are held by the Lewis Trust Group which is controlled by an offshore. Company registered in the tax haveen of the cayman islands. The trust has Property Holdings worth over 1 billion pound, including 13 hotels in the zinist entity. Through her role at the trust, the wife of lucian grange, Caroline Lewis has funded the zionist federation, the mossad traine Community Security trust, the conservative party, the Islamophobic Henry Jackson society, and one of israels national institutions, the united jewish israel appeal. Universal music group has huge amount of cultural power, for the highest ranking figures in the company to have these political connections to the zionist entity should raise more than just eyebrows. As always, were joined by our residence expert david miller, david and a former professor at bristol university, as now a nonresident Senior Research fellow at the center for islam and Global Affairs at istanbul zea university, hes also a corector of the watch dog spinwatch and is a leading british scholarly critic of israel. And im pleased to welcome back amar kasmi whos joining us via skype today. Amars an antiimperialist political activist and commentator. He previously worked on Jeremy Corbins 2016 Leadership Campaign and was a political advisor in my Parliamentary Office from 2017 to 2019. Welcome to the show. Amar, let me start with you. What can you tell us about some of the artists whove released music with universal just so we can get an idea of how large this Company Actually is. Well Universal Music Group um is the Largest Music Company in the world, it was founded around 90 years ago, and so assign deals with some of the biggest Music Artists the world has ever known um today and in history and its acquired the rights to lots of music catalogues and there are names that many people will be familiar with, people like uh taylor swift, nass, kanye west, bob marley, the beatles, dr. Dry, so its a huge multinational corporation. Uh with a colossal stake in the global Music Industry, and so its a company with lot of power, money and influence. David, i mean, ill mention there some of the major artists that have been. Signed by universal, some of whom like bob marley were indeed political, but i wonder whether you could just maybe set out, list perhaps some of the other political art, artists have going got a political agenda as it were that have been signed to this particular studio, well i would i would mention two which are i think relevant, so stormsy for example, famously procorbin artist and also dave uh is also an artist whos been a leftwing voice, and these are people whove whove put lot of effort into their politics into channeling the resentment which the people in this country feel about the way in which wealth and power is distributed supporting corbin is a challenge to that wealth and power and so you you you see that there are uh leftwing artists uh sign to universal music where at the same time universal music is making huge profits from their work uh and and the other problem of course is that theres a. Pressure by Large Companies like universal to push them away from more radical politics, especially in relation to the question of palestine, but not only in relation to the question of palestine, so its a pressure towards a depoliticization, a pressure not to rock the boat on israel, palestine, and thats perhaps one of the biggest problems with this science influence in the media industry. Am it was mentioned in latifas report that the wife of universals chief executive is actually f the Community Security tust. I wonder whether you might just say a word or two about the role of this organization, which is actually a registered charity, isnt it . Uh, yes, so lising granges wife caroline is a trustee of the berne louis Family Charitable trust, and uh, so it appears that through her role at the trust uh, mrs. Grange has assisted in funding the Community Security cst, and its basically an Israel Lobby Group in britain thats received. Training from the mossad, which is israels foreign intelligence agency, the cst also receives a huge amount of funding from the british government, its a group thats been at the forefront of efforts to redefine antisemitism, to conflate antizionism with antijewish prejudice, and it consistently works to attack, censor and to character assassinate critics of the state of israel, of course. I mean, universal was also the home of of dave renzer, wasnt it . I mean, hes the guy who who founded the Israel Lobby Group, Creative Community for peace, i wonder you could just say a word or two about about him and that organization, so Creative Community for peace is a sort of front group, its an organization which pretends that its there for the Music Industry to to foster peace and dialogue in israel, palestine as they would call it, but actually its a direct front group for another organization and operates as a sort of trading arm and trading name of another organization which is called stand with us, which is based in the us, has a uk branch as well which is almost entirely at least in its early years funded by the us office and stand with us as an organization which was originally set up at the behest and with the involvement of the Israeli Ministry of foreign affairs, surprise, so here we have an organization which is actually effectively instrument of. The Israeli Regime, the zianist regime and which is involved in the Music Industry to try and push artits towards saying something about israelpalestine, but definitely not to boycott uh going to israel, certainly not to sign up to bds, and also it helps to encourage artists to play in israel, to to help to legitimize uh zionist ethnic cleansing in palestine, so you can see that the way in which this works is that people high up in the Music Industry are involved in Israel Government lobby group to try and divert artists from raising awkward questions about the uh record of the science entity. I wonder what is precisely the link between dave renzer and and stand with us . Well so well he set up um Creative Community for peace, think i believe its the case that his wife is a director of of stand with us so theres a very very close relationship there, but in any case Creative Community for peace is simply. Front group force stand with us, right . Okay, well, the uh, the grange families also spondered the zianist federation and have even funded the conservative party too, mean, how do you think key corbin supporting artists like stormsay, david just referred to there, assigned obviously to universal and and indeed closely associated to lucian grange, i mean how would they feel do you think to discover who this family is actually bankrolling . Well, i would hope that artists like stormsy, his mention of course was you know quite um close to Jeremy Corbin during the period of his leadership of the labor party uh and you know took a public stance against the government during um or sorry after the grand disaster would be absolutely mortified by um you know grangers links and anyone with decent politics would be absolutely horrified by it you know grange has extensive connections with the conservative party and conservative politicians uh when David Cameron was Prime Minister uh grange was a guest at checkers which is the Prime Ministers Country House uh grange was also a business ambassador uh under David Cameron and he was actually very recently appointed. To the british governments newly revamped board of trade, so this is a person who has extensive links with the conservative party, and also with various science organizations. Right, indeed, well, david, i mean, what do you make of the fact that lucian grange attended a fundraicer for the Israeli Military, but back in 2016 . Well, this is an organization which we have referred to in this program before, the friends of the Israel Defense forces, is it . Name of course we would not refer to it as them as being defense, rather to see them as occupation or offense forces, but this is huge organization in the states, brings in millions and millions of dollars every year, which are channeled to the Israeli Military, in you in contravention of all uh moral precepts, never mind the law, and so he was he was involved, he was theres a shot a shot of him at this event back back then, which appears to have uh be very very difficult to find on the internet now uh and that seems to happened after we first reported upon this issue some months ago so so this is an organization which is its equivalent in the uk the the uk version of its called the uk friends of the association for the wellbeing of israel soldiers which obviously also sends money directly to the Israeli Military and you you you see the way in which this this operates through and you can you can track some of the funding of it uh through foundation. In the us and you can see some of the funding flows and then the money it then pays out to the idf, but we dont have any record uh of grange paying money to to the friends of the idf, which presumably he has done, we dont know this, but presumably he has done, but theres theres no record of this, so this is another indication really of the the kind of opaque nature of the funding relations between zionist foundations, zionist Business People and organizations which directly support the crimes of design. And briefly just got the the old chest note to you that by you highlighting this information that in some way this is antisemic mean how briefly you respond to that . Well these are organizations which are not Jewish Communal organizations in any sense, these are directly prozience, pro idf, pro and indeed some in some cases pro settlement organizations that they give money to. I would also point out uh this Uh Foundation which grange is w is a director of a trustee of yeah. Uh also gives money to his lam of think tanks, so theyre directly, this is money effectively which comes from black artists, sure, making huge sums of money in the their albums, much of which then goes to to be paid in benefits to people like zeng grange, and perhaps that money then ends up funding racist organizations like we think, well well just pause the discussion there moment to to watch this report now about the American Music mogel, the other figure. Featured in the infamous karnye west marga hat controversy is leo kohan. Cohen described by most death now known as yasin bay as the tall is really that runs rap currently sits as the global head of music at youtube. Born in new york city to father by the name of elisha who had been part of the hagane terrorist group specifically as a part of the hurell brigade involved in the planned dalit campaign to ethnically cleanse palestine in 1948. As a child, leia kohen spent years living in the israeli settlement of cafar khaim, which was named after haim arlosoroff, who negotiated with the nazis in germany, as was the policy of the Zionist Movement at the time. Alisha, the father of leo was later employed as security at the israeli consulat. At the same time his mother ziva sarkas was an assistant to the israeli representative at the un, abar eben. Leo displayed and industrious attitude, a childhood friend refers to leos running of lemonade business in stock terms. Leo became like a slave driver. When asked why he became so deeply involved in hip hop, cohen said, my mother went to work, and my black nanny, who shared a room with me always sang me black songs. Leo was involved with the iconic hiphop label death jam where he expelled Professor Griff from the political outfit public enemy, among other things, Professor Griff expressed support for the palestinians. Through his work there, cohen became key figure at universal music, where he grew very close to jz, of whom he. Later remarked, i would have married him, the problem is hes a man. When edgar brontmann jr. , the son of israel lobbyst, nephew of the founder of birthright, bought a music, he asked kohen to work as his righthand man, while at warner cohen was reported to have blocked the album release of propalestinian artist lupe fiasco. Cohen sits at the helm of the most viewed Video Service in the world, and is very Close Friends with. Universal music heads, lucian grange and chime saban who are personally invested in israeli settler colonialism in palestine. Within a year of coming being appointed to youtube, Israel Lobby Group, the antideformation league was selected to be a trusted flagger on the platform. Almar, what would you say to the people who say, well whats the problem with the antideformation league being made a trusted flagger on youtube . Well, i mean, the adl is a deeply nefarious group, its an israel lobby organization, and its also spy agency, the adl has been spying on arabs in the United States since before the creation of the state of israel, it was caught in a spy scandal in the 1990s, which included spying on thousands of individuals, it was involved in selling intel to a partide south africas bureau of state security, and in the modern day. The adl works to viciously suppress all um public expression of propalestine speech and activity, it works not just against pro palestine politicians and activists in the United States, which is probably most famous for, but it also collaborates extensively with social Media Companies to eliminate anything propalestine and to promote the state of israels global interests, but people are beginning, i think to understand more about the adls influence and the. Resisting it, the adl recently received huge backlash for its attempts to influence x, which is formally known as twitter into removing content from the platform, but nevertheless, the adl continues to exert huge amount of power in taking down online content under the guise of antisemitism, so the adl to be a trusted flagger for youtube only gives it more power and makes it more effective in squashing propalestine. On that platform and thats incredibly problematic and deeply troubling. Yes indeed, well of course youtubes been in the news recently for demonetizing uh russell brand, but david, i wonder whether you might just sort of outline uh what this shows experience has actually been with youtube as well. So this the show has faced challenges from social Media Companies. We have uh, in the past weve been labeled by twitter before i took over, indeed, as being iran state affiliated media and. Personal twitter account, my personal twitter account were um were labeled in that way, we were also of course um uh downloaded through the algorithm and shadow band uh that seems to have lifted at least to some extent uh since elilon musk has taken over, but on youtube things are considerably worse, so what happened on youtube was that the Community Security trust, the organization weve just been talking about, which is funded by luciages wife through this uh islamophobic Uh Foundation uh, uh took a complaint uh against us to youtube and youtube just removed the palesty classified channel, not only that, but and i didnt even discover this until later, and the cst crowed about having had banned and censored from from youtube as if this was something to be proud of, but not only that, as i discovered later, the the the channel for spinwatch, the organization which im the codirector of have been since 2005, was removed without any communication with us and and simply vanished from. From youtube, there wasnt really anything on there about palestine even, so it was just a question of guilt by association, and so theres a real attempt to to make sure that youtube is controlled in the way that many other social Media Companies are controlled in, in particular and interest of of design so facebook, or meta, instagram, tiktok, there are all similar kind of campaigns to to control control all of them, and and this show has suffered very directly as a result of that, no, no, i mean cst, community. Seem to be saying pretty close to the window in regards to Charity Commission rules in the way in which they they operate, well this is an organization which has uh itself, i mean, its the uk equivalent of the adl, and and its since the beginning its been a spy agency, its spies on uh antisionist jews, it spies on propalestinian activists, it spies on the left, it compiles files on individuals, i asked for my file some eight or nine years ago now, and there were over 100 pages, i think from memory uh. My file was quite small compared to some, i remember tony greensteins style, file, which uh, he he asked for, it went to hundreds of pages and went back to the 1970s, so this is an organization which really shouldnt be a charity, the time will come when when complaints will have to be taken seriously about it, absolutely. Well, well, i mean, why do you think lear kowin escaped any criticism from the liberal commentariat after he appeared alongside kanya west supporting the maker America Greater game cap . Well, i mean this is just a classic case of uh knowing what side, your bread is buttered, people like lucian grage and leo coin who support. Causes are well connected, fantastically wealthy and have a great deal of influence as result, so its very easy for people to go after kanye west and other black artists when theyre caught doing something sensibly problematic and theyre destroyed for it, and then you have people like grange and kohen bringing it millions of dollars a year from music in many cases that promotes violence, drugs, prison to young people. Uh and also have deeply nefarious personal connections without any scrutiny of their views or their actions and of course there are executives at these companies personally making hundreds and millions of dollars from bonuses from these albums, so there are people on the one hand with lots of money to lose if people like kohen go under, and of course cohen is loyal executor uh of zionist interests, so i think thats really the bottom line for why hes not attacked and criticized. And david, i wonder whether you might just sort of uh tell us about the nonxecutive director of universal uh music, um, hey, saban, i mean, whats what do we know about him . Well, i, i was surprised when i heard that he was being appointed to universal museum, because of course hes very, very well known in the us as an israel lobbist, i mean, hes a huge founder of the Democratic Party and of the pro israel lobby within the Democratic Party, he he created this organization within the brookings institution, which is a prodem. Largely think tank uh called the the heims abans center where he um he managed to get a key israel lobbyist martin indick to become the the Center Director he has funded uh apach the uh American Israel Affairs Committee which is the key pro Israel Lobby Group in the us for many many years and he is central to to all the kind of a um democrat related israel lobby activity. In the us, as we saw in the film there, hes even been alleged by mondewice recently to have been uh scripting president bidens policy on israel, so this is a man of of huge influence in politics, but hes now in this directorial roll in universal music, extraordinary, oh indeed, well, i mean, do you think that the dominance of the zinest lobby in the Music Industry actually deters artists from criticizing israel and speaking up for the Palestinian People . Um, i think its certainly the case that the israels influence in the Music Industry has had incredibly crosive effects, not just from the perspective of freedom of expression, but also in terms of you, the cultural imperatives, the lobby has tried to impose through not just censoring certain artists, but as i think david was mentioning before earlier in the program, promoting other artists who are lobbied in many cases effectively to travel to and to perform in and to thereby legitimize. The state of israel, and of course if youre a music artist who supports palestine, and if you go even further and youre vocal and criticizing the state of israel, then you face potentially, if not definitely being suppressed, and that suppression happens in various ways, it could mean that youre not even signed by music label, it could mean that algorithms on youtube and on various streaming platforms work against you and so its difficult to promote your music because it just cant. Reach its audience, and it could also mean that youre just unable to access certain spaces because israel lobbyits are going to work continuously to have your shows cancelled or things like that, so these zionist actors in the Music Industry are not just quietly zionist, they dont just happen to be zien is, theyre there for a reason, and they leverage the influence that they have to go after people who support palestinian liberation, yeah, well im afraid were going to have to leave it there for today because unfortunately weve run out of time, so id like to thank our guest. And of course our residence expert professor david miller. Thanks to your support, palestine declassified is reaching new people every week, so help us to continue growing our audience by sharing todays program on your social media platforms. You can also help us by following the show on facebook, twitter and telegram, where we post regular clips and updates and remember, palestine classified will be back next week with more forensic investigations and analysis. So until then, this is chris williamson, saying bye for now. Together, we have shown that when europe is bold and united, it gets things done. 95 Million People in the eu are threatened by poverty, there is a broken Energy Market while the energy and arms industry are making record profit. Last year it seemed that either was bad performing compared to other industrial economies in in europe, this year and this quarter it seems the the opposite. From the environment to business and economy, the civil and human rights, treaties and agreements, to war and conflicts, we bring you the overlooked aspects of World Defense and new from the farflunged corner of the globe. 10 minutes only on press tv. Your headlines for this hour irans president strongly condemns sacrillage of the holy quran in some countries as insult to humanity, freedom and spiritual values. Lebanons hisboutchief says any normalization of ties with israel is tantamount to abandoning palestine and playing into the enemys hands and the Israeli Regime carries out another airstrike on syria targeting military positions in the vicinity