Solidarity with the illegally occupied people of palestine. Palestine declassified as previously covered the zinest stranglehold on the Music Industry, and were looking at the topic again in todays show because weve uncovered more damming evidence. Ill be discussing this in detail with my studio guests after this exclusive report by latiifa 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 earned more than 123 Million Pounds from the role, that was believed to be more than all uk songwriters put together in the same year. Grange was pictured happily next to carnier west, in the infamous picture of him donning the make America Great again, donald trump hat. While west got significant backlash for wearing the hat. Grange received zero scrutiny, however, close inspection of grange and his family members reveals a political orientation. Universal ceo lucian grange was pictured in november 2016 a fundraizer for the Israeli Occupation forces in bevily hills, california. It is highly unlikely that a man of his prestige would attend such event without donating. Grange is very Close Friends with former israeli soldier and prolific zinous lobbyist heim saban. So much so that grange recently appointed saiban 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 funds the democrats and has been described as scripting u. S. 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 louis. Trust group which is controlled by an offshore Company Registered in the tax haven of the cayman islands. The trust has Property Holdings worth over 1 billion pound, including 13 hotels and the zionist entity. Through her role of 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 is academic and a former professor at Bristol University and is now a nonresident Senior Research fellow at the center for islam and Global Affairs at istanbul zeam university. Hes also a codirector of the lobby in what. Dog spinwatch and is a leading british scholarly critic of israel and im pleased to welcome back amar casmi 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. Am 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 actually is uh, well Universal Music Group um is the Largest Music Company in the world, it was you founded around 90 years ago, and so it sign 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 taylor swift, nas, kanye west, bob marley, the beatles, dr. 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 i mention there some 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 the all the 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, is also an artist leftwing voice, and these are people whove whove put lot of effort into their politics and to 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 funded you, sign to universal music, where at the same time universal music is making huge profits from. Their work, 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 uh the question of palestine, but not only in relation to the question of palestine, so theres about a pressure towards a depoliticization, a pressure not to rock the on israel, palestine, and thats perhaps one of the biggest problems with this scientist influence in the media industry, am it was mentioned in. Report that the wife of universals chief executive has actually funded the Community Security tost. I wonder whether you might just say a word to about the role of the organization, which is actually a registered charity, isnt it . Yes, so looking green is 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 musad, which is israels foreign intelligence agency, the cst also uh receives a huge amount of funding from the british government, uh, 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. Of course david, i mean, universal was all the home of dave renzer, it, i mean, hes the guy found the Israel Lobby Group, Creative Community for peace, i wonder you could just to 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 is its early years funded by the us office and stand with us as an organization which was um originally set up at the behest and with the involvement of the israely ministry of Foreign Affairs surprise so here we have an organization which is actually effectively instrument of the israeli regime, the isiness regime, and which is involved in the Music Industry to try and push artits towards saying something about israel, palestine, 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 the the way in which this works is that people high up in the Music Industry. Are involved an 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, yes i 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 creat. Community for peace is simply a front group force stand with us right okay well the uh the grange families also spondered the zinis federation and have even funded the conservative party too mean how do you think key corbin supporting artists like stormsay david just referred to that who 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 as david has mentioned of course was you know quite close to Jeremy Corbin during the period of his leadership of the labor party uh and took a public stance against the government during uh or sorry after the grandfeld 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 uh and also with various sionist organizations. Right indeed, well david, i mean, what do you make of the fact that lucian grange attended a fundraiser for the israeli military, but back in 2016 . Well, this is an organization which we have referred to this program before, the friends the Israel Defense forces is its official 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 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 be very very difficult to find on the internet now uh and that seems to have 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 foundations 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. Support the crimes of the science entity and briefly just got to put the the old chest note to you that by you highlighting this information that in some way this is antisemitic, mean how briefly do you respond to that . Well these are organizations which are not Jewish Communal organizations in any sense, these are directly prozionis, pro idf, pro and indeed some in some cases pro settlement organizations that that they give money to, i would also point out that this Uh Foundation which uh lucian grangers wife is a director of a trustee of also gives money to islamophobic think tanks so theyre directly this is money effectively which comes from black artists making huge sums of money in the their albums much of which then goes to to be paid in benefits to people like luciang grange and perhaps that money then ends up funding racist organizations like we think well well well well just pause the discussion there for moment to to watch this report now about the. American music mogel. The other figure featured in the infamous kanye west. Controversy is leo kohan. Cohan, described by most death, now known as yasin bay, as the tall israeli that runs rap, currently sits as the global head of music at youtube, born in new york city to father by the name of alisha had been part of the hagane terrorist group, specifically as a part of the hurell brigade in. Involved in the planned dalit campaign to ethnically cleanse palestine in 1948. As a child, leo cohen spent years living in the israeli settlement of kafar khaim, which was named after haim arlosorof, who negotiated with the nazis in germany, as was the policy of the Zionist Movement at the time. Elisha, the father of leo, was later employed as security at the israeli consulate. At the same time his mother ziva sarkas, was assistant to the israeli representative at the un, ababer eben. Leo displayed 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 hiphop, 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 hip hop label. 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 lobbys and nephew of the founder of birthright, bought wanna music, he asked kohen to work as his righthand man, while at wana, kohen was reported to have blocked the album release of propalestinian artist lupe fiasco, 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 khaim saiban 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. Amar, what would you say to . People say, well whats the problem with the antideformation league being made a trusted flagger on youtube . Well, mean the adl is a deeply nefarious group, its an israel lobby organization, and its also spy agency, you the adl has been spying on arabs in the United States since before the creation of the state of israel, it was caught in 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 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 pro palestine and to promote the state of israel. Global interests, you know, but people are beginning, i think to understand more about the adls influence and theyre resisting it, you know, the adl recently received a 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 guys of antisemitism, so the adl to be a trusted flagger for youtube only gives it uh more power and makes it more effective in squashing propalestine content on that platform and thats incredibly problematic and deeply troubling, yes indeed, well of course youtubes been in the news recently for demonetizing 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 this show has faced challenges from social Media Companies, we have uh in the past weve been labeled by twitter before i mus took over indeed as being iran state affiliated media and your 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 zeland most has taken over but on youtube things are uh considerably worse so what happened on youtube was that the Community Security trust the organization we just been talking about which is funded by his 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 didnt even discover this until later and the cst crowd 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 uh vanished from from youtube. Now 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 in interest of of designers so facebook or Meta Instagram tiktok there are all similar kind of campaigns to to control control all of them. And this show has suffered very directly as a result of that, no, no, i mean cst, 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, yes, and and its since the beginning its been a spy agency, it spies on uh antisionist dues, it spies on pro palestinian activist, it spies on the left, it compiles files on individuals, 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 Greenstein style file which he he asked for it went to of pages and went back to the 1970s, so this is an organization which really shouldnt be a charity, and the time will come when when complaints will have to be taken seriously, absolutely. Well, well, i mean, why do you think leark kowin escaped any criticism from the liberal comontariat after he appeared alongside kanya west supporting the make America Great again cup . Well, i mean, this is just a classic case of knowing what side, your bread is, causes are well connected, fantastically wealthy and have a great deal of influence as result and so its very easy for people to go after kanye west and other black artists when theyre caught doing something stensibly problematic and theyre destroyed for it and then you have people like grange and kohen bringing in 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 that these companies personally making hundreds of 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 kohen is loyal ex cuter 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 tell us about the nonnexecutive director of universal uh music, um, am 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 muse, because of course hes very, very wellknown in the us as an israel lobbist, i mean hes a huge founder of the Democratic Party and the pro israel loby 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 abban center where he um he managed to get a key israel lobbyist martin indick to become the the center director, he has funded uh apac, 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 of 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 role 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 the cultural imperatives that the lobby has tried to imposed 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 you know if you go even further and youre vocal in criticizing 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 lobbyi are going to work continuously to have your shows cancelled and things like that so these zionist actors in the Music Industry are not just quietly zionist they happen to be zionist 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 we run out of time so id like to thank our guest im kasmi and of course our resident 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 pst classified will be back next week with more forensic investigations and analysis, so until then. This is Chris Williamson say bye for now. 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