Sheldon Adelson Deputy Chairs US Israeli Advocacy Group; ISGAP Has History of Israeli Government Funding

Shel­don Adel­son (August 4, 1933 – Jan­u­ary 11, 2021) was a bil­lion­aire casi­no mag­nate and major Repub­li­can megadonor renowned for his deep and last­ing ties to the State of Israel. He found­ed the free dai­ly news­pa­per Israel Hay­om in 2007, which quick­ly became the most wide­ly dis­trib­uted paper in Israel and a reli­able mouth­piece for Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Netanyahu’s Likud par­ty. Adel­son also estab­lished the Adel­son Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion, which has sup­port­ed numer­ous pro-Israel caus­es and insti­tu­tions, includ­ing Holo­caust remem­brance and med­ical research in both the U.S. and Israel.

Finan­cial­ly, he was instru­men­tal in U.S. pol­i­cy­mak­ing favor­able to Israel, donat­ing over $20 mil­lion to a pro-Trump super PAC and pres­sur­ing Pres­i­dent Trump to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. Adelson’s polit­i­cal influ­ence was con­sid­er­able, often cit­ed as Don­ald Trump’s largest indi­vid­ual donor in 2016 and 2020, and he used his media plat­form and foun­da­tion to pro­mote Israeli nation­al­ist poli­cies, includ­ing right-wing set­tle­ment expan­sion and a hard­line stance toward Iran.

Michael Leven

Michael A. Lev­en is a vet­er­an hos­pi­tal­i­ty exec­u­tive and con­ser­v­a­tive phil­an­thropist known for his sub­stan­tial influ­ence in busi­ness, Jew­ish caus­es, and nation­al con­ser­v­a­tive cir­cles. He held lead­er­ship roles at Hol­i­day Inn, Days Inn, and notably served as Pres­i­dent & COO of Las Vegas Sands Corp. under Shel­don Adel­son, before retir­ing in 2015. In phil­an­thropy, he co-found­ed the Michael and Andrea Lev­en Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion, which focus­es on free enter­prise and Jew­ish con­ti­nu­ity. He also sits on the boards of Birthright Israel and the Jew­ish Fed­er­a­tion of Las Vegas and chairs the Jew­ish Future Pledge ini­tia­tive, aimed at pre­serv­ing Jew­ish iden­ti­ty and sup­port­ing Israel.

Polit­i­cal­ly, Lev­en is embed­ded in US nation­al con­ser­v­a­tive net­works, serv­ing on the Advi­so­ry Coun­cil for Turn­ing Point USA, a con­ser­v­a­tive youth non­prof­it that pro­motes free mar­kets, lim­it­ed gov­ern­ment, and anti-“woke” ide­ol­o­gy across U.S. schools and cam­pus­es, sup­port­ed by major right-wing donors and known for tools like the “Pro­fes­sor Watch­list.” Despite its 501(c)(3) sta­tus, TPUSA has been crit­i­cized for spread­ing mis­in­for­ma­tion, engag­ing in par­ti­san pol­i­tics, and align­ing close­ly with MAGA fig­ures and Chris­t­ian nation­al­ist net­works.. Lev­en has also donat­ed $50,000 to Canary Mis­sion to chal­lenge pro-Pales­tin­ian activists and main­tains close ties to for­mer­ly Adel­son-led right-wing pro-Israel causes.

Lev­en’s mul­ti­fac­eted roles in busi­ness, phil­an­thropy, and pol­i­tics posi­tion him as a qui­et­ly pow­er­ful actor bridg­ing finan­cial resources and ide­o­log­i­cal activism in the U.S. nation­al con­ser­v­a­tive landscape.

Likud Party

Israel’s Netanyahu-led Likud par­ty has emerged as a cen­tral node in the Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance, fun­da­men­tal­ly trans­form­ing from a his­tor­i­cal­ly non-aligned state into a co-anchor of transna­tion­al right-wing net­works that pro­mote civ­i­liza­tion­al nation­al­ism and oppo­si­tion to lib­er­al inter­na­tion­al norms. This ide­o­log­i­cal realign­ment has mate­ri­al­ized through con­crete insti­tu­tion­al part­ner­ships, most notably when Likud secured observ­er sta­tus with Patri­ots for Europe, the Euro­pean Par­lia­men­t’s far-right fac­tion led by fig­ures like Vik­tor Orbán and Marine Le Pen, despite con­cerns about legit­imiz­ing par­ties with Nazi-era connections.

The alliance oper­ates through syn­chro­nized mes­sag­ing infra­struc­ture and shared par­tic­i­pa­tion in transna­tion­al forums such as Nation­al Con­ser­vatism Con­fer­ences, where Israeli and allied nation­al­ist move­ments coor­di­nate strate­gies around anti-Mus­lim rhetoric, sov­er­eign­ty nar­ra­tives, and oppo­si­tion to glob­al gov­er­nance struc­tures. This con­ver­gence has been accel­er­at­ed by the inclu­sion of far-right min­is­ters like Ita­mar Ben-Gvir and Beza­lel Smotrich in Netanyahu’s coali­tion, who advance set­tle­ment expan­sion and eth­nic cleans­ing poli­cies that align with broad­er GNCA objec­tives of cul­tur­al preser­va­tion and majori­tar­i­an iden­ti­ty politics.

Exter­nal References:

1. Israel’s Rela­tions with the Euro­pean Far Right: Impli­ca­tions for Czechia and the EU

2. An overview of Israeli far-right extremism

3. The new pro-Israeli clothes of Europe’s far right