On Mafia

I am familiar with Misha Glenny's writings on the recent history of the Balkans and hence, when I found in the bookstore his book on Mafia I was curious to buy and discover new connections between South-Eastern Europe and the dangerous underground of drugs, diamonds and corruption.

One full chapter titled "Aliyah" is dedicated to the various cases of "most wanted" Israeli, some of them new Israeli citizens, originary from Soviet Union or Russia. Among others, the author is quoting a 2003 report of the US State Department according to which Israel "drug-trafficking organisations are the main source of distribution of the drug (ecstasy) to groups in the US, using express mail services, commercial airlines, and recently also using air cargo services" (p.140). Hmmm, I always thought that it's easier to do this dirty job from South America or Europe...Maybe my logical skills are not as good as before.

At the end of the chapter, he made the following conclusion: "And lest we fall into the error of thinking that Israelis or Jews had a particular penchant and ability for engaging in organised crime, it is worth remembering that the centre for the global money-laundernig industry was a few hundreds miles away in a very different country: the United Arab Emirates" (p. 141). Maybe he was out of inspiration as I am convinced that there were 100+ writing options available to analyse and conclude on this issue.

My sad conclusion was that, in fact, we are extremely bad in supporting and talking about ourselves, including about the strict Jewish business ethics code. Extremely bad.