By Debbie Schlussel

Today, the Detroit Pistons ownership (and the ownership of several major Detroit concert venues) transferred from the family of one of America’s most generous Jewish benefactors of Israel and pro-Israel causes to an Israeli Arab whose family has been outspoken against Israel and in favor of HAMAS and other Palestinian causes.

New Detroit Pistons Owner “Palestinian-American” Tom Gores & Close Cousin Hala

Today, Detroit Pistons owner Karen Davidson announced the sale of the Detroit Pistons and several major Detroit area concert venues to Tom Gores a/k/a Tewfiq Gores, an Israeli-born investor, who is a half-Greek, half-Lebanese Maronite Christian Arab, and whose family members are outspoken in favor of the Palestinians and HAMAS.  Oh, and they were allegedly involved in organized crime.  Davidson’s late husband, billionaire William Davidson (full disclosure:  he maxed out on both of my campaigns for the Michigan House), a Jewish Republican, gave hundreds of millions of dollars to Israeli causes.  I went to Hillel Day School of Metropolitan Detroit with his kids, Ethan and Marla.

Gores founded Platinum Equity, a mergers and acquisitions firm. Gores’ first cousin, Hala Gores, a personal injury lawyer who is like a sister to him, identifies herself as a “Palestinian American” (the family is actually of Lebanese heritage before coming to Israel) and is outspokenly anti-Israel and anti-Semitic. In 2009, she organized buses to a pro-HAMAS rally in Portland against Israel’s invasion of Gaza in response to repeated rocket attacks. Her BS video below alleging that Israel treats Christians poorly is actually a much better description of how Muslims in Israel and the “Palestinian” controlled lands treat Christians. The only people protecting Christians anywhere in the Middle East are Jews and Israel. As I’ve noted repeatedly on this site, Christians have been chased out by Muslims everywhere but Israel, including in Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, etc.

Anti-Israel Video Made by New Pistons Owner’s Close Relative . . .

This isn’t the first instance where Davidson properties transferred to Christian Arabs who enable anti-Israel, terrorism supporters.  Russell Ebeid took over leadership of Davidson’s Guardian Industries (the world’s largest producer of glass) and proceeded to give hundreds of thousands of dollars to an anti-Israel, openly pro-Hezbollah/HAMAS Muslim-run welfare agency to give college scholarships primarily to Muslim Arabs.  Perhaps the transfer of Detroit Pistons ownership from the family of the late Bill Davidson to the Gores family is a metaphor for what is happening all over America with regard to the Middle East and Israel.  And it’s not good.

You may have heard of Gores, the cheesy self-made billionaire based in California.  He frequently poses for metrosexual “heavage“-bearing photos, showing that you can take guy out of the Middle East, but not the Middle East out of the guy, chest hair front and center.  And his alleged mobster uncle claims the Jews kidnapped him in pre-Israel Palestine.  His cousin, Hala Gores, with whom he grew up and is close, is extremely pro-Palestinian and a constant critic of Israel.  A lawyer, she frequently leads anti-Israel demonstrations on the West Coast.

On his mother’s side, Gores family are the Joubrans, and he emigrated from his Nazareth, Israel birthplace with his parents as a kid to live with the Flint, Michigan-based Joubrans, identified as part of an organized crime family in testimony before the U.S. Senate.  Gores’ uncle, Tom Joubran, in particular was fingered as a “person of interest” in organized crime activities in Flint in the testimony, by area prosecutors and reporters, including my friend, former CNN reporter Patrick Clawson.  Uncle Tom Joubran not only sponsored Tom Gores’ immigration to the U.S. and citizenship, but was a mentor of his throughout his career.

More on Gores’ anti-Israel, allegedly-gangster family now gone legit:

Tom Gores’s cousin, Hala Gores, came to the United States in the 1970s when she was ten years old. She later recounted that she had been stripped-searched before being allowed to leave Israel. . . .

Now an attorney who lives and practices in Portland, Oregon, she is an outspoken advocate of the Palestinian cause. She belongs to the Portland-based Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights and is president of the Arab American Cultural Center of Oregon.

In January of this year, Hala Gores helped lead a demonstration in downtown Portland against Israel’s occupation of Gaza. “Our Palestinian brothers and sisters in Gaza are crying for the world to demand an end to the massacre and an end to Israel’s war crimes,” she said in a news release posted on the Palestinian Human Rights website prior to the event. . . .

Gores has been a fierce critic of American mainstream newspapers for what she views as their pro-Israeli bias. . . . In a July 2007 interview with Willamette Week, Portland’s alternative newspaper, Hala Gores discussed possible reasons for the bias. “The Israeli lobby has been written up as the most powerful lobby in Washington, D.C. And there are certain newspapers, when they report a more balanced view of Israel, there is tremendous pressure put on them, financial and political, to stop that kind of reporting,” she said.

Asked by the paper whether she ascribed the problem of media bias against the Palestinians to “Jewish media ownership,” Gores replied, “I am always really nervous to talk to anybody about news ownership by any religious group. To prevent us from talking about the truth, all one has to do is label one an anti-Semite and the discussion stops there. I’m not saying that [Jewish media ownership] exists or doesn’t exist. The focus is on why the news media tends to focus on one side of this conflict.”

Although she is clearly proud of her cousin Tom [DS:Gores’] purchase of the [DS: San Diego] Union-Tribune, Gores is cautious when discussing him. She declined to talk about whether he shares her views on the situation in Israel or has ever given money to support her pro-Palestinian activities. . . .

She adds, “I can say he’s been absolutely amazing with respect to close family members as well as distant family members.”

I think we know where Detroit Pistons, DTE Energy Theater, Palace, and Meadowbrook profits will be donated once the sale to Hala’s close cousin, Tewfiq “Tom” Gores, is complete.

Bill Davidson is turning over in his grave.  But for Marla, Ethan, and stepmom Karen, who just sold the team for hundreds of millions, it’s a loud “cha-ching.”