Chicago Mob Linked Alexi Giannoulias' Brother Demetris : Familiar Radical, Anti-Israel Ties

This e-mail was sent to Newsalert by a concerned Illinois voter:

Until he raised lots of money for the Obama campaign, Alexi Giannoulias, an unknown in political circles, had never voted in an election. Today he is running for the hotly contested Illinois Senate seat once held by Obama, and a familiar cast of radical and anti-Israel ties are surfacing.


Demetris Giannoulias, Alexi’s brother and Chief Financial Officer of the family’s Broadway Bank where Alexi was an officer, serves on the Board of Directors of the Crossroads Fund – a foundation that provides grants to left-wing community organizing groups in the Chicago area. Community organizing Chicago style means ACORN, the group being investigated for voter registration fraud and exposed in the national scandal involving underage prostitution and human smuggling. Sure enough ACORN is a recipient of the Giannoulias fund grants. Not surprisingly, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dhorn are active fundraisers for Crossroads.


The Giannoulias’ foundation finances not only radically left but also virulently anti-Israel groups such as the Committee for a Just Peace in Israel & Palestine – a leading anti-Israel organization in Chicago. Among the anti-Israel products financed by Giannoulias’ foundation are Nakba Day Commemorations. Nakba, means “day of the catastrophe” or the anniversary of Israel’s independence. The group also disciminates anti-Israel “educational materials, such as A Nakba Awareness Flyer, and promotes legislative action against Israel’s right to defend itself from rocket attacks, a right which CJPIP terms “odious.”



A second group funded by Giannoulias’ foundation is the Electronic Intifada led by notorious anti-Israel organizer Ali Abunimah. Abunimah is also listed as a major donor of Crossroads. With the help of Giannoulias’ foundation, Electronic Intifada helped publicize:Letter campaign: Israeli apartheid deserves no amnesty and Organize for boycott Israel day of action. The Electronic Intifada also sent out an Action alert: Kick Dayton and his mercenaries out of Palestine to oppose U.S. training of Palestinian security forces so that terrorists will find no impediment to their plans for attacks on Israeli and Palestinian civilians. In return for its good deeds, the Giannoulias’ foundation honored Electronic Intifada at its 2009 annual benefit.



ACORN, Bill Ayers, Dhorn, Abunimah, and Electronic Intifada are associations the Democratic party may have hoped to dismiss after the last election. However, they are alive and well in Chicago politics and taking up the battle against five-term Illinois Congressman Mark Kirk, a Navy Reserve Intelligence Officer known for his leadership in Congress on U.S.-Israel strategic issues and his ability to work across the aisle to sponsor legislation. In Chicago, it seems to be “déjà vu all over again.”

Tony Rezko's kind of guy: Demetris Giannoulias.