Arnon Milchan

... quickly wanna drop a little bit of, uh, uh, biographical or, or background lore regarding him, seeing as y- you're contextualizing him as a kind of, um, you know, m- a liberal-controlled oppositional figure who's, who's involved in, uh, even promulgating, like, limited hangouts or incomplete versions of, uh, of, of history, right? Uh, and, and also someone who's operating in this kind of, uh, conspiracy space but from more of the, the leftward, uh, or left-wing side.

And, uh, are, are you familiar with how he was, uh, financed by Arnon Milchan? Do you, do you know about this? Uh-

You're, you're gonna have to familiarize me with it.

O- o- okay.

Gladly.

Okay.

So Arnon Milchan, he's kind of like a, um, a lesser-known Jeffrey Epstein in his own regard.

Uh, he, he was a- A Hollywood spy, uh, a producer in Hollywood, um, working on behalf of, uh, of the Israelis.

That they, they, uh, they, they seem to operate in whatever spaces that they, they, they want and, um, use sexual blackmail.

I'd add Arnon Milchan to the, to the mix too.

Yep.

Yeah, that's a good one as well.

... uh, called upon to play this role of honestly probably to insulate the blue blood, pedigreed, wealthier families from the blowback of these kinds of, uh, covert and, you know, kompromat, uh, compiling activities, like that, that kind of thing.

Like th- there may be an inte- uh, there may be an element of intentionality there.

Like Arnon Milchan, for example, his father was not nearly a- as wealthy to the degree that, uh, Milchan, uh, became.

And he did-

So there are three cases.

Case 1000 is about gifts, where Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, allegedly received about 700,000 shekels worth of cigars and champagne and jewelry from billionaires Arnon Milchan, and the Australian connection here, James Packer.

And Netanyahu allegedly did favors for Milchan in exchange for these.

Case 2000 is a little bit different.

A thousand years ago, the world was green again.

Arnon Milchan.

Oh, wow.

Interesting.

By the time production finally began, Zimmerman's screenplay had spent years circulating through Hollywood with accounts suggesting the project had been in development for roughly a decade.

Producer Arnon, I think, Milchan entered the project in 1980.

De Niro had previously met Milchan in Israel and their friendship eventually led De Niro to bring him The King of Comedy.

Embassy International Pictures produced the film with 20th Century Fox distributing it.

Now, let's talk about the Jerry Langford casting problem.

He's also worked as a private consultant on political campaigns, speechwriting, government relations, international marketing, and as a columnist.

I invited Joe onto the podcast to discuss his book, Confidential, The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon, Arnon Milchan, which was first published in 2011.

It's the story of Arnon Milchan, who went from the owner of a struggling chemical business in Israel to a major procurer of advanced weaponry, an agent of Israel's LACOM Bureau, and later a billionaire Hollywood film producer.

But first, let me ask you this.

Are you an amateur military historian like me? Has this podcast rekindled your interest in Eastern Europe and the Cold War? Maybe you're finally getting into reenacting and living history just like you've always said you would.

It was extremely enlightening and a very easy read.

Also, it's a very entertaining, very thrilling story that you wrote.

For the listeners out there, if you do want to read the book, the book is Confidential, The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon Milchan.