UAE’s Deputy Premier Key Cattle Supplier to Apartheid ’Israel’!
Local Editor
A senior Emirati royal is a significant shareholder of a billion-dollar company that is covertly acting as the biggest supplier of beef to the "Israeli" meat market.
Middle East Eye can reveal that Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan owns at least a 40 percent stake in Emirates Future - a UAE-based food company that through a series of complex business transactions is a key trading partner to an "Israeli" firm with links to the son of former "Israeli" prime minister Ariel Sharon.
A spokesperson for Emirates Future's sister company Hijazi and Ghosheh told MEE that Sheikh Mansour "owns around 40 percent" of Emirates Future.
Sheikh Mansour, 45, is the billionaire deputy prime minister of the UAE who is best known for owning British football club Manchester City. He is also the brother of Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and de facto UAE ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.
Sheikh Mansour is not listed on the Emirates Future [EF] website as an owner of the food company. But a Jordanian branding firm, Overhaul, has stated that it sold EF a commemorative box to celebrate Sheikh Mansour buying his stake in the company.
The Overhaul webpage was created at some point between October last year and February this year. The company did not respond to a question asking when they made the box for Sheikh Mansour.
Emirates Future also did not respond to a request for comment and Sheikh Mansour has not publicly declared his interest in the company.
The Emirati prince has appeared in public on several occasions to help EF expand its business, including in April 2014 when he helped the company secure a deal aimed at increasing sales in the Halal food industry.
He also opened a trade event in January this year where, in his role as chairman of the Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority, he oversaw a day in which EF were among a group of companies who secured deals worth 3.7 billion Emirati dirhams [$1.3 billion].
An overview of the company's portfolio on the EF website says that it was established in 2012 to launch a joint business venture with a major Jordanian food company, the Hijazi and Ghosheh Group.
Amman-based Hijazi and Ghosheh was founded in 1985 by the group's chairman Isam Hijazi and vice-chairman Abdul Razzaq Ghosheh. The company is a market leader in the export of food and livestock, with business magazine Venture describing it as "one of Jordan's most powerful companies".
The joint business venture between EF and Hijazi and Ghosheh was founded with investment from a "strategic UAE partner" according to the EF website, which does not name the people behind the deal.
The Hijazi and Ghosheh spokesperson, who was not authorized to speak to MEE, said that Hijazi and Ghosheh and Emirates Future were "sister companies who are owned by the same parent company".
The Amman Chamber of Industry lists an unidentified UAE investment company as being a "partner" on the management board of Hijazi and Ghosheh. The Hijazi and Ghosheh spokesperson said they could not reveal the identity of the UAE investment company.
Hijazi and Ghosheh does not have a website, as opposed to EF, which has a swish online presence that includes a business organogram showing EF at the top of a hierarchy that includes Hijazi and Ghosheh - suggesting that EF controls the Jordanian company.
The LSS website names "Israel" as one of numerous markets it exports to on its fleet of huge transport vessels that can carry up to 20,000 cattle in one journey from either Australia or South America to the Middle East.
LSS delivers into "Israel" via the southern port city of Eilat, where the animals are immediately transferred to a nearby quarantine station in Kibbutz Eilot.
A company called Refit in Araba owns the Eilot quarantine station.
The value of the cows sold to "Israel" is not known, but TheMarker reported in 2014 that until 2012 Hijazi and Ghosheh was the sole supplier of calves to "Israel", meaning the business would be worth at least tens of millions of dollars. Since then the market has opened up slightly with livestock being sold into "Israel" from the European Union and now from the United States.
Once the animals are cleared to leave Hijazi and Ghosheh's quarantine station in Eilot they are delivered to Saleh Dabbah and sons - EF's key "Israeli" customer - which is a family business owned by Ahmed Dabbah, who is an "Israeli"-Palestinian politician with close ties to the family of the "Israeli" prime minister Ariel Sharon.
In 2014 Omri Sharon - son of Ariel - was elected to lead the "Israeli" Cattle Breeders Association. He was reportedly chosen as the industry's new head because he knows how to "play dirty".
Behind the scenes in recent years "Israeli" and Emirati leaders have become increasingly close, including forging a secretive security relationship that has seen an "Israeli" owned company install a mass civil surveillance system in Abu Dhabi. And in November last year "Israel" announced it was sending its first diplomatic representative to the UAE, albeit to the Abu Dhabi based International Renewable Energy Agency.
Source: MEE, Edited by website team
