Explosive found near Soros’s home
An explosive device was found in a mailbox near the New York home of Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros, The New York Times reported.
According to the report, the device did not explode by itself but was detonated by bomb squad technicians.
An employee at the residence opened the package and discovered what appeared to be an explosive device, a police statement revealed. Soros, 88, was not at his estate in suburban Katonah, New York when the package arrived.
The police turned the case over to the FBI for further investigation.
Soros, who is Jewish, is a strident critic of Israel and has supported a number of NGOs with left-wing agendas, such as Breaking the Silence, B’Tselem, Yesh Din and al-Haq.
He made headlines earlier this year when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed him for being behind a public campaign against the government’s plan to deport Sudanese and Eritrean migrants.
A source close to Netanyahu then said the prime minister was referring to the fact Soros contributes to the New Israel Fund, a left-leaning clearinghouse for Israeli civil rights groups, which in turn funds organizations that oppose the deportations.
The New Israel Fund received $837,500 from 2002 to 2015 from Soros’s Open Societies Foundations, according to e-mails leaked online via the site DCLeaks in 2016.
Over last summer, Soros was the victim an anti-immigrant billboard campaign sponsored by the Hungarian government, which many in the Jewish community believed had antisemitic overtones.
Soros called on Hungary to allow refugees into Hungary and the EU.
The posters, some of which were defaced with antisemitic graffiti, had a picture of Soros laughing, alongside the words, “Let’s not leave Soros the last laugh.”