Category Archives: Israel & Jewish Affairs

Three Cheers for Barak

Ehud Barak, former Prime Minister, current Defense Minister and head of the Israeli Labor Party quit his own party on Monday (1/17/11). He formed a new “centrist” party (called Independence) and left the already decaying Labor Party in complete disarray. In a sentiment that is reverberating throughout Israel, the Wall Street Journal reported:

Labor dominated Israeli politics for the country’s first three decades, producing a string of prime ministers that included Israel’s founding father, David Ben-Gurion, and the slain prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin. Mr. Barak briefly served as prime minister in 1999 and 2000.

But in recent years, Labor has been reduced to a midsize party, with just 13 seats in the current parliament. Many party members hold Mr. Barak responsible for the party’s demise, and accuse him of abandoning its socialist and dovish ideals to remain in power.

Yohanan Plesner, an [Israeli] lawmaker, said it was a sad day for Israel. ‘This is the day the Labor Party was buried for good,’ he said.

Not at all! It is a great day for Israel and for the West. It represents another nail in the coffin of the statist, leftist, progressive movement that brought so much damage to Western Civilization in the 20th century.

For several generations, the socialists who founded and ran the Labor Party completely dominated Israeli politics. They managed to take a country with arguably the greatest concentration of brain power, creativity and potential entrepreneurship and mire it in a collectivist funk. It is only in the last generation, during which the Israeli economy, having at last been freed from the shackles imposed largely by the Labor Party, has soared in a frenzy of free market activity.

Ehud Barak is the author of several efforts at blatant appeasement of Israel’s Arab enemies, and for that he is no hero in my book. But if the action he just took results in the further marginalization, demoralization and delegitimization of the Left in Israel, then he may yet be recorded as a hero of the Jewish people.
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This post also appeared in The Intellectual Conservative at

Tony Blair’s Israel Problem

I have long admired Tony Blair for his courage in standing by the US in the matter of the Iraq War, for his tenacity in not allowing Labor to undue most of the wise economic policies initiated by Margaret Thatcher, and for his grace in not abandoning his religious beliefs at the door of 10 Downing Street. But those stellar qualities were not enough to prevent him from making a morally obtuse comment in his column in November 9’s Wall Street Journal (‘Making Muslin Integration Work’ — go to http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303362404575580700415413596.html?KEYWORDS=tony+blair
if you are a WSJ subscriber). He bemoans the tendency of Muslims to conflate unjustifiable sentiments against the West with ‘justifiable sentiments [such as] anxiety about injustice to Palestinians, dissent over military action in Afghanistan or Iraq, anger about Kashmir or Chechnya,…’ Thus, according to Mr. Blair, the prime legitimate beef that Muslims have with the West is the ‘Palestinian problem.’ Unspoken, but self-evident, is that Israel — a Western outpost — is the main source of Muslim discontent. So, more than the American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, more than the fact that in science, the arts, business, and just about any other major human endeavor, the West’s accomplishments have dwarfed any Muslim contribution to the world, more than any of those irritants, the fact that a few Jews have set up shop on a tiny portion of ‘Muslim lands’ is the main source of unhappiness of Blair’s poor Muslims. I don’t know which is worse — Tony’s reflexive anti-Israel position or his obsequious deference to Muslim sensitivities. And he is supposed to be an honest broker between Israel and her Muslim enemies? Fat chance!

We Con the World

These days, when a story is hot, its grab for the public’s attention is usually signaled by a video going viral on YouTube. An example of the phenomenon is the current, heavily-viewed video ‘We Con the World’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOGG_osOoVg)*.

The video is a very clever satire on the classic, but melodramatic video ‘We Are the World’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne7fPpxAnuM), which featured famous pop stars preening for Aid to Africa. The hot story dealt with in the new video is the ill-fated Israeli interception of the ‘Humanitarian Flotilla’ that Turkish-based terrorists engineered in order to break the naval blockade that Israel has imposed on Gaza. The production uses the same tune, but altered lyrics from the original video. It is deeply sarcastic, even sardonic, but like the original, quite entertaining. It blows a huge hole in the ridiculous claim that the people of Gaza are suffering under a barbaric quarantine by the Israelis.

But the video raises a serious question for me: does its release, which, in some fashion, has constituted Israel’s main response to the event, say something positive or negative about how Israel is dealing with its increasing isolation and vilification in the world arena?

I will offer two reasons for each answer.

First, it is an effective response because:

1.     It shows that Israel has retained its sense of humor, upbeat attitude and self-confidence despite the vile lies, slander and physical threats to which she is subjected daily.

2.     It shows that the Israelis are more seriously and effectively engaged in the PR battle that accompanies their struggle for survival. In the past, Israelis assumed the world would see the obvious justice of their cause and so they concentrated all their firepower on military preparation and response, neglecting the propaganda field of battle.

No, it is an ineffective response because:

1.     It is a weak retort to a grave military and political provocation. Moreover, it is consistent with the following assessment: Following heroically successful efforts to defend their freedom in the 20th century (War of Independence, Suez War, Six-Day War, Yom Kippur War, Entebbe, 1st Lebanon War), Israeli performance in the past decade has weakened considerably (2nd intifada, 2nd Lebanon War, retreats from South Lebanon and Gaza). This video represents a silly response to Iran’s deadly attempt to establish a beachhead on the Mediterranean within easy reach of Israel. It does not augur well.

2.     The video suggests that the Israeli public might not sufficiently appreciate the dire circumstances in which the country finds itself – politically isolated, surrounded by hostile and implacable foes, with weakened support from its main benefactor and even desertion, to some extent, by coreligionists in America and Europe.

So which is it? I’m not sure; you tell me!
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*I believe that YouTube pulled this version that was produced by an Israeli production company. You can still see it; just search on ‘We Con the World’ on YouTube.
This post also appeared in the Intellectual conservative’s blog at:
http://intellectualconservative.blogspot.com/2010/06/we-con-world.html

Violating the Law

Politicians violate the law all too frequently. The roster of federal and state legislators and executives who have been exposed as law-breakers is long and shameful. Moreover, the laws they transgress range from local statutes right up to the Constitution. But I venture that the law that is flouted by the greatest number of politicians is actually the Law of Unintended Consequences. The examples are legion and I will point out some of the most famous. However, the main point of this article is to highlight three egregious instances that have received too little attention heretofore.

Let us set the tone by quickly recalling some of the most famous violations of the law of unintended consequences by short-sighted politicians:

  • Minimum Wage Laws. Implemented with the purported purpose of raising the wages of the lowest earning Americans, it has been well documented that a major side effect—which sometimes swamps the intended effect—is increased unemployment among the poor.
  • Gun Control Laws. Enacted to supposedly enhance the safety of our citizens, statistics stubbornly reveal that the localities that pass gun control laws encounter higher rates of crime (including those in which guns are used) than the rates in communities in which concealed weapons statutes are in force.
  • Ethanol Subsidies. Intended to provide relief from our country’s crippling dependence on foreign oil, programs to divert corn to the production of ethanol have had the unintended effect of driving up food prices—both domestically and internationally.
  • The Community Reinvestment Act. Rigging the rules to promote home ownership among the country’s poor, the Act—abetted by those who enforced it vigorously—led directly to the housing bubble and the consequent crash that clobbered the US economy.
  • Aid to Dependent Children. When the government paid women to have babies, discard fathers and not work, then—surprise, surprise—the result was not the intended effect of alleviating poverty; no, the outcome was poor women having many babies, with multiple transitory partners and a culture of helplessness and dependency that destroyed the family structure of all who participated in this pernicious trap.
  • Employer-Based Health Insurance. In order to circumvent FDR’s rigid wage controls, employers conceived the idea of helping to pay for their employees’ health insurance as a recruitment tool. ‘Fine,’ said the IRS. Sixty five years later we have a third party payer system that is helping to bankrupt the country by destroying any user incentive to purchase health care responsibly.
  • Intelligence, or the lack thereof. Due to a misguided sense of moral outrage at the details of covert intelligence operations, the Congress eviscerated the intelligence services of our country over a 30-year period. But rather than elevating the moral fiber of the nation, the result was: Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen, 9/11, the fall of the Shah, a failure to foresee the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union, erroneous assessments of WMD in Saddam’s Iraq and certainly other unknown intelligence failures that have compromised American security. Moreover, the curtailment of our use of humint in covert operations has not garnered us any increased respect around the world—from either allies or enemies.

Now let us turn our attention to three instances of the formidable law of unintended consequences that have been accorded less recognition. The first originates in a brilliant article by Evelyn Gordon in the January 2010 issue of Commentary Magazine (The Deadly Price of Pursuing Peace, pp. 17-23). Ms. Gordon recalls that one of the main promises of the Oslo peace process was that it would improve Israel’s international standing. She then points out that, despite 16 years of Oslo process, Israel’s standing in the world is at a shockingly low ebb: divestment from and boycott of its products and institutions are called for daily; it is routinely accused of being an ‘apartheid state’; it is characterized by the people of Europe as the single ‘greatest threat to world peace’; its officials are indicted in foreign courts; it is castigated for any and all acts of self-defense (see, e.g., the Goldstone Report); its right to exist is seriously questioned; and indeed its violent death is promised by Iran with nary a peep of condemnation from any other country. Israel’s stated willingness to ‘make concessions for peace,’ its repeatedly announced intention to pursue the peace process with gangsters like Arafat and Abbas, and its unilateral withdrawals all have resulted not in improved standing, but in near pariah status.

Ms. Gordon explains cogently why this is so. First, by acquiescing in the concept that any peace agreement should entail Israeli surrender of part or all of Judea and Samaria (the so-called West Bank), Israel has undermined its own legitimate claim to that territory. Second, by withdrawing from areas in which it previously controlled the Arab population, the result has been more dead Palestinians. This is simply because Israel can no longer arrest, and thereby forestall Arab perpetrators from carrying out their atrocities before they occur; instead it more often must resort to killing the perpetrators of terror during and after their despicable acts. Next, it is clear that Israeli concessions, designed to further the peace process, do not placate Islamic radicals. To the contrary, it impresses upon Israel’s enemies that she is weak and susceptible to defeat by ratcheting up demands. As Gordon says, ‘among anti-Israel radicals, Israel’s increasingly frantic pursuit of peace has aroused not admiration but rather the instincts of a predator scenting blood…[It] convince[s] the radicals (and Palestinians as well) that Israel could be pressured into abandoning any red line if the heat was turned high enough.’ Finally, by raising the hope of a settlement among interested ‘third parties,’ Israel only makes them angrier at her when they see their hopes unfulfilled. Israel would be better served by cooling its ardor for an unachievable peace and encouraging third parties to direct their attention elsewhere.

Ms. Gordon makes a powerful case that had Israel continued its pre-Oslo policy of treating the PLO as a terrorist organization—ergo, an unsuitable peace partner—and refusing to deal with it, Israel would be far better off than it is today. Its insane pursuit of a deeply flawed and unrealizable peace process has led to the unintended consequence of its drastically diminished world standing.

The second example, in which unintended consequences have had a devastating effect, but which has received too little attention, lies in the federalization of US education. Indeed, the education of American youth has truly been federalized, from pre-school to graduate school. I can cite the pervasive role of the feds in student loan programs, the federal regulations that govern the physical environment of our schools and the earmarks that support some of the most arcane school projects. But the coup de grace is No Child Left Behind, which has placed the control of the elementary school curriculum largely under federal direction. The unintended effect of the latter is that the overwhelming majority of the nation’s schools tailor their curriculum to meet the perceived requirements of NCLB. The havoc this has wreaked on the school curriculum has come as a nasty surprise to teachers. In addition, the control that parents can exert on local school boards has been severely curtailed. Finally, student performance has not improved.

Higher education is not immune. We have reached the point that for many institutions of higher education, the amount of revenue that they derive from either of their two traditional sources—tuition and either state funds (public institutions) or endowments (private institutions)—is eclipsed by the funds secured from the feds through government grants and research contracts. Many examples of unintended ill side effects of this development have been recorded—e.g., the severe strictures on research imposed by federal export control regulations. But here is one that I am familiar with from my own university that I have never seen discussed. The selection of campus capital projects and facilities maintenance programs is determined to a surprising extent by the university’s perception of their likelihood of attracting federal matching monies. Well, it is primarily only sexy new buildings and research labs that can do so. Therefore, a hugely disproportionate share of these projects is steered toward the realm of new buildings, hi-tech labs and ultra-modern recreational facilities. The basic infrastructure is left to decay. It has been estimated that the deferred maintenance costs at my institution are nearing one billion dollars. While the safety indicators and educational environment in our classrooms and office buildings atrophy, we leverage funds from the feds to build fancy new buildings whose need is questionable. So, as with the country’s crumbling bridges, roads and tunnels, the university’s infrastructure decays while we chase federal dollars for glitzy buildings, climate change projects, diversity programs and other wasteful outlays in order to satisfy Uncle Sam’s dubious priorities. (The federalization of higher education is discussed in greater depth in another posting in this blog – see Obama Needn’t Federalize Higher Education; It’s Already Federalized)

 

My final example is the election of Barack Obama and an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress in 2008. It is difficult for me to speak for the people who perpetrated this naïve and reckless act, but I think it is fair to say that they thought they were installing a President and a government that would: improve America’s reputation abroad; bring intelligence, transparency and fairness to the governance of the country; be a unifying force for America; and help to address some of the country’s ongoing fiscal problems in a bipartisan way. What they got instead was a radical left regime, dominated by doctrinaire ideologues, determined to march the country toward Euro-socialism in a partisan, economically-irresponsible and arrogant way.

The unintended consequence of course is that instead of unifying the country under a mildly liberal form of government, the Obama-Pelosi-Reid (OPR) team has produced a badly polarized populace that has turned ferociously on the President and his allies in Congress. The American people have received the exact opposite of what they opted for: our international reputation has changed, but not for the better—instead of being seen as a bully, we are perceived as weak and vacillating, lacking in leadership; the government we have is willfully ignorant, opaque and beholden to hard left special interests; the country is splintered, not unified; and in almost every way, the OPR team has exacerbated America’s fiscal problems. Thus the people can be as ignorant as the politicians. By installing the OPR team, we have totally ignored the law of unintended consequences.

An Agonizing Decision

In the 1920s, an Austrian madman announced that he would take control of Germany and use that position to murder millions of Jews. Scarcely anyone believed him. But he made good on his promise. He could have been stopped. However, the nations in a position to do so failed at the task. Either they couldn’t imagine that he was serious or they weren’t particularly concerned about the implications of his intentions.

Today we observe an Iranian madman announce that he intends to repeat the process. He starts ahead of his illustrious Austrian predecessor because he, in cahoots with a mysterious group of clerical fanatics, already controls the government. It remains to him only to finish his preparations of the atomic tools with which he expects to carry out his mad plan.

Once again, there are those in a position to prevent it. But as in the past, events have demonstrated that the powers capable of forechecking the mad Iranian are unlikely to do so. Most dismiss his threats as political bluster. Most of the rest believe he is not serious because, they calculate, a genocidal thrust by Iran toward Israel would surely be suicidal. And then of course there are the not inconsiderable numbers who, if not gleeful at the prospect of Jewish annihilation, at least don’t see it as such a terrible outcome. I wonder into which of these three groups our benighted President falls.

There is however one major difference between the situations then and now—namely, the existence of a powerful Jewish State capable of defending the Jewish people and/or avenging the Jewish people. And thereby arises the agonizing decision faced by Israel’s leaders.

I have no doubt that the people of Israel do not dismiss the madman’s threat as bluster or bluff. They understand that the centuries long enmity of Islam toward Judaism, the hysterical obsession of the Muslim world to rid the Middle East of the ‘Zionist entity’ and the Muslim embrace of suicide bombers make it eminently possible that Ahmadinejad is deadly serious. While they retain the ability to annihilate Teheran, much of Iran and perhaps significant parts of the Muslim world—even if only in a retaliatory strike to avenge an Iranian nuclear attack on their tiny country—Israelis surely reason that a better course of action is to obliterate the enemy’s nuclear facilities first—using conventional weapons of course.

Thus the agony:

  • Israel cannot be absolutely certain, short of an actual Iranian nuclear attack, that Ahmadinejad is truly serious, so a preemptive Israeli strike could conceivably be unnecessary.
  • Such a preemptive strike might not succeed.
  • It almost certainly will cause inadvertent civilian casualties.
  • Even if it succeeds, the Iranian government is capable of causing Israel great pain via their long range missiles, and their proxies in Lebanon and Gaza.
  • The Iranians are also capable of delivering immense pain to the rest of the world (e.g., by closing the Strait of Hormuz).
  • And finally, successful or not, an Israeli preemptive strike will bring the wrath of the entire world down on them.
What will Israel decide to do? The agony that Netanyahu is experiencing—as the window in which he must decide shrinks—must be monumental. We shall know his decision relatively soon.
 
This piece also appeared in The American Thinker blog on February 22, 2010 under the title, ‘Netanyahu’s Agony.’ See: