http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com/
Straight from the Jerusalem Boardroom
#155
July 29, 2011
http://www.theettingerreport.com/Overseas-Investments/Time-is-Running-in-Israel-s-Favor.aspx
1. Time is running in Israel's favor, as evidenced by the "global economic walk" and irrespective of the "global political talk.": In 1948, Israel had no significant export. In 2010, Bank of Israel documented a $6.7BN current account (mostly trade balance) surplus, featuring the US, Europe, India and Turkey as the chief trading partners. The NY-based "Trading Economics" reported a $1BN Israeli current account surplus in the 1st quarter of 2011. Israel is a global leader in medical, telecommunications, software and defense industries.
2. Israel is NOT isolated or boycotted: 3.45MN tourists visited Israel during 2010 - proportionally equal to 138MN tourists visiting the USA (60MN tourists visited the USA in 2010, an all time record).
3. Israel-Turkey trade volume surged 140% since the Islamic party, AKP, assumed power in 2002: $3.45BN in 2010 compared with $1.4BN in 2002. The 1st quarter of 2011 features a 40% increase over the 1st quarter of 2010 (Hurriyet Daily News, May 30, 2011 and Oct. 31, 2009).
4. A game changer: From a nearly total reliance on imported energy, Israel will become – by 2014 - a major exporter of natural gas.
5. Silicon Israel: In 1992 there was no venture capital activity in Israel. In 2011 Israel's high tech attracts the leading global companies (e.g. Microsoft, GE, Intel, Siemens, IBM), VC funds (Sequoia, Greylock, OrbiMed, Accel), investment banks (e.g. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley) and private investors (e.g. Warren Buffett, Eric Schmidt) in the world. 2nd quarter 2011 investment in Israel's high tech grew 19% over the 1st quarter and 66% over the 2nd quarter of 2010.
6. In defiance of geopolitical constraints, limited natural resources and global economic turbulence, Israel sustains growth: 5.2% GDP, 3% (of GDP) budget deficit, 5.7% unemployment, 2.7% inflation, 3.25% interest rate, stable currency (the Shekel is one of the 14 globally-traded currencies), $75BN foreign exchange reserves. War and terrorism have been bumps on the road of an impressive growth.
7. Gallup wellbeing poll, April 19, 2011: Israel is rated 7th, following Denmark, Sweden, Canada, Australia and Finland, ahead of New Zealand, Holland, Ireland, USA, Austria, Brazil, Britain, Mexico, etc.
Eye on the UN
For Immediate Release:
July 28, 2011
This article by Anne Bayefsky appears today on Fox News.
Member states of the U.N. General Assembly are busy hammering out how to slam Israel and restrict human rights like free speech at "Durban III" – the racist "anti-racism" event to be held in New York on Sept. 22.
With the recent pull-outs by the Czech Republic, Italy and the Netherlands added to the previously declared boycotts by the United States, Canada and Israel, negotiations at U.N. Headquarters continued Thursday over how offensive the final declaration of Durban III can become without more countries following suit.
The Durban III conference will commemorate the 10th anniversary of the conference held in Durban, South Africa, in September 2001. That event produced the Durban Declaration, which accused just one country on earth of racism, namely Israel. No negotiations, therefore, can hide the fact that Durban III is a commemoration – in the words of the authorizing General Assembly resolution – of a conference and an outcome remembered most notably for its overt anti-Semitism.
Nevertheless, the U.N.'s idea is that since the General Assembly hall in September will be filled with heads of government already present for the Assembly's annual opening, more than a hundred world leaders will embrace the Durban Declaration and its racist-Israel mantra for the first time. Durban I sported only a handful of such leaders – like Yasser Arafat and Fidel Castro -- while Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the only one to attend Durban II.
On the table Thursday was a draft of a "political declaration" to be adopted by the General Assembly at the end of the day on Sept. 22. Negotiations proved to be a toxic combination of U.N. members either pursuing a contorted cover-up strategy or preferring more open Israel-bashing.
The co-chairs from Cameroon and Monaco made the agenda painfully obvious. They insisted that the 2011 declaration will "not re-open previously agreed text" since their "mandate is clearly not to renegotiate the Durban Declaration." On the contrary, Durban III will have the Durban Declaration "at its core."
In light of such an admission, the maneuvering of Germany proved most pathetic of all. German diplomats announced that Germany was a beacon of fighting discrimination. They then declared that the draft declaration, which commemorates and reinforces Durban I, was a good basis for discussion, and they were happily prepared to keep engaging in this "constructive" manner. They did manage to note that singling out any country will not be acceptable to them.
In short, according to Germany, a square peg can be fit into a round hole. The Durban Declaration already singles out Israel. The purpose of Durban III is to applaud the Durban Declaration. At Durban II in Geneva in 2009, Germany pulled out just two days before Ahmadinejad opened the conference on the anniversary of Hitler's birth. True to form (which Germany would have known months beforehand) Ahmadinejad said: "The word Zionism personifies racism that falsely resorts to religion and abuses sentiments to hide their hatred and ugly faces." How long will it take the Germans to figure it out this time?
And then there is Australia. On Thursday, Australian diplomats said they were going to stay in the negotiations. They believed the draft declaration was a good starting point and were hopeful about the future. What happened to Australia's former voice, having pulled out of the Durban II conference in the firm belief that lipstick on a caterpillar does not suffice?
Australia, which is running for a seat on the Security Council this fall, is running scared. The Australians are well aware of what happened to Canada at the last Security Council election. The Canadians were defeated despite a huge investment spiritually, politically and financially in the U.N. for decades because the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper refused to abandon support for Israel, free expression and other rights in the face of repeated challenges from Islamic and Arab states at the U.N. Human Rights Council and General Assembly. Evidently, Australian principles aren't quite so dear.
Inspired by the weakness of democratic states across the U.N. human rights system – the United Kingdom and France evidently thought at Thursday's negotiations that dead silence was acceptable – the Russians pushed the envelope and circulated lengthy additional suggestions for a Durban III declaration. The Russians are undoubtedly working in collaboration with the 56 states in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
The Russian document demanded that the General Assembly on Sept. 22 "express concern about the use of the right to freedom of expression to propagate racism … and recall that the exercise of this right carries with it special duties and responsibilities and may therefore be subject to certain restrictions." The Russians also insisted on recapitulating that the Durban Declaration is a "solid foundation for the struggle against racism."
Durban III – as was easily predicted – is a battleground between weak-kneed, anxious-to-please democratic countries and shameless, brazen non-democracies who hold the balance of power at the General Assembly. How many democracies will continue to play by rules where they cannot win is as yet unclear. What is clear is that there is no middle ground when it comes to being for or against the modern face of anti-Semitism.
For more United Nations coverage see www.EYEontheUN.org.
Op-Ed Contributor
JPost
24 July '11
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=230796
The Palestinians are about to make a fatal error. Israel must not hesitate to declare "checkmate."
Israel is engaged in a war for survival that started even before its declaration of independence and continues to this very day. Its enemies have prosecuted this war militarily, economically, politically, diplomatically, legally and psychologically. Because of the length and complexity of this struggle, an appropriate metaphor is a game of chess – one in which the stakes for Israel are life and death.
Winning a game of chess is no simple matter. It requires strategy, patience, steady nerves, the proper balance between aggression and caution, and the ruthlessness to checkmate one's opponent when the opportunity presents itself. Impulsiveness and emotionalism usually lead to defeat. When a grandmaster makes a mistake, he must not panic; instead, he must extract himself from danger with care and determination.
Israel's leaders have not played like grandmasters.
Instead, they have mixed brilliant moves with blunders.
Among the former, the preemptive strike on Egypt of June 5, 1967, that led to Israel's victory in the Six Day War and Menachem Begin's decision to destroy Iraq's nuclear reactor in Osirak in June 1981 stand out.
Both moves required boldness and careful preparation, and both were highly successful.
Unfortunately Israel has subsequently made serious strategic errors. It allowed Egypt to strike the first blow in October 1973, and almost lost the Yom Kippur War.
The Oslo Accords of 1993 allowed Yasser Arafat and the PLO to return from exile, and have resulted in the murder or maiming of thousands of Israelis. Israel's precipitous withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000 and its forcible eviction of Jews from Gaza in 2005 compounded the error of Oslo.
THE CAUSE of these errors was emotional exhaustion, best summed up by former prime minister Ehud Olmert's tragic admission that "we are tired of fighting.
We are tired of being courageous. We are tired of winning.
We are tired of defeating our enemies." Such a mentality is frankly catastrophic.
Fortunately for Israel, its enemies have made even worse mistakes. Most important have been their serial refusals to accept overly generous offers by prime ministers Ehud Barak and Olmert to sacrifice strategically vital territory in Judea and Samaria for a Palestinian state. More recently, the Palestinians have also shortsightedly insisted on a complete settlement freeze as a condition for negotiating with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, despite his misguided eagerness to make a bargain similar to those offered by his predecessors.
The Palestinians are about to make their worst blunder yet – one that is potentially fatal to their cause.
Specifically, the Palestinian Authority, knowing that its leadership status is failing and that the clock is about to run out, has announced its intention to seek recognition as a state from the United Nations. This desperate gambit flatly abrogates both the Oslo Accords and UN Resolution 242, providing Israel with the legal justification to cancel both agreements and simply annex portions of Judea and Samaria.
TO WIN this chess game, Israel must correct the lifethreatening mistake it made by agreeing to a Palestinian state. The land west of the Jordan River can hold a Jewish state or another Arab state; it can't hold both.
Israel's leaders, including Yitzhak Rabin, recognized this truth before weakening in the face of international pressure. It's time to declare categorically that there will never be a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria.
The Arabs who live there may continue to be residents of Israel with full civil and religious rights and local autonomy, but any national or political rights must be exercised in affiliation with Jordan – the already existing Palestinian state.
Taking advantage of the Palestinian blunder by terminating all discussions of Palestinian statehood won't be easy. There will be powerful international pressure against Israel for making such a bold move. Many will implore Israel to just surrender, or to make a reckless, needless sacrifice that will lead to its defeat.
But Israel can't afford to be checkmated. Now it must play like a grandmaster.
The writer is the national vice chairman of the Zionist Organization of America, and sits on the Executive Board of the World Likud. He is a graduate of Harvard University and New York University Law School, and a tournament chess player.
Arlene from Israel
29 July '11
There's a great deal about UNRWA in the news these days, and I have no doubt that I'll return to this subject again before long. Now I want, first, to share a link to my latest report on the subject. This is more of a mini-report (my major reports can run 30 or 40 pages) -- an overview, with more information to follow. The subject: UNRWA's connection with Hamas.
In Gaza, members of a Hamas-affiliated group, the Islamic Bloc, go right into UNRWA schools and do programming with the goal of recruiting the next generation of members for Hamas.
http://www.israelbehindthenews.com/library/pdfs/HamasAssociationwithUNRWA-July2011.pdf
Then, an article of mine that has just come out in Middle East Quarterly, which takes a close look at the anti-Israel statements of key UNRWA personnel:
http://www.meforum.org/2996/unrwa-anti-israel-bias
I am sooo tired of Mahmoud Abbas. So tired of hearing of his conflicting statements and outright lies, and so tired of reporting them to you, when you are likely sooo tired of them. as well. Thus I will allude only briefly to the two following items:
Abbas is now calling for "peaceful resistance" in support of the venture in the UN. This is not a good sign.
First, because I've yet to see real peaceful resistance by Palestinian Arabs. He's riling the people.
And second because he's raising expectations of something really happening at the UN. When this turns out not to be the case, violence is likely to ensue because of frustration. The higher the expectations, the greater the violence is likely to be. That's the pattern, folks. And if he already called for "resistance" before the fact?
And then, Abbas is saying that it's not clear that the US rejects his statehood plan at the UN. "We heard about their opposition through mediators. The leadership has not received a clear American rejection of the idea to go to the UN." he told the PLO Central Committee.
This, reports Khaled Abu Toameh, "despite the fact that senior PA officials who visited Washington in the past two months clearly stated that the US administration had threatened to use the veto in the Security Council to thwart the PA plan."
Abbas is apparently waiting for a final go-ahead from the Arab League on August 4, but then expects to proceed to the Security Council. (What happened to skipping the SC and going to the General Assembly?)
There was a dry-run of sorts in the Security Council this week, when the Middle East was under discussion.
According to YNet, Palestinian observer Riyad Mansour called for the UN to recognize a Palestinian state, and then burst into tears.
Ron Prosor, our new Ambassador to the UN, then asked him, "On behalf of whom will you be presenting a proposal in September, Abbas or Hamas?"
See more here:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4100584,00.html
You can see Prosor's full statement to the Security Council here (top item). It gives us perhaps a sense of what will transpire in September:
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Foreign+Relations/Israel+and+the+UN/Speeches+-+statements/
Then see these articles regarding the fact that the PA is going broke:
Elliott Abrams, asks pointedly, in a blog for the Council on Foreign Relations, "Will the Arab League Pay for Palestine?"
A rhetorical question, for the Arab states are reneging on their commitments to the PA.
"This is a simple and quick test of the oil-rich Gulf states, and especially Saudi Arabia. With crude oil in the area of $100 a barrel, it is not a measure of their financial ability; they have the money. And that being the case, this is a far better test than speeches and UN votes of just how committed to Palestinian progress they really are." (Emphasis added)
http://blogs.cfr.org/abrams/2011/07/26/will-the-arab-league-pay-for-palestine/
Lawrence Solomon draws the necessary corollary in, "An independent Palestine couldn't pay its own bills":
Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain, the five countries whose financial obligations burden the European Union, may soon be joined by another that the EU may unwittingly be taking on - Palestine. If Palestine declares statehood this September, as many of its EU underwriters are encouraging it to do, the EU would be implicitly assuming an open-ended financial burden for a country of over four million...
"...there is something that the Europeans who assume a hypothetical, independent Palestine have overlooked: Without Israeli good will, a Palestinian state couldn't support itself. (The author explains this in his article.)
"...Palestine without Israel has no viable economy, and the Americans don't seem particularly eager to meet any shortfall (and have troubles enough with their own balance books). If Europe, through its encouragement of a premature Palestine, breaks the Palestinian economy, it could own it."
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/independent+Palestine+couldn+bills/5164077/story.html
And one last, not very palatable article about the PA here. According to Haaretz, Shimon Peres -- the left wing octogenarian who holds the ceremonial position of president -- has been engaged in secret negotiations with PA negotiator Saeb Erekat to find a formula for negotiations that will bring the PA back to the table and stop them from going to the UN. Myself, I believe the chances are dim. But it riles me none-the-less. This is not the first time Peres has stuck his nose in where it doesn't belong.
According to Haaretz, this is being done with Netanyahu's sanction. Best I can figure is that he says, sure, why not, let's see what happens. For, whatever you think of Netanyahu, his policies and ideologies are not the same as those of Peres. But Peres speaks as if he represents the State of Israel.
What people like Peres don't wish to grasp is that there is no essential give from the other side.
Writes Haaretz journalist Akiva Eldar:
"The two went over maps of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in an effort to find a formula that would bypass the dispute over establishing the June 4, 1967 border as a basis for negotiations toward a final settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.
"One option explored was the exchange of territory, and others was to compensate the Palestinians for settlement blocs annexed into Israel, on the basis of the U.S. proposal that the area of a Palestinian state be equal to the territory of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip."
What unmitigated nonsense. Can anyone be that blind, except purposefully? If the Palestinian state is equal to the West Bank and Gaza, then the '67 lines ARE being used as the basis.
In deciding how seriously to take this, we must also keep in mind that Haaretz promotes the negotiations, and then some.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/peres-holds-secret-talks-with-palestinians-in-bid-to-restart-negotiations-1.375809
I've long felt that it's time for Peres to be sent to a home for seniors. But I think that it would serve our nation well if Ehud Barak, currently serving as our defense minister, would somehow be sent into retirement as well -- even though he's barely 70.
Barak, who has what is undoubtedly the best relations with the Obama administration of anyone in our government, has just met with US officials -- US Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and National Security Advisor Tom Donilon.
And now he's coming out pushing hard for an Israeli apology to Turkey. "I don't like it," he told the press, "but it's not a bad thing to have reasonable relations with Turkey in a region which has instability in Egypt, downsizing in Saudi Arabia and a hostile Iran."
But that's the Obama line -- that this will allow good relations with Turkey. But it's appeasement, and would be futile. Those in the know, including Minister of Security Affairs Moshe Yaalon, understand this.
I'll return to this issue, and other statements made by Barak.
Hezbollah, it would seem, is spoiling for a fight.
This Tuesday, in a televised talk in recognition of the fifth anniversary of its war with Israel, Hasan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's Secretary-General, alluded to the maritime border dispute with Israel, saying that when Israel demarcated its border with Cyprus it infringed on 850 square kilometers of Lebanese territorial waters:
"With regard to the 850-square-kilometer zone, as long as the state considers it Lebanese territory, it is Lebanese in the resistance's eye (resistance? Hezbollah sits in the government of Lebanon ) and there is no disputed area. There is an area that has been infringed on. Lebanon has a diplomatic opportunity to recover it through the border demarcation. [A reference to Lebanon having submitted this demarcation to the UN.]
"We warn Israel against extending its hands to this area to steal Lebanon's resources from Lebanese waters. Until Lebanon decides to exploit this area, Israel must be warned against extending its hands to it.
"Whoever harms our future oil facilities in Lebanese territorial waters, its own facilities will be targeted."
The leader of the Islamic resistance movement also threatened to target Israel's oil installations if Lebanon's oil facilities are attacked.
Additionally, there was a bombing of a UNIFIL convoy in Lebanon recently that Israeli officials are interpreting as a signal from Hezbollah to back off.
According to UNIFIL's current mandate -- from Resolution 1701 -- this force is not allowed to enter Lebanese villages to search for Hezbollah arms without coordination with the Lebanese army. Israel has been lobbying countries that contribute to UNIFIL to secure a change in these rules, via the UN, so that Lebanese villages might be searched.
Can something good be happening here, can we be on the verge of changing policy on Har Habayit (The Temple Mount)? Or is this report from Arutz Sheva overly optimistic? (Sorry for my cynicism, but it's been fostered via long experience.)
In 1967, after we re-claimed the Old City and Har Habayit, Moshe Dayan, in an act of supreme foolishness, however well-intentioned it may have been, told the Islamic Wakf (Trust) that it could continue to control day to day affairs on the Mount, where Muslims come to pray at the mosques. What Dayan apparently didn't anticipate is that the Muslims know no compromise; slowly over the years they have attempted to usurp our influence over matters there.
Today, while we do handle security, in essence the Muslims conduct themselves as if the site of our holy Temples is exclusively theirs. Galling is not the word for this, for Jewish presence is restricted and there's been damage by the Muslims to archeological remains (they would prefer to obliterate evidence of Jewish presence there).
What has happened is that Jews are forbidden to pray on the Mount, and -- I'm ashamed to even write this -- it is Israeli police who enforce this with real vigor. The fear is of Muslim rioting on the Mount. Better deprive Jews of their rights than risk the ire of a Muslim mob prone to violence. Never mind that this is also appeasement.
This article describes a visit by the Attorney General, Yehuda Weinstein, to the Mount, to see matters for himself, at which time he indeed did discover police bias against religious Jews.
A group known as Ha Habayit Shelanu (the Temple Mount is ours) has issued an expectation that the Attorney General will now pursue this matter.
I will be delighted to write about this again if some progress is made.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/146164
see my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info 
Another Tack
28 July '11
http://sarahhonig.com/2011/07/28/another-tack-between-tunisia-and-tel-aviv/
News flash: There's cheap rental housing in Tel Aviv. Dirt cheap. So cheap, in fact, that illegals from Ghana and Nigeria, Guatemala and Columbia, Thailand and Outer Mongolia, can afford it. But that's not where the privileged children of the well-heeled classes wish to fulfill fantasies of Friends, Sex and the City or Gossip Girl.
Indeed, the Old Central Bus Station environs, like the Shapira or Hatikva quarters, aren't Tel Aviv's equivalents of somewhere-fashionable-in-the-heart-of-Manhattan – where latter-day bohemians reside in style while posing as suffering artistes and empathizing with the downtrodden masses of the Earth.
The equivalents are "Heart-of-Tel-Aviv" neighborhoods (like the swanky Sheinkin drag), even select elitist edges of Jaffa and that glorified-gentrified Florentin niche. But topping it all for prestige and desirability is Tel Aviv's "Old North," radiating from the upmarket Habimah Theater-Mann Auditorium hub.
At that posh pivot, trendsetters and groupies pitched their tent city to campaign for lower/subsidized rents. We, wage-earners in the rest of the country, are presumably required to foot their extravagant bills and make Israel's Manhattan ambiance more affordable. Since Manhattan is so overpriced, the affectation becomes more attainable in the homeland, in conditions of comparable comfort and proximity to social focal points – where it's all happening.
That, however, as elsewhere in the world, is where it's most expensive to rent the proper setting for the pretentious pipe dream. It's location, location, location – the greater the demand, the higher the price-tag.
I personally know some of the Rothschild Boulevard protest-instigators. I also know their affluent families (whose incomes far exceed my own meager salary). They hail from my Sharon-region hometown and from even better-off nearby communities.
Several of the tent-happening's ringleaders are my daughter's erstwhile schoolmates and friends to this day. Their exceptional good tastes have always meant shopping for the most impressive brand-names and running up bills that annoyed even their prosperous parents. They also gravitate to pricey eateries, drinking holes and clubs.
One by one, they ditched manicured suburbia for the lure and lights of ersatz Manhattan, where they can play the role of independent, struggling young professionals.
Some are chronically "between jobs" and/or between schools, seeking to find themselves and their true calling. Some dabble in showbiz. They're invariably agonized by the lack of popular recognition for their outstanding talents and hidden depths. Some smoke funny things, and all, without exception, are trendily left-wing – as befits rebels against bourgeois mom and dad (who nonetheless help pay the rent and provide laundry services).
Alas, they can't quite formulate what they want or quite how to go about achieving it. It's all about the perceived exhilaration, not the practical solution. The buzz is the message.
They flaunt political affiliations like Hadash – the largely Arab remnant of the local Communist Party, which is today headlined by MKs Muhammad Barakei, Haneen Zoabi and token Jew Dov Henin. No wonder former Tel Aviv mayoral candidate Henin was welcomed with whoops and cheers in tent city, whereas Mayor Ron Huldai (Labor), who defeated Henin, was booed and rudely ejected.
Likud MK Miri Regev, a social activist in her own right, was denounced as fascist and doused with water. The fact that ritzy demonstrators blame their dire hardship on settlers should have tipped her off.
Political patrons purchased nifty tents for the sons and daughters of our well-to-do compatriots. These pampered radicals, with less-moneyed hangers-on, hanker after thrills. They yearningly eye Cairo's Tahrir Square and cultivate visions of generating similar excitement here. Note the pervasive anti-Bibi/bring-the-government-down slogans chanted by the mobilized/manipulated thousands who joined their march last weekend.
The saddest facet of the farce is the uninhibited eagerness of politicians to hitch a free ride on the flimsy coattails of Tel Aviv's chic set. Take the input of Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav, for example. In a Yediot Aharonot op-ed, he self-importantly reminded us that "the upheaval in Tunisia, which felled its corrupt regime, began with the slapping of a cop's face in the market. I suggest our government regard the Rothschild Boulevard protest as a slap in its face."
Doesn't Yahav just know how to please his audience and deliver the lines it wants to hear? It's a knack he has often displayed in the past.
In 2006 he was asked during an interview with the Israeli Arabic-language weekly Kul al-Arab whether he'd accept in principle the return to Haifa of "tens of thousands of Arab refugees" who left it in 1948.
Yahav replied he "wouldn't mind their return" in the context of a peace agreement, adding: "In all sincerity, I feel the refugees' pain… because my father, too, tasted the bitterness of homelessness and loss after he fled Germany."
There's no ambiguity about Yahav's motivations. As he stressed in the interview, Haifa's then-35,000 Arabs comprised 13 percent of its population, and Haifa has become a magnet for Arab villagers (a fact Yahav welcomed). Any politician worth his salt is bound to suck up to potential voters.
Yet the problem wasn't so much Yahav's vote-getting scruples as what his prattle portended. Yahav mindlessly echoed the outermost fringes of Israel's loony Left who explicitly advocate what the Arabs sanctify as "the Right of Return" – i.e., inundating Israel with millions of hostile, irredentist Arabs, thereby wiping the Jewish state off the map.
That confirmed Yahav as an expedient follower of any fashion – even that of voguish avant-garde circles, for whom faddishly thumbing noses at the Jewish collective is de rigueur and proof positive of enlightenment. Yahav's chatter is alarming because he's no oddball iconoclast but a solid rock of the establishment, a veteran Laborite before jumping on Kadima's bandwagon.
He conveniently overlooked incidental minor details. His father never launched bloody attacks to throw Germans into the sea and replace Germany with a Jewish Reich. Odds are Yahav's father didn't slaughter a single German. He didn't stab, shoot, burn, ambush, bomb or otherwise mass-murder German passers-by indiscriminately.
Indeed, his father probably sported a thoroughly Germanized name and did his darnedest to blend in and convince all and sundry of his Teutonic traits. The fact that Germans still wanted him dead attests not only to the futility of obsequious gestures, but to the incontrovertible need for a strong Jewish state.
Why didn't Yahav remind his interviewer that the flight of Haifa Arabs in 1948 alarmed Jewish leaders, who desperately tried to stop it? Ben-Gurion sent Golda to Haifa Beach to plead with departing Arabs, but they were terrified of their despots. Yahav could have cited for the benefit of Kul al-Arab readers Ben-Gurion's May 5, 1948, diary entry, in which he expresses puzzlement at the Arab abandonment of Haifa.
"What could cause so many thousands to flee thus?" Ben-Gurion asked in his own private journal. Discussing Haifa's desertion on May 11, 1948, Golda admitted: "We entered this war unprepared for victory."
Was Yahav unaware of this? Maybe not. Just as maybe, deep inside, he understands that his Tunisia-Tel Aviv analogy is spurious.
But is there any opportunity ambitious politicos would pass up? Probably not.
Arlene from Israel
28 July '11
In my last posting, I described demonstrations by those who are unhappy with the housing situation in the country.
Everything I wrote with regard to this situation is true. In fact, there is strong indication that the Israeli governments of the last several years (it's not just this government) have failed to involve themselves in ways that would have ameliorated the situation.
The Knesset Research and Information Center has just released a report comparing Israeli housing policies to those of the US, Britain, Germany, Sweden and Australia. Its findings are that these other countries act to moderate housing market fluctuations, via such things as construction subsidies for contractors offering cheap housing.
By contrast, successive Israeli governments over the last 10 years have decreased involvement in the housing market. In the last two years there has been a sharp increase in housing costs. In fact, according to figures from Bank Hapoalim, the real value of housing here has increased by 9.7% just in the last year, and by an astonishing 41% since 2007.
And yet... this is not the whole picture of what's going on now.
In Israel, everything is politics. This is no exception:
There is solid reason to believe that the housing issue is being used to coalesce people with the goal of bringing down the Netanyahu government. Which is not to say they will necessarily succeed.
"Im Tirtzu," a student activist group that is identified as right-wing, had originally joined the housing protest but then just over a week ago pulled out of the main tent city on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv, because of questions about the political aims of the organizers.
Ronen Shoval, founder of Im Tirtzu, met with some of the protest organizers before the pull-out, and subsequently reported that they refused repeated requests to negotiate with the government to resolve the crisis.
"When one isn't interested in having a conversation with the government, the problem won't be solved. I was trying to convince them to speak to the government, but how many times can you try?
"Conversations with the Rothschild Boulevard organizers made it clear that the group is not looking for solutions; they are looking to protest."
At the same time, one analyst, looking at the make-up of the protesters, observed that very few were dati -- religious -- even though religious couples, who tend to have large families, are surely very much affected by housing shortages.
What are we looking at here? The religious are much more likely to be right wing, while the Tel Aviv crowd is significantly left. Is this a factor?
Now Netanyahu has come forward with a plan to address housing problems. Is it adequate? I am not sufficiently knowledgeable to respond with certainty. What I have heard is that the 50,000 units he projects for the next 18 months to two years would address the shortage to date but not provide for the future. But it's a start, which might reflect new policies. And it's coupled with a projected 10,000 new student dormitory units and other innovations.
One might expect either a wait-and-see-how-it-unfolds attitude among the protesters, or a readiness at last to meet with the prime minister and let him know that, while his announcement is a beginning, they think even more has to be done.
But what we're seeing instead is a digging in of their heels. The initial response was hostile: "You think we're fools, to accept this?" Some of the tent cities -- most significantly that in Tel Aviv -- are being dismantled by the police because they're illegal. But the protesters have let it be known that this will not deter them.
But wait!
In Tel Aviv, demonstrators have now produced a newspaper of sorts, being distributed free on the streets. It includes a poem that ends with the verses, "we have lost our rights to this country, and it's doubtful we'll get them back."
In Jerusalem, demonstrators carried a sign that said, "Welfare State Now!"
What we're seeing then is a clash of social ideologies that is much bigger than the housing problem.
Binyamin Netanyahu, during his tenure as Finance Minister (2003-2005), instituted several reforms that are credited with having strengthened the country, and with very sound reason. Under his stewardship, the welfare society that had been established by left-learning Labor governments at the founding of the State and for decades thereafter was no more. Increased privatization was in, and so were reduced benefits to the population.
Had those reforms not been in place, we certainly would not have weathered the recent global fiscal crisis as resoundingly well as we have, and would not be growing as we are. The welfare system would have sapped the nation impossibly.
But even as we have been seeing the strengthening of the nation as a whole, there are some citizens within who are struggling. The gap between the poorest and the richest has increased; those who run soup kitchens attest to this.
Please understand, however, that we're looking at a relative adjustment in our system, not an absolute one: we still have a socialized medical system, and a variety of perks are in place, including financial assistance (reduced but not eliminated) for those with large families.
We will not -- we cannot and must not -- return to the fiscal policies of the earlier Labor governments. But the concerns of those who are struggling -- as with regard to the housing -- must be addressed at some level.
The double-pronged question now is:
How productively/effectively can Netanyahu respond to the immediate issues of those who are demonstrating in the streets?
And -- the very real and significant flip side of this picture -- how prepared are the demonstrators to truly hear what he says, rather than simply hoping to bring him down?
Opposition leader Tzipi Livni (Kadima) is making the most of these protests. I would not have expected her to do otherwise.
But here's the irony: while the demonstrators have focused their ire on Netanyahu, the fact is that, with regard to housing problems, it is also Kadima that was guilty of decreased involvement. (Olmert of Kadima was prime minister from 2006 - 2009.)
One other significant political factor with regard to the housing problem must be mentioned:
In an unprecedented concession to the Obama administration, from November 2009 through September 2010, Netanyahu instituted a freeze on housing construction in Judea and Samaria. Although that freeze has been lifted officially, it continues de facto to a considerable degree not only in Judea and Samaria, but also in Jerusalem beyond the Green Line. This, without a doubt, has exacerbated the housing shortage.
On Tuesday, MKs from the Knesset Land of Israel lobby released a statement to the media with regard to this:
"We call on the prime minister to remove the political barriers preventing construction in Judea and Samaria, and to allow for an immediate housing solution for the thousands [of people who live] in areas of broad national consensus in Judea and Samaria and in [eastern] Jerusalem."
I would add a thought to this statement: Yes, young people in Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem have trouble finding adequate housing. But what this does is drive them into Israel within the Green Line searching for housing, thus further driving up the prices of apartments and diminishing the available supply there. Were there a concerted effort to do building in Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem, it would shift the entire dynamic for the better.
Nachi Eyal, who heads the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel, also sent a letter to Netanyahu, reflecting concerns similar to those of the Knesset lobby:
"Like many others, we listened attentively to the plan you presented today with the Finance and Housing ministers to solve the housing shortage in Israel.
"Unfortunately, the complex solutions and measures presented did not make one reference to an existing problem: the lack of construction in Judea and Samaria.
"A plan which ignores the housing shortage in Judea and Samaria and the cessation of construction there solely for political considerations of the defense minister [who must sign off on construction in Judea and Samaria] is a plan that is lacking. If the government really wanted to lower the housing prices it would allow construction and promote construction in Judea and Samaria."
Eyal wrote an opinion piece about this -- "The real root of the housing shortage" -- in the Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. And here he fingers yet another part of the problem:
"The demonstrating student who dreams of purchasing a three-room apartment in Kfar Saba doesn't understand that as well as the government's shortcomings and the not-so-simple market, leftist organizations are also to blame. The student sitting beside him on the grass, the one who volunteers for Peace Now on Saturdays and goes around settlements taking pictures of housing starts, is a hidden partner in the increase of apartment prices.
"Yes, pressure from extreme left-wing organizations such as Peace Now, Yesh Din and their allies from the New Israel Fund frightens the prime minister and his cabinet, and is stopping them from promoting building projects and authorizing tenders in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria."
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=230960
Eyal identifies members of far left organizations who lobby against construction in Judea and Samaria as individuals who increase the housing problem.
But here we come full circle:
"The student sitting beside him on the grass, the one who volunteers for Peace Now..."
Students of the far left are involved in the demonstrations. Their protests against the government because of housing shortages are disingenuous, and indeed do have a larger purpose. From their perspective, how desirable it would be to cause the fall of this prime minister.Bibi in cahoots with Peres
One option explored was the exchange of territory, and others was to compensate the Palestinians for settlement blocs annexed into Israel, on the basis of the U.S. proposal that the area of a Palestinian state be equal to the territory of the...
Echoes of these fears were reflected far and wide, finding expression in such influential outlets as The New York Times, whose editorial proclaimed that such initiatives were "not befitting a democracy" – although, curiously, they are not altogether dissimilar from measures that exist in the US.New Durban III Outrages
The Durban III conference will commemorate the 10th anniversary of the conference held in Durban, South Africa, in September 2001. That event produced the Durban Declaration, which accused just one country on earth of racism, namely Israel. No negotiations, therefore, can hide the fact that Durban III is a commemoration – in the words of the authorizing General Assembly...
by Bill Levinson
Every day there are massive demonstrations, shootings, and defections of soldiers in Syria. Many now think that the dictatorship there is doomed. But what does it all mean, what has happened, and what is likely to happen? For a lot of answers, read "Getting Serious in Syria" by former NSC staffer Michael S. Doran and a Syrian writing under the penname of Salman Shaikh. A readable and brief survey of the issues.
http://www.the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=1001
Robert Heinlein is one of the great American science fiction writers; writers supposed to predict the future. Here are some lines from his novel Friday, published in 1982. The head of an intelligence agency asks his prize analyst, "What are the marks of a sick culture?"
Friday (his prize analyst): "It is a bad sign when the people of a country stop identifying themselves with the country and start identifying with a group. A racial group. Or a religion. Or a language. Anything, as long as it isn't the whole population….
"High taxation is important and so is inflation of the currency and the ratio of the productive to those on the public payroll. But that's old hat; everybody knows that a country is on the skids when its income and outgo get out of balance and stay that way…."
Yeah, everybody knows that….
This article is also on PajamasMedia:
http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/2011/07/30/the-current-crisis-as-science-fiction-robert-heinlein-thirty-years-ago/
Alvie Singer: "You kiddin'? If the Gestapo would take away your Bloomingdale's charge card you'd tell 'em everything." --"Annie Hall"
By Barry Rubin
Abdel Fattah Younes, the top military commander of the Libyan rebels and a former Libyan government official, has been assassinated by--according to opposition officials--an Islamist militia. That's a problem with Islamists: they murder people and intimidate with threats and violence. Consequently, they often get their way. Reformers can't compete with that kind of thing. That's why prospects in Libya or Egypt are not good. That's the kind of thing that Westerners tend to forget since, despite what the mass media might say, Sarah Palin for example doesn't have an armed militia dedicated to wiping out her enemies by decapitation.
Read it all:
http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/2011/07/30/murder-as-political-strategy-islamists-eliminate-rival-leader-in-libya/
By Barry Rubin
Israel's historic position toward the territories captured in the 1967 war has been: Israel will control this land until it can achieve peace or at least a better situation for itself by leaving them. Jordan made peace. And it agreed to pull out of most of the Gaza Strip and much of the West Bank when the PLO promised (that's a key word and a promise not kept) to make peace.
In contrast, Israel later withdrew from the Gaza Strip and dismantled all of the settlements there for two reasons. First, as a gesture that it hoped would show its desire for peace and would promote that goal. Second, because it seemed better to have its forces on a defensible line.
Believe it or not, there are some military advantages to the withdrawal and Israel's casualties might have been higher if it hadn't been carried out. Nevertheless, this policy did not work out so well and Israel ended up in a worse strategic situation without making any serious gains (arguably the reverse was true) in international support.
Regarding the West Bank, the lesson of the Gaza Strip withdrawal and also the southern Lebanon withdrawal have been learned. There, Israel turned over all of the populated sections (except for a small portion of Hebron) to the Palestinian Authority. Since 1993, no new settlements have been established (there have been small new outposts against government policy though the government has not always removed them) or expanded in their size. The status quo isn't wonderful but itis quite tolerable.
Recently, a number of people--many of them with a wide public audience--in the West have started clanging the bell that Israel must clear out of the West Bank as soon as possible or else face a terrible situation. Their arguments have no merit but since the other side is not given equal time (and often no time at all) their audiences are deprived of seeing how ridiculous are the claims being made.
What are these arguments? That more Palestinians are being born. So what? That Israel won't be a democratic state if it continues to control part of the West Bank? If Israel survived as a democratic and decent society for decades when it ran everything in the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, and all of the West Bank, it can certainly do so when it controls just part of the West Bank where virtually no Arabs live.
Another argument is that the regional situation is worsening. Well, when you are facing greater security threats on your borders is not the best time to shrink your borders further and turn total control of land over to those who either don't want to make peace or who soon would be bullied, persuaded, or overthrown by those who want to tear up the commitments and renew the conflict. And that would be renewing the conflict on terms much less favorable to Israel.
There is the argument that once a piece of paper was signed that there would be perfect and lasting peace with no more problems. But both the politics of the PA and events in Egypt show that's ridiculous.
So finally there is the fall-back argument: We must do something! We must try! Do what? Make things worse? Of course, trying means more busy work for the highly paid official and non-government peace processors. Free air fares! Banquets! Papers and articles to write! Meetings to go to! Pretending to be important and doing great things!
And just because they can imagine a wonderful peace in their heads--rather than understand what's going on in the heads of people in Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Iran, Gaza, and the West Bank--they deem that sufficient to inflict their glorious visions on others.
I am tired of the professional peace processors. In most cases, what they are doing is akin to someone who wants to press buttons at random on a complex piece of machinery with no understanding of how it works, having barely read the manual, and being totally indifferent to the consequences for others who live in the building, while the peace processors go home to their nice mansions purchased with peace-processing income.
As long as the status quo is preferable to the alternative, the status quo looks pretty good. You don't compare the status quo to your fantasies but to realistic alternatives, weighing the material price for each risk or concession.
And if conditions ever change so that real and lasting peace based on compromise is actually possible--and it won't be soon--that situation can be met with a changed Israeli policy.
Until then, or at least until they start acting responsibly instead of playing dice with our lives, the peace processors can, to quote an Egyptian proverb, "Go drink the Nile."
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, and Middle East editor and a featured columnist at PajamasMedia http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is http://www.gloria-center.org/
His articles published originally outside of PajamasMedia are at <http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/>
And if once-prestigious publications publish material that borders on satire will they be discredited?
This article in The Economist, once considered the world's greatest international magazine for serious news and business analysis is so horrendous that I admit to laughing hysterically while reading it.
The opening sentence is priceless. Innocent Palestinian kids are just going to get water and for no reason at all Israeli soldiers start shooting them down in cold blood. If such an incident had ever happened, it would be everywhere in the mass media. Yet no date or place is mentioned, making it certain that this is fabricated or, more likely, the journalist merely writing down what he was told by Palestinians.
read the rest:
http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/2011/07/29/if-anti-israel-propaganda-becomes-too-ridiculous-will-nobody-believe-it/www.siteintelgroup.com
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Read more...(Below is a list of some newsletters that you can copy and paste into your browser if you care to see more, of today's news. I will be adding more websites to the newsletter list, as time permits MBS)
www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com
hudson-ny.org, imra.org.il
iris.org.il/blog
arabsforisrael.blogspot.com
NonieDarwish.com
shmuelkatz.com
blog.havivgur.com
israelinsider.net
israelsituation.com
savageinfidel.blogspot.com
thereligionofpeace.com
reutrcohen.com
littlegreenfootballs.com/
waronjihad.org
israelwhat.com
muslimsforisrael.com
terrorism-info.org.il
freeman.org
freeman.org/online
freeman.org/serendipity
jihadwatch.org
fresnozionism.org
islamist-watch.org
creepingsharia.wordpress.com
salaswildthoughts.blogspot.com
WorldJewishDaily.com
memri.org
israpundit.com
sultanknish.blogspot.com
israelmatzav.blogspot.com
cufi.org
jewishworldreview.com
grendelreport. posterous.com
tundratabloid.blogspot.com
sheikyermami.com
NEWSREALBLOG.COM
atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/
israeltoday.co.il
haaretz.com
wnd.com
ynetnews.com
familysecuritymatters.org
dailyalert.org
calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com
FRONTPAGEMAG.COM
yidwithlid.blogspot.com
israelnationalnews.com
jewishideasdaily.com
jpost.com
israelseen.com
aish.com
Israel should not be fearing world opinion. Israel should be making the world respect her!!! And remember, it is the rich oil cartels who rule the world, NOT the Zionists!!
Mech'el B. Samberg
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProJewishProZionistGroup/?yguid=368134690
http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/stillnotjustmusicanymore/?yguid=368134690
http://groups.yahoo.com/adultconf?dest=%2Fgroup%2Fwhateverreturns%2F%3Fyguid%3D368134690
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/shieldofdavid/?yguid=373549731
Permission granted to share with others!!
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