Trees Don't Vote

The recent mega-blaze in the Carmel forest was partly the blame of the JNF.

JNF planted pines because they were fast growing. Trees, according to old Turkish law, were taxed; so many pre-State Arab landowners uprooted their trees to avoid the tax. This was why Israel was partially barren when the State was declared. In Arab custom planted trees are proof of ownership of land. Also, shade and foliage were needed to prevent erosion. Pines were chosen. Recently the choice of pines was questioned since the cones and spurs from the pine are highly acidic and prohibit other plant life anywhere near them.

That said, pines are what were planted, and as most people know pines are used as starter wood for a fire, then cedar or oak or olive wood to keep the fire burning long-term.

The JNF is now out and raising money to replace the pines. The JNF chief was on the air last night saying over 50,000 dunam (about 13,000 acres) of trees went up in flames. The UJA is also running a campaign to raise money for relief. What money and what relief? I didn't look at the JUF campaign pleas, yet. Hopefully they'll pay for fire-fighting planes and fire-trucks. The real problem is the fire department itself. No fire fighters' school exists. Scarce and out-dated equipment, and lack of staff are the norm.

Last night a group of fire fighters appeared on TV sitting around, taking a breather. They responded to the reporters’ questions about salaries, stating that they hadn't received a salary in two months. Another report on another channel had a fire-fighter explaining that many appointments to the fire department are political, either Likud, the ruling party, or Shas, the party that controls the Ministry of the Interior, that controls the fire department, with inexperienced appointees filling positions required by professionals. These and other disturbing facts are now pouring out.

Bit of background. The political struggle going on now to avoid blame for the tragedy is in early stages. As was said above, the fire department falls under the umbrella of the Ministry of the Interior. Shas leader Eli Ishai is the Minister of that department. He is being attacked for not doing anything for the fire department. He claims he did. Memos and such are produced to verify his claims. Commentators say that these 'behind covering' memos are standard procedure. The paper is there but no one does anything about it.

Ishai said he fought for 500 million shekels (about US $138 Million) for the fire department but was only given 100 million shekels (About US$$ 27 million). Truth is he didn't fight very hard. The fire department workers went on strike a while ago, not one minister really paid attention. Following the War In Lebanon II, when a good hunk of the upper Galilee was set ablaze by Hezbollah rockets, and the inability of the fire department to cope with the blaze became evident, a government report was issued stating plainly the fire department was weak in so many areas a disaster was waiting to happen.

But who pays? Trees don't vote. Shas leader Ishai fought for money for Yeshivot, and other ultra-Orthodox causes, but did little or nothing for the fire department. Remember he has one budget for his ministry and that has to be doled out to the elements in his constituency to keep them happy and voting. Like I said, trees don't vote.

A fire-fighter officer told an Israel TV reporter that the money from the Ministry of the Interior for the fire department, the same ministry that funds the local municipalities, is turned over the local government bodies. But these government bodies are chronically short of cash, and use the money for other shortfalls, not to pay fire fighters' salaries, or buy equipment.

This produces a situation where one firefighters' salary, or even half-a-salary, is designated for half-a-dozen towns and villages. So one fire fighter is responsible for 40,000 dunams. But in truth there isn't a fire fighter, just a slot on the books, with the money going elsewhere. Ditto for equipment. The result, an understaffed, under-equipped, under-trained fire department incapable of putting out anything but a simple fire in a forest and much better trained and equipped to put out urban factory and building fires, but even then sorely lacking in the right stuff.

Eli Ishai is a very aggressive and wily politician. When interviewed at the staging location during the mega-blaze, he took the offensive, yelling at reporters that he had done everything he could and more. Later he told the press that he was a sacrificial goat, a poor Sephardi right-winger being lead to the slaughter.

In truth the case against Ishai is not racism but government priorities. The needs of the fire department have been common knowledge for at least a decade, but no one was willing to pay from their budget to upgrade and staff and pay for the necessary equipment. Now Ishai says he's been asking that the fire department be moved from the Ministry of the Interior to Homeland Security, but no one did anything about his request. A request is even on the books for a fire-fighting plane. But no plane was ever bought. In fact, the Army once had a special unit to fight fires, but the unit was disbanded.

Moving the fire department on paper is easy, but assigning a tangible budget is another. Should Eli Ishai manage to move the fire-department to another ministry he will have passed this hot potato to another ministry, but then the question is will another ministry treat the situation any differently?

The answer is 42 and counting. That's the number of people killed so far by this fire. Three others are still in critical condition. The deaths of these hapless victims push a mundane bureaucratic issue into another realm entirely. Someone commented that after the War in Lebanon II heads rolled. Then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was forced to resign as well as then Minister of Defense Amir Peretz; Army top brass retired. This analyst thought the same thing would happen after this tragic fiasco.

Israel's PM Benjamin 'Bibi' Netanyahu, to his credit, was on the case as soon as it was clear that the forest fire was beyond the capabilities of the Israeli fire department. He phoned abroad and over 30 countries agreed to pitch in, sending planes and manpower. Even Greece and Turkey, who hate each other, joined in the effort and worked together. And remember Turkey, at odds with Israel over a variety of issues, also surprised the locals by lending a hand. The Israel government also hired a US based "super-tanker" Boeing 747 capable of dropping 92,000 liters of fire-retardant in a single pass. Russia donated two smaller planes, each with 30,000 liters of material. It was these planes, along with the scores of others from around the world that helped contain the fire.

Now Bibi has gone on TV and committed his government to the purchase of two or three of the fire fighting planes like those sent by Greece and Turkey. Bibi also promises a new renovated fire department. Perhaps he'll actually do something about his promises.

But the problem behind the fire is Netanyahu's government. Eli Ishai represents Shas. That party is like a hungry child devouring whatever comes within reach and asking for more. It is not that the move is on to oust Eli Ishai, the move is really to oust Shas.

The Shas' outlook hurt Israel when a group of Christian evangelists offered to buy modern fire trucks some months back. According to the Jerusalem Post Eli Ishai turned them down because of religious reasons. Analysts say that should Netanyahu reform his coalition and replace Shas with another party, one that has members who pay taxes and serve in the army, then perhaps the massive split forming in Israeli society will be healed.

Meanwhile Bibi Netanyahu is reportedly concerned about keeping the ultra-orthodox parties in place should he succeed in hammering out a peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority. Netanyahu is counting on the ultra-orthodox, who are being well-paid now from the government budget in the form of subsidies to their yeshiva students and other perks, to vote for his plan when the time comes.

Pundits think that better perhaps would be for Bibi to discard the ultra-orthodox and take his chances with a moderate non-religious party. But, according to informed sources, Bibi thinks of history, and his place in it, and the history books won't write about him for saving trees, but will write about him for making peace. Is this philosophy shortsighted? According to Wikileaks the Americans and many Arab countries consider the Palestinian issue a huge stumbling block to dealing with the Iranian issue that nearly everyone apparently consider highly volatile. The push for a PA/Israeli peace treaty is considered a necessary precursor to dealing with Iran. Should this attitude change, say the analysts, then Bibi would rethink the make-up of his government coalition.

Commentators say that a new coalition would change the way Israel behaves towards its own citizens: forcing the ultra-orthodox to go to work, join the army, pay taxes. This change would, according to analysts, insure Israel's viability financially and defensively for years to come. But can this change be accomplished under US pressure to make a deal with the Palestinians? Apparently Bibi doesn't think so. This means, according to pundits, that Shas and the other ultra-orthodox parties supporting Netanyahu in the Knesset will continue to get their way, receiving money funneled to yeshiva students (many of whom are fictitious, used as a way to gain more money for the yeshivas) rather than the university students or even the fire department.

After 80 odd hours the physical fire was out but the political fire was smoldering. Bibi acted decisively, unlike George W. Bush during Katrina, nor Barak Obama during the oil spill. Perhaps this decisiveness will save his political hide even though he knew about these fire department shortfalls for years.

Eli Ishai has been calling for a commission of inquiry knowing he has the paper to cover his behind. Analysts say these commissions take months to form and a year to study the material and another half-year to reach conclusions that rarely have any real effect.

However, the irascible State Controller Michael Lindenstraus is preparing his own report on the shortfalls that caused the disaster. This may well fan the smoldering political coals and create a new and powerful fire department capable of handling a fire and preventing it from becoming a mega blaze.

Trees don't vote. That's been the problem. But over 40 deaths justifiably have gravitas. Will that bus tragedy change a government?
Time will tell.

Close The Gates

Barak Obama in his wisdom opened the door to Israel bashing big time.

He did this with the best of intentions, in my humble opinion (well, maybe not so humble).By cosing up to the Arab countries Obama is trying to make it easier to forge a coalition that allows him to neutralize Iran, and perhaps gain a stronger purchase controlling events in the middle east.

However, in order to show he was 'even handed' he had to act the part. This meant smashing and slashing at Israel. Take for example his insulting treatment of Israel's PM Netanyahu a few months ago. This cold-shoulder was not lost on Israel's critics and enemies.

The flotilla is only an offshoot of that policy. Last year the Prime Minister of Turkey insulted Israel's President Shimon Peres in Davos, causing Peres to leave the stage. The bickering between Turkey and Israel are another result of the new US international position. Turkey has its own ax to grind, insulted at being excluded from the EU (Back in the day as a reporter for Israel Radio, any mention of Turkey warranted an angry response from their TA embassy).

Turkey is looking to spread its wings in the region, become an influence peddler, put Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the same league as Turkey's famous leader Ataturk.

Erdogan tried to become a mediator between Israel and Syria, but was rebuffed harshly by Israel. This created more Turkish anti-Israeli feeling. It is not coincidence that the flotilla left from Turkey nor that radical Turkish Islamists boarded the boat, some say, with the surreptitious assent of Turkey's intelligence services.

Combine Turkish and US attitudes towards Israel and you get flotillas, pressure to lift the embargo, the world turning a blind eye to Hamas rockets, the fact Hamas is on the terrorist list of most countries, and that Iran backs Hamas.

Netanyahu, by lifting some of the restrictions on the embargo, may deflate the pressure to mount more flotillas.

According to the Israeli media the embargo on sweets and pasta were items imposed while Olmert was Prime Minister and sort of rolled over into the Netanyahu administration.

According to military sources the embargo is necessary to keep out long range missiles and other weapons that can only get to Hamas either by sea or air. Since the airports are closed, that leaves the sea, and so far Hamas has not succeeded in getting weapons through that method because of the embargo. Will lifting of some of the restrictions make smuggling weapons easier? We'll see. Remember that in the old Palmach/Haganah British Mandate days Israelis were proud of how they smuggled weapons into pre-state Israel. Just recall scenes from Otto Preminger's "Exodus" when crates of tractor parts were unloaded to reveal machine guns and rifles.

Partially lifting the embargo has taken some of the steam out of the Hamas strategy of breaking the total embargo. The world's press has picked it up. Headlines appeared on Sky news, BBC and CNN, as well as on the internet.

But Hamas is a wily enemy. They haven't given up their fight, but will keep on. Time will tell what their next
move will be.

Should Obama take a harder line towards Hamas and the militant Arab states, and issue firmer criticism of Israel's enemies, the flood gates opened by his Cairo speech praising Islam and the Arab states might begin to close, bringing the onslaught from all sides to an end. If not, as many are fond of saying, we may be in 1938 all over again.

A Flotilla For Shalit

The Gaza Flotilla incident continues to make news in Israel. The latest revelations were that the Israel Defense Forces captured and then released to men whom, informed sources say, could have been used to negotiate the release of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier kidnapped four years ago currently being held by Hamas forces in Gaza.

According to the Israeli daily Yideot Achranot “The two were identified as a senior Hamas fundraiser and a Syrian intelligence official serving as the liaison officer for Iranian intelligence in the Balkans.”

One of the men was “Amin Abu-Rashid, 43, a Dutch national of Palestinian descent who lives in Rotterdam, and has the Hamas nickname of "Amin Abu-Ibrahim". According to the report, Israeli intelligence considers him one of the leaders of the Palestinian movement's fund-raising system and the chief Hamas fundraiser in Western Europe.

According to the Israeli paper Abu-Rashid was not only close to Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, the senior Hamas military commander assassinated in Dubai, but in interviews he gave in January, he said he was planning to confront IDF soldiers. In an interview Abu-Rashid was introduced as the “leader of Palestinians who are European citizens” on the flotilla.

The second man detained was Yasser Muhammad Sabag, a Syrian intelligence officer serving as the liaison officer between Damascus and Tehran's intelligence networks in the Balkans. Sabag has a dual citizenship from Syria and Bosnia and Herzegovina, where he now lives..

According to the Serbian news agency FOCUS, Sabag was released by the IDF and returned to Serbia along with a Turkish activist in the al-Qaeda affiliated IHH organization, which organized the flotilla.

FOCUS said “Its safe to say that he was not planning to bring any humanitarian aid to Gaza.”

Friday's Haaretz news agency reported that both the captain and the first mate of the Mavi Marmara, the ship that led the Gaza flotilla, tried to prevent the violent clashes. The captain said that he confiscated iron bars and parts of a steel chain that were cut by activists on the ship.

According to Haaretz. Captain Mehmut Tuval was asked whether or not he knew if the IHH activists were preparing a violent welcome to the IDF takeover, Tuval said that "they were preparing to violence against the soldiers: Yeah from what I was informed.".

The ship's first officer, Gokkiran Gokhan, told his investigators that special power saws were used to cut the chains and bars and that the ship didn’t posses those tools, but were apparently brought on board by the protesters, who also brought along walkie-talkies. The first officer said that a group of protesters had cordoned off a section near a lifeboat and prohibited anyone unauthorized from approaching. He said the IHH group was made up of about 40 people who boarded the boat in Istanbul.

Footage provided by foreign news services shows Israeli soldiers beaten with clubs and bars, pulled below decks, and held captive. Some of the footage shows blood on the walls. Other photographs show a collection of ax handles, iron bars and about a dozen knives collected from the protesters.

According to the IDF the soldiers felt their lives were in danger and opened fire. One soldier said he was under attack by a group of men who had already disarmed another IDF soldier and were approaching with that soldier’s weapon. The IDF soldier opened fire, killing six men in his attack.

Other reports say the IDF had standing orders to do what was necessary to make certain no Israeli soldier was kidnapped, to avoid a repeat of the on-going Gilad Shalit affair.

Israel has agreed to an investigation into the flotilla incident. Still, military sources in Israel have criticized the raid as hasty and unprofessional lacking planning and prior intelligence what to expect on board.

Once the ship was docked in Ashdod Israel media reported that the Israeli authorities found weapons and as much as a million Euros secreted in the cargo.

Other reports say that the violence was planned well in advance by a group of activists who boarded the ship in Turkey bent on a violent confrontation.

The IDF claims the blockade is in place to prevent weapons and materials reaching Hamas. The US has approved this blockade up unil now. The IDF is also using this blockade as a negotiating chip to force Hamas to release Gilad Shalit. So far that tactic has not worked.

The flotilla affair has brought the Gaza blockade into sharp focus. Hamas activists say they will continue to use this flotilla tactic to try to break the blockade.

One Israeli had an unusual suggestion: have a group of activists involved in the release of Gilad Shalit bring a boat to the Gaza shore with Red Cross and other aid representatives aboard all demanding to visit Gilad Shalit, provide him with food and medical treatment, and a visit with a Red Cross representative, Up-until now such a a visit has been denied by Hamas.

Perhaps with a PR move of that nature the captured Gilad Shalit may have a chance to see the light of day, be as much a topic of conversation as the aid ostensibly denied the Palestinians in Gaza.

Ruling From Afar

Israel has been an independent state since 1948. This 62-year period is the longest in history that the Jewish people have ruled their own country. The combined terms of Kings David and Solomon don’t match that, and Solomon, who consolidated his warlord father’s power, controlled Israel for only 39-years.

After that a succession of conquerors ruled Israel, most often from afar. The most famous were the Persians under Cyrus, the Greeks under Antiochus and the Romans under Titus. The latter resulted in a dispersion of the Jews from Israel and the end of a 1,000-year Jewish kingdom.

Once the idea of resettlement of Israel became a goal, brought about by second-class citizenship in the Russian empire, and the rise of socialism, which arose both independent of and paradoxically part of the same equation, Israel has been essentially ruled by outside powers steering policy.

Both the first and second aliya were as much idealism as escapism. The subjugation of the poverty stricken peasants fostered the taste for revolt; the alternative of starting a new society in an ancient homeland was the escape from tyranny. Nationalism was on the rise. Russian nationalists chose to implement socialist polices in their homeland; some Jews decided to try the socialist experiment in their own land, or at least land that was once historically theirs.

Many of the original settlers were disenfranchised orthodox Jews, today called ‘yotzei em sheala’ (leaving religious life with questions). Like Ben Gurion, the leaders had been raised in ultra-orthodox homes, their lives circumscribed by the rules and regulations set down by the rabbis in the small towns and villages in the Pale of Settlement, just about the only place the Tsar allowed them to live. Poverty was endemic. Work was restricted to agriculture. Oppression was a tight heavy yoke. No wonder many young men and women fled restrictive religious life and sought freedom in socialism and revolution. Those with firm foundations in Judaism sought to transfer this socialism and escapism to a utopian state outlined by the non-religious Viennese journalist Theordore Herzl in his landmark treatise “The Jewish State.”

But starting a country isn’t like starting a dot com company. Money has to be raised. A structure has to be devised. Leaders have to be found. A plan has to be followed. And then there is the question of survival, not only what to eat, but how to defend against hostile neighbors. Defense means weapons and training. Both require funds.

The early Zionists had to be both idealists and materialists. Had to have enough fervor to excite a crowd, keep them excited as they dug in malarial swamps, hacked away at parched earth, built on shifting sands. Yet material enough to realize that schnooring was a necessity. Money had to come from somewhere.

Tzdeka is an age-old Jewish tradition that traces its roots back to the Old Testament. A widow had to be cared for, also orphans, the sick, the needy. Along the way the ethics were refined: a wealthy man who became poor should be supported by the community in the style to which he was accustomed; the Torah scholar must be supported by the community lacking the scholar’s exceptional intellectual skills.

The wealthier Jewish merchants were always solicited for contributions, to the poor and needy, for a synagogue, a mikva, a Torah scroll. When the Jewish State was discussed, the wealthier Jews were brought into the mix. The Rothschilds put up money for farming equipment, a vineyard, financed new towns. An Italian/British financier named Montefiore helped with the foundations of a New Jerusalem. Simple Jews around the world were solicited for their pennies, just as U.S. President Obama appealed to donors for their dollar bills.

The bigger the child, the bigger the problems. The larger the country grew the larger the needs. Pre-state Israel, then named Palestine by the early Zionists, became a receiving nation. Like Jamestown in the British Colony, early agricultural settlements were communal. Most of the Jews lived on handouts from abroad.

Fast-forward a hundred years. The modern state of Israel is the second in hi-tech start-ups in the world with a GNP greater than all the surrounding Arab states combined. A standard of living envied by Israel’s neighbors, who still remain third-world countries. Israel’s intellectual potential was utilized, allowed to flourish, producing one of the economies hardly affected by a near financial collapse around the world.

Even the Arab population living under Israeli rule in the West Bank and Gaza benefited from Israel’s financial success. As bad as the life is in the West Bank according to Arab sources, the standard of living, if work can be found, is still better than in other countries.

Israel is an independent state, capable of supplying other nations with aide, sending rescue teams to earthquake zones like Haiti and Turkey, supplying food and medical equipment to Thailand, helping out when possible.

But rather than join Israel as it developed, the Arab nationalists of the 1930’s, the Palestinian nationalists of the 1960’s, the Khoumanism of the eighties, the Islamic zealousness of the 90’s, all sought to deny Israel and the Jewish population an existence.

Ideally this enmity wouldn’t exist, but idealism is good in theory, until the bombs go off in the busses, the missiles fall into the settlements, throats are slit all the way through the spinal cord in a grisly decapitation.

Co-existence is a two-sided endeavor. Oil, politics, corruption, greed, all mix together to make the Middle East what it is. While the majority of Israelis abhor discrimination in theory, they still practice it, against their own citizens and their neighbors.

But discrimination isn’t limited to the Israelis. When the Black Plague swept Europe in the 14th Century, the Jews were blamed. No necessity in going on with the list of disgusting accusations that resulted in millions of Jews murdered over the centuries. Frequently this enmity is pure jealousy. Christians angered that Jews refused to accept Jesus as the Messiah; Moslems angry at Jews refusing to follow the ways of Islam. Secularists angered that the Jews were religious, businessmen angry that the Jews succeeded where they failed. On and on, as Kurt Vonnegut wrote, once, On and On.

To defend herself Israel became an armed camp. From the early Fedayin to the Hamas , Hezbollah, and Achmenijads of today, weapons were needed for defense, sophisticated, expensive weapons. Israel started by purchasing weapons with donations made by wealthy Jews. Then aligning herself with countries seeking to exert political influence in the region.

The best friend Israel ever had is the United States, a country that recognizes Israel as the one stable Democracy in the region. Not a pure democracy, to be sure. Not an American democracy. But the US has supported and supports other countries with even worse offenses than Israel. Some of them were huge mistakes, like the S. Vietnamese. Others, most in fact, took the money and pocketed it. Not Israel.

So when U.S President Obama decides to push Israel into a peace agreement, the pressure starts to resonate with the historical past, reminders of the rulers who controlled the Holy Land from afar, the Greeks, Romans, Persians, Turks, British.

ADL director Abe Foxman has said that the US is pursuing a mistaken policy in the Middle East, one that was always wrong. One that puts Israel as the key to peace.
When U.S. President Obama decides that Israel shouldn’t build up Jerusalem, that decision may easily be construed as interfering in the internal affairs of another country.

When President Obama, under advice by well-meaning liberals and friends of Israel like Rahm Emmanuel and David Axelrod, push for a peace conference with the Palestinians, some pundits see this as a means to distract the world from the failures of Obama’s ability to make good on his campaign promises.

When all else fails, blame the Jews, is an old tactic, long practiced, usually with disastrous results for the Jews. Analysts wonder if cynical politics isn’t at work at what is called the lowest point in the US-Israel relations in 35-years.

Whatever the reasons, ruling from afar seems not to have gone out of style, no matter what Washington is saying,

What Were They Thinking?

A recent announcement by Israel’s Ministry of Defense sent the residents of the beleaguered Southern Israeli town of Sderot scurrying to their phones to call the media, and
whomever else they could, to muster support for an initiative to change the Ministry’s mind over the decision not to implement an anti-missile system for the small towns along Israel’s Southern and Northern borders.

At stake was the safety of the citizens of Sderot. The Ministry of Defense decided that the Iron Dome anti-missile system, recently tested successfully by Rafael Industries off the coast of Israel, would be stored at an airforce base in the South of Israel.

The media pointed out that Minister of Defense Ehud Barak, and others in the Ministry’s R&D division, championed the Iron Dome system as a solution to the problems of Sderot’s residents. The Iron Dome, Barak claimed, was going protect the citizens of Sderot from mortars and short-range Katyusha rockets.

Now the Ministry says that the Iron Dome takes nearly 30-seconds to go on-line, about twenty-seconds longer than it takes a rocket to fly the two or three kilometers from Gaza into Sderot. The Ministry also said that the Iron Dome was more effective with larger rockets, like the Iranian made Fajr 5, with a range of 75 kilometers.

Clearly the Iron Dome is a system that is needed to defend Israel’s industrial heartland and major population center around Tel Aviv against Hamas in the South and Hezbollah in the North. In fact, no Iron Dome batteries are planned for deployment in the North at this time, according to the Ministry.

Military correspondent Yossie Melman, writing in Haaretz this week, said that the Iron Dome system was never designed to protect the Northern settlements nor those in the South. Rather it was a nod to Rafael, one of Israel’s major defense contractors, who lost out in the development of the Arrow anti-missile system, designed to protect Israel from long-range rockets flying out of countries like Syria and Iran.

According to Melman the anti-missile Gattling gun and the Nautilus laser canon system, would have been much more effective to defend Sderot, or Kyriat Shmona. Back when these systems were being tested experts claimed that the Ministry of Defense was concerned that should either the Gattling gun or Nautilus alternatives be chosen then the Iron Dome would be put on a back burner. The indications are that the Iron Dome was shoved through under false pretenses in order to throw Rafael work, and not directly for security reasons.

One pundit defended the Ministry’s actions arguing that companies like Rafael must be kept in business because they provide a vital role in developing and manufacturing systems used to defend Israel. The consolation prize of the Iron Dome would insure Rafael’s profitability since each Iron Dome battery will cost the government over $50 million, and dozens of the batteries are needed to protect the country, and form a real Iron Dome. The total cost is now estimated at over $1 billion. One analyst pointed out that estimated budgets are usually thirty-percent below the final cost.

An observer of the defense industries pointed out that if this was a bone tossed to Rafael, he’d hate to see what happened when they tossed them a real consolation prize.

The residents of Sderot have begun a campaign to change the Ministry’s mind, and have the Iron Dome deployed in Sderot rather than warehoused in an airforce base even though sources pointed out to these residents that anyway the Iron Dome wouldn’t be able to protect them, since the system was too slow to stop short-range rockets.

Will the Ministry of Defense now turn to the Gattling gun or Nautilus solution? Pundits speculate that depends on how much pressure Sderot can put on the government.

As for Syria, recently the Syrian Foreign Minister accused Israel of dragging Syria into a new war that would encompass the entire Middle East. Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Leiberman responded that should Syria attack Israel, Syria would be defeated and a new regime would then take over power in Syria.

Both Israel’s PM Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu and Israel’s Minister of Defense Ehud Barak have tried to downplay Leiberman’s threats. Most analysts believe that neither Syria nor Israel are preparing for nor want a war, rather that Syria is blowing off steam. Israel’s Foreign Minister, say these analysts, is talking tough for no good reason other than that’s who he is.

Avigdor Leiberman is still under investigation by the Israel police for a variety of charges, most involved in money laundering of one type or another. The police have been investigating Leiberman for over a decade, and no indictment has ever been issued. Leiberman has called on the government to stop the investigation, saying that a decade is long enough to be harassed by the police.

A few analysts say that the investigation is used primarily to keep Leiberman in line, with the threat of an indictment over his head in case he goes too far in a direction the ‘powers that be’ find offensive. No proof has been given to this cynical observation, other than the fact that the investigation continues with no indictment.

Gilad Shalit is still a captive in Gaza, facing his fourth year of imprisonment. Observers say that as ususal, whenever Hamas feels they’re not getting attention they trot out Shalit and offer to renew negotiations. This policy, observers say, is the same one that PLO founder Yassir Arafat used for decades to keep the ‘Palestinian Issue’ on the front burner of the world’s consciousness. Pundits say that Hamas realizes the tactic worked wonderfully for Arafat, so why not for them. So far, say these pundits, Hamas is correct.

Analysts wonder why the Palestinian issue has such great appeal around the world, when so many other burning problems exist?

Hezbollah, the Shiite terrorist organization in Lebanon, is now a part of the Lebanese political establishment. Recently the UN caught Hezbollah with tons of weapons stockpiled in S. Lebanon. Israel used this discovered to claim that Hezbollah is preparing another war with Israel. Hezbollah claims it is Israel preparing for the war. One observer states that Hezbollah has vowed to eliminate Israel, as have both Hamas and Iran. Israel, says the analyst, has never vowed to eliminate any of these forces. So why, the analyst asked, is Israel seen as the aggressor?

Given that Israel is facing long-range threats from Iran, and medium range rockets from Hezbollah and Hamas, it is clear why the Iron Dome is needed. But one pundit asked why Sderot and the border towns in the North should be exposed to danger, using only the early warning system of sirens and bomb shelters, for their safety? What were the defense officials thinking, asks this pundit, when these small communities were ignored?

Israel and Switzerland

Trying to find out the breakdown of the Swiss economy can be rather difficult. Why would anyone living in Israel be interested in Switzerland? Simple. The Swiss population of 7.8 million people is roughly the same as that of Israel.

There the similarities nearly stop.

Switzerland has an economy of about $403 billion in 2007, making it, according to some charts, the 16th richest country in the world. It does have the highest per-capital income in the world, about $43,000 per person.

Israel’s per-capita income is $26,600 (2007 est.) with a surprising GDP of about $200 billion.

Most of Switzerland’s economy is based on according to the U.S. State Department website, Aug 2009: “Industry (est. 29% of GDP): Types--machinery, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, time pieces, precision instruments, textiles and clothing, pigment, transportation equipment.
Services (70% of GDP).
Trade: Merchandise exports (2007)--$172.6 billion (207.1 billion Swiss francs): food, beverages, and tobacco (3%; +24%); metal and chemical industries (42%; +12%); precision instruments (7%; +8%); watches (8%; +16%); machinery and electronics (21%; +11%); clothing 1.1%; +4%). Major markets--EU, United States, Canada, CIS, India, Brazil, Japan. Merchandise imports (2007)--$164.8 billion (197.7 billion Swiss francs): consumer goods (38%); equipment (19%); energy (7.1%); raw materials (28%). Major suppliers--EU, U.S., Canada, CIS, South Africa.”

Israel’s breakdown is similar to Switzerland’s. Agriculture: 2.6% industry: 32.4%
Services: 65% (2008 est.)

What big difference jumps out? War. Defense. Survival. Switzerland declared itself a neutral country. While Switzerland does maintain an army, they make sure it doesn’t really have to fight. When Switzerland joined the UN it was with the understanding the Swiss would never send troops to a conflict.

Believe it or not the Swiss air force shot down German planes that encroached Swiss airspace during WWII. They also engaged the US forces and during that war over 100 Allied troops were interned in Swiss prisons. The Allies bombed a few Swiss factories and towns. The Swiss were selling weapons to the Germans. Also the Swiss were lending the Germans money, depending though, how well the war was going.

According to the CIA World Factbook, Israel “… depends on imports of crude oil, grains, raw materials, and military equipment. Despite limited natural resources, Israel has intensively developed its agricultural and industrial sectors over the past 20 years. Israel imports substantial quantities of grain but is largely self-sufficient in other agricultural products. Cut diamonds, high-technology equipment, and agricultural products (fruits and vegetables) are the leading exports. Israel usually posts sizable trade deficits, which are covered by large transfer payments from abroad and by foreign loans. Roughly half of the government's external debt is owed to the US, its major source of economic and military aid.”

Another big difference between Switzerland and Israel is that Switzerland doesn’t depend on foreign aid to help with its deficit, since it has no deficit. The US provides Israel with about 5 percent of Israel’s GDP. Nearly $3 billion in foreign aid, another $2.5 billion in military grants and loans for the purchase of military weapons, supplies, and replacement parts. Then there’s the additional $10 billion in load guarantees the U.S. provides.

Switzerland’s budget surplus allows Switzerland to remain neutral. Israel, on the other hand, remains dependent on the USA to help Israel with the 10 percent of the GDP spent on defense (about $20 billion a year). Imagine, one pundit says, that if Israel could devote that 10 percent to hi-tech, services, tourism, the positive effect on the economy. And, the pundit adds, don’t forget when a soldier does reserve duty for 30-days, he’s away from his job that is productive to the economy, and gets paid for the month.

So when Israel’s PM Bibi Netanyahu goes to meet with President Obama for a trilateral summit including the Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas, pundits say he goes not because he wants to, but because the largest donor to Israel’s cause has asked him to.

Israeli Jet fighters, tanks, Armored Personnel Carriers, all run on US engines; helicopters, machine guns, rifles, are pure US Army issue. One observer said, ‘Try telling the country that puts the engines in your tanks and planes you’re not interested in sitting down with the PA for a discussion that may lead to peace. Hard to do.’

The Israeli media’s take on this new summit is that PM Netanyahu is going just because he was pressured by the US to go. In this case pressure could mean shutting off the flow of arms and supplies the Israeli army needs from the US. These threats have happened in the past, under US President Nixon, the first US President Bush, and US President Carter.

So, say the observers, going to New York's Waldorf Astoria Hotel to sit with Abbas and Obama isn’t such a big deal. One cartoon shows a nervous sweating Obama sitting near Abbas and Netanyahu pleading for ‘just a little handshake, please.’

“Obama’s 11th Hour Push” was the headline in the Israeli paper Haaretz. After much back and forth by US Special Envoy George Mitchell, Netanyahu and Abbas agreed to go to Washington. Abbas, according to the paper, has little legitimacy since his term of office has officially ended and he extended it with the approval of his narrow cabinet, even though elections were scheduled.

Netanayhu has a right-wing coalition to answer to back home and isn’t willing to make any concessions prior to the meeting. This lack of concession is something that has embarrassed Abbas, according to analysts. In today’s Haaretz a report came in about new construction outside the settlement of Beitar Ilit, in contravention of the assurances Israel Minister of Defense Ehud Barak has given George Mitchell.

Most analysts say nothing substantive will come out of the meeting. Netanyahu said today that he’d stop settlement activity if the Arab states would allow Israeli commercial aircraft to fly over their airspace.

Lebanon’s strongman Sheik Nasrallah said this week that he’d never recognize Israel as a state. Hamas has echoed this statement. Syrian President Assad seems to be playing a double game, supplying Hezbollah with arms while talking about peace with Israel. The Iranian dictator has kept on threatening Israel with annihilation.

So what happened to Switzerland?

Israelis pay huge taxes on everything in order to support a military that is necessary to defend the borders. The Swiss are sailing along, no one on their borders threatening them with annihilation, no one calling for their destruction, no one saying they won’t recognize Switzerland as a state.

A veteran analyst said ‘A successful peace process in the Middle East would be wonderful. Especially one with teeth that worked. That really brought peace. But sometimes peace isn’t possible, much as it is desired. A teenager can want to have a lusty affair with Angelina Jolie, but that doesn’t mean it will ever happen.’

Another analyst says that considering the difficulties Israel has faced up to now, it is amazing that the economy is so strong, and Israel is so successful in a number of fields.
The $200 billion less than Switzerland that Israel now makes could be $200 billion more without having to constantly spend precious resources on defense.

The father of neo-conservatism, Irving Krystol, who died recently, said he thought the conflict in the Middle East was a waste.

Clearly, if Israel can make peace with the Palestinians, and then the Arab world, this would be in Israel’s best interest. One observer says that Israelis have shown a lot of things but stupidity isn’t one of them. If peace were possible, he says, then Israel would leap at it.

President Obama’s belief is that Israel is the lynchpin to peace in the Middle East, and to quelling the rise in Islamic Fundamentalism. Perhaps he’s right. If so, and the correct formula is reached, Israel will go along with it. There are few Israelis around who wouldn’t want to turn Israel into Switzerland.

In this Jewish New Year, let’s hope that a positive fate is written in the Book of Life for a real chance for peace.

Shana Tova

Where' s The Genius?

Genius is both objective and subjective. According to Harvard University Prof. Howard Gardner, a person can have genius for one thing, but not another. Albert Einstein had genius for conceptualizing solutions to physics problems, but might never have been a jet-pilot. Michael Jordan had genius for basketball but not for baseball. So is genius objective?

Jordan bulldozing over the opposition to score with those dazzling flights and dunks. Points rung up on the board. His genius could be measured. Einstein thought of a formula, designed a reaction, and then assisted as a bomb was constructed based on the theorem. The bomb was an objective fact.

Genius in art, however, is subjective. What one person finds beautiful, another finds repulsive, witness the two sides of the argument about modern art; or rock music versus classical music. Would primitive tribes in the Amazon find Michelangelo’s David beautiful? Would the snooty upper East Side New York society ladies and their spouses find stretched lips and mutilated ears of African tribeswomen beautiful, or disgusting?

Then there’s luck. Napoleon, was said to prefer a lucky general over a good one. Bill Gates, when he was working in his father’s garage tinkering with a new operating system, got lucky when IBM signed on to run the system without demanding to buy the exclusive rights to it. Had they done so Gates would have wound up an employee of IBM, and Microsoft would never have been born.

Recently, a top literary agent from Manhattan related a conversation with a top Hollywood studio head. The studio chief said, at the end of the year he’d made 100 decisions about films, choosing fifty out of a hundred to go into production. The studio head then surprised the agent by saying, had I chosen the other fifty rather than this fifty, the year-end income results would probably still have come out the same.

So what of those people in the fifty projects he turned down. Subjective decisions that influence a life, but not the big picture.

Then there’s the West Bank of the Jordan River. Recent statements in its annual report, the Association of Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) pointed to "extremely worrisome trends at the center of which are violations of the most elementary human rights."

The report also noted that the situation in the occupied West Bank, between Israeli settlers and the local Palestinian population, was "reminiscent, in many and increasing ways, of the apartheid regime in South Africa."

The ACRI noted that since the foundation of Israel, the country's Arab citizens have been discriminated against though legislation and allocation of resources. officials have stated that Israel practices apartheid in that area.

Does that mean Israel actually does practice apartheid, or is it simply the subjective opinion of the person making that judgment call? ACRI has long been criticized as anti-Israeli pro-Palestinian.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said the same thing last May. One would have to go deeply into the definition of apartheid and see if it applies only to situations in S. Africa, or see if indeed the term also fits the West Bank. Again, this is a subjective judgment since no empirical facts exist that can be checked off in a list.

NATO has floated the idea that a multi-national force deployed in the West Bank may be the best solution, but according to the Israeli media, Israeli security administrators would rather keep foreign armies out of the West Bank. They point to UNIFIL’s poor performance containing Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the history of the UN voting against Israel, or pulling out, rather than digging in, at the Egypt-Israel border when war was about to break out. Fleeing, rather than attempting to affect some sort of de-escalation of tension. About NATO, one Israeli source said that no foreign army is going to risk their lives to save either Arabs or Jews. That in fact NATO would only get in the way.

Israeli security officials claim that Israel’s consistent and constant battle against terrorism in the West Bank is what has kept that area relatively quiet. Israel routinely goes into Arab villages and towns and cities, conducting raids against “wanted terrorists.” Not a month goes by without notice of a “wanted terrorist” killed or arrested.

Is this apartheid? Perhaps it is. The S. African army routinely raided the black townships searching for activists who wanted self-rule. But is this the same as Israel’s search for “wanted terrorists?” Did the self-rule activists in S. Africa also wage terror campaigns? Strap on suicide belts laden with explosives and blow themselves up in the midst of crowded civilian centers? The comparisons are easier to make in a glib fashion than in empirical application.

Subjectively, from the activists on the Arab side, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Al Quaida, are freedom fighters. , Israelis and many on the West would see them as terrorists. How then will the newly appointed U.S. Secretary of State deal with the issue of the West Bank? And why, given all of the trouble in the world today, would solving the problems of the Middle East, specifically Israel and the Palestinians, be of primary importance? Is it because progress in the Middle East makes the history books? Leads to a Nobel Prize?

And who says the Nobel Prize is so important? Some prizes are given based on objective standards, the discovery of a gene that can lead to cancer; the formulation of a theory that influences the world’s finances. But what of three men shaking hands, making peace in the Middle East? When the peace fell apart did anyone ever ask that the prize handed to Yassir Arafat be returned? Was the prize given subjectively or objectively?

In a recent discussion with a CEO of a high- tech company, the issue of the US financial meltdown was a hot topic. The CEO said it would be the grandchildren of today’s Americans who would pay for the bailout. The American government had borrowed from the future to cover the debts of the present. On a subjective level, this seems a good decision. Without a solution to today’s problems, there might not be a tomorrow. The market can continue to plunge until there is no market. The employment picture can continue to turn dire until there is no work. The economy can turn so far down that the United States is no longer united. An apocalypse could occur without a rocket ever coming out of Iran, or Russia.

But what of that future? With the US economy in a deep recession, who is to say that there will be a future for the grandchildren of tomorrow? The US ability to produce and manufacture has slipped steadily since 1956 when 75% of all goods were manufactured in the USA, until today when that number is in the teens and only income in the abstract seems possible: profits from commissions on the sale of commodities and goods produced somewhere else. By providing so well for America’s workers, the unions and the workers destroyed their own jobs.

Can these trends be reversed? Can the US become a competitor in the manufacture of automobiles once again? Or will the designs be drawn up in Detroit and executed in Shanghai? Will President-Elect Obama’s plan to provide government-subsidized jobs to the unemployed break this downward cycle?

American genius has been in designs, widgets that became an integral part of modern life, from the light bulb, to the Model-T, to the computer chip. Without the development of new ideas that generate jobs and money for America, the power of America seems to be on a downward spiral, so much so that in a generation or two when today’s debts have to be paid off, there won’t be enough left of the US economy to make the payments.

Like the burden of the pensions on the auto industry, the burden of those debts will so cripple the economy of the next two or three generations that America as we know it will not longer exist. Russia, striving mightily to regain super-power status, along with China and India, will be in the ascendancy. Russia because of her surfeit of oil, China and India because of brainpower and masses of factory workers.

What America seems to need are big idea men, women with Amazon-sized concepts, all with brains twice that of Einstein, conceiving of, developing and manufacturing things the world needs. Not abstract profits from speculation in the stock market, but products that generate capital. Objective evaluations based on empirical evidence, not subjective guesses that seem right today, like Alan Greenspan’s guess that the financial sector would self-regulate, that turned out to be wrong tomorrow. There is no longer room for those mistakes. Americans have mortgaged our grandchildren’s future, and it is up to Americans to lay the solid foundations so that those future generations can make the payments. What America needs is to allow genius to flourish, and then hope there’s a lot of luck to go with it.