Israeli Politics

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למי אובמה טוב? [Hebrew version of “Are You Better Off Today Than You Were Four Years Ago? Yes!”]

This column  originally was published in Ha’aretz


למרבה הצער התשובה לשאלה לא תמיד שלילית. ישנם רבים שבשבילם כהונתו של אובמה הביאה שגשוג ופריחה. הנה רשימה חלקית של המרוויחים הגדולים שהיו עונים על השאלה “האם מצבכם היום טוב יותר?” בכן מהדהד.

אז הנה אנחנו, בתום סדרת העימותים בבחירות לנשיא ארה”ב. מאז שאל רונלד רייגן שאלה פשוטה ויעילה את הבוחרים – “האם מצבך היום טוב יותר משהיה לפני ארבע שנים?” – מנסים מועמדים חדשים לנשיאות לשחזר את ההצלחה הזאת. במערכת הבחירות הנוכחית, כאשר הנשיא ברק אובמה מציג כלכלה אמריקאית מקרטעת, אחוזי אבטלה גבוהים ושיא בגירעון הלאומי, מיט רומני יכול להניח כי שאלה זו תעורר מחשבה בקרב הבוחרים. Continue reading →

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Waiting for Obama. And Waiting. And Waiting…

If Obama has been so heavy-handed in dealing with Israel up until now, while Israel still ostensibly maintains the ability to cripple Iran’s nuclear development, just imagine the concessions he’ll demand from Israel as the price of American action when he alone holds Israel’s security in his hands.  
Speculation simmers as to how and when Israel may launch a preemptive attack against Iran’s nuclear-genocide facilities.  But as Iran races toward nuclear capability, a couple of things are becoming clear: first, whatever else Israel may have up its resourceful sleeve, the window in which Israel by itself is capable of inflicting serious damage in conventional air strikes is closing fast; and second, once that window closes, relying on a second-term Obama administration to take out Iranian nukes would be a grave mistake for Israel.
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The Surprising Israeli Takeaway From the Presidential Debate

Precisely because Israel-based viewers are less engaged in details of this campaign than voters in America.  They are, therefore, arguably a better reflection of the less-engaged and still-undecided voters in America than the hardened political junkies whose impressions of the candidates were formed long ago.
The first Obama-Romney debate is over, and has been followed by predictable torrents of over-dissection and over-analysis.  So, why add more?  Because reactions in Israel may be surprisingly instructive in projecting the likely impact of this debate on the coming election.  Americans in Israel, as well as native-Israelis, make for an interesting group with which to measure the effect of the debate, especially on the impression made by Governor Romney. Continue reading →
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How not to read presidential polls: The increasing absurdity of media reports

This column was originally published by the Times of Israel.

While various statistical methods may be sound, all polling analysis depends on the quality of assumptions and data inputted.  Garbage in, garbage out: skewed data inputs lead to skewed poll results, no matter how brilliant any particular statistical methodology.  

At first, it was just a trickle, a misguided throw-away line here and there, easily ignored.  Then it started picking up momentum, showing up in one Israeli commentary after another.  And now, it is conventional wisdom in the Israeli press and public that the U.S. election is already over, that polls show President Obama’s reelection is inevitable, and that Republican Mitt Romney might as well throw in the towel now.
Of course, this is nonsense.  It is based on the most superficial reading of the most superficial polls.  Continue reading →
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The Democrats Were for Jerusalem, Before They Were Against it, Before They Were for it, Before They Were Against It

The Democrats’ 2012 platform omitted any endorsement of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.  Furthermore, it no longer calls for the creation of a democratic Palestinian state, no longer calls for isolating Hamas until it renounces terror and recognizes Israel, and opens the door to endorsing the so-called Palestinian “right of return” to Israel.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
Are we really supposed to trust these people?
The outrageousness of the stories surrounding the Democratic Party platform’s now-you see-them, now-you-don’t sections relating to Israel and Jerusalem grows daily, exceeded only by the cynicism of the party spokesmen peddling them.  On the bright side, the entertainment value of the saga is pretty high. Continue reading →
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The “Opposite” of Obama: a Primer for Democrats

This column was originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

The Obama administration has distinguished itself by innumerable calculated insults and slights designed to show “daylight” between Obama’s America and Israel.  I ask those defenders of Obama’s Israel record: would you have a problem with the “opposite” of the following partial list of incidents?

In June, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney told an audience of Christian conservatives that he would do the “opposite” of what US President Barack Obama has done in terms of Israel. “I think, by and large, you can just look at the things the president has done and do the opposite.” Romney explained that his “overarching” message was that “I would not want to show a dime’s worth of distance between ourselves and our allies like Israel. If we have disagreements, we can talk about them behind closed doors. But to the world, you show that we’re locked arm-in-arm.”

Did anyone not understand what Romney meant? Continue reading →

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His Rabbis: How Obama got to “know more about Judaism than any other president.”

This column was originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

 

We are left with the disturbing likelihood that Obama’s education regarding Jewish theology, history and Zionism has come from three primary influences in his adult life: activist Rabbi Arnold Wolf, Reverend Jeremiah Wright and formerly Beirut-based PLO flak Dr. Rashid Khalidi.

The backlash didn’t take long.
Within hours of President Barack Obama declaring to a group of Conservative Jews that he “probably knows more about Judaism than any other president” – a result, he claimed, of reading and having lots of Jewish friends – the blogosphere was ablaze with pointed refutations. Continue reading →

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Seven Minutes: The Limits Of Obama’s Pro-Israel Pronouncements

Obama told Jewish supporters: “This administration — I try not to pat myself too much on the back — but this administration has done more in terms of the security of the State of Israel than any previous administration.”
 
Stop laughing; he actually said it with a straight face. 
A seven-minute Israel-loves-Obama promotional video?  Is that the best this administration can do?  Perhaps it’s time for an administration whose pro-Israel record will last more than seven minutes. Continue reading →
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Happy Veterans Day, Gilad Shalit

This column was originally published in American Thinker magazine.

Israeli proponents of the Shalit deal argued that “we are all Gilad Shalit.”  That is truer than we realize: in fact, we all owe our existence and our freedom to the ultimate sacrifice of countless others every bit as much as Gilad Shalit owes his to the awful sacrifices made on his behalf.

 
We are oddly fortunate in that the vast majority of sacrifices are but abstractions to us — statistics, ceremonies, or images of neat rows of crosses and Stars of David on the Normandy cliffs. 
 
Constant awareness of the enormity of the sacrifices made on our behalf would paralyze us; we know we can never earn it.  So, we cope by compartmentalizing.   We go on living normally by not focusing on those sacrifices too much, yet not taking them for granted.  We in the free world carve out Veterans/Armistice Days to recognize our awesome debts, and designate moments of reflection, memory and honor of those who sacrificed so we can live.  And then we go back to the business of living.
 
Perhaps, one day, Gilad Shalit will be able to do the same. Continue reading →
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God is Great. But Not Part of Obama’s Understanding of the Middle East

Obama is of a more secularized and progressive world. His urbane, liberal, intellectual circles are embarrassed by God-talk. Such sophisticates might be God-conscious for a few hours of religious service on a weekend or holiday, but God is largely kept confined to houses of worship. God is banished from any enlightened intellectual or international political discussion.  
Such secularism, however, may cloud geopolitical vision:  th

e Mideast is flammably not secular, filled with people who live and breathe their incompatible respective understandings of God’s word. Continue reading →