JG, Caesarea

Compugen: Further Validation of Predictive Drug Discovery

2012-02-02T03:17:00.000-08:00

Today, Compugen announced test results demonstrating the therapeutic potential of CGEN-15001T as a drug target for treatment of multiple cancers by means of monoclonal antibody (“mAb”) therapy. CGEN-15001T is a membrane protein, predicted by Compugen to be a B7/CD28-like protein. The B7/CD28 family of proteins is known to be involved in regulation of the immune system in immune related disorders and in cancer.

Of particular interest, as noted in Compugen's press release (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Compugen-Cancer-Target-bw-2304211202.html?x=0), is the tripartite mechanism of action postulated for a monoclonal antibody directed against this target:

"Taken together, the expression profile of CGEN-15001T and its proposed immunomodulatory profile suggest that a single therapeutic antibody against CGEN-15001T may attack cancer cells through three key mechanisms. One mechanism is by direct targeting and killing of the cancer cells expressing CGEN-15001T. Since CGEN-15001T is expressed on numerous cancers, an antibody against CGEN-15001T has therapeutic potential for various cancer indications. Another mechanism of the therapeutic antibody may be achieved by blocking the inhibition of the immune system induced by CGEN-15001T, whether expressed on the cancer cells and/or the immune cells within the tumor. And third, the same mAb for CGEN-15001T may promote the immune system component which acts against the tumor (Th1), while inhibiting the component which promotes the cancer (Th2). The significant potential of having all three mechanisms in a single therapeutic antibody to CGEN-15001T is being pursued actively by Compugen as part of its expanded mAb activities within its Pipeline Program."

Also meaningful is the fact that Compugen’s Protein Family Members Discovery Platform, underlying the discovery of both CGEN-15001 (see, most recently: http://www.cgen.com/Content.aspx?Page=press_releases&NewsId=595) and CGEN-15001T, was announced little more than a year ago (see: http://www.cgen.com/Content.aspx?Page=press_releases&NewsId=524). The speed with which the platform was created, and the resultant rapid discovery and validation of CGEN-15001, CGEN-15001T and other B7/CD28-like proteins, all at a cost dwarfing typical discovery of new therapeutic candidates, attest to the power of Compugen's predictive discovery science. Although there can be no assurances that any of these early stage candidates will become commercialized products, the manner in which these candidates were created and their promising test results speak for themselves, and, in my opinion, augur a new era of drug discovery.

[As noted in prior blog entries, I am a Compugen shareholder, this blog entry is not a recommendation to buy or sell Compugen shares, and in September 2009 I began work as a part-time external consultant to Compugen. The opinions expressed herein are mine and are based on publicly available information. This blog entry has not been authorized, approved or reviewed prior to posting by Compugen.]

Roman Halter, of Blessed Memory

2012-02-02T00:17:00.000-08:00

The obscenity of Holocaust denial is regrettably alive and kicking. Earlier this week, Iran's Press TV denounced the decision of Turkish public television to broadcast a Holocaust documentary (http://www.presstv.ir/detail/223743.html):

"Turkey's move can be considered as controversial and unacceptable since Muslim nations hold that Holocaust believers have lost touch with the reality and that western governments are using the saga to play the role of innocent victims.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has on several occasions called for a historical research to find realities about the Holocaust. His remarks have sparked outrage among the pro-Israeli powers, which labeled him a Holocaust denier.

Prominent American scholar Norman Finkelstein argues in his book The Holocaust Industry (2000) that many exploit the myth of Holocaust as an 'ideological weapon', saying this is also the case with Israel, 'one of the world's most formidable military powers, with a horrendous human rights record, [can] cast itself as a victim state' in order to garner 'immunity to criticism.'

. . . .

A French court fined author Roger Garaudy $20,000 in 1998, for questioning the Nazi Holocaust during the World War II.

The French scholar was convicted of challenging crimes against humanity and of racial libel.

In his book The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics, Garaudy argued that Hitler's killing of the Jews could not be described as genocide.

He also questioned whether gas chambers were used for mass slaughter."

Ahmadinejad has called for a historical inquest to "find realities about the Holocaust"? This monster should begin by reading Roman Halter's autobiographical book, "Roman's Journey" (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/search/label/Roman%20Halter). As summarized by its jacket cover, this gripping work recounts how Roman Halter, a Polish schoolboy, miraculously survived the Nazi nightmare years:

"Roman Halter is an optimistic and boisterous schoolboy in 1939, when he and his family gather behind their net curtains to watch the Voldeutsch neighbors in their small town in western Poland greet the arrival of Hitler's armies with kisses and swatstika flags. Within days, the family home has been seized, 12-year-old Roman is a slave of the local SS chief, and, returning from an errand, silently watches his Jewish classmates being bayoneted to death by soldiers at the edge of town. And there begins the journey - first into the Lodz ghetto, then on to Auschwitz, then Stutthof and a firebombed Dresden - a remarkable six-year journey through some of the darkest caverns of Nazi Germany, which claimed the lives of every other member of his family and the 800-strong community of his boyhood."

As noted by Sir Martin Gilbert in the book's preface, Roman Halter near the end of the war was sheltered by "a courageous German couple, the husband of whom was killed after the war by his neighbors for hiding Jews." It should come as no surprise that latent anti-Semitism still affects 20 percent of Germans (see: http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=255105).

Perhaps if President Obama were to read this book, he would better understand Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's thoughts and motivations. Politics aside, Netanyahu is faced with the dilemma of preserving the existence of Israel, which faces an arsenal of 200,000 missiles (see: http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=256152), amassed by the allies of Iran -- Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Islamic Jihad in Gaza -- and Iran itself, whose president demands that Israel "be wiped off the face of the map." According to Israeli intelligence experts, Iran would be willing to sacrifice half of its population as part of an effort to eradicate Israel, i.e. perpetrate a second Holocaust.

Sadly, Roman Halter passed away last week. I knew Roman Halter, who moved to England after the war, became a noted architect, teacher of architecture, author and artist, renowned for his stained-glass windows. Roman Halter, who never lost his passion for life, also built a family, and I am privileged to be the friend of his remarkable children.

I am now rereading "Roman's Journey." I strongly urge that those who read this blog take the time to read this monumental book.

My love and condolences go out to the bereaved family of this courageous, resilient and extraordinary man.

Maureen Dowd, "Who’s Tough Enough?": Obama Is a Ramrod, Not a Pussy

2012-01-31T22:57:00.000-08:00

Obama is obviously troubled by Republican chatter that he isn't strong enough to lead, and, as observed by Maureen Dowd in her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Who’s Tough Enough?" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/opinion/dowd-whos-tough-enough.html?src=un&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpages%2Fopinion%2Findex.jsonp), Joe Biden has been delegated the job of telling anyone who will listen that the president is a "ramrod." Dowd describes assurances given by the vice president to House Democrats:

"'I just want to tell you, this guy’s got a backbone like a ramrod,' the vice president assured House Democrats last week at a retreat in Cambridge, Md.

He repeated a line he’d heard to sum up what his party should campaign on: 'Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.'

. . . .

The vice president concluded triumphantly: 'This guy doesn’t lead from behind. He just leads.'"

Obama's decision to assassinate bin Laden was indeed gutsy, and General Motors is still building cars owing to Obama's praiseworthy intervention. So why are the Democrats disturbed? Maybe because the president has proven incapable of standing up to Iran and Russia.

US Defense Secretary Panetta acknowledged two weeks ago that Iran is only a year away from building a nuclear weapon (see: http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News/Article.aspx?id=249800), yet Obama continues to send mixed signals to Tehran concerning American resolve to prevent this nightmarish scenario from becoming a reality (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/12/iran-and-obama-administration.html). Obama's refusal in 2009 to provide anti-government protestors in Iran with any sign of support remains a stain upon his administration's record. Similarly, Obama's delay in condemning atrocities perpetrated by Syria's Assad, an ally of Tehran, against unarmed opponents, also does not bespeak courage.

Determined to "reset" US relations with Russia, Obama cancelled the erection of a missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland, which Putin opposed. Appeasement in this instance, at the expense of Central European allies, has been rewarded by Moscow's refusal to assist in implementing sanctions against Iran and by continued arms sales to Syria.

Obama's attempt at bullying Israel at the beginning of his first term? We can only wonder how Obama will "ramrod" Israel if he is re-elected.

Obviously, there is a reason Democrats are worried by allegations that Obama has no spine. Moreover, Joe Biden should be watching his own back: It remains to be seen whether Obama will diss Biden as his running mate later this year in favor of Hillary Clinton.

David Brooks, "The Great Divorce": Have a Look at Israel

2012-01-31T00:20:00.000-08:00

A National Service Program for all Americans?

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Great Divorce" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/31/opinion/brooks-the-great-divorce.html?ref=opinion), David Brooks proposes this solution to remedy inequality in the US. Citing Charles Murray’s new book “Coming Apart,” Brooks asserts:

"Democrats claim America is threatened by the financial elite, who hog society’s resources. But that’s a distraction. The real social gap is between the top 20 percent and the lower 30 percent. The liberal members of the upper tribe latch onto this top 1 percent narrative because it excuses them from the central role they themselves are playing in driving inequality and unfairness."

How to fix this mess? Brooks writes:

"I doubt Murray would agree, but we need a National Service Program. We need a program that would force members of the upper tribe and the lower tribe to live together, if only for a few years. We need a program in which people from both tribes work together to spread out the values, practices and institutions that lead to achievement."

Well, that "National Service Program" already exists in Israel, and it's called the Israel Defense Forces ("IDF").

There is significant economic inequality in Israel that has regrettably been perpetuated by the government. Much of Israeli industry is owned by several dozen families, and even companies whose shares are traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange are often majority-owned or controlled by these families.

Notwithstanding this economic inequality in Israel, the IDF is indeed a place where, as Brooks puts it, "the tribes get jammed together." Upon induction, Israeli youngsters who grew up in wealthy neighborhoods often meet for the first time in their lives underprivileged youths and newcomers from Russia and Ethiopia, with whom they quickly learn to work and sweat together.

To smooth this interaction, children inducted into the IDF without adequate schooling are given remedial courses. Special efforts are made by the IDF to assist children from troubled families with their emotional problems.

Beyond compulsory service, the IDF continues to serve as a mixing pot for Israelis from all strata of society. For almost 20 years I served in a reserve artillery unit, which demanded both brains (to operate the computer assisted firing systems) and brawn (to lug the shells). For up to two months each year, I strained night and day and bonded with other reservists who, in civilian life, I would never encounter in my line of work.

The other advantage of a National Service Program, which goes unmentioned by Brooks, is that it would delay the entry of a significant number of young people into the workforce, thereby reducing unemployment.

Might this be practical in the US? Would privileged families in the US agree to send their children away for two or three years to engage in community work or forestry and not seek exemptions? You tell me.

Paul Krugman, "The Austerity Debacle": Worse Than the Great Depression?

2012-01-29T20:06:00.000-08:00

Paul Krugman is back to telling us -- you would never guess in a million years -- that the US and Europe need to spend their way out of the current economic malaise.

In "The Austerity Debacle" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/opinion/krugman-the-austerity-debacle.html?ref=opinion), Krugman observes that the UK did a better job recovering in the 1930s from its economic woes than today. Citing a chart released by National Institute of Economic and Social Research, Krugman observes:

"Britain is doing worse this time than it did during the Great Depression. Four years into the Depression, British G.D.P. had regained its previous peak; four years after the Great Recession began, Britain is nowhere close to regaining its lost ground."

Krugman claims that the "policy elite" in the UK and elsewhere threw "hard-won knowledge out the window" by slashing spending to promote economic growth. And although the US federal government "avoided all-out austerity," state and local governments are running out of federal aid and being forced to reduce their budgets, thus creating "a major drag on the overall economy." Krugman concludes:

"The infuriating thing about this tragedy is that it was completely unnecessary. Half a century ago, any economist — or for that matter any undergraduate who had read Paul Samuelson’s textbook 'Economics' — could have told you that austerity in the face of depression was a very bad idea. But policy makers, pundits and, I’m sorry to say, many economists decided, largely for political reasons, to forget what they used to know. And millions of workers are paying the price for their willful amnesia."

But have conditions changed since the Great Depression? Manufacturing jobs are being eliminated by robotics. Even in the pharma industry today, one exceptional scientist empowered by a laptop, is worth more than an entire mediocre R&D army.

Could it be that in today's brave new world, money spent on infrastructure, e.g., bullet trains, and education no longer ensures the creation of sustainable jobs? Whereas I agree with Krugman that spending cuts do not create jobs, I am far from convinced that government spending 80 years after the Great Depression necessarily gives rise to sustainable employment.

Sadly, the US may never again see anything approaching full employment, with or without deficit spending.

Thomas Friedman, "Made in the World": It's Raining Twaddle at The New York Times

2012-01-28T18:46:00.000-08:00

It's raining twaddle at The New York Times.

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Made in the World" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/opinion/sunday/friedman-made-in-the-world.html?ref=opinion), Thomas Friedman makes the case for global outsourcing. Friedman refers to a February 2011 meeting between Obama and Apple's Steve Jobs:

"The president, understandably, asked Jobs why almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year were made overseas. Obama inquired, couldn’t that work come back home? 'Those jobs aren’t coming back,' Jobs replied."

Moreover, Friedman sees no danger in US outsourcing of manufacturing, owing to talented immigrants arriving on America's shores, IP protection, secure capital markets, high returns on innovation, government funding of new techology, and logistics jobs available to middle-class workers.

So the US should forfeit its manufacturing muscle and enjoy the cheap benefits of Chinese and Pakistani slave labor (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2012/01/thomas-friedman-average-is-over-when.html), and the middle-class should be content with finding work with FedEx and U.P.S. Sorry, but I will never accept this, even if it means doubling the price of iPhones.

Friedman concludes:

"If only — if only — we could come together on a national strategy to enhance and expand all of our natural advantages: more immigration, most post-secondary education, better infrastructure, more government research, smart incentives for spurring millions of start-ups — and a long-term plan to really fix our long-term debt problems — nobody could touch us. We’re that close."

Or in other words, Friedman would have the US spend trillions of dollars on a dozen different programs while somehow reducing long-term debt. "We're that close"? Yeah, right. For now, I would prefer to see the US provide incentives to keep manufacturing jobs in the US and to allow ordinary families, which cannot find work in hi-tech, to put food on their tables and pay their mortgages.

This is one instance where Obama is right.

[No, I haven't developed a soft spot for Obama. During the Procrastinator-in-Chief's February meeting mentioned by Dowd, Jobs, according to Ryan Lizza in an article in The New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lizza?currentPage=all), "was most annoyed by Obama’s pessimism—he seemed to dismiss every idea Jobs proffered. 'The president is very smart,' Jobs told his biographer, Walter Isaacson. 'But he kept explaining to us reasons why things can’t get done. It infuriates me.'"]

Maureen Dowd, "Tension on the Tarmac": Read the Body Language

2012-01-28T17:35:00.000-08:00

In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Tension on the Tarmac" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/opinion/sunday/dowd-tension-on-the-tarmac.html?ref=opinion), Maureen Dowd observes two instances when women gesticulated angrily at Obama, and the president responded by placing his hand on their arms: With Hillary Clinton in December 2007, and earlier last week with Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona. Regarding the episode with Hillary, an Obama aide explained that Obama put his hand on her arm “to chill her out.”

Ignore what Obama's aide said. Placing your hand on someone else's arm in the heat of debate is a studied technique intended to demonstrate superiority and control of both that person and the situation. Yes, it is an act of condescension. Without regard for Brewer's politics, it would be natural for her to feel "unnerved" and "a little bit threatened" by Obama.

Dowd observes that this confrontation with Brewer has made him "a hero to the Hispanics," but I don't know how this will play among women.

Dowd would have us believe that Obama does not like debating because he disdains anything he sees "as superficial politics, from sound bites to macho put-downs." Wrong. Obama and his advisors have consistently sought control over content and situation. Listen to Anita Dunn at a 2009 event focusing on Obama’s media tactics and hosted by the Global Foundation for Democracy and Development, in which Dunn discusses how Obama controlled the media during the 2008 election (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlGNhAnwp_Y):

"One of the reasons we did so many of the David Plouffe [Obama’s chief campaign manager] videos was not just for our supporters, but also because it was a way for us to get our message out without having to actually talk to reporters. We just put that out there and made them write what Plouffe had said as opposed to Plouffe doing an interview with a reporter. So it was very much we controlled it as opposed to the press controlled it. . . . very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn’t absolutely control."

Listen as Dunn goes on to say:

"There is no such thing as off the record . . . . Obama himself learned that when he told a fund raising group in San Francisco . . . about people who owned guns in small communities that ended up of course costing us a lot of votes in rural Pennsylvania. . . . Anything you say you should expect to be on You Tube."

Debates and press conferences are avoided by Obama, because in these settings he loses control. It's that simple.

New York Times Editorial, "Egypt’s Assault on Civil Society": Who Writes this Hogwash?

2012-01-28T02:18:00.000-08:00

As Gomer Pyle would say, "Surprise, surprise, surprise!"

Complaining of a December raid by Egyptian security forces on the offices of three American-financed democracy-building groups and Egypt's refusal to allow six Americans associated with these organizations to leave the country, The New York Times, in an editorial entitled "Egypt’s Assault on Civil Society" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/28/opinion/egypts-assault-on-civil-society.html?ref=opinion), expresses its bewilderment:

"Post-Mubarak Egypt is facing profound challenges with its unfinished revolution and looming economic crisis. The last thing it needs is to pick a fight with the United States. Yet the military rulers have done just that, demonstrating contempt for civil society and an old ally.

. . . .

Egypt’s military receives $1.3 billion in annual aid from Washington. It is beyond us why the generals would keep pressing this destructive dispute, even after hearing remonstrations from President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta."

It is beyond the ken of the editorial board of The Times how Egypt's armed forces, subsidized by the US in excess of $1 billion, could behave so roguishly? Allow me to clue them in: Egypt has taken lessons from Pakistan, which receives more than $2 billion of security assistance each year from the US, and which, in June, arrested five informants who led the CIA to Osama bin Laden (see: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/06/15/pakistani-forces-arrest-cia-informants-who-led-us-to-usama-bin-laden/).

Apparently Andrew Rosenthal's doltish gang still doesn't understand that the game in this corner of the world is not played according to Marquess of Queensberry rules. Sooner or later they'll catch on.

Charles Blow, "Lunar Colonies, Lunacy and Losses": Aren't You Forgetting Something?

2012-01-27T22:01:00.000-08:00

In a New York Times op-ed entitled "Lunar Colonies, Lunacy and Losses" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/28/opinion/blow-lunar-colonies-lunacy-and-losses.html?ref=opinion#comments), Charles Blow sarcastically observes:

"To that point, Gingrich told a crowd on Florida’s so-called Space Coast on Wednesday that 'by the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the Moon. And it will be American.'”

I am no fan of Newt; however, observe what Obama glibly promised in 2008 (see: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lizza?currentPage=8):

“As President, I will establish a robust and balanced civilian space program” that “not only will inspire the world with both human and robotic space exploration but also will again lead in confronting the challenges we face here on Earth, including global climate change, energy independence, and aeronautics research.”

Would someone care to explain the difference?

In case you were wondering, Obama's advisors informed the president in November 2009 :

"Especially in light of our new fiscal context, it is not possible to achieve the inspiring space program goals discussed during the campaign."

Like "Hope" and "Change," Obama's space program never got off the ground.

David Brooks, "Hope, but Not Much Change": A Liberal Incrementalist or a Lamentable Narcissist?

2012-01-26T22:35:00.000-08:00

Recently, many who voted for Obama in 2008 have responded with asperity to his failure to deliver the goods. Notably, Matt Damon was quoted in December by Elle Magazine (see: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/21/matt-damon-slams-obama-democrats-one-term-balls_n_1162511.html) as saying: "a one-term president with some balls who actually got stuff done would have been, in the long run of the country, much better." Obama's State of the Union Address did little to correct this growing sense of outrage. The president's uninspired speech left many pundits scurrying for excuses that might explain the paucity of ideas presented for dealing with the existential challenges facing America.

In his latest New York Times op-ed, "Hope, but Not Much Change" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/opinion/brooks-hope-but-not-much-change.html?ref=opinion), David Brooks also complains of the absence of substance in Obama's State of the Union Address. Observing that the president's policies are "incremental, not transformational," Brooks writes:

"It’s odd that an administration that once wanted to do everything all at once now should be so gradualist.

. . . .

In normal times, that sober, incremental approach would be admirable. In normal times, the best sort of change is gradual, flexible and constant. But these are not normal times. This is not Clinton’s second term, or Eisenhower’s. The fiscal train wreck is coming. The current U.S. growth model is insufficient. The American family and the American political system are cracking up."

Brooks states that Obama must be "prepared" if Europe's economy should unravel or if the US should come to loggerheads with Iran within the coming months. The Procrastinator-in-Chief should be "prepared"? Obama's policy in dealing with these crises will be guided by two determinants: his desire to delay that which can be put off until tomorrow, coupled with an overriding need to remain in office no matter what it takes. Afterall, still unbeknownst to the American electorate, the US is privileged to have Obama serving as president, as so aptly observed by Michelle Obama when interviewed by Oprah last May (see: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/opinion/sunday/dowd-showtime-at-the-apollo.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss):

"I always told the voters, the question isn’t whether Barack Obama is ready to be president. The question is whether we’re ready. And that continues to be the question we have to ask ourselves."

Anger or disappointment with Obama? There's no reason for it. We are living in an age of narcissism, in which narcissists are idolized. Fortunately for Obama and many other politicians on both sides of the aisle, the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, due out in 2013, has eliminated five of the 10 personality disorders that are listed in the current edition, and narcissistic personality disorder is among the five (see: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/health/views/30mind.html).

Brooks concludes by stating, "This election is about averting national decline." Sorry, David, but you are mistaken: This election, proffering the American electorate two substandard candidates (I prefer not to contemplate the infuriating possibility that Gingrich will win the Republican nomination), in fact mirrors national decline.

Gary Sick, "A Stealth Engagement of Iran?": Tergiversations

2012-01-26T02:29:00.000-08:00

"Tergiversation," according to Merriam-Webster (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tergiversation):

1. evasion of straightforward action or clear-cut statement: equivocation

In an article entitled "Frustrated US rambles on Iran: Gary Sick" (http://presstv.com/detail/223089.html), Iran's Press TV refers us to an article written by Gary Sick, entitled "A Stealth Engagement of Iran?" (http://www.worldpolicy.org/blog/2012/01/17/stealth-engagement-iran), which was published by The World Policy Institute. Yes, it is of course significant that Iran has chosen to highlight this opinion piece.

In his article, Gary Sick, "an adjunct professor of Middle East politics at Columbia's School of International & Public Affairs" and "the principal White House aide for Iran during the Iranian Revolution and the subsequent hostage crisis," observes recent "tergiversations in U.S. policy pronouncements": Both Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have coupled denunciations and threats over Iran's ongoing efforts to attain nuclear weapons with calls for renewed negotiations and avoidance of any armed conflict. Sick ponders whether these conflicting declarations reflect "pure chaos and incompetence in the White House," or whether the White House is engaged in a highly sophisticated attempt to manage three problems:

• Congress, which in an election year, has maneuvered Obama into signing the Defense Authorization Bill with the latest sanctions rider, amounting, according to Sick, to "a tacit declaration of war."
• Obama's desire to avoid war and return to negotiations.
• Netanyahu's threats "to strike unilaterally if necessary" and to use those threats "to keep the situation at a constant crisis pitch, while pressing for the most extreme sanctions."

According to Sick, "if you throw enough anti-Iran dust in the air, you may defuse any concerted attack—figuratively or otherwise."

So is there chaos in the White House, or, is there indeed a master plan to talk through both sides of your mouth in order to preseve the status quo?

Indeed, there has been much doublespeak emerging from the Obama White House (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/12/iran-and-obama-administration.html), and Obama, the Procrastinator-in-Chief, would prefer to avoid a conflagration. However, Obama will also do anything and everything to be re-elected, and this single consideration will determine Obama's policy toward Iran over the coming months. The short-term effect of an increase in the price of oil on the U.S. economy and the receptiveness of the US electorate to bellicose statements issued by Romney and Gingrich, painting Obama as a patsy, are all being monitored by the West Wing.

One final observation: Sick's conjecture that the leak, alleging that Mossad personnel, pretending to be CIA agents, recruited Iranian dissidents, was linked to cancellation of Austere Challenge, a joint US/Israeli anti-missile exercise scheduled for April, is not grounded in reality.

Maureen Dowd, "Mitt, Is This Wit?": More to the Point, Is He Electable?

2012-01-24T21:38:00.000-08:00

Forgive me as I tuck my "Austin Powers" faux teeth a little deeper into my pants pocket.

In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Mitt, Is This Wit?" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/opinion/dowd-mitt-is-this-wit.html?ref=opinion), Maureen Dowd devotes much of her opinion piece to pranks played by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

I don't think the Republicans need to be overly worried by Romney's college antics. However, they should be concerned by a Washington Post-ABC News Poll
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/postabcpoll_012212.html), which tells anyone capable of reading between the lines that Mitt is not electable.

Thomas Friedman, "Average Is Over": When Speed and Flexibility Are Slavery

2012-01-24T20:48:00.000-08:00

Will wonders never cease! I agree with the premise of Thomas Friedman's New York Times op-ed, "Average Is Over" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/opinion/friedman-average-is-over.html?ref=opinion), in which he declares:

"In the past, workers with average skills, doing an average job, could earn an average lifestyle. But, today, average is officially over. Being average just won’t earn you what it used to. It can’t when so many more employers have so much more access to so much more above average cheap foreign labor, cheap robotics, cheap software, cheap automation and cheap genius."

Indeed, I have been saying that "average is over" since the inception of this blog. In June 2009 I wrote (http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2009/06/investing-then-and-now-compugen.html):

"[O]ne exceptional scientist is worth more than an entire mediocre R&D army."

But let's not get carried away. When I say I agree with Friedman's premise, that doesn't mean I agree with the rest of his twaddle. Friedman writes:

"Consider this paragraph from Sunday’s terrific article in The Times by Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher about why Apple does so much of its manufacturing in China: 'Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly-line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the [Chinese] plant near midnight. A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day. ‘The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,’ the executive said. ‘There’s no American plant that can match that.''"

It doesn't occur to Friedman that rousing 8,000 workers from company "dormitories" and marching them off to a 12-hour shift after swallowing a biscuit and tea just might amount to slavery.

Observing that persons in the US with higher educations are less likely to be unemployed, Friedman's concludes that in order to buttress employment, "nothing would be more important than passing some kind of G.I. Bill for the 21st century that ensures that every American has access to post-high school education."

This is where I will wax politically incorrect. I don't believe that a college degree in and of itself creates value. Value is to be found in the individual, not in the degree, which is no more than a piece of paper which can easily be degraded. In fact, were every American to be awarded a B.A. degree, to a large extent there would be that much more mediocrity associated with college education.

Friedman tells us that "everyone needs to find their extra — their unique value contribution that makes them stand out in whatever is their field of employment." Sorry, Tom, but not everyone can stand out in our brave new world, particularly those who are roused and marched off to 12-hour factory shifts after being given a biscuit and tea.

Economic Chaos in Iran Threatens Financing for Hezbollah

2012-01-24T02:35:00.000-08:00

On Monday, the Iranian rial fell ten percent in value against the dollar to a new record black market low, following the EU's decision to boycott Iranian crude (see: http://www.emirates247.com/news/world/iran-s-rial-drops-10-pct-as-eu-bans-oil-imports-2012-01-23-1.439067). As I have noted in prior blog entries, the swift decline in the rial will soon bite into Tehran's ability to finance its terror proxies, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, which depend upon dollars from Iran for recruitment, training, the purchase of arms, and the funding of social services.

According to Lebanon's Daily Star (http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2011/Oct-12/151111-iran-cutting-financial-aid-to-hezbollah-report.ashx#axzz1kN16ADqW), Iran already began to cut aid to Hezbollah this past October:

"Iran is to cut its financial support for Hezbollah, the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Qabas reported Wednesday.

Citing well-informed Gulf sources, al-Qabas said Iran has informed Hezbollah that it will not be able to continue providing annual financial backing for the party.

The sources said Iran provides Hezbollah with roughly $350 million annually. The funds are earmarked for Hezbollah members’ salaries, families of martyrs and projects in Beirut’s southern suburbs, south Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.

The sources cited two reasons for the reduction of financial support: Tehran’s cash aid to the Syrian regime as it confronts protesters, and the suffering of Iran’s economy as a result of global sanctions."

It remains to be seen if Hezbollah can maintain control in Lebanon without this funding.

David Brooks, "Free-Market Socialism": Help Wanted -- A Magician

2012-01-23T20:49:00.000-08:00

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Free-Market Socialism" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/opinion/brooks-free-market-socialism-.html?ref=opinion), David Brooks outlines an aggressive program to cure America's economic malaise:

"If President Obama is really serious about restoring American economic dynamism, he needs an aggressive two-pronged approach: More economic freedom combined with more social structure; more competition combined with more support.

As a survey of nearly 10,000 Harvard Business School grads by Michael Porter and Jan Rivkin makes clear, to get companies to locate their plants in the U.S., Obama is going to have to simplify the tax code, cut corporate rates, streamline regulations, make immigration policy more flexible and balance the budget over the long term.

To ensure there’s skilled labor for those plants, Obama would have to champion different policies: successful training programs like Job Corps, better coordination between colleges and employers, better treatment for superstar teachers, more child care options and better early childhood education."

Who could possibly oppose such a plan, which reduces corporate taxes, improves child care and educational opportunities through the initiation of new federally assisted programs, and also balances the budget? However, it would take a magician to implement such a lofty agenda, which, over the short-term, would cut federal income and increase federal expenditures.

Obama is going to initiate all this during his fourth year in office, when chaos reigns in the West Wing following the departure of Bill Daley as his chief of staff, and at a time when Obama is shifting into campaign mode? Sorry, but Brooks's agenda would require the skills of a Hogwarts educated wizard, when there is no one among us Muggles who meets the job requirements.

Bill Keller, "Bomb-Bomb-Bomb, Bomb-Bomb-Iran?": Clueless

2012-01-23T06:21:00.000-08:00

Bill Keller, formerly executive editor of The New York Times, left his top dog position to become a full-time writer. Given the insight, or lack thereof, of his latest Times op-ed, "Bomb-Bomb-Bomb, Bomb-Bomb-Iran?" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/23/opinion/keller-bomb-bomb-bomb-bomb-bomb-iran.html?pagewanted=1&ref=opinion), perhaps he should have remained executive editor. Keller writes:

"The point of tough sanctions, of course, is to force Iranians to the bargaining table, where we can do a deal that removes the specter of a nuclear-armed Iran. . . . But the mistrust is so deep, and the election-year pressure to act with manly resolve is so intense, that it’s hard to imagine the administration would feel free to accept an overture from Tehran. Anything short of a humiliating, unilateral Iranian climb-down would be portrayed by the armchair warriors as an Obama surrender. Likewise, if Israel does decide to strike out on its own, Bibi Netanyahu knows that candidate Obama will feel immense pressure to go along.

That short-term paradox comes wrapped up in a long-term paradox: an attack on Iran is almost certain to unify the Iranian people around the mullahs and provoke the supreme leader to redouble Iran’s nuclear pursuits, only deeper underground this time, and without international inspectors around. Over at the Pentagon, you sometimes hear it put this way: Bombing Iran is the best way to guarantee exactly what we are trying to prevent."

"It’s hard to imagine the administration would feel free to accept an overture from Tehran"? Sorry, Bill, but the US is not going to receive any such overture. Rather, the US should expect more games involving contradictory declarations (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2012/01/david-ignatius-iran-gets-message-from.html) and brinksmanship from Iran, which is intent upon acquiring nuclear weaponry.

Keller claims that "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does a good impression of an evil madman, but Iran is not suicidal." Oh really? As observed by Michael Oren (http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/seven-existential-threats/), who knows a bit more about this situation than Keller:

"Some Israeli experts predict that the Iranian leadership would be willing to sacrifice 50 percent of their countrymen in order to eradicate Israel."

Evidence of Iran's willingness to martyr its citizenry? One need only look to its war with Iraq from 1980-1988, which resulted in between 500,000 and a million Iranian fatalities, and during which Iran used human-waves of children to clear minefields.

"An attack on Iran is almost certain to unify the Iranian people around the mullahs and provoke the supreme leader to redouble Iran’s nuclear pursuits, only deeper underground this time, and without international inspectors around"? Sorry, but this is not what happened when Israel Israel leveled the Syrian Al Kibar reactor in Operation Orchard in 2007, or when Israel bombed the Osirak reactor in Iraq in 1981, much to the world's relief, in Operation Opera.

No, I'm not advocating an immediate attack on Iran. Let's first see how Europe's decision to boycott Iranian oil (see: http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News/Article.aspx?id=254780) affects the Iranian economy. The value of the Iranian rial is crumbling, and this will seriously impede Iranian funding of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Islamic Jihad in Gaza.

"Election-year pressure to act with manly resolve"? How about plain and simple resolve. If Obama had been astute enough to see through Iran's masquerade at the beginning of his term, instead of seeking to prove the fallacy of Bush's Axis of Evil, he would not be dealing with this current dilemma. Always ready in the past to draw a new line in the sand, Obama is now facing unwavering demands from Saudi Arabia and the UAE to put an end to the Iranian threat. There is no more room to procrastinate, wiggle and play nice.

Regarding Israel, Keller is even more in the dark.

Maureen Dowd, "Showtime at the Apollo": Opening a Can of Whoopass on the Obamas

2012-01-21T16:37:00.000-08:00

Maureen Dowd has "remarkably" (see below) opened a can of whoopass on the Obamas.

In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Showtime at the Apollo" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/opinion/sunday/dowd-showtime-at-the-apollo.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss), Dowd savages the president and his wife, leaving even me, a combat veteran, grimacing. Ms. Dowd informs her readership:

"The man who became famous with a speech declaring that we were one America, not opposing teams of red and blue states, presides over an America more riven by blue and red than ever.

The man who came to Washington on a wave of euphoria has had a presidency with all the joy of a root canal, dragged down by W.’s recklessness and his own inability to read America’s panic and its thirst for a strong leader.

. . . .

Despite what his rivals say, the president and the first lady do believe in American exceptionalism — their own, and they feel overassaulted and underappreciated.

We disappointed them."

Ouch!

I suppose this is one instance where I feel compelled to go to bat for the president. Like Obama, I don't go to many parties. Mix with journalists? Waterboard me instead. Invite Jimmy Carter or the Clintons to dinner? Go ahead and shoot me.

Dowd asks, "Who knew, in the exuberance of 2008, that America was electing an introvert?" Actually, if you were to rip away the glitzy Madison Avenue packaging, the narcissism was not far beneath the wrapping paper. Moreover, the arrogance and introversion would all be forgiven if the president had delivered, but hope has gone by the wayside.

Dowd concludes her opinion piece by inquiring:

"Could 2012, remarkably, be a race between two powerful victims yearning to be lonely at the top?"

"Remarkably"? Perhaps "abominably," "bitterly," "bleakly," "deplorably," "distressingly," "grievously," "lamentably," "pathetically," "ruefully," "woefully," or "wretchedly"; however, there would be nothing "remarkable" whatsoever about a contest between Obama and Gingrich.

New York Times Editorial, "Egypt’s Economic Crisis": Let's Shower Money on the New Islamist Government

2012-01-21T14:09:00.000-08:00

In an editorial entitled "Egypt’s Economic Crisis" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/21/opinion/egypts-economic-crisis.html?ref=opinion), The New York Times would have us know that Egypt's failing economy is sabotaging its nascent democracy:

"In the year since President Hosni Mubarak was ousted, Egypt has faced many challenges: the military-led government’s brutality against protesters and pro-democracy groups, its resistance to handing power to civilian leaders and the rise of Islamists in the country’s first free elections. Now worsening economic conditions are further sabotaging hopes for a democratic future."

Once again, The Times has it backwards. Given that the Muslim Brotherhood and the even more radical Salafis have garnered 72 percent of the seats in Egypt's lower house of parliament, we now know that worsening democratic conditions are sabotaging hopes for an economic revival.

Needless to say, the editorial board of The Times suggests that the US shower money upon the new Islamist government in order to avert a catastrophe:

"Washington and its allies may not have much sway with the military rulers or the newly elected political leaders in the short term, but they have to build long-term relationships with all segments of civil society. Some say Egypt could be one of the world’s top 10 economies in a generation. That’s a goal worth working toward."

"Egypt could be one of the world's ten top economies in a generation"? Where can I find the person who actually believes this twaddle? I would like to sell him a bridge in Brooklyn.

David Ignatius, "Iran gets the message from Washington": Which Message?

2012-01-21T03:02:00.000-08:00

In a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Iran gets the message from Washington" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/iran-gets-the-message-from-washington/2012/01/20/gIQAlXjoEQ_print.html), David Ignatius would have us believe that Tehran has "blinked" and is retreating from its belicose threats to close the Strait of Hormuz:

"The Iran nuclear crisis is far from over, but Tehran appears to have made a subtle blink — backing away from its threat a few weeks ago to close the Strait of Hormuz in response to escalating U.S. sanctions.

The softening of Iran’s position followed a warning by a U.S. emissary this month that any effort to close the strait would trigger a potentially devastating U.S. response. Clearly, Tehran got the message — with a top Iranian official publicly disavowing on Thursday the earlier saber-rattling.

'Iran has never in its history tried to prevent, to put any obstacles in the way of this important maritime route,' Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi insisted in a television interview during a visit to Turkey."

Ignatius fails to mention that the Iranian ambassador to the UN, Mohammad Khazaii, also said on Thurday the exact opposite (see: http://www.tehrantimes.com/politics/94722-all-options-on-the-table-if-iran-threatened-tehran-un-envoy):

"'There is no decision to block and close the Strait of Hormuz unless Iran is threatened seriously and somebody wants to tighten the noose,' Ambassador Mohammad Khazaii said on the U.S. television network PBS’ Charlie Rose show on January 19, AFP reported.

'Iran would not try to block the Strait of Hormuz unless a foreign power seeks to 'tighten the noose,' he stated.

'All the options are or would be on the table.'

'We believe that the Strait of Hormuz should be the strait of peace and stability,' the Iranian ambassador said 'But if foreign powers want to create trouble in the Persian Gulf, of course it would be the right of Iran as well as the rest of the countries in the region to try to defend themselves.'"

David Ignatius and the Obama administration still don't understand how the game is played in the Middle East. Ignatius would like to believe that Iran is buckling, when in fact it is seeking to undermine Western resolve by issuing contradictory statements and would be delighted to engage in another round of meaningless negotiations sought by the EU's imbecilic foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton. As reported by CNN (http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/20/world/meast/iran-eu-talks/index.html), Ashton, in an October letter to Tehran, again tried to obtain assurances regarding Tehran's pacific intent and to resume talks:

"Ashton wrote that the West wants to 'engage in a confidence-building exercise' that would lead to a 'constructive dialogue' and a 'step by step approach' in which Iran would assure the international community that its nuclear program is peaceful."

Ashton, a grandmaster of vacuous platitudes, doesn't understand that Tehran, which thinks it can continue to stall for time to build its atomic weapons, should be sending the letters.

A replay of Munich 1938? No two situations are identical, but the West is certainly wearing its naivete on its sleeve.

Just Another Day in Israel: Collecting Our Gas Masks

2012-01-19T23:52:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was not much different from any other day: Some calls on behalf of clients, a new blog entry, several walks with the dog, reading several chapters from a novel (true, I ordinarily don't read much fiction), an argument with my daughter over when she would arrive home with the family car, and -- I almost forgot -- picking up our family's gas masks at the local community center.

No question about it: 2012 promises to be a challenging year in this corner of the world. We've been placed on notice that a new operation to put an end to the ongoing firing of rockets into southern Israel from Gaza is imminent (see: http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=253916).

Although Israeli defense minister Barak has just declared that Israel will not be attacking Iran any time soon (see: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/barak-israel-very-far-off-from-decision-on-iran-attack-1.407953), the Austere Challenge joint anti-missile exercise with the US scheduled for April has just been cancelled for "technical and logistical" reasons. "Technical and logistical" reasons? Give me a break. Actually, in all likelihood there is no single reason for the cancellation, but in this particular instance, let's leave it at that.

Finally, there is the mounting chaos in Syria, which has an arsenal of Scuds and short-range ballistic missiles, and also possesses enormous stockpiles of chemical weapons, including advanced nerve agents. In a Jerusalem Post article written by David Rosenberg (http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=254369), Major-General Amir Eshel, head of the Israeli army's planning division, is quoted as saying about these chemical weapons stockpiles:

"'We are talking about huge stockpiles,' he said. 'That's a major concern because I don't know who is going to own those the day after. Up till now, what has been transferred to Hezbollah? What will be transferred to Hezbollah? What will be divided between those factions inside Syria?'"

Yes, just another day in Israel like any other.

And as long as we're talking on a personal level, you might be amused (particularly those readers from Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Algeria who have already visited this blog today) by the following photograph taken on the border some 30 years and some 30 pounds ago and just sent to me by a very dear friend from the US:

Nicholas Kristof, "Is Banking Bad?": Is Nicholas Kristof Worse?

2012-01-18T21:48:00.000-08:00

Nicholas Kristof, in his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Is Banking Bad?" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/19/opinion/kristof-is-banking-bad.html?ref=opinion), informs us:

"When financiers rig the system, they should remember the warning of John Maynard Keynes: 'The businessman is only tolerable so long as his gains can be held to bear some relation to what, roughly and in some sense, his activities have contributed to society.'

So university students would be wrong to mock their classmates who choose Citigroup over CARE. Banking and private equity aren’t evil, and I would never urge college students to stay away. Maybe today’s young socialist sympathizers, along with healthy regulation and a loud public outcry, can help rescue capitalism from the crony capitalists."

Needless to say, Kristof doesn't bother disclosing that his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, is a Senior Managing Director at Mid-Market Securities (http://www.mid-marketsecurities.com/team.html), who previously worked at Goldman Sachs as a vice president in its investment management division as a private wealth advisor. Have a look at the Bloomberg article entitled "Goldman Hires Pulitzer-Winning Journalist to Snare Millionaires" (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=agzMMPZAouLw&refer=home).

Perhaps for the benefit of his readers, Kristof, who says that he's "been sympathetic to the Occupy Wall Street movement," would care to reveal his household income for 2011. That way we will be better able to understand "roughly and in some sense," how the Kristofs' "activities have contributed to society."

Talk about having your cake and eating it, too . . .

[The response of the Public Editor's office of The New York Times to my inquiry regarding Kristof's failure to indicate his wife's place of employment:

"Mr. Kristof is an Op-ed columnist, and he is granted a wide latitude to express his opinions. If Mr. Kristof, or any other columnist, had written about his or her spouses' employer without disclosure, then yes, that would be problematic. But that is not the case here. Prohibiting an op-ed columnist from writing about an entire industry in which his or her spouse is employed is an unnecessary burden. It doesn't seem that there is any conflict here."

My reply:

"Prohibiting an op-ed columnist from writing about an entire industry in which his or her spouse is employed would indeed be an unnecessary burden. No one is saying that Mr. Kristof shouldn't write about the banking and finance industry. On the other hand, when Mr. Kristof declares in his op-ed that he is 'sympathetic to the Occupy Wall Street movement' without mentioning his wife's place of employment, he is playing both sides of the street unbeknownst to the readership of The Times, i.e. stating that he a sympathetic to OWS while enjoying all the benefits at home of being married to a senior managing director at a Manhattan investment banking firm. You say that there's no conflict, but don't you think Mr. Kristof's readership would want to be informed of this information, which clearly shapes his op-ed conclusion that it is 'okay' to work in the banking and finance industry. Sorry, but this doesn't smell right by any stretch of the imagination."]

Thomas Friedman, "Trust, but Verify": Deal With the Muslim Brotherhood in the Same Principled Way As Israel

2012-01-18T01:40:00.000-08:00

Thomas Friedman is remarkably calling upon the US to handle the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in the same fashion that it deals with Israel.

In his latest New York Times op-ed, "Trust, but Verify" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/18/opinion/trust-but-verify.html?ref=opinion), Friedman writes:

"Egypt is not destined to be Iran, but the Muslim Brotherhood is not destined to be the Muslim version of Christian Democrats either. There is an evolution under way — this is a very plastic moment — and our best chance of having an effect is to make sure we deal in a principled way with the Islamists (and also, by the way, with Israel, as the Islamists will be watching for any double standard) and with the Egyptian Army."

Absolutely, let's be certain that their are no double standards involving American dealings with Israel and its dealings with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Who cares if the Brotherhood's website "contains articles with antisemitic motifs, including Holocaust denial and descriptions of the 'Jewish character' as covetous, exploitative, and a source of evil in human society, . . . praise for jihad and martyrdom, and condemnation of negotiation as a means of regaining Islamic lands" (see: http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/5992.htm#_ednref16)? Who cares if the Brotherhood and its partners, the Salafi Nour party, would make Sharia law an integral part of Egypt's new constitution? Under no circumstances should the US exhibit favoritism to democratic Israel.

Thanks, Tom. You're a gem!

Maureen Dowd, "Hunting, Dear Sir? Delighted!": Politicians Lie? You Don't Say?

2012-01-17T22:36:00.000-08:00

Politicans lie? You don't say?

In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Hunting, Dear Sir? Delighted!" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/18/opinion/dowd-hunting-dear-sir-delighted.html?ref=opinion), Maureen Dowd compares George H. W. Bush with Mitt Romney:

"Their political philosophies were not shaped by a passion for ideas as much as a desire to serve and an ambition to climb higher than their revered fathers. Pragmatism trumps ideology; survival trumps conviction. Both men, to the manner born in Greenwich and Bloomfield Hills, adapted uncomfortably to the fundamentalist tent meeting mood of the modern G.O.P., knowing their futures depended on Faustian deals with the right."

Dowd concludes her opinion piece by asking, "Who are these guys at their core?"

I've got news for you, Maureen: politicians lie in order to be elected. Some tell big lies. Some tell smaller lies. Some think that by lying they are nevertheless enabling themselves to serve the greater "good" as known to them alone.

Obama didn't lie? He pledged to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center, but it didn't happen.

He also promised, if elected president, to use the word “genocide” to describe the slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians by the Turks at the beginning of the last century. Obama failed to keep his word.

Obama is now claiming that he is Israel's best friend, and at a November 2011 Manhattan fund raiser, he declared (see: http://gretawire.foxnewsinsider.com/2011/11/30/what-did-president-obama-say-tonight-at-a-campaign-event/):

"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. And that’s not just our opinion, that’s the opinion of the Israeli government. Whether it’s making sure that our intelligence cooperation is effective, to making sure that we’re able to construct something like an Iron Dome so that we don’t have missiles raining down on Tel Aviv, we have been consistent in insisting that we don’t compromise when it comes to Israel’s security. And that’s not just something I say privately, that’s something that I said in the U.N. General Assembly. And that will continue."

"That will continue"? If so, why did New York Times columnist Roger Cohen yesterday warn Israel not to act against Iran (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/opinion/cohen-dont-do-it-bibi.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss):

"By contrast, a re-elected Obama would, as a second-term president, have room to mark his displeasure if Israel was to go it alone."

Yes, there should be real concern that Obama's ingrained animus toward Israel will manifest itself during a second term, when he is no longer constrained by the considerations of re-election.

Both Obama and Romney know the fate of presidential candidates who drop their public masks and reveal their "core," e.g. George McGovern and Barry Goldwater.

Such being the case, how do you choose between the two? I wouldn't worry too much. Hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent between now and November to convince you of their relative merits, but don't expect to see an Obama "Hope" poster from the 2008 campaign. Hope has gone by the wayside, as reflected by both these two candidates.

Roger Cohen, "Don’t Do It, Bibi": Cohen Confuses Obama With America

2012-01-17T01:09:00.000-08:00

Roger ("Iran is not totalitarian") Cohen is once again proffering advice concerning Iran, this time to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. In "Don’t Do It, Bibi" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/opinion/cohen-dont-do-it-bibi.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss), Cohen quotes a purported conversation between anonymous US and Israeli ambassadors in order to make the point that Netanyahu should be kissing the ground on which Obama walks. Never once does Cohen observe that Israel is facing an existential threat.

According to Cohen:

"Here’s the bottom line: an Israeli attack unites Iran in fury, locks in the Islamic Republic for a generation, cements the Syrian regime, radicalizes the Arab world at a moment of delicate transition, ignites Hezbollah on the Lebanese border, boosts Hamas, endangers U.S. troops in the region, sparks terrorism, propels oil skyward, triggers a possible regional war, offers a lifeline to Iran just as Europe is about to stop buying its oil, adds a Persian to the Arab vendetta against Israel, and may at best set back Iran’s nuclear ambitions a couple of years."

Goodness gracious, this is a truly horrifying set of repercussions. However, as noted by Cohen, "Israel, in such issues, has already gone it alone once, when it bombed a Syrian nuclear facility in 2007." If so, why didn't any of Cohen's litany of events unfold when Israel leveled the Syrian Al Kibar reactor in Operation Orchard? Moreover, Cohen is mistaken: Israel also bombed the Osirak reactor in Iraq in 1981, much to the world's relief, in Operation Opera.

Cohen claims:

"In an election year, with U.S. intelligence convinced Iran is not yet building a bomb, Obama will not send oil prices soaring and the Muslim world into another bout of anti-American rage."

Yet Cohen fails to mention that the Saudis and the UAE are even more anxious than Israel to curtail the Iranian effort to attain nuclear weapons.

US intelligence is "convinced Iran is not yet building a bomb"? Oh really? As observed by Cohen's own newspaper (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iran/nuclear_program/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier):

"The International Atomic Energy Agency released [in November 2011] a trove of evidence that they said makes a 'credible' case that 'Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear device' and that the project may still be under way. The report said the I.A.E.A. had amassed 'over a thousand pages' of documents, presumably leaked out of Iran, showing 'research, development and testing activities' on a range of technologies that would only be useful in designing a nuclear weapon.

The report offered no estimate of how long it would take for Iran to be able to produce a nuclear weapon. But it laid out the case that Iran had moved far beyond the blackboard to create computer models of nuclear explosions in 2008 and 2009, and conducted experiments on nuclear triggers. The report said that starting in 2000, the Iranians constructed a vessel to conduct those tests, which was not shown to inspectors who visited the site five years later."

These experiments on nuclear triggers and the start of enrichment at the Fordow underground facility near Qum are merely part of what Cohen describes as Iran's "opaque nuclear program," and plainly have nothing to do with the construction of a bomb.

Cohen tells us that Netanyahu "has poisoned relations with Washington," and notes that the Israeli prime minister went over Obama's head to address a joint meeting of the US Congress in May 2011, where he received 29 standing ovations (see: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/05/israeli-prime-minister-gets-20-standing-ovations-in-congress-sends-message-to-white-house/). It would appear that according to Cohen, Obama is synonymous with "Washington," whereas Congress is a mere Republican-dominated aberration which in no way reflects the opinions and beliefs of the American people.

Netanyahu "poisoned relations with Washington"? Yeah, right. I suppose the awkward relationship between Netanyahu and Obama has nothing to do with the fact that Obama began his first term in office by flying to Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, but never visited Israel. I suppose it has nothing to do with the fact that much of Obama's foreign policy has been devoted to wringing concessions out of Israel without objecting to the Palestinians' refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. I suppose it has nothing to do with Obama's efforts to placate Iran's mullahs -- Obama never objected when Ahmadinejad brutally subdued Iran's Green Revolution in 2009. I suppose it has nothing to do with Obama's prolonged courtship of Syria's tyrannical president, Assad. I suppose it has nothing to do with the fact that Obama is advised by a radical Israel-hater, Samantha Power. And I suppose it also has nothing to do with the fact that Obama listened over the course of 20 years to the "anti-Zionist" sermons of the Reverend Wright without once expressing his objections.

Cohen observes that "a re-elected Obama would, as a second-term president, have room to mark his displeasure if Israel was to go it alone." I would go one step further: Whether or not Israel goes it alone and attacks Iran, Obama, as a second-term president, will no longer disguise his ingrained enmity for Israel.

But is Israel concerned with the US elections? Sorry to disappoint you, Roger, but Israel is just too busy trying to survive another year.

David Brooks, "South Carolina Diarist": "Try to Remember"

2012-01-16T23:06:00.000-08:00

David Brooks is in South Carolina, covering the Republican primary with his 12-year-old son. In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "South Carolina Diarist" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/opinion/south-carolina-diarist.html?ref=opinion), Brooks informs us that he particularly enjoys meeting the people who come to the rallies and pointedly observes:

"I was also struck, as in New Hampshire and Iowa, by the mood of this year’s rallies. Republican audiences this year want a restoration. America once had strong values, they believe, but we have gone astray. We’ve got to go back and rediscover what we had. Heads nod enthusiastically every time a candidate touches this theme.

I agree with the sentiment, but it makes for an incredibly backward-looking campaign. I sometimes wonder if the Republican Party has become the receding roar of white America as it pines for a way of life that will never return."

But is it only "white America" that seeks a restoration? My guess is that in 2012 you will never see the 2008 "Hope" poster, which came to emblematize Obama's prior presidential campaign. After three disillusioning years, hope has gone by the wayside.

Were you fortunate enough to see an off-Broadway performance of "The Fantasticks," which ran for 42 years, establishing it as the world's longest-running musical? Notwithstanding the passage of some 40 years, "Try to Remember" (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_COP3cyN7zg) still reverberates across my aging synapses.

I would like to believe that America can still rediscover hope and that this longing does not reside only within the hearts and minds of any given race or creed.

The South Carolina primary? Meaningless. Romney has already sewn up the nomination. However, I hope that David's son will long remember this time spent with his father.

New York Times Op-ed, "Preventing a Nuclear Iran, Peacefully": Yeah, Right

2012-01-16T05:25:00.000-08:00

On Thursday, The New York Times published a delusional editorial, claiming that Obama has "not paid enough attention" to the alternative of negotiating an end to Iran's nuclear weapons development program (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2012/01/new-york-times-dangerous-tension-with.html). On Saturday, The Washington Post published an opinion piece entitled "How Obama should talk to Iran" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-obama-should-talk-to-iran/2012/01/12/gIQAUZz3wP_story.html), written by Trita Parsi, head of the National Iranian American Council, claiming that "Sustained, persistent diplomacy remains untested between the United States and Iran." Today, in a contributor op-ed in The New York Times entitled "Preventing a Nuclear Iran, Peacefully" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/16/opinion/preventing-a-nuclear-iran-peacefully.html), Shibley Telhami, a professor of government at the University of Maryland, and Steven Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes, advocate "a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East" instead of attacking Iran.

Is the publication of these three opinion pieces within the space of several days mere coincidence? I don't think so. Note how Israel's Vice Prime Minister, Moshe Ya’alon, is now claiming that "election-year considerations" are responsible for Obama's reluctance to implement tough sanctions against Iran (see: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/netanyahu-deputy-voices-disappointment-with-obama-on-iran-1.407450).

In their New York Times contributor op-ed of today's date, Telhami and Kull would have us believe that according to a poll carried out with the Dahaf Institute, their proposal for a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East is supported by a majority of Israeli Jews:

"Most important, when asked whether it would be better for both Israel and Iran to have the bomb, or for neither to have it, 65 percent of Israeli Jews said neither. And a remarkable 64 percent favored the idea of a nuclear-free zone, even when it was explained that this would mean Israel giving up its nuclear weapons."

However, examination of the responses found in the poll (see: http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/dec11/IsraeliMENFZ_Dec11_quaire.pdf) do not support these conclusions. With respect to the 65 percent of Israeli Jews who purportedly believe that it would be better for both Israel and Iran to have the bomb, or for neither to have it, have a look at question 32 of the poll:

Q32. Assuming that these are the only two options [italics added], which do you think would be a better situation for Israel?

Both Israel and Iran have nuclear weapons ...... 19%
Neither Israel nor Iran have nuclear weapons ..65
Don’t know/Refused .............................................. 16

Telhami and Kull don't mention that those responding to the question were given only these two options, and this makes an enormous difference.

Moreover, have a look at the responses to question 35, which indicate that the "remarkable 64 percent" of those who favor the idea of a nuclear-free zone, includes 29 percent who "somewhat favor" this proposal, i.e. were it even remotely possible.

But let's take this a step further: Whether it be via nuclear weapons or otherwise, Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas are all calling for the destruction of Israel, and this desire to "wipe Israel off the face of the map" has nothing whatsoever to do with Israel's possession of atomic weapons.

If Obama were to demand tomorrow that Israel eliminate its atomic arsenal in exchange for a cessation of the Iranian nuclear weapons program, where would this leave Israel in the next war? Israel is currently facing a replenished arsenal of Qassam rockets and Grad missiles in Gaza, and is now reportedly also being threatened with Fajr-5 missiles (see: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2523488/posts), supplied by Iran to Hamas, which can strike Tel Aviv (see: http://www.haaretz.com/news/sources-iran-gave-hamas-missile-that-can-hit-tel-aviv-1.4868). In addition, some 50,000 Katyushas, Fajrs and Scuds are being pointed by Hezbollah, Iran's proxy in Lebanon, at Israel. Assad, who has been receiving arms from Iran to suppress the year-long rebellion in Syria (see: http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/report-iran-sending-forces-to-assist-in-syria-crackdowns-1.364543), also possesses no small number of Scuds and short-range ballistic missiles which could be used against Israel. Iran itself is armed with medium-range Shahab-3 ballistic missiles, which carry a payload of between 750 and 1,200 kilograms. Finally, given the likelihood that the Muslim Brotherhood will soon take power in Egypt, the Egyptian army's American-supplied weaponry could well be turned against Israel. In short, Iran and its allies would welcome such a slugging match, even a disproportionate one which would cost them dearly, provided it would also cost Israel tens of thousands of civilian lives.

Would even a left-leaning Israeli government be enticed by the Telhami/Kull proposal, which is grounded upon the truism that there's a sucker born every minute? I doubt it.

Maureen Dowd, "Mitt’s Big Love": Morton's Fork?

2012-01-14T14:25:00.000-08:00

I agree with Maureen Dowd that Americans face an unsavory choice in November.

In her latest New York Times op-ed, "Mitt’s Big Love" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/opinion/sunday/dowd-mitts-big-love.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss), Dowd observes:

"WHAT a choice we’ll have in the fall: one man on a pedestal, another behind a wall.

Democrats and independents may have fallen out of love with President Obama, but Republicans and independents can’t fall in love with Mitt Romney. The two Harvard Law School grads are heading into a match with oddly matching flaws: both became famous while staying enigmatic and inaccessible."

It couldn't get any worse? Wrong. Imagine if Romney were suddenly to bow out of the race owing to concerns for his wife's health, and if Gingrich and Paul were the Republican frontrunners.

Prediction: This election will be determined by how Obama handles or mishandles Iran in the coming months. He will soon be facing a dilemma on the order of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which already has the Procrastinator-in-Chief nervously wavering from week to week (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2012/01/wall-street-journal-us-warns-israel-on.html).

Thomas Friedman, "Getting to Know You ...": Tom Tells Us to "Keep a Wary Eye" on the Egyptian Army and the Brotherhood

2012-01-14T13:32:00.000-08:00

Concluding yet another -- let's hope the last -- zany installment of his series of op-eds written from Cairo, this one entitled "Getting to Know You ..." (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/opinion/sunday/friedman-getting-to-know-you.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss), Thomas Friedman tells us:

"Egyptian politics for the last 50 years has been largely a struggle between the army and the Brotherhood, and both today are suspected of having secret agendas to grab power alone. I’d keep a wary eye on both of them.

But here’s what’s new: They are not the only ones anymore with plans for Egypt’s future and the energy to push them. Somehow all of these new and old forces have to now find a way to share power to rebuild this country."

In case you were wondering, Friedman is responsible for the italicized language in the above quote.

Friedman would "keep a wary eye" on the Egyptian army and the Brotherhood, but whom is Friedman warning? Egyptians? Americans? New York Times readers?

Moreover, why does Friedman think that the radical Brotherhood and the even more radical Salafis need to find a way to share power after garnering two-thirds of the vote? I can promise you that the Brotherhood places far more emphasis on implementing Sharia law than on seeking accommodation with the US.

In which alternative narcissistic universe does Friedman live?

Wall Street Journal: "U.S. Warns Israel on Strike"

2012-01-14T06:58:00.000-08:00

As reported by Reuters yesterday (http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/13/us-israel-iran-netanyahu-idUSTRE80C1ZE20120113), Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has noted Iran's anxiety over US and European sanctions intended to thwart its thinly veiled program to acquire nuclear weapons:

"In an interview in Saturday's 'The Australian' newspaper, Netanyahu said: 'For the first time I see Iran wobble ... under the sanctions that have been adopted and especially under the threat of strong sanctions on their central bank.'

An official in Netanyahu's office confirmed to Reuters the accuracy of the quotes in the interview that was conducted on Tuesday."

However, Obama is now also wobbling, notwithstanding recent tough talk from US Secretary of Defense Panetta (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/12/us-secretary-of-defense-reverses-course.html). As reported by The Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204409004577159202556087074.html?mod=googlenews_wsj):

"President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and other top officials have delivered a string of private messages to Israeli leaders warning about the dire consequences of a strike. The U.S. wants Israel to give more time for the effects of sanctions and other measures intended to force Iran to abandon its perceived efforts to build nuclear weapons.

Stepping up the pressure, Mr. Obama spoke by telephone on Thursday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and U.S. Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will meet with Israeli military officials in Tel Aviv next week."

Remarkably, the article in The Wall Street Journal concludes by observing that "Israel represents a blind spot in U.S. intelligence" and that some US intelligence officials believe that "the U.S. should devote more resources to divining Israel's true intentions."

"Israel's true intentions"? Apparently the US intelligence community is unfamiliar with the truism cited in the past by Israel's first prime minister, David Ben Gurion: "For every two Jews, there are three opinions," which doubtless adds to their confusion.

Nevertheless, allow me to assist my friends in Arlington: Israel, which is facing a replenished arsenal of Qassam rockets and Grad missiles in Gaza, is now reportedly also being threatened with Fajr-5 missiles (see: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2523488/posts), supplied by Iran to Hamas, which can strike Tel Aviv (see: http://www.haaretz.com/news/sources-iran-gave-hamas-missile-that-can-hit-tel-aviv-1.4868). In addition, some 50,000 Katyushas, Fajrs and Scuds are being pointed by Hezbollah, Iran's proxy in Lebanon, at Israel. Assad, who has been receiving arms from Iran to suppress the year-long rebellion in Syria (see: http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/report-iran-sending-forces-to-assist-in-syria-crackdowns-1.364543), also possesses an arsenal of Scuds and short-range ballistic missiles which could be used against Israel. Finally, Iran itself is armed with medium-range Shahab-3 ballistic missiles, which carry a payload of between 750 and 1,200 kilograms.

Yes, Israel is currently facing an existential threat from Iran, which is still a year away from developing nuclear weaponry, and yes, Israel cannot afford to allow Iran to acquire a nuclear warhead.

Incidentally, yesterday's editorial in The New York Times, the official mouthpiece of the Obama administration, calling for negotiations with Iran (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2012/01/new-york-times-dangerous-tension-with.html), came as no surprise.

David Brooks, "The C.E.O. in Politics": Ignoring Cost-Benefit Analysis

2012-01-13T02:08:00.000-08:00

This is one of those rare days when David Brooks and Paul Krugman reach similar conclusions in their respective New York Times op-eds.

As observed in my prior blog entry (http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2012/01/paul-krugman-america-isnt-corporation.html), Paul Krugman today opines that the US does not need a successful businessman as president, inasmuch as "Making good economic policy isn’t at all like maximizing corporate profits." Likewise, in his op-ed entitled "The C.E.O. in Politics" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/opinion/brooks-the-ceo-in-politics.html?hp), David Brooks concludes:

"Today’s candidates have to invent bogus story lines to explain their qualifications to be president — that they are innocent outsiders or business whizzes. In reality, Romney’s Bain success is largely irrelevant to the question of whether he could be a good president. The real question is whether he has picked up traits like emotional security, political judgment and an instrumental mind-set from his upbringing and the deeper experiences of life."

I agree with Brooks that "leadership" is a trait required by successful presidents, but before dismissing business acumen, consider whether cost-benefit analysis ("CBA"), which is necessary to manage any large corporation, doesn't also figure into the equation of determining presidential policy.

Example:

President Obama can add to the current budget deficit with the expectation of resultant economic growth and improved employment statistics. On the other hand, he needs to consider whether any additional sum that is borrowed can ultimately be repaid, whether profligate spending could erode the value of the dollar and increase the US trade deficit, and whether the spectre of a US default on its debt (yes, I know -- more dollars could always be printed) would tear the world economy asunder.

Another example:

President Obama decided to send additional troops to Afghanistan in an attempt to stabilize this war zone in a manner akin to Bush's Iraqi "Surge." On the other hand, he could have decided that sending additional ground forces to Afghanistan was unlikely to achieve lasting political results within Afghanistan, that there were no foreseeable regional benefits to maintaining a US presence in Afghanistan, and that this escalation would contribute meaningfully to the US budget deficit. Not a businessman and not attuned to CBA, Obama made the wrong decision.

Bottom line: CBA is critical in both business and government.

Paul Krugman, "America Isn’t a Corporation": Indeed, If America Was a Corporation, It Would File for Chapter 11

2012-01-13T00:22:00.000-08:00

Paul Krugman, in his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "America Isn’t a Corporation" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/opinion/krugman-america-isnt-a-corporation.html?hp), informs us:

"But there’s a deeper problem in the whole notion that what this nation needs is a successful businessman as president: America is not, in fact, a corporation. Making good economic policy isn’t at all like maximizing corporate profits. And businessmen — even great businessmen — do not, in general, have any special insights into what it takes to achieve economic recovery."

Indeed, America is not a corporation. Fiscal year 2011 was the third straight year during which the US experienced deficits of over $1 trillion. Moreover, during the Obama presidency, America has increased its debt by $4 trillion. If America was a corporation, it would file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Krugman would have us know that even great businessmen do not have any special insights into what it takes to achieve economic recovery. So who possesses these special insights? Simple answer: Krugman, who once again is telling us that the US government should not reduce expenses:

"Consider what happens when a business engages in ruthless cost-cutting. From the point of view of the firm’s owners (though not its workers), the more costs that are cut, the better. Any dollars taken off the cost side of the balance sheet are added to the bottom line.

But the story is very different when a government slashes spending in the face of a depressed economy. Look at Greece, Spain, and Ireland, all of which have adopted harsh austerity policies. In each case, unemployment soared, because cuts in government spending mainly hit domestic producers. And, in each case, the reduction in budget deficits was much less than expected, because tax receipts fell as output and employment collapsed."

Query: Did Greece, Spain and Ireland have an alternative? For example, without an emergency EU and IMF rescue package, Greece would have defaulted on its debt.

As reported yesterday by Athens News (http://www.athensnews.gr/portal/11/52207):

"Rather than pushing through blanket wage cuts on underpaid groups of employees in the public and private sectors, the IMF sources stressed that selective reductions in exorbitant salaries and closure of wasteful work stations needed to be introduced in dozens of public utilities (DEKO) and other state agencies 'in order to attract foreign investment'."

Sorry, Paul, but is there anything wrong with slashing exorbitant salaries in the public sector and closing wasteful work stations?

America is not a corporation, but it's also not Greece. Any speculation whatsoever regarding a potential US default on its debt would send the world economy into the abyss, and risking such ruinous talk by running additional trillion dollar annual deficits would be less than wise.

Krugman concludes:

"America certainly needs better economic policies than it has right now — and while most of the blame for poor policies belongs to Republicans and their scorched-earth opposition to anything constructive, the president has made some important mistakes. But we’re not going to get better policies if the man sitting in the Oval Office next year sees his job as being that of engineering a leveraged buyout of America Inc."

Most of the blame belongs to the Republicans? I thought the Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate during Obama's first two years in office. But more to the point, what are Obama's policies? Yes, it's easier to tar the Republicans than to proffer and implement solutions.

The New York Times: "Dangerous Tension With Iran"

2012-01-12T23:21:00.000-08:00

Andrew Rosenthal, editorial page editor of The New York Times and son of former New York Times executive editor A.M. Rosenthal, has long since demonstrated that he will never measure up to his father. The bigger problem is that Andrew Rosenthal oversees the editorial board of The New York Times, whose opinions of late bring new meaning to the word "bovinity." Their latest editorial, "Dangerous Tension With Iran" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/opinion/dangerous-tension-with-iran.html?_r=2&hp), is a case in point.

The editorial board of The Times writes:

"Many officials, experts and commentators increasingly expect some kind of military confrontation. No one should want to see Iran, with its contempt for international law, acquire a nuclear weapon. But a military strike on the nuclear facilities would be a disaster.

We don’t know whether any mix of sanctions and inducements could persuade Tehran to abandon its nuclear ambitions. There is another option besides force: negotiations with the United States and other major powers over curbing Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for ending sanctions and diplomatic isolation. Iran’s fractured leadership so far has not committed to serious talks, but President Obama and his allies have not paid enough attention to that alternative."

Sure, no one wants Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, and a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities would be a disaster, particularly for Iran, but what else is new?

The New York Times would have us believe that the negotiations option remains open. Oh really? Obama has been trying to bring Iran to the negotiating table since his 2009 Nowruz (new year's) greetings, which were coupled with "a promise of a new beginning." In fact, Obama's diplomatic overtures to the constituent nations of Bush's "Axis of Evil" comprised the sine qua non of the new president's foreign policy:

The editorial concludes:

"The Iranians need to know that the economic pressure will not let up until they stop the nuclear program."

The editorial board of The Times sincerely believes that Iran has not taken into account that the economic pressure will not let up? I've got news for Andrew Rosenthal and his crew: Iran knows, but they want the bomb, they're willing to suffer for it, and negotiations will be used to stall for time. For Iran, and also for Saudi Arabia, it's a regional and world game changer.

C'est tout.

New York Times: "Adversaries of Iran Said to Be Stepping Up Covert Actions"

2012-01-11T23:42:00.000-08:00

A New York Times article by Scott Shane, entitled "Adversaries of Iran Said to Be Stepping Up Covert Actions" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/world/middleeast/iran-adversaries-said-to-step-up-covert-actions.html?hp), assesses the assassination of Iranian scientist, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a department supervisor at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant. The article concludes:

"Gary Sick, a specialist on Iran at Columbia, said he believed that the covert campaign, combined with sanctions, would not persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear work.

'It’s important to turn around and ask how the U.S. would feel if our revenue was being cut off, our scientists were being killed and we were under cyberattack,' Mr. Sick said. 'Would we give in, or would we double down? I think we’d fight back, and Iran will, too.'"

The article does not mention that Gary Sick also sits on the Emeritus Board of Human Rights Watch (see: http://www.hrw.org/node/76172), which has been assailed by its founder, Robert Bernstein, for its obsessive attempts "to turn Israel into a pariah state" (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2009/10/human-rights-watch-assailed-by-founder.html).

Sick asks how the US would feel if its revenue was being cut off, its scientists were being killed and it was under cyberattack; however, there is no comparing Iran with the US, and this has been the basic underlying shortcoming of Obama foreign policy. Iranian decision making is not grounded in Western values or considerations.

According to PressTV http://www.presstv.ir/detail/220580.html), Iran's Islamic Revolution Guard Corps has responded to the assassination by declaring:

"'The desperate and criminal assassination of educated intellectual Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan…added another black page to the heavy records of crime and savageness of the terrorism-centered Zionist regime [of Israel] and its sympathizers in the White House and the West, which lays claim to human rights advocacy,' the IRGC said in a statement on Wednesday.

The statement, however, stressed that the Iranian nation's determination to strengthen its superb regional position and elevate its scientific ranking in the world would not be weakened by threats or terrorist attacks."

In fact, Iran's "superb regional position" has never been weaker, following the recent steep decline in the value of the rial. The Iranian rial has lost more than a third of its value in the past three months, and as noted by The Times of India (http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-01-10/telecom/30611449_1_farsi-iranian-rial-text-messages):

"Mobile phone text messages containing the word 'dollar' and a website showing real-time exchange rates were blocked on Tuesday in Iran.

. . . .

On Tuesday, the rial was fetching 17,230 against the dollar on the open market. That was close to the record low of 17,800 it hit on January 2.

Iranian officials insist the rial's decline has nothing to do directly with the Western sanctions, the toughest of which have yet to come into effect.

But some said Iranian residents were psychologically spooked by the sanctions squeeze and the prospect that the situation would worsen still."

The emerging reality is that Iran will soon no longer be able to bankroll Hezbollah in Lebanon and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, or to supply Assad with support to quell the rebellion in Syria.

Iran will fight back? Not when it's crumbling from within.

Thomas Friedman on Egypt: An "Incredible and Incredibly Exciting Experiment"

2012-01-11T22:31:00.000-08:00

In a short video clip entitled "Egypt's Balance of Power,"
which is featured on the home page of The New York Times, Thomas Friedman opines:

"The revolution here is at a more critical stage than ever. The constititution is about to be written, the rules of the games are about to be defined, and the first post-revolutionary president of Egypt is about to be inaugurated. How those rules are written and who that next president is I think will really, certainly determine the early success or failure of this incredible and incredibly exciting experiment."

Notwithstanding Friedman's balmy assessment, consider Eric Trager's insightful analysis written for The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, entitled "The Muslim Brotherhood's Radical Plan for Egypt" (http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=3440). Concerning what is being planned for Egypt by the the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), Mr. Trager writes:

"The FJP platform states that 'sharia, in its essence...organizes the various aspects of life for Muslims and those non-Muslims who participate in the state with them.' The party's theocratic aims are therefore likely to change many aspects of Egypt's domestic policy.

Three such issues should be of special concern to Washington. First, FJP leaders have repeatedly said that they would ban alcohol and beach bathing -- both of which are essential to a tourism industry that accounts for roughly 10 percent of the economy. Second, Egypt faces a severe cash crisis, and its ability to attract international investment may be hampered by the Brotherhood's intention to implement the Quranic prohibition on interest-based banking. Third, newly elected FJP parliamentarians have said that they will not tolerate criticisms of Islam or sharia, including those made by Christians and secularists.

. . . .

Supreme Guide Muhammad Badie recently declared that, after forming the new government, the organization would pursue its final goal of establishing a 'rightly guided caliphate for the education of the world.'

. . . .

The peace treaty with Israel will likely be the first casualty of an FJP-led government. Although the party has said that it will honor Egypt's international agreements, it has carved out an exception for the Camp David Accords, which it intends to put to a national referendum, thereby shielding itself from direct responsibility for the treaty's demise. Meanwhile, the Brotherhood has amplified its confrontational posture toward Israel in recent weeks by vowing never to recognize the state and warmly greeting Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Cairo.

. . . .

[T]he FJP has invited al-Gamaa al-Islamiyah, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, to join its future governing coalition."

An "incredible and incredibly exciting experiment," as Friedman would fatuously have us believe? The real question which now arises is whether the US should continue to bankroll Egypt when it falls under the control of the Brotherhood and the even more radical Salafis.

Maureen Dowd, "A Perfect Doll": Sorry, But Obama Is No Saul Alinsky

2012-01-10T20:42:00.000-08:00

In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "A Perfect Doll" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/opinion/dowd-a-perfect-doll.html?_r=1&hp), Maureen Dowd writes:

"With many worried that America is in decline, a prospective race between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney is being caricatured here as 'Saul Alinsky versus Gordon Gekko,' as Don Baer, a former senior Clinton White House adviser, put it."

Millionaire Barack Obama, who profited handsomely from a shady real estate deal with Tony Rezko after spending a mere three years as a community organizer, hardly deserves comparison with the legendary Alinsky, a University of Chicago graduate who worked his way through school and spent a lifetime assisting poor communities throughout the US. However, I suppose this is how Axelrod will be seeking to portray the election as we draw nearer to November.

All one big mirage . . .

Thomas Friedman, "Political Islam Without Oil": Sucker!

2012-01-10T19:59:00.000-08:00

The credibility of Thomas Friedman has reached a new nadir.

In "Political Islam Without Oil" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/opinion/friedman-political-islam-without-oil.html?ref=opinion), Friedman writes from Cairo:

"On the peace treaty with Israel, Erian [the vice chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood’s party] said: 'This is the commitment of the state — not any group or party — and we have said we are respecting the commitments of the Egyptian state from the past.' Ultimately, he added, relations with Israel will be determined by how it treats the Palestinians."

No mention by Friedman that the Muslim Brotherhood's deputy leader, Dr. Rashad Bayoumi, earlier this month declared that his party will not recognize Israel “under any circumstances,” and that it intends to put the 1979 peace treaty with Israel, "a criminal enemy," to a referendum (see: http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/01/06/186672.html). This amounts to yet another instance of radical Islamists telling the truth to fellow Muslims, while providing a contrary opinion for gullible Western consumption, all in accordance with the doctrine of taqiyya, which permits Muslims to lie to non-believers (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/04/taqiyya-when-lying-is-ordained-from.html).

Friedman concludes:

"They don’t want to blow this chance to lead, yet they want to be true to their Islamic roots, yet they know their supporters elected them to deliver clean government, education and jobs, not mosques."

However, according to the results of a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center in December 2010 (http://pewglobal.org/2010/12/02/muslims-around-the-world-divided-on-hamas-and-hezbollah/), 95% of Egyptian Muslims believe it is "good" that Islam plays a large role in politics.

It would appear that both Thomas Friedman and Nicholas Kristof (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/12/nicholas-kristof-joining-dinner-in.html) are intent upon fostering the belief that the hideous progeny of the Tahrir Square rebellion, which so enthralled them, is well-intentioned and benign. Poppycock!

Iran's Favorite US Presidential Candidate

2012-01-10T05:32:00.000-08:00

Have a look at Iranian Press TV's online headlines today, which inform us, "Paul favored over Obama in poll" (http://www.presstv.ir/detail/220265.html). Needless to say, the poll, whose results show Paul barely edging out Obama, only relates to independent voters.

In a separate article entitled "US Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul says US mainstream media are feeding wrong information to American people about Iran's intention to close the Strait of Hormuz" (http://www.presstv.ir/detail/220219.html), Press TV also reports:

"[Paul] added that the United States cannot afford to wage a war against Tehran, stating that Washington must end its enmity toward Iran through diplomacy.

Earlier last week, Paul once again lashed out at Washington's hostile policies toward Iran, saying there is no evidence that Tehran is making nuclear weapons."

If that's not reason enough for the mullahs to support Paul's candidacy, have a look at the following Press TV interview of Paul from three years ago:

Paul Krugman, "America’s Unlevel Field": A Marxist Diatribe

2012-01-08T22:21:00.000-08:00

And you thought that Pravda, the official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party until 1991, was dead?

In his latest New York Times manifesto entitled "America’s Unlevel Field" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/09/opinion/krugman-americas-unlevel-field.html?ref=opinion), Paul Krugman declares that America is the advanced country where it matters most who your parents are, and that the US government has failed to create equal opportunity. Krugman contends:

"The failure starts early: in America, the holes in the social safety net mean that both low-income mothers and their children are all too likely to suffer from poor nutrition and receive inadequate health care. It continues once children reach school age, where they encounter a system in which the affluent send their kids to good, well-financed public schools or, if they choose, to private schools, while less-advantaged children get a far worse education.

Once they reach college age, those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds are far less likely to go to college — and vastly less likely to go to a top-tier school — than those luckier in their parentage.

. . . .

And if children from our society’s lower rungs do manage to make it into a good college, the lack of financial support makes them far more likely to drop out than the children of the affluent, even if they have as much or more native ability."

Goodness gracious, what a horrible country the US has become! How can we possibly begin to remedy this self-perpetuating socioeconomic tragedy engineered by nefarious Republican toads?

Poor nutrition and inadequate health care? Let's make certain that "low-income mothers and their children" are given multiple vitamin pills. If they are not swallowed, both mothers and children will either be whipped or subjected to a three-hour long upbraiding from Michelle Obama. Given the choice, I would opt for the whipping.

Let's also prevent MacDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Domino's Pizza, Cap'n Crunch and Coca Cola from advertising on television. Cigarette advertising is banned from the airwaves, so let's also do away with junk food commercials, and that means Kristy Kreme doughnuts, too.

If the children become too fat or too skinny, let's take them from their mothers and send them away to federally funded nutrition farms, where their weights will be carefully monitored, and they will only eat organic vegetables. Mothers, of course, can visit after a strip search for offending chocolates.

Private schools? Let's eliminate them, or at least require that their student bodies reflect US demographics within a percentile. If a child is half African American and half Jewish, his or her identity will also be divided equally for purposes of meeting this new quota.

Top tier universities? No more! I propose a draft system similar to that found in professional sports, whereby the best new professors will be send to the worst schools, thereby raising their academic standards to those of Harvard, Yale and the University of Chicago. (Yes, Paul, you forced it out of me: I graduated from the University of Chicago, and I'm ready to be sent away to a gulag.)

Finally, given that talented college students from poor families are more likely to drop out than dumb children from affluent families, let's provide the poor families with a stipend in addition to that being received by their children.

And when these rich and poor students finally graduate with bachelor degrees in English literature and contemporary history, and they migrate to Zuccotti Park and mingle with others unable to find jobs, Paul Krugman will visit in order to proffer comfort as all rage in unison against the inequality of the system.

Maureen Dowd, "The Grating Santorum": Another Day at the Circus

2012-01-07T20:00:00.000-08:00

In her New York Times op-ed entitled "The Grating Santorum" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/opinion/sunday/dowd-the-grating-santorum.html?ref=opinion), Maureen Dowd acknowledges that ultra-conservative Rick Santorum, who recently compared gay marriage with polygamy, will go the way of Trump, Cain, Gingrich and Paul, and that we will soon be left with Romney. After picking apart Santorum's antics, Dowd concludes:

"Santorum’s hot politics of aggrievement have competed with Mitt Romney’s cold politics of convenience. But soon Santorum will be gone and Mittens will reign as the calculating consultant type, unpersuasive in premium denim mom jeans, his hair slicked and gray, a lead in a ’50s B movie.

Santorum thinks he’s a bold color and Romney’s a pastel. But the whole Republican field seems ensconced in a black-and-white ’50s diorama. It’s like they’re running for president of Leave It to Beaverland."

However, as long as we're on the topic of "Leave It to Beaverland," we cannot avoid taking notice of concurrent events in Obama's "Brave New World." Making a doormat of the Constitution, the president last week appointed Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and filled three National Labor Board vacancies without Senate approval.

Yes, Maureen, sometimes I do miss Ike.

Thomas Friedman, "Watching Elephants Fly": Friedman Flies Into Cairo

2012-01-07T18:52:00.000-08:00

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Watching Elephants Fly" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/opinion/sunday/friedman-watching-elephants-fly.html), Thomas Friedman informs us that he is back in Cairo covering the Egyptian elections from a women-only voting center in the impoverished Shubra el-Khema neighborhood. Watching the women, who have all undergone genital mutilation, cast their votes, and continuing to ignore his recent dalliance with anti-Semitism (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/12/thomas-friedman-newt-mitt-bibi-and.html), Friedman again expresses amazement over the Tahrir Square rebellion that toppled Mubarak. Friedman says of that rebellion:

"If you didn’t see it coming, what makes you think you know where it’s going? That’s why the smartest thing now is to just shut up and take notes."

Indeed, while covering the events at Tahrir Square, Friedman, Kristof and Cohen largely ignored the bearded, non-English speaking "shock troops" from the Muslim Brotherhood, who, gritting their rotten teeth, hurled rocks back at the Mubarak supporters. Instead, interviewing university graduates and urbane plant managers, the trio from The Times portrayed a delusive picture of events in Cairo.

What makes me think I know where matters are headed in Egypt? The answer is easy, Tom. Almost a year ago I informed the readership of this blog (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/02/roger-cohens-hosni-mubarak-agonistes.html) of the results of a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center in December 2010 (http://pewglobal.org/2010/12/02/muslims-around-the-world-divided-on-hamas-and-hezbollah/):

"At least three-quarters of Muslims in Egypt . . . say they would favor making each of the following the law in their countries: stoning people who commit adultery, whippings and cutting off of hands for crimes like theft and robbery and the death penalty for those who leave the Muslim religion."

According to this report, 95% of Egyptian Muslims also believe it is "good" that Islam plays a large role in politics. Given these numbers, it should hardly have come as a surprise that the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis have taken some two-thirds of the ballots in Egypt's elections.

Notwithstanding the Pew Research Center data, Friedman today blithely concludes:

"That box and all the hopes stuffed into it by so many average Egyptians is surely necessary for a new beginning here. But it is not sufficient. The country needs a leader — there is still a huge vacuum at the top — who can take all those votes, all those hopes, and meld them into a strategy to create the jobs, schooling, justice and security that all Egyptians clearly crave. If that happens, those ballot boxes really will have delivered a different future for Egypt. Until then, I am just taking notes."

No mention by Friedman that the Muslim Brotherhood's deputy leader, Dr. Rashad Bayoumi, recently told the Arabic daily al-Hayat that his party will not recognize Israel “under any circumstance,” and that it intends to cancel the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel (see: http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=251732).

Thanks for the mindless blather, Tom. Once again, you've made my morning.

Paul Krugman, "Bain, Barack and Jobs": Figures Don't Lie, But Liars Do Figure

2012-01-05T22:46:00.000-08:00

I have always been fond of the pellucid witticism, "Figures Don’t Lie, But Liars Do Figure," which has been attributed to Mark Twain, but whose true source remains obscure (see: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/11/15/liars-figure/).

Paul Krugman, in his latest New York Times op-ed, "Bain, Barack and Jobs" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/06/opinion/bain-barack-and-jobs.html?_r=1&hp), would have us compare the number of jobs created or lost by Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. With respect to Romney's claim that Obama has lost more jobs during his tenure than any president since Hoover, Krugman writes:

"But his claims about the Obama record border on dishonesty, and his claims about his own record are well across that border.

Start with the Obama record. It’s true that 1.9 million fewer Americans have jobs now than when Mr. Obama took office. But the president inherited an economy in free fall, and can’t be held responsible for job losses during his first few months, before any of his own policies had time to take effect."

Krugman proceeds to observe that Romney's claim to have created jobs includes the period when Romney was no longer at Bain, and does not include job losses at companies which Bain scrapped.

Personally, I don't care for comparing such "figures." Krugman tells us, "The economy lost 3.1 million jobs between January 2009 and June 2009 and has since gained 1.2 million jobs," but doesn't tell us what kind of jobs were lost and what type of jobs were gained. Were the jobs gained of a sustainable nature or were they "make-work"? Were they of the kind that contribute to further economic growth? Were they of the kind that allow Americans to support their families and send their children to college?

Moreover, I also don't buy the capricious statistics foisted upon us by Romney staffers. Romney was not in the business of growing companies, but rather shopped for distressed companies to be scrapped or made more efficient and sold. Indeed, some of the companies purchased by Bain ultimately created additional jobs, but by the same token you cannot avoid acknowledging the jobs lost by those companies that failed.

However, let's look beyond the "figures" game. As observed by Krugman in an op-ed (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/12/opinion/krugman-depression-and-democracy.html) published less than a month ago, we are in a depression, and if you're over the age of 50 and looking for a job, your goose is cooked.

I live in an alternative reality, completely dissimilar to that of Krugman, in which I assist companies with disruptive, ground-breaking technologies in raising capital, which allows them to hire talented employees, create cutting-edge products, and save lives. And although there is plenty of money out there, people have never in my lifetime been so scared of investing.

In order to create jobs, we need to change the investment environment by reinstating Glass-Steagall, reinstating the Uptick Rule (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2010/02/reinstate-uptick-rule-immediately.html), and reducing long-term capital gains tax.

Answers from Obama, who never managed a company and who, by his own criteria, will have failed during his first term in office ("I expect to be judged a year from now [i.e. a year from August 2011] on whether or not things have continued to get better"), or from Romney, who made his millions from corporate raiding? I see "figures," but no solutions.

Andrew Rosenthal, "Nobody Likes to Talk About It, but It’s There": Disrespecting the Dimensions of Michelle Obama's Derriere

2012-01-04T18:25:00.000-08:00

Andrew Rosenthal, the editorial page editor of The New York Times and son of former Times executive editor A.M. Rosenthal, recently undertook to write a blog for his newspaper captioned "The Loyal Opposition," beneath which we are informed that it emanates "FROM THE DESK OF ANDREW ROSENTHAL." Why from the "desk" and not from the "doorknob" or "coathanger" of Andrew Rosenthal? We will never know.

In a blog entry entitled "Nobody Likes to Talk About It, but It’s There" (http://loyalopposition.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/03/nobody-likes-to-talk-about-it-but-its-there/?ref=opinion), Rosenthal would have us believe that "There has been a racist undertone to many of the Republican attacks leveled against President Obama for the last three years, and in this dawning presidential campaign." His evidence:

"Rep. Joe Wilson shouting 'you lie' at one of Mr. Obama’s first appearances before Congress, and House Speaker John Boehner rejecting Mr. Obama’s request to speak to a joint session of Congress—the first such denial in the history of our republic.

More recently, Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, in a conversation overheard at Reagan National Airport in Washington, said of Michelle Obama: 'She lectures us on eating right while she has a large posterior herself.'"

I agree that Wilson's obnoxious squawk and perhaps even Boehner's request that Obama delay his speech before a joint session of Congress by one day were disrespectful; however, we live in an era of discourtesy. Unbeknownst to Rosenthal, discourtesy today does not translate into racism.

President Obama has also refused to respect Congress. Note, for example, Obama's failure to seek Congressional approval for the appointment of Robert Ford as ambassador to Syria. Note how Obama recently signed legislation imposing sanctions upon Iran's central bank, yet declared that these sanctions were "nonbinding" inasmuch as they could interfere with his "constitutional authority to conduct foreign relations by directing the executive to take certain positions in negotiations or discussions with foreign governments.” Note also how Obama has appointed Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and has filled three labor board vacancies without Senate approval.

As for Sensenbrenner's distasteful observations concerning the dimensions of Michelle Obama's derriere, I would observe that there was an episode of the television comedy series "Southpark" (http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s11e04-the-snuke) which portrayed Hillary Clinton with a grossly oversized posterior. Racist?

Moreover, when the name of hefty Chris Christie was being batted around as a potential Republican presidential candidate, he swiftly became the butt of David Letterman "fat" jokes (see: http://perezhilton.com/2011-09-28-david-letterman-top-ten-chris-christie-new-jersey-late-night-president-race). Inappropriate, but not racist.

Former President George Bush was regularly ridiculed by the op-ed pundits of The Times and nearly everyone else. Moreover, when Bush spoke before Congress concerning social security, The New York Times reported that "some Democrats hooted in derision" (see: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/03/politics/03bush.html). "Racist?

If Andrew Rosenthal is truly concerned by racism, he should reread some of the vicious anti-Semitic online readers' comments that have been posted by New York Times "moderators" in response to his newspaper's op-eds and editorials, and also consider his editorial page's obsession with Israel (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/11/new-york-times-and-israel-bashing-yes.html). Although I complained to Rosenthal concerning Thomas Friedman's recent allegation that the standing ovation Netanyahu was given by Congress "was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby" (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/12/new-york-times-sanitizes-critical.html), I never received a response.

Truly a fatuous opinion piece. Keep up the good work, Andy.

Thomas Friedman, "So Much Fun. So Irrelevant.": This Opinion Piece Is Indeed Irrelevant

2012-01-03T22:20:00.000-08:00

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "So Much Fun. So Irrelevant." (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/opinion/friedman-so-much-fun-so-irrelevant.html?hp), Thomas Friedman blithely ignores his recent dalliance with anti-Semitism (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/12/thomas-friedman-newt-mitt-bibi-and.html) and is back to selling us his tired spiel that "cities and towns that combine a university, an educated populace, a dynamic business community and the fastest broadband connections on earth . . . will be the job factories of the future."

Friedman is too in love with himself to consider that even with "the fastest broadband connections on earth" creating mountains of data, the data is useless unless it can be integrated and sorted. Nowhere is this more evident than in biology, where university and corporate researchers are generating a flood of information from their experimentation, which without processing -- you need a hypothesis to know what you're looking for -- is of no value whatsoever.

Friedman concludes:

"Therefore, the critical questions for America today have to be how we deploy more ultra-high-speed networks and applications in university towns to invent more high-value-added services and manufactured goods and how we educate more workers to do these jobs — the only way we can maintain a middle class."

I've got news for Tom: Innovation and jobs are not going to come from "university towns." In the real world, individual tenured professors assisted by transient teams of students, all working without the stress of knowing that failure will cost them their livelihoods, and all working around holiday schedules and summer breaks, are not going to create the new jobs that will sustain the middle class.

Moreover, "ultra-high-speed networks" might move porn that much faster into the homes of millions of persons not yet connected to the Internet, but will not spawn productivity.

Yes, Friedman's latest opinion piece is "So Irrelevant." "So much fun"? To each his own.

Multiple Sclerosis: A Message to Ann Romney

2012-01-02T22:12:00.000-08:00

Dear Ms. Romney,

Yesterday, I read Jennifer Rubin's "Right Turn" blog in The Washington Post, entitled "Ann Romney on her husband and the race, the second time around" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/ann-romney-on-her-husband-and-the-race-the-second-time-around/2012/01/02/gIQA3l3gWP_blog.html), in which Ms. Rubin described her telephone interview with you. I was impressed by your wisdom and political maturity, as best exemplified by your declaration:

“We understand there are a lot of things that are out of our control. We are who we are.”

Ms. Rubin also alluded in her column to your observations regarding your ongoing struggle with multiple sclerosis:

"But of course her own health issues provide a constant connection to voters. She said that on the campaign trail, 'Everywhere I go people come up asking about MS.' As first lady, she would 'have a huge concern about bringing attention to and provide funding to find a cure for MS.'"

I would like to bring to your attention the efforts of an Israeli biotechnology company named Compugen, a world leader in the predictive computerized discovery of new therapeutics, which specializes in the fields of immunology and oncology. In October 2011, Compugen participated in the 2nd International Conference on Immune Tolerance in Amsterdam, during which Joseph Podojil, Ph.D. of the Feinberg School of Medicine Northwestern University, presented for the first time scientific data pertaining to CGEN-15001. CGEN-15001 is a novel protein drug candidate consisting of the extracellular region of CGEN-15001T, a previously unknown membrane protein predicted by Compugen to be a member of the B7/CD28-family, fused to a mouse antibody Fc domain. At that time, Compugen reported in a press release (http://www.cgen.com/Content.aspx?Page=press_releases&NewsId=571):

"Dr. Podojil presented data demonstrating that administration of CGEN-15001 in the experimental autoimmune encephalitis (EAE) animal model of multiple sclerosis (MS) resulted in a dramatic improvement of disease symptoms and abolishment of spontaneous relapses. In addition, the study results demonstrated that short-term treatment with CGEN-15001 led to long-term inhibition of disease symptoms as well as of the underlying spread of pathological immune responses."

In short, although there can be no certainty that CGEN-15001 or any of the other B7/CD28-like proteins discovered through use of Compugen’s Protein Family Members Discovery Platform will ultimately result in a cure for MS, the preclinical results for CGEN-15001 as well as for CGEN-15021 and CGEN-15091 (see: http://www.cgen.com/Content.aspx?Page=press_releases&NewsId=562) certainly provide hope.

Should you need additional information concerning Compugen's efforts, do not hesitate to contact me.

Meanwhile, please stay healthy as you and your husband navigate the trials and tribulations of the Republican primaries. I admire your courage.

Best,
Jeffrey

[As noted in prior blog entries, I am a Compugen shareholder, this blog entry is not a recommendation to buy or sell Compugen shares, and in September 2009 I began work as a part-time external consultant to Compugen. The opinions expressed herein are mine and are based on publicly available information. This blog entry has not been authorized, approved or reviewed prior to posting by Compugen.]

Paul Krugman, "Nobody Understands Debt": Don't Worry, Be Happy

2012-01-01T20:13:00.001-08:00

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Nobody Understands Debt" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/02/opinion/krugman-nobody-understands-debt.html?ref=opinion), Paul Krugman tells us - again - that the US should spend its way out of the current recession. Paul tells us:

"when people in D.C. talk about deficits and debt, by and large they have no idea what they’re talking about — and the people who talk the most understand the least."

You see, only Paul in New York, who writes almost exclusively about debt, knows anything at all about the subject.

Explaining that the US need not fear its debt to other countries, Krugman writes:

"It’s true that foreigners now hold large claims on the United States, including a fair amount of government debt. But every dollar’s worth of foreign claims on America is matched by 89 cents’ worth of U.S. claims on foreigners."

Or in other words, I owe them, they owe me, and everything is hunky dory. But unfortunately, there's a fly in this ointment.

For example, Egypt, which owed the US $3.6 billion, came knocking on Washington's door this past May seeking forgiveness of its entire debt, and the Obama administration decided to provide $1 billion in relief (see: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/administration-planning-1-billion-debt-relief-for-egypt/2011/04/28/AF1m4FLG_story.html). Does anyone really believe that Egypt is "good" for the remaining $2.6 billion?

Better yet, for Paul's benefit, let me explain it differently: Suppose you borrow $100 from Switzerland, one of the world's richest countries, and at the same time loan $100 to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, one of the world's poorest countries. Perhaps on your books, you can try to balance the $100 liability against the $100 asset, but the reality is that there is a good chance that there will be a default on your asset. Your books might say that your assets and liabilities are balanced; however, country risk tells you otherwise.

Krugman claims to be the one and only expert on debt, but apparently doesn't understand country risk, which factors into all international banking arrangements and determinations of overall credit risk.

Don't worry, be happy.

Maureen Dowd, "She Made Me Run!": Sorry, Maureen, But Mitt Is No Flip-Flopper in Bed

2011-12-31T19:08:00.000-08:00

I am not enamored of the lackluster crop of Republican presidential candidates. I would have been happier if Mitch Daniels, Paul Ryan and Chris Christie had all thrown their hats in the ring. And in my humble opinion, there are those past and present candidates, including Donald Trump, Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich, who have embarrassed themselves by suggesting that they are fit to serve as chief executive of the United States. However, Maureen Dowd stepped over the line by casting aspersions on the commitment of Ann Romney, Mitt's wife, who suffers from MS, to her husband's candidacy.

In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "She Made Me Run!" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/opinion/sunday/dowd-she-made-me-run.html?_r=1), Maureen Dowd writes of Mrs. Romney:

"At Iowa campaign stops, the elegant Ann introduces her husband by describing how steadfast he has been as she fought her disease. In the post-Elizabeth Edwards age, candidates can’t risk looking as if they are placing their ambition ahead of a spouse’s health. So it’s a calculation for Romney’s image that Ann be seen as a driving force rather than a victim."

Dowd then pokes fun at Callista Gingrich, whose "stubbornness" is purportedly keeping Newt in the race, and mocks Donald Trump's current wife, Melania, who seems to be claiming that America hungers for Donald as president, before concluding:

"You don’t become president without clawing your way into the Oval Office, but voters prefer pols like J.F.K., Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama who wear their ambition lightly.

The key to ambition is the ability to cloak it. Better yet, attribute it to your wife."

Personally, I find the juxtaposition of Mitt Romney's mariage with the turbulent matrimonial relationships of Newt Gingrich, Donald Trump and John Edwards to be inapt to say the least. Although Mitt has been accused of being a flip-flopper, no one has questioned his commitment to his wife.

Moreover, given the debilitating effects of MS, there is no doubt in my mind that Ann Romney is indeed devoted to her husband's candidacy. Should she become First Lady, her physical suffering will be placed front and center before the nation, and her fortitude and dedication are only to be commended.

In her prior op-ed, Dowd highlighted the courage of her brother, Kevin, a cancer survivor. Today, however, she would make light of the hardship of those suffering from MS. Sorry, Maureen, but this is an instance where Ann and Mitt Romney deserve our admiration.

Inevitable War Between the US and Iran

2011-12-31T01:07:00.000-08:00

Tensions between the US and Iran continue to mount. After threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz, thereby choking off oil to the West, Iran has begun a 10-day naval exercise, during which various long-range and short-range missiles will be fired. Explaining the rationale for the exercise, Iran is saying that the "drills are defensive in nature and intended to convey a message of peace and friendship to the countries in the region" (http://www.presstv.ir/detail/218615.html). A "message of peace of friendship"? This display of fire power in the Persian Gulf, oozing harmony and amity, is not likely to act as a salve for Saudi concerns involving Iran's irenic intentions.

For its part, the US has announced a $30 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia, including 84 new F-15 fighters (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/12/iran-and-obama-administration.html), which according to Andrew Shapiro, US assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, is intended to "send a strong message to countries in the region that the United States is committed to stability in the Gulf and broader Middle East," but "not solely directed toward Iran" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/checkpoint-washington/post/us-saudi-arabia-strike-30-billion-arms-deal/2011/12/29/gIQAjZmhOP_blog.html?hpid=z4). "Not solely directed toward Iran"? Yeah, right.

The US arms deal with the Saudis has now been supplemented by the announcement of a $3.48 billion deal with the United Arab Emirates, also concerned by Iranian nuclear ambitions, and will include a Lockheed Martin Terminal High Altitude Area Defense ("THAAD") weapon system (see: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/us-seals-deal-on-348-billion-sale-of-missiles-technology-to-uae-a-close-ally-in-mideast/2011/12/30/gIQAukcYRP_story.html).

Meanwhile, in yet another bid to buy time for the game-changing development of its nuclear arsenal, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi told Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhai Jun in Tehran on Thursday that Iran is ready to resume negotiations concerning its nuclear program with the 5+1 group (the US, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany) (see: http://www.tehrantimes.com/politics/94057-iran-ready-to-resume-g51-talks-salehi-).

In addition, Iran's semi-official Mehr news agency reported on Saturday that Jalili will soon write to the EU's neophyte foreign affairs chief, Catherine Ashton, "to express Tehran's readiness for fresh nuclear talks with major powers" (see: http://ph.news.yahoo.com/iran-send-letter-eus-ashton-over-resumption-nuclear-064018416.html). Let's see if the the Hideous Baroness of Upholland (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2009/12/catherine-ashton-hideous-baroness-of.html) is once more willing to bite at the bait.

Indeed, Iran is very close to assembling its first atomic weapon, which is the reason for its desire to engage in maundering negotiations predestined to fail. As observed by Yossi Melman, the intelligence and military affairs correspondent for Haaretz, in a blog entry entitled "2012: The year that could bring a U.S. strike of Iran" (http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/the-arms-race/2012-the-year-that-could-bring-a-u-s-strike-of-iran-1.404390):

"Iran is, in all honesty, fairly close to its own 'year of reckoning.' It has already passed the 'technological threshold.' It knows how to enrich uranium, and has carried out experiments where uranium was enriched to 90%, as well as experiments with explosives to generate chain explosions. It carried out computer simulations of nuclear explosions. There is a general consensus that by the year 2012, and 2013 at the latest, Iran will be able to put together a nuclear weapon."

Bottom line: Notwithstanding short-term satisfaction over their purchase of top-of-the-line F-15 fighters, the Saudis will ultimately again insist that the US destroy Iran's nuclear development facilities. My understanding, however, is that President Obama, America's Procrastinator-in-Chief, is weighing whether such a strike undertaken prior to November 2012 best serves his chances of re-election.

Yes, 2012 stands to be interesting.

Iran and Obama Administration Doublespeak

2011-12-29T22:09:00.000-08:00

Awakening to the imminent threat of nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran's crazy mullahs, troubled by Saudi threats to obtain their own nuclear arsenal in response to Iran's nuclear aspirations, and concerned by the milquetoast image projected by the president toward this rogue Islamic regime ("Oh, pretty please, can we have our drone back?") as the 2012 election nears, the Obama administration has begun to talk tough. US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has reversed course and is now saying that a military option remains open (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/12/us-secretary-of-defense-reverses-course.html); however, Obama still can't bring himself to sanction Iran's central bank.

Meanwhile, Tehran has responded to Obama's attempts at demonstrating that he is indeed a vertebrate by threatening to block the Strait of Hormuz.

In an effort to improve relations with Saudi Arabia, damaged by Obama's demand that Egypt's Mubarak step down during the Tahrir Square protests, and to counter Iran's warning, the US announced a $30 billion arms deal with Riyadh, including 84 new F-15 fighters, but note the attempt by the Obama administration to obfuscate this message. As reported by The Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/checkpoint-washington/post/us-saudi-arabia-strike-30-billion-arms-deal/2011/12/29/gIQAjZmhOP_blog.html?hpid=z4):

"'This sale will send a strong message to countries in the region that the United States is committed to stability in the Gulf and broader Middle East,' Andrew Shapiro, assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, told reporters.

. . . .

'Clearly, one of the threats that [the Saudis] — that they face, as well as other countries in the region — is Iran,' Shapiro said. 'But ... this is not solely directed toward Iran. This is directed toward meeting our partner Saudi Arabia’s defense needs.'"

Not solely directed toward Iran, but directed toward meeting Saudi Arabia’s defense needs? Yeah, right. Believe me, the implications of the sale were not lost upon Tehran, and if Obama has indeed decided to walk the walk, he also needs to talk the talk, which raises the question of his commitment to confronting Iran.

Meanwhile, The New York Times, the unofficial mouthpiece of the Obama adminstration, has this to say in a mealymouthed editorial entitled "Iran and the Strait" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/30/opinion/iran-and-the-strait.html?ref=opinion), concerning the deteriorating situation in the Persian Gulf:

"The new sanctions Tehran hopes to fend off are a United States law that would penalize foreign companies that do business with Iran’s central bank — which they must do to buy Iranian oil — and a tough new round of punishments, possibly including an oil embargo, now being considered by the European Union.

We strongly support applying maximum economic pressure to constrain Iran’s nuclear ambitions. But we think Washington penalizing foreign companies for engaging in otherwise lawful commerce with Iran is not the right way to go about it and could backfire, alienating European allies at a time when they are preparing to impose their own stronger sanctions. President Obama can limit the damage by making full use of a waiver, which allows him to block the penalties if they would threaten national security or cause oil prices to soar.

. . . .

Tehran’s latest threat to block global oil shipping should leave no doubt about its recklessness and its contempt for international law. This is not a government any country should want to see acquire nuclear weapons."

Provide the president, famous for his wavering, with a waiver? If Iran is indeed a country which should not be allowed nuclear weapons, the last thing Obama needs is wiggle room. Oil prices could soar? My understanding is that this undesirable outcome is covered by the arms deal with Saudi Arabia, which is prepared to increase oil production in response to any Iranian outrage.

Storm Cloud Over Gaza

2011-12-29T07:51:00.000-08:00

More of the same in the south of Israel over the past 24 hours: Four rockets fired from Gaza at Israeli agricultural settlements last night, a retaliatory attack by the Israeli air force against a tunnel leading from Egypt into Gaza, and another rocket fired from Gaza at an Israeli kibbutz this morning. However, this pattern of rocket attacks followed by reprisals is not destined to continue much longer.

As reported by The Jerusalem Post (http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=251378):

"Speaking on the third anniversary of Operation Cast Lead Tuesday, IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz said that Israel will 'sooner or later' need to launch a large-scale operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

'I believe that the State of Israel cannot continue to live under the active threat of Hamas in the Gaza Strip,' Gantz said.

'Sooner or later, there will be no escape from conducting a significant operation. The IDF knows how to operate in a determined, decisive and offensive manner against terrorists in the Gaza Strip.'"

This missile fire out of Gaza, which now threatens more than a million Israelis, persists notwithstanding significant improvement in Gaza's economy. Although unemployment is still high by world standards, i.e. some 25%, it is now at its lowest level in over a decade, and Gaza's GDP has grown by more than 30% over the past year. In the month of November alone, 5,390 trucks carrying 149,165 tons of goods entered the Gaza Strip from Israel through the Kerem Shalom crossing, bringing food, construction materials, agricultural inputs, clothing, electrical products, sports equipment, vehicles, washing machines, refrigerators, ceramics and plumbing.

All of this progress will soon come to a screeching halt, and the world, blind to missile strikes against Israeli civilians, will again condemn Israel for seeking to end this reign of terror financed by Iran.

Maureen Dowd, "Kevin Warns Republicans": Obama's Looming Crisis With Iran

2011-12-27T19:49:00.000-08:00

In "Kevin Warns Republicans" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/opinion/kevin-warns-republicans.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss), Maureen Dowd allows her brother Kevin, whom Maureen terms her "favorite conservative," to write a column, which, just this once, provides some much needed balance to the lopsidely liberal New York Times opinion page. Maureen tells us that Kevin has survived kidney cancer, and I would like to wish him a speedy and complete recovery and many more joyous Christmases with his family.

With a razor-sharp wit akin to that of his sister, Kevin aptly observes:

"It will be easy to benchmark [Obama's job performance as president] since he left office after two years and nine months to campaign full time for the same job but this time as the Republican populist Teddy Roosevelt."

Obama, who is a virtuoso campaigner, yet a dilettantish executive, indeed wishes this were so. Unfortunately for the president, he is soon to face a crisis with the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is likely to define his presidency.

As reported yesterday by CNN (http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/27/markets/oil_iran/index.htm):

"'If Iran oil is banned, not a single drop of oil will pass through Hormuz Strait,' Iran's 1st Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi said Tuesday, according to the Iran State News Agency.

Iran is also currently conducting Naval exercises in and around the Strait.

. . . .

Investment bank Merrill Lynch predicts a $40 rise in oil prices if the country's 2.2 million barrels day of crude are shut off completely."

This Iranian threat follows a dramatic change of heart by the Obama administration concerning Iran's development of nuclear weapons (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/12/us-secretary-of-defense-reverses-course.html). After learning that Iran is further along with its development program than previously thought and after being warned that Saudi Arabia will also seek such weapons if the Iranians are not stopped, Obama has belatedly begun to talk tough. In response, however, the Iranians have upped the ante and are talking even tougher.

Who blinks first? The stakes -- including the health of the American economy -- are high, and this could well prove to be Obama's "Cuban Missile Crisis." Moreover, his handling of this predicament will determine whether Obama is awarded a second term in office.

Interesting, also, is the timing of the "Austere Challenge" joint missile defense exercise planned by the U.S. and Israel for April 2012. The exercise is large, and is also being afforded publicity never seen in the past (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/12/joint-israelus-missile-defense-exercise.html).

Obama's fate now rests in his own hands and will not be determined by the quibbling of a lackluster Republican field of presidential candidates. He will not be able to escape the rigors of government and the taxing demands placed on the commander-in-chief during the coming year, as Tehran puts his rickety backbone to the test.

All Religions Believe in Peace, Compassion and Kindness? An Opinion That Will Never See the Light of Day in The New York Times

2011-12-26T22:08:00.000-08:00

Do you remember Obama's June 4, 2009 Cairo University speech (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-cairo-university-6-04-09), during which the president declared:

"As a student of history, I also know civilization's debt to Islam. It was Islam -- at places like Al-Azhar -- that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe's Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities -- it was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed. Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation. And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality."

Throughout history, Islam has demonstrated the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality? Yeah, right.

Maybe you will also recall Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the Iranian woman who was sentenced to death by stoning for adultery? World outrage had prevented the Islamic Republic of Iran from proceeding with this abomination, but now her execution is again drawing near (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/25/iran-stoning-woman-adultery_n_1169429.html?ncid=txtlnkushpmg00000002):

"Authorities in Iran said Sunday they are again moving ahead with plans to execute a woman sentenced to death by stoning on an adultery conviction in a case that sparked an international outcry, but are considering whether to carry out the punishment by hanging instead.

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani is already behind bars, serving a 10-year sentence on a separate conviction in the murder of her husband. Amid the international outrage her case generated, Iran in July 2010 suspended plans to carry out her death sentence on the adultery conviction.

On Sunday, a senior judiciary official said experts were studying whether the punishment of stoning could be changed to hanging."

Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia earlier this month, a woman named Amina bin Salem Nasser was executed in the northern province of al-Jawf for practicing "witchcraft and sorcery" (see: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/saudiarabia/8952641/Saudi-Arabia-execution-of-sorcery-woman-condemned.html). This execution brought the number of persons beheaded in Saudi Arabia in 2011 up to 73. This should give Obama food for thought the next time he considers bowing to Saudi King Abdullah.

In Egypt, liberal commentators are stunned by election results providing the Muslim Brotherhood and the even more radical Salafis with some two-thirds of the vote. In fact, these results should never have come as a surprise, given the statistics issued in December 2010 by the Pew Research Center (http://www.pewglobal.org/2010/12/02/muslims-around-the-world-divided-on-hamas-and-hezbollah/):

"About eight-in-ten Muslims in Egypt and Pakistan (82% each) endorse the stoning of people who commit adultery; 70% of Muslims in Jordan and 56% of Nigerian Muslims share this view. Muslims in Pakistan and Egypt are also the most supportive of whippings and cutting off of hands for crimes like theft and robbery; 82% in Pakistan and 77% in Egypt favor making this type of punishment the law in their countries, as do 65% of Muslims in Nigeria and 58% in Jordan.

When asked about the death penalty for those who leave the Muslim religion, at least three-quarters of Muslims in Jordan (86%), Egypt (84%) and Pakistan (76%) say they would favor making it the law; in Nigeria, 51% of Muslims favor and 46% oppose it."

Time for Obama, a self-anointed "student of history," to wake up and smell the coffee.

"Austere Challenge": Massive Israel/US Missile Defense Exercise in April

2011-12-23T23:31:00.000-08:00

Yaakov Katz writes in a Jerusalem Post article entitled "US commander visits Israel to finalize missile drill" (http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=250249) that Israel and the US are planning a joint missile defense exercise in April 2012:

Last week, Lt.-Gen. Frank Gorenc, commander of the US’s Third Air Force based in Germany, visited Israel to finalize plans for the upcoming drill, expected to see the deployment of several thousand American soldiers in Israel.

The drill, which is unprecedented in its size, will include the establishment of US command posts in Israel and IDF command posts at EUCOM headquarters in Germany – with the ultimate goal of establishing joint task forces in the event of a large-scale conflict in the Middle East.

The US will also bring its THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) and shipbased Aegis ballistic missile defense systems to Israel to simulate the interception of missile salvos against Israel.

The American systems will work in conjunction with Israel’s missile defense systems – the Arrow, Patriot and Iron Dome.

As reported by the Israeli Air Force (http://iaf.org.il/4376-38307-en/IAF.aspx):

"The purpose of [Lt.-Gen. Frank Gorenc's] visit is to practice commands and mutual regulations, in the fields as well as in the command center, as a part of preparation for the ["Austere Challenge" exercise]", says Lieutenant Colonel Dedi Meiri, Commander of the Flight Squadron in the Active Defense Wing. "We're showing the General the fields, what really goes on in the batteries. Then we'll practice system cooperation and coordination in the ITB, such as 'Arrow' and 'David's Sling'".

The Lieutenant General's tour began at Battery A' of the "Iron Dome", which intercepted a rocket fired toward Israel from the Gaza Strip over the past weekend.

Lieutenant General Gorenc was hosted by Brigadier General Doron Gavish, Commander of the Aerial Defense Formation, who also led the tour. At the battery, the Lieutenant General met with Lieutenant Colonel Gilad Biran, Commander of the "Iron Dome" Unit and with Captain Elad Tzinamon, Commander of the Battery, who explained to him the structure of the battery, how the system works and the "Discovery to Warning" system.

The fanfare attending the upcoming "Austere Challenge" exercise is unusual. Israeli is deeply indebted to the US for this show of support, given the imminent threat of combined missile attacks from Iran, Lebanon, Syria and Gaza.

Enough said.

Krugman, "The Post-Truth Campaign": Paul Bends the Truth

2011-12-22T22:36:00.000-08:00

In his latest New York Times op-ed, "The Post-Truth Campaign" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/23/opinion/krugman-the-post-truth-campaign.html?hp), Paul Krugman would have us believe that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is incessantly falsifying President Obama's record. Specifically, Krugman slams Romney for falsifying Obama's foreign policy:

"Then there’s Mr. Romney’s frequent suggestion that the president has gone around the world 'apologizing for America.' This is a popular theme on the right — but the so-called Obama apology tour is a complete fabrication, assembled by taking quotes out of context."

Before delving into the issue of whether Obama has been "apologetic," let's begin by examining whether Obama himself has been "honest" when publicly presenting the principles guiding his foreign policy. In a March 28, 2011 Huffington Post article entitled "Obama's Libya Speech Fact Checked: How The Claims Fit The Facts" (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/29/obama-libya-speech-fact-check_n_841920.html), Calvin Woodward and Richard Lardner write:

"Here is a look at some of Obama's assertions in his address to the nation Monday, and how they compare with the facts:

. . . .

OBAMA: "Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action."

THE FACTS: Mass violence against civilians has also been escalating elsewhere, without any U.S. military intervention anticipated.

More than 1 million people have fled the Ivory Coast, where the U.N. says forces loyal to the incumbent leader, Laurent Gbagbo, have used heavy weapons against the population and more than 460 killings have been confirmed of supporters of the internationally recognized president, Alassane Ouattara.

The Obama administration says Gbagbo and Gadhafi have both lost their legitimacy to rule. But only one is under attack from the U.S."

Subsequent to the Woodward and Lardner article, Obama also turned a blind eye to ongoing atrocities committed by Syrian President Assad, whom Obama had been courting since his inauguration (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/11/new-york-times-editorial-killing-in.html).

Consider also Obama's craven 2009 bow to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEUif1--r38), which this year has beheaded almost a hundred persons, some of them for "witchcraft." There was also Obama's bow to Japan's Emperor Akihito (see: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/11/obama-emperor-akihito-japan.html).

Yes, there is a difference between "goveling" and "apologizing," so let's have a look at Obama's 2009 Cairo University speech (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-cairo-university-6-04-09):

"The relationship between Islam and the West includes centuries of coexistence and cooperation, but also conflict and religious wars. More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations. Moreover, the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to the traditions of Islam.

. . . .

I understand those who protest that some countries have weapons that others do not. No single nation should pick and choose which nation holds nuclear weapons. And that's why I strongly reaffirmed America's commitment to seek a world in which no nations hold nuclear weapons. And any nation -- including Iran -- should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

. . . .

I know there has been controversy about the promotion of democracy in recent years, and much of this controversy is connected to the war in Iraq. So let me be clear: No system of government can or should be imposed by one nation by any other.

. . . .

Likewise, it is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit -- for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear. We can't disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretence of liberalism."

Not apologetic? Have I taken quotes out of context? Decide for yourself.

Gail Collins, "Housebound for the Holidays": What Gail Isn't Telling You

2011-12-21T23:28:00.001-08:00

In her Thursday New York Times op-ed, "Housebound for the Holidays" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/opinion/collins-housebound-for-the-holidays.html?_r=1&hp), Collins trots our more tripe regarding recent Republican braggadocio in the House and Senate. No mention of Romney's dog, which she will so cleverly inject into her Saturday column.

But what is missing from Collins's column? You want empty braggadocio? What about Obama's recent claim regarding his White House achievements, which was "conveniently" edited out of “60 Minutes” (see: http://ology.com/politics/ego-watch-cbs-refuses-air-obamas-claim-be-fourth-best-president-history/12202011):

“As you said yourself, Steve, you know, I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president — with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln — just in terms of what we’ve gotten done in modern history."

Apparently, Obama, surrounded by flunkeys, has grown delusional. This is beyond a narcissistic personality disorder. Where is Jon Stewart when we need him?

Thomas Friedman, "The End, for Now": Another Titillating Brain Teaser

2011-12-20T21:47:00.000-08:00

Thomas Friedman, still showing no signs of remorse following his travesty of an op-ed, "Newt, Mitt, Bibi and Vladimir" (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/12/thomas-friedman-newt-mitt-bibi-and.html), again titillates us with his inestimable wit in his latest New York Times opinion piece, "The End, for Now" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/21/opinion/friedman-the-end-for-now.html?ref=opinion). Waxing philosophic and bringing to bear all of his considerable Middle East acumen on the topic of what will next happen in Iraq, Friedman poses the following brain teaser:

"Can the Arab world develop pluralistic, consensual politics, with regular rotations in power, where people can live as citizens and not feel that their tribe, sect or party has to rule or die?"

In case there is anyone out there who doesn't already know, the answer is . . . a drumroll, please . . . "No."

[In an interview with the Gary Rosenblatt, editor and publisher of The Jewish Week (http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/breaking_news/times_friedman_regrets_israel_lobby_phrase_0), Friedman, referring to his declaration that Congress's standing ovation for Netanyahu "was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby," stated: “In retrospect I probably should have used a more precise term like ‘engineered’ by the Israel lobby — a term that does not suggest grand conspiracy theories that I don’t subscribe to.” However, as aptly observed by Jonathan Tobin of Commentary (http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/12/20/friedman-slur-israel-lobby/), "this weasel-worded attempt at walking back his brief foray into anti-Semitism shouldn’t convince anyone.”]

Maureen Dowd, "Separation of Newt and State": Akin to Professional Wrestling

2011-12-20T20:03:00.000-08:00

Some 40 years ago I was working in Manhattan, and one of my bosses, who had bought a ticket to see professional wrestling at Madison Square Garden, suddenly had family obligations that evening, and he offered me the ticket instead. I had never before gone to a professional wrestling match, but suddenly I was in the midst of thousands of screaming fans watching grown men with names such as Bruno Sammartino, Ivan "the Russian Bear" Koloff, and Ivan "the Polish Hammer" Putsky get sweaty in their jockey shorts and outrageous leotards, locking arms and doing somersaults across the ring.

But that was only half the fun . . .

The real entertainment came from the fans seated around me, who frothed at the mouth, screaming, "Hair, ref! Hair!", when Gorilla Monsoon pulled his opponent to the mat in unsportsmanlike fashion. And there was the woman ready to swoon, when phony blood spurted from the face of one of her heroes. And how the crowd went bananas when one of the arch-villains removed a small packet of powder from his crotch and tossed the noxious substance in the face of his unsuspecting opponent.

In "Separation of Newt and State" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/21/opinion/dowd-separation-of-newt-and-state.html?_r=1&ref=opinion), Maureen Dowd again regales us with the antics of Newt Gingrich. Let's be honest: Gingrich doesn't stand a chance of winning the Republican nomination and never did, but this doesn't stop Maureen from entertaining the "fans" with her blow by blow description, as Newt at first seems on the verge of winning the championship belt, only to succumb suddenly to a pin.

Unlike professional wrestling the Republican primaries are presumably not "fixed," yet by this point we all know the outcome in advance. It's hard to create drama where none exists.

The Republican primaries and professional wrestling: You might want to visit once for the anthropological experience, but beyond that? Yawn.

US Secretary of Defense Reverses Course on Iran

2011-12-20T04:11:00.000-08:00

Just over a month ago, recently appointed US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta warned at a Pentagon news conference that an attack on Iran's nuclear weapons development facilities could have "unintended consequences":

"You've got to be careful of unintended consequences here. And those consequences could involve not only not really deterring Iran from what they want to do, but more importantly, it could have a serious impact in the region and it could have a serious impact on U.S. forces in the region."

However, interviewed yesterday by CBS News, Panetta reversed course (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57345322/panetta-iran-will-not-be-allowed-nukes/):

"The United States does not want Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. That's a red line for us and that's a red line, obviously, for the Israelis.

. . . .

If they [Iran] proceed and we get intelligence that they are proceeding with developing a nuclear weapon then we will take whatever steps necessary to stop it."

So what's caused the change of heart? If I tell you, I will have to kill you . . .

The New York Times Sanitizes Critical Response to Thomas Friedman's Anti-Semitic Tirade

2011-12-19T02:48:00.001-08:00

There can and will be no forgetting Thomas Friedman's anti-Semitic tirade in his op-ed, “Newt, Mitt, Bibi and Vladimir” (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/opinion/friedman-newt-mitt-bibi-and-vladimir.html?_r=1&hp), in which he declared:

"I sure hope that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, understands that the standing ovation he got in Congress this year was not for his politics. That ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby."

It now turns out that The New York Times was only willing to publish one letter-to-the-editor in response to Friedman's racist rant, which was submitted by the American Jewish Committee (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/opinion/us-support-for-israel.html). However, The New York Times "sanitized" this reply.

As reported by David Harris, Executive Director of the American Jewish Committee, in The Jerusalem Post (http://blogs.jpost.com/content/new-york-times-columnist-tom-friedman-crossed-line), the following is the original letter-to-the-editor submitted by the AJC to The Times:

“Tom Friedman is entitled to his opinion about the pro-Israel statements of Republican presidential candidates. But his assertion that the standing ovation Congress gave Prime Minister Netanyahu a few months ago was ‘bought and paid for by the Israel lobby’ is both inaccurate and shockingly insidious. Public opinion polls consistently show a high level of American (and, yes, American Jewish) support for and identification with Israel. This indicates that the people’s elected representatives are fully reflecting the will of the voters. Friedman’s identification of a rich and powerful ‘Israel lobby’ conjures up the ugliest anti-Semitic stereotypes. Does he identify with those who traffic in such rhetoric, notably Professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, who coauthored a book by that name? One surely hopes not.”

Now contrast this with what was published by The Times:

“Thomas L. Friedman is entitled to his opinion about the pro-Israel statements of Republican presidential candidates. But we strongly object to his assertion that the standing ovation that Congress gave Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a few months ago ‘was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.’ Public opinion polls consistently show a high level of American (and, yes, American Jewish) support for and identification with Israel. This indicates that the people’s elected representatives are fully reflecting the will of the people.”

In short, The New York Times redacted the AJC's observation that Friedman "conjures up the ugliest anti-Semitic stereotypes."

In the past I have noted the proclivity of The Times to engage in censorship of online responses that are critical of its editorials or the opinions of its columnists (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2009/06/open-letter-no-1-to-clark-hoyt-public.html). However, this reformulation of the AJC's letter goes far beyond the pale of ethical journalism. What a surprise . . .

Israel Bonds Advertises in The New York Times

2011-12-18T22:16:00.000-08:00

Open Letter to the Development Corporation for Israel

Dear Madam/Sir,

This morning I was astounded to see that the Development Corporation for Israel is advertising online in The New York Times to sell Israel Bonds, notwithstanding that this newspaper has become a leading proponent of the new anti-Semitism and that many of its subscribers have cancelled their subscriptions for this reason.

As you are surely aware, Thomas Friedman last week wrote a New York Times op-ed (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/12/thomas-friedman-newt-mitt-bibi-and.html) in which he declared:

"I sure hope that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, understands that the standing ovation he got in Congress this year was not for his politics. That ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby."

This was not an isolated instance of the new anti-Semitism rearing its ugly head at The New York Times. In fact, it came on the heels of Sarah Schulman's recent New York Times contributor op-ed entitled "Israel and 'Pinkwashing'", in which Israel is assailed for safeguarding gay rights allegedly in order to disguise abuse of Palestinian rights.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has just refused an offer by The New York Times to write a contributor op-ed for them. Explaining Prime Minister Netanyahu's refusal, Netanyahu's senior adviser, Ron Dermer, provided concrete evidence that antagonism to Israel on the opinion pages of The New York Times has reached epic proportions:

"I discovered that during the last three months (September through November) you published 20 op-eds about Israel in the New York Times and International Herald Tribune. After dividing the op-eds into two categories, 'positive' and 'negative,' with 'negative' meaning an attack against the State of Israel or the policies of its democratically elected government, I found that 19 out of 20 columns were 'negative.'

The only "positive" piece was penned by Richard Goldstone (of the infamous Goldstone Report), in which he defended Israel against the slanderous charge of Apartheid. Yet your decision to publish that op-ed came a few months after your paper reportedly rejected Goldstone's previous submission. In that earlier piece, which was ultimately published in the Washington Post, the man who was quoted the world over for alleging that Israel had committed war crimes in Gaza, fundamentally changed his position."

Needless to say, the obsessive hostility to Israel of New York Times columnists Roger Cohen, Nicholas Kristof, Thomas Friedman and Robert Mackey has become legendary.

Moreover, The New York Times has persisted in posting vile anti-Semitic online readers' comments by its "moderators," notwithstanding its purported policy that "Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive" (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2009/06/open-letter-no-2-to-clark-hoyt-public.html).

Let there be no doubt: The New York Times is anti-Semitic (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/11/new-york-times-and-israel-bashing-yes.html), and I have asked readers of my blog to boycott corporations and organizations that advertise in The New York Times (http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/12/boycott-new-york-times-advertisers.html).

As such, I ask that the Development Corporation for Israel immediately cease to advertise with The New York Times. I cannot ask my readers to boycott corporations advertising with this anti-Semitic newspaper when the Development Corporation for Israel uses this newspaper's services.

I await your urgent response, which I will post on my blog.

Yours sincerely,
Jeffrey

Maureen Dowd, "The Pungent Aroma of Paranoia": An "Acceptable Ending" to the War in Iraq?

2011-12-17T15:55:00.000-08:00

In her latest New York Times opinion piece, "The Pungent Aroma of Paranoia" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/opinion/sunday/dowd-the-pungent-aroma-of-paranoia.html?_r=1&ref=opinion), Maureen Dowd would have us believe that Obama and Biden have brought the war in Iraq to an "acceptable ending":

"You’d never know it, given Republicans’ churlish silence and unseemly sniping, but the president and the vice president have stumbled and bumbled their way to an acceptable ending to the war that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney so recklessly started."

I opposed the Second Gulf War, given the likelihood that it would upset the delicate equilibrium of power between Saddam in Iraq and the mullahs in Iran, but will we now see an "acceptable ending"? I doubt it. I anticipate renewed fighting among Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds, and that Iraq's 400,000 Christians will soon begin a mass exodus from the country.

The door has also been opened for Iran to expand its sphere of influence, as evidenced by Ahmadinejad's plans to visit Iraq's Kurdistan Region "to discuss the nature of border problems between both sides and to develop bilateral trade relations" (http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2011/11/state5601.htm). This is all the more remarkable given Iran's history of persecuting its own Kurdish minority.

As acknowledged by Dowd:

"The White House knows that, while politics has broken out in Iraq, there are multiple flashpoints in the next year that, if not controlled, could blow up and bring down the precarious house of cards. They can only pray that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki keeps his promises about Iran. And that, before some firefight between rival groups spins out of control, the various Iraqi tribes consider the costs of pulling the plug."

Sorry to be a pessimist, but you can count on that ugly firefight, which is the only way things get "resolved" in this region. Iraq's Sunni elite will not surrender their socioeconomic power to the Shiite majority, as evidenced what is happening on a micro scale in Bahrain, and the Kurds will fight to the end to preserve their autonomy in the north.

An "acceptable ending"? No way, but perhaps there is no "acceptable ending." Given Iran's provocative behavior of late, which has gone unchecked by Obama, who refuses to sanction the Iranian central bank, the timing of American withdrawal could not be worse; however, as the immortal W.C. Fields once said:

"There comes a time in the affairs of man when he must take the bull by the tail and face the situation."

Notwithstanding the sign on the door, "you broke it, you bought it," perhaps it's long past time to hightail out of there, before its costs, combined with those from the inane ground war in Afghanistan, swallow the American economy whole.

Thomas Friedman, "Help Wanted": A Lack of Leadership at The New York Times

2011-12-17T14:37:00.000-08:00

Today, Thomas Friedman is back with a New York Times op-ed entitled "Help Wanted" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/opinion/sunday/friedman-help-wanted.html?ref=opinion), in which he writes his usual tired spiel about the empowerment of individuals by globalization and the Information Technology revolution. Friedman pompously advises Vladimir Putin that this shift of power to the people demands that leaders "get the best of what is coming up from below and then meld it with a vision from above." He then concludes this flatulent opus by recommending that Egypt find this new kind of leader:

"One can see this vividly in Egypt, where the bottom-up democracy movement was strong enough to oust Mubarak but now faces the long, arduous process of building new institutions and writing a new social contract from a democracy coalition that encompass [sic] Muslim Brothers, Christian liberals, Muslim liberals, the army and ultraconservative Muslim Salafis.

Getting all those fish back and swimming together in one aquarium will be no small task — one that will take a very courageous and special leader. Help wanted."

Excuse me, but what a load of horse apples! With the departure of strongman Mubarak, who kept something of a lid on violence between Muslims and Christian Copts, and with the Egyptian economy sinking into the muddy depths of the Nile (http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=248066), there is no chance whatsoever that a Western-style democracy will evolve in Egypt. My sources tell me that wealthy Egyptians are busy moving funds out of the country and investing in London real estate.

What else do Russia and Egypt have in common? In prior opinion pieces, Friedman blamed -- you guessed it -- tiny Israel for not siding with protestors in both these countries. In "Postcard From Cairo, Part 2" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/opinion/13-friedman-Web-cairo.html?pagewanted=all), Friedman devoted an entire op-ed to castigating Israel for not siding with Egypt's "democracy youth" in Tahrir Square. In "Newt, Mitt, Bibi and Vladimir" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/opinion/friedman-newt-mitt-bibi-and-vladimir.html?_r=1&hp) earlier this week, Friedman complained that Israel's foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, had met with Putin and declared that the recent elections had been fair. Friedman always discovers a way to find Israel, but not Luxembourg or Liechtenstein, at fault.

Friedman, of course, touched off a firestorm in "Newt, Mitt, Bibi and Vladimir" by scandalously alleging:

"I sure hope that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, understands that the standing ovation he got in Congress this year was not for his politics. That ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby."

Needless to say, Friedman doesn't have the courage to address the outrage caused by this slimy remark, which sounds like something taken from that hoary anti-Semitic forgery, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." But I suppose we shouldn't be expecting an apology from this windbag.

I shot off a complaint by e-mail to Andrew Rosenthal, editorial page editor of The New York Times, with a copy to the their public editor, in which I complained of Friedman's filthy remark, but good ol' Andy has yet to respond, nor do I think he will.

Both Friedman and Rosenthal have their heads buried in the sand, and I wonder if the management of The Times will ever listen to the protests "coming up from below."

Obama, "No US Administration Has Done More in Support of Israel's Security Than Ours": Yeah, Right

2011-12-16T22:37:00.000-08:00

Speaking to the Union for Reform Judaism on Friday, President Obama declared (http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=249771):

"No US administration has done more in support of Israel's security than ours. None. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise. It is a fact."

Forgive me, but I'm going to say otherwise.

Yes, Obama has helped fund Israel's Iron Dome anti-rocket system, and indeed, Netanyahu thanked Obama for his help in rescuing trapped personnel from Israel's Cairo embassy, when it came under attack by thousands of rioting Egyptians in September. Also in September, Obama acted to oppose the Palestinian Authority’s bid for statehood via the UN Security Council.

But now let's look at the flip side of the coin . . .

Obama visited Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey in 2009, but refused to step foot in Israel. Since becoming president, Obama has visited some 30 different countries, several of them more than once, but Israel has never been on his agenda.

In 2010, Obama sought to humiliate Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, when he visited the White House. As reported by Fox News (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/03/25/president-allegedly-dumps-israeli-prime-minister-dinner/):

"For a head of government to visit the White House and not pose for photographers is rare. For a key ally to be left to his own devices while the President withdraws to have dinner in private was, until this week, unheard of. Yet that is how Benjamin Netanyahu was treated by President Obama on Tuesday night, according to Israeli reports on a trip viewed in Jerusalem as a humiliation."

Obama's contemptuous treatment of Netanyahu has continued unabated, culminating in the recent open microphone gaffe, when Obama bitterly said of Netanyahu to French President Sarkozy:

"You're fed up with him? I have to deal with him every day."

Obama has yet to apologize or attempt to explain away this remark.

Over the past month, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta blamed Israel for its isolation (see: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/03/world/middleeast/panetta-says-israel-must-mend-ties-with-arab-neighbors.html?_r=1&hp), and indicated at a Pentagon news conference that the US is not weighing a military option to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/11/us-secretary-of-defense-panetta.html).

And although the Obama administration is planning sanctions against Iran's petrochemical sector, it is unwilling to take action against Iran's central bank (see: http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News/Article.aspx?id=246117).

Meanwhile, after reading of an isolated incident where several ultra-Orthodox soldiers walked out of an Israeli army concert where women sang, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier this month compared Israel with Iran and warned of the erosion of democratic values in Israel (see: http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/clinton-warns-of-israel-s-eroding-democratic-values-1.399543).

Consider also the lurking influence on American Middle East policy of senior Obama advisor and Israel-hater, Samantha Power, who in the past contemplated depriving Israel of military aid and investing billions of dollars to create a "protection force" to prevent Israel from perpetrating "genocide" against the Palestinians (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-O5XxXm8wPE).

Bottom line: Obama may have provided assistance for Israel's Iron Dome anti-rocket system, but he and his cabinet have dramatically undermined Israel's legitimacy over the past three years. There is a good reason Obama is not visiting Israel. Freed from the constraints of re-election, no one knows what life-threatening concessions Obama might seek to wring from Israel.

BOYCOTT NEW YORK TIMES ADVERTISERS!

2011-12-15T23:08:00.000-08:00

Since creating this blog, I have persistently warned of frightening anti-Semitic trends at The New York Times. As I have stated in the past, New York Times "moderators" have repeatedly posted the vilest expressions of anti-Semitism in online readers' comments, notwithstanding the purported policy of The Times that "Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive" (see, for example: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2009/06/open-letter-no-2-to-clark-hoyt-public.html).

I have also noted the overwhelming number and preponderance of op-ed and editorial opinions hostile to Israel, which are fond of distorting facts and of focusing on occurrences that don't reflect reality in this country (see, most recently: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/11/new-york-times-and-israel-bashing-yes.html). As observed by a senior adviser to Netanyahu, Ron Dermer, in a letter (see below in its entirety) to The New York Times, in which he declines their offer to publish a contributor op-ed to be written by Netanyahu (http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=249724), antagonism to Israel on the opinion pages of The New York Times has reached epic proportions:

"I discovered that during the last three months (September through November) you published 20 op-eds about Israel in the New York Times and International Herald Tribune. After dividing the op-eds into two categories, 'positive' and 'negative,' with 'negative' meaning an attack against the State of Israel or the policies of its democratically elected government, I found that 19 out of 20 columns were 'negative.'

The only "positive" piece was penned by Richard Goldstone (of the infamous Goldstone Report), in which he defended Israel against the slanderous charge of Apartheid. Yet your decision to publish that op-ed came a few months after your paper reportedly rejected Goldstone's previous submission. In that earlier piece, which was ultimately published in the Washington Post, the man who was quoted the world over for alleging that Israel had committed war crimes in Gaza, fundamentally changed his position."

Needless to say, the obsessive hostility to Israel of Roger Cohen, Nicholas Kristof, Thomas Friedman and Robert Mackey has become legendary.

After reading Sarah Schulman's recent New York Times contributor op-ed entitled "Israel and 'Pinkwashing'" (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/11/sarah-schulman-israel-and-pinkwashing.html), in which Israel is assailed for safeguarding gay rights allegedly in order to disguise abuse of Palestinian rights, I was of the opinion that The Times had reached a new journalistic nadir and wondered how even Andy Rosenthal and friends could publish this highly politicized tripe. However, the baseness of Schulman's opinion piece has now been surpassed by Thomas Friedman's "Newt, Mitt, Bibi and Vladimir" (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/12/thomas-friedman-newt-mitt-bibi-and.html), which, calling to mind the rabidly anti-Semitic "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," claims:

"I sure hope that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, understands that the standing ovation he got in Congress this year was not for his politics. That ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby."

Enough! Most in the US who read this blog have long ago cancelled their subscriptions to The New York Times. It is now time to contact companies and organizations advertising in The Times and to demand in no uncertain terms that they cease advertising with The Times until anti-Semitism at The Times is extirpated, and until an apology is received from Andrew Rosenthal, editorial page editor of this befouled newspaper.

The Times is of course free to continue to serve as the mouthpiece of the new anti-Semitism, and it could well be that they have made a calculated decision that the radical left comprises their core market. However, those advertising with The Times should be made to know that there is a price for subsidizing racism.

Ron Dermer's important letter to The New York Times, published by The Jerusalem Post:

Dear Sasha,

I received your email requesting that Prime Minister Netanyahu submit an op-ed to the New York Times. Unfortunately, we must respectfully decline.

On matters relating to Israel, the op-ed page of the “paper of record” has failed to heed the late Senator Moynihan's admonition that everyone is entitled to their own opinion but that no one is entitled to their own facts.

A case in point was your decision last May to publish the following bit of historical revision by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas:

"It is important to note that the last time the question of Palestinian statehood took center stage at the General Assembly, the question posed to the international community was whether our homeland should be partitioned into two states. In November 1947, the General Assembly made its recommendation and answered in the affirmative. Shortly thereafter, Zionist forces expelled Palestinian Arabs to ensure a decisive Jewish majority in the future state of Israel, and Arab armies intervened. War and further expulsions ensued."

This paragraph effectively turns on its head an event within living memory in which the Palestinians rejected the UN partition plan accepted by the Jews and then joined five Arab states in launching a war to annihilate the embryonic Jewish state. It should not have made it past the most rudimentary fact-checking.

The opinions of some of your regular columnists regarding Israel are well known. They consistently distort the positions of our government and ignore the steps it has taken to advance peace. They cavalierly defame our country by suggesting that marginal phenomena condemned by Prime Minister Netanyahu and virtually every Israeli official somehow reflects government policy or Israeli society as a whole. Worse, one columnist even stooped to suggesting that the strong expressions of support for Prime Minister Netanyahu during his speech this year to Congress was "bought and paid for by the Israel lobby" rather than a reflection of the broad support for Israel among the American people.

Yet instead of trying to balance these views with a different opinion, it would seem as if the surest way to get an op-ed published in the New York Times these days, no matter how obscure the writer or the viewpoint, is to attack Israel. Even so, the recent piece on “Pinkwashing,” in which Israel is vilified for having the temerity to champion its record on gay-rights, set a new bar that will be hard for you to lower in the future.

Not to be accused of cherry-picking to prove a point, I discovered that during the last three months (September through November) you published 20 op-eds about Israel in the New York Times and International Herald Tribune. After dividing the op-eds into two categories, “positive” and “negative,” with “negative” meaning an attack against the State of Israel or the policies of its democratically elected government, I found that 19 out of 20 columns were “negative.”

The only "positive" piece was penned by Richard Goldstone (of the infamous Goldstone Report), in which he defended Israel against the slanderous charge of Apartheid. Yet your decision to publish that op-ed came a few months after your paper reportedly rejected Goldstone's previous submission. In that earlier piece, which was ultimately published in the Washington Post, the man who was quoted the world over for alleging that Israel had committed war crimes in Gaza, fundamentally changed his position. According to the New York Times op-ed page, that was apparently news unfit to print.

Your refusal to publish “positive” pieces about Israel apparently does not stem from a shortage of supply. It was brought to my attention that the Majority Leader and Minority Whip of the U.S. House of Representatives jointly submitted an op-ed to your paper in September opposing the Palestinian action at the United Nations and supporting the call of both Israel and the Obama administration for direct negotiations without preconditions. In an age of intense partisanship, one would have thought that strong bipartisan support for Israel on such a timely issue would have made your cut.

So with all due respect to your prestigious paper, you will forgive us for declining your offer. We wouldn't want to be seen as "Bibiwashing" the op-ed page of the New York Times.

Sincerely,

Ron Dermer
Senior advisor to Prime Minister Netanyahu

Paul Krugman, "G.O.P. Monetary Madness": "Great Depression, here we come"

2011-12-15T21:04:00.000-08:00

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "G.O.P. Monetary Madness" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/opinion/gop-monetary-madness.html?ref=opinion), Paul Krugman would have us know that expansion of the monetary base in recent years by the Federal Reserve has not resulted in significant inflation and debasement of the dollar, as predicted by Ron Paul and Paul Ryan. (That's a helluva lot of Pauls in one sentence.) Krugman asks, "Who could have predicted that printing so much money would cause so little inflation?" The Great and Powerful One's answer? You guessed it:

"Well, I could. And did."

Krugman concludes his opinion piece by observing:

"Now, it’s still very unlikely that Ron Paul will become president. But, as I said, his economic doctrine has, in effect, become the official G.O.P. line, despite having been proved utterly wrong by events. And what will happen if that doctrine actually ends up being put into action? Great Depression, here we come."

Don't get me wrong: I wouldn't even want to imagine Ron Paul as president. On the other hand, I thought the US was already in something approximating a depression, and as acknowledged by Krugman in his prior op-ed, "Depression and Democracy" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/12/opinion/krugman-depression-and-democracy.html?_r=1&ref=opinion):

"It’s time to start calling the current situation what it is: a depression."

As pointedly observed by Peter Wehner of Commentary in his August 2011 "Contentions" opinion piece entitled "Answering Jonathan Alter's Challenge" (http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/08/26/jonathan-alter-challenge/):

"* Under Obama’s stewardship, we have lost 2.2 million jobs (and 900,000 full-time jobs in the last four months alone). He is now on track to have the worst jobs record of any president in the modern era.

* The unemployment rate stands at 9.1 percent v. 7.8 percent the month Obama took office.

* July marked the 30th consecutive month in which the unemployment rate was above the 8 percent level, the highest since the Great Depression.

* Since May 2009 — roughly 14 weeks into the Obama administration — the unemployment rate has been above 10 percent during three months, above 9 percent during 22 months, and above 8 percent during two months.

* Chronic unemployment is worse than during the Great Depression.

* The youth employment rate is at the lowest level since records were first kept in 1948.

* The share of the eligible population holding a job has declined to the lowest level since the early 1980s.

* The housing crisis is worse than in the Great Depression. (Home values are worth roughly one-third less than they were five years ago.)

* The rate of economic growth under Obama has been only slightly higher than the 1930s, the decade of the Great Depression. From the first quarter of 2010 through the first quarter of 2011, we experienced five consecutive quarters of slowing growth. America’s GDP for the second quarter of this year was a sickly 1.0 percent; in the first quarter, it was 0.4 percent.

* Fiscal year 2011 will mark the third straight year with deficits in excess of $1 trillion. Prior to the Obama presidency, we had never experienced a deficit in excess of $1 trillion.

* During the Obama presidency, America has increased its debt by $4 trillion.

. . . .

* America saw its credit rating downgraded for the first time in history under the Obama presidency.

* Consumer confidence has plunged to the lowest level since the Carter presidency.

* The number of people in the U.S. who are in poverty is on track for a record increase on President Obama’s watch, with the ranks of working-age poor approaching 1960s levels that led to the national war on poverty.

* A record number of Americans now rely on the federal government’s food stamps program. More than 44.5 million Americans received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, a 12 percent increase from one year ago."

In many respects, this economic data points to a situation worse than the Great Depression.

True, as Krugman observes, over the past three years "consumer prices have risen just 4.5 percent, meaning an average annual inflation rate of only 1.5 percent." However, Krugman fails to factor into the equation how much less Americans have to spend, owing to persistent unemployment. By way of comparison, there was deflation during the Great Depression.

Looking ahead with respect to debasement of the dollar, I believe that if Obama oversees several more trillion dollar deficit years, the US currency will indeed lose much of its value. Moreover, if this happens, I, the Gray Wizard of Caesarea, can predict the next great growth industry: wheelbarrows, needed to haul dollar bills to the grocery store to purchase bread.

Stock Market Manipulation: A New Shorting Technique

2011-12-14T20:55:00.000-08:00

As noted in an earlier blog entry (http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/search/label/Uptick%20Rule), I do not advocate an outright ban on short sales in the US, as this would interfere with the efficiency of markets, i.e. interfere with the pricing of shares in accordance with their true value. I do, however, support reinstatement of the "Uptick Rule," which would prevent downward manipulation of share prices by market sharks, which has cost many small companies their lives, thereby adding to unemployment.

The Uptick Rule went into effect in 1938 in response to market abuses that threatened the health of the US economy, and prohibited short sales of securities except on an "uptick". As summarized by the SEC:

"Rule 10a-1(a)(1) provided that, subject to certain exceptions, a listed security may be sold short (A) at a price above the price at which the immediately preceding sale was effected (plus tick), or (B) at the last sale price if it is higher than the last different price (zero-plus tick). Short sales were not permitted on minus ticks or zero-minus ticks, subject to narrow exceptions."

The Uptick Rule was cancelled in 2007, thereby enabling hedge funds to short shares, i.e. sell shares they did not own, in almost unlimited, immediate quantities, and permitting them to benefit from resultant investor panic in almost any given traded company.

Since the cancellation of the Uptick Rule, I have seen instances where hedge funds have shorted shares of a given company and have then consistently sold additional shares of that company into the market every day during the last seconds of trading, i.e. the closing, to provide the impression that the shares are trending downward. This illegal technique, which has been around for decades, is known as "painting the tape."

More recently, I have observed that certain "creative" hedge funds, which have shorted shares in a given company, are engaged in a new manipulative technique: Every time the shares of the company rise on the market, they sell short an additional 100 shares at the bid, so that investors will not perceive any upward movement in the shares.

Where are the market regulators?

Thomas Friedman, "Newt, Mitt, Bibi and Vladimir": Israel Doesn't Need Your Love

2011-12-14T07:41:00.000-08:00

What a surprise: Israel is again under assault on the op-ed page of the New York Times. I had naively hoped that one of this newspaper's pundits might consider writing about the Nobel Prize just awarded to Professor Dan Shechtman of Haifa's Technion for his work in the field of crystallography, or about the total of ten such prizes awarded to citizens of Israel over the course of the country's 63 years of existence, but this was not meant to be.

Instead, in his latest opinion piece entitled "Newt, Mitt, Bibi and Vladimir" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/opinion/friedman-newt-mitt-bibi-and-vladimir.html?_r=1&hp), Thomas Friedman declares that he loves "both Israelis and Palestinians," but then goes to great lengths to malign only Israel. Claiming that he is "deeply worried about where Israel is going today," Friedman says of Netanyahu's speech before the US Congress:

"I sure hope that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, understands that the standing ovation he got in Congress this year was not for his politics. That ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby."

The Israel lobby is paying off the US Congress? It sounds a bit like the bogus anti-Semitic allegations to be found in "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." It obviously never occurred to Friedman that the ovation received by Netanyahu could possibly have had anything to do with the fact that Israel is among Americans’ most favored countries (see: http://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/news/9084/popularity_of_israel_in_america_at_all_time_high), or that Israel consistently votes with the US in the UN more than almost all other countries (see: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/162416.pdf).

Friedman's alleges that Israel is headed in the wrong direction and cites the following evidence:

• The support of the Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, for Russia's prime minister, Vladimir Putin, following Russia's recent elections.
• Fisticuffs between right-wing Jewish settlers and Israeli soldiers on an Israeli army base.
• Segregation of men and women on Israeli buses serving the ultra-orthodox community.

Let's get this straight: I am no fan of Avigdor Lieberman, and I believe that he should not be serving as Israel's foreign minister. On the other hand, Israel must still contend with life-threatening armaments being sent by Russia to, for example, Syria (see: http://news.yahoo.com/russia-delivers-missiles-syria-170047738.html), and unseemly bargains must sometimes be struck with the devil in order to survive.

Regarding the attack against the Israeli army base by the extremists, Netanyahu ordered Israeli security forces to take immediate action against the perpetrators, and Netanyahu's outrage was felt throughout Israel across the entire political spectrum (see: http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/netanyahu-right-wing-leaders-condemn-attack-on-idf-base-in-west-bank-1.401167).

With respect to segregation between the sexes by the ultra-Orthodox minority, I suggest Friedman also seek to sanction the ultra-Orthodox community in the US for the same behavior. Personally, I recall one instance where an American ultra-Orthodox woman seated next to me on an El Al flight asked me to change my seat, but I refused. End of story.

On the basis of these three examples, Friedman would have the readership of The New York Times believe that Israelis are questioning, "Who are we?" The reality is that most Israelis whom I know are constantly questioning who they are, where they are going, and how they can make things better. They live in a vibrant society under constant existential threat from their neighbors, yet are still able to produce Nobel Prize winners, medical breakthoughs, software and algorithmic wizardry, and achievements in the arts.

Let's turn the tables: Would Tom dare seek to calumniate America for the Gabrielle Giffords shooting; for violent assaults upon abortion clinics; for Senator John Kerry's cordial meetings with Syrian president Assad; or for Obama's bow to Abdullah, king of Saudi Arabia, where persons are routinely convicted of witchcraft and beheaded (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/12/witchcraft-no-defense-for-it-in-saudi.html)? I think not. Moreover, such aberrant instances of evil are in no way indicative of basic American tolerance and virtue.

Sorry, Tom, but Israel doesn't need your love. I suggest you continue saving it for yourself.

Witchcraft: No Defense for It in Saudi Arabia

2011-12-13T19:19:00.001-08:00

Do you remember Obama's infamous bow to Saudi Arabia? Going much further back in time, do you recall the Frank Sinatra 1957 hit "Witchcraft," which begins:

Those fingers in my hair
That sly come-hither stare
That strips my conscience bare
It's witchcraft

And I've got no defense for it
The heat is too intense for it
What good would common sense for it do?

Well, there is also "no defense for it" in Saudi Arabia. Although many in the West posit that all religions promote tolerance, love and understanding, consider the following item from Reuters published yesterday by The Jerusalem Post (http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=249247):

"Rights group Amnesty International has described as "deeply shocking" Saudi Arabia's beheading of a woman convicted on charges of "sorcery and witchcraft", saying it underlined the urgent need to end executions in the kingdom.

Saudi national Amina bint Abdul Halim bin Salem Nasser was executed on Monday in the northern province of al-Jawf after being tried and convicted for practicing sorcery, the interior ministry said, without giving details of the charges."

Just an isolated instance of injustice in the desert kingdom? Yeah, right. As reported by the Saudi Gazette less than three months ago (http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentID=20110921109257&archiveissuedate=21/09/2011):

"A Sudanese man was beheaded Monday in Madina after he was convicted of practicing sorcery, the Interior Ministry announced. Abdul Hamid Al-Fakki “practiced witchcraft and sorcery,” which are illegal under the Shariah law, said a ministry statement. Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under the Shariah law enforced strictly in the Kingdom."

Now consider that Harold Koh, the Legal Adviser of the Department of State, is alleged to have said, while addressing the Yale Club of Greenwich in 2007, that "in an appropriate case, he didn't see any reason why sharia law would not be applied to govern a case in the United States" (see: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/item_yyMKJnrmyV5g5MZlhheZOP;jsessionid=B3AF1EE6089A1D7DC426F0892160E371). It would be interesting to know what Koh regards as an "appropriate case."

In any event, as aptly suggested by the Sinatra lyrics, there is no defense for witchcraft in Saudi Arabia, and "common sense for it" in that country would indeed do no good.

The Next War: Hamas and Hezbollah Don't Hesitate to Use Human Shields

2011-12-12T20:49:00.000-08:00

After some 20 rockets were fired from Gaza at civilian targets in southern Israel over the past weekend, the Israeli airforce retaliated during the hours of the night between Saturday and Sunday. The video above shows a weapons depot in Gaza being targeted by the IDF during this action. In the video, observe the two red circles: the upper red circle encloses civilian dwellings, whereas the lower red circle demarks the warehouse containing the weaponry, which included rockets. Note the secondary explosions as the munitions go up in flames.

Despite the precision of Israeli airforce attacks, there will inevitably be wounded civilians owing to the proximity of Hamas and Islamic Jihad weapons depots in Gaza, and of Hezbollah weapons depots in southern Lebanon, to civilian dwellings. Make no mistake about it: Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah welcome civilian casualties, in order to convince a gullible West of Israeli brutality.

Needless to say, Palestinian medical sources, crying crocodile tears, bitterly complained that one civilian had been killed and 13 others had been wounded during the Israeli raid (see: http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=248808).

Paul Krugman, "Depression and Democracy": No Mention of Anti-Semitism at The New York Times

2011-12-11T23:19:00.000-08:00

Yet another instance of the pot calling the kettle black?

In his latest New York Times op-ed, "Depression and Democracy" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/12/opinion/krugman-depression-and-democracy.html?_r=1&ref=opinion), Paul Krugman tells us, "It’s time to start calling the current situation what it is: a depression." He goes on to express concern over Europe and the euro, and devotes much of the remainder of his opinion piece to the contention that democratic institutions are being undermined in Hungary:

"One of Hungary’s major parties, Jobbik, is a nightmare out of the 1930s: it’s anti-Roma (Gypsy), it’s anti-Semitic, and it even had a paramilitary arm. But the immediate threat comes from Fidesz, the governing center-right party.

Fidesz won an overwhelming Parliamentary majority last year, at least partly for economic reasons; Hungary isn’t on the euro, but it suffered severely because of large-scale borrowing in foreign currencies and also, to be frank, thanks to mismanagement and corruption on the part of the then-governing left-liberal parties. Now Fidesz, which rammed through a new Constitution last spring on a party-line vote, seems bent on establishing a permanent hold on power."

Sure, Paul is correct: Economic hardship spawns political radicalism. But why does he only focus on Hungary?

Elsewhere in Europe, under the ruling Islamist AK Party, Turkey has become the world leader in "imprisoned journalists" (http://archive.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=ipi-report-declares-turkey-world-leader-of-imprisoned-journalists-2011-04-08), while Turkish Kurds are denied their freedom, and women's rights are swept under the rug (e.g., murders of women have increased by 1,400 percent under the AK government, and only two of Turkey’s 26 ministers -- those responsible for education and women’s affairs -- are women). But why should Turkey trouble the "Conscience of a Liberal"? "Liberals" are apparently only concerned with injustices perpetrated by rightist, not Islamist, governments.

Much closer to home, Krugman is apparently indifferent to manifestations of anti-Semitism at his own newspaper (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/11/new-york-times-and-israel-bashing-yes.html). The publication of anti-Semitic, purportedly "moderated," online readers' comments by The Times, and the obsessive need of his newspaper's editorial department to regularly publish derogatory opinion pieces concerning Israel, lacking an iota of balance, are symptomatic of the "new" anti-Semitism of the left, which is also being fueled by economic decline.

It was remarkable how left-leaning columnists from The New York Times , including Krugman who visited the Zuccotti Park encampment of Occupy Wall Street (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/21/paul-krugman-visits-occup_n_1023812.html), pointedly refused to acknowledge the anti-Semitism being disseminated by this group (see: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/10/11/occupy-wall-street-has-an-anti-semitism-problem/). Is anti-Semitism less worrisome when it issues from the left?

Sorry, Paul, don't lecture me on anti-Semitism in Budapest, when it's right under your nose at The New York Times.

Thomas Friedman, "The Next First (and Only) 100 Days": Running Hot and Cold on Obama

2011-12-10T15:27:00.000-08:00

Thomas Friedman has become a bit mercurial of late.

Less than three weeks ago, in a New York Times op-ed entitled "Go Big, Mr. Obama" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/23/opinion/friedman-go-big-mr-obama.html?ref=opinion), Friedman croaked paeans to the president:

"I voted for Barack Obama, and I don’t want my money back. He’s never gotten the credit he deserves for bringing the economy he inherited back from the brink of a depression. He’s fought the war on terrorism in a smart and effective way. He’s making health care possible for millions of Americans with pre-existing conditions, and he saved the auto industry. This is big stuff."

. . . .

Go big, Mr. President. You will win, and so will America."

Today, however, in "The Next First (and Only) 100 Days" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/opinion/sunday/friedman-the-next-first-and-only-100-days.html?ref=opinion), Friedman appears to reverse course and voices disappointment with Obama:

"If we had a stimulus focused on 21st-century jobs, and a credible long-term fiscal reform plan, it would unlock the scale of investment we need to revive the employment market today and address the future. If Obama ran on that big plan, he would win and have an electoral mandate to implement it in his only 100 days. Sadly, he seems intent on playing small ball. He is capable of, and the country needs, much bolder leadership.

Oh, well. There’s always the first 100 days of 2017."

Disappointed by Obama's "small ball," but always ready with his own nifty answers to revive America's ailing economy, Friedman, quoting Harvard labor economist Lawrence Katz, calls for the creation of "hubs":

"We need to think of the future middle class as being generated not by factories 'but by hubs,' argues Katz. These are networked urban areas like Austin, Silicon Valley and Raleigh-Durham, where people learn, imagine and create value rapidly by combining universities, high-tech manufacturers, software/service providers and highly nimble start-ups that collaborate and compete to invent things that make people’s lives more entertained, productive, healthy, educated and comfortable.

. . . .

To spawn more of these hubs, big and small, any stimulus should focus on building telecommunications and infrastructure to support networked cities and on getting more young people access to vocational or college training."

Hubs to support networked cities such as Austin, Silicon Valley and Raleigh-Durham? Sounds a bit utopian to me. I wonder who will create the networking for Chicago, Cleveland, Las Vegas, Atlanta and Philadelphia, where Americans are "most likely to be murdered, raped, robbed or have their car stolen" (see: http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/LifeStages/americas-dangerous-neighborhoods-areas-violent-crime/story?id=11803334).

If either Obama or Newt is elected in 2012, I propose investing in pubs, not hubs.

Maureen Dowd, "Fire and Ice": Fueling the Need for Clothespins

2011-12-10T14:58:00.000-08:00

Who would ever imagine that Obama and Newt might cause a spike in the sale of clothespins in 2012?

In her Sunday op-ed entitled "Fire and Ice" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/opinion/sunday/dowd-fire-and-ice.html?ref=opinion), Maureen Dowd contemplates the possibility that Newt Gingrich will run against Obama in 2012:

"A match between Gingrich and Obama would be fascinating: two men who grew up without their hot-tempered, hard-drinking fathers, vying to be the nation’s patriarch.

The Drama Queen versus No Drama Obama. The apocalyptic prophet versus the ambiguous president."

A "Fascinating" match? It seems more like the plot of a stinker horror film, which shafts the entire audience.

Would someone please convince Chris Christie that there's still time for him to change his mind?

Clothespins? The next growth industry. Barring a miracle, most Americans will need to place them over their noses as they enter voting booths in 2012.

Barbara Walters Interviews Syrian President Bashar al-Assad: A "Disconnect"

2011-12-10T02:10:00.000-08:00

Earlier this month, Barbara Walters of ABC News returned from an interview with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which began with a warm handshake, to a heroine's welcome on a special edition of "Nightline" (http://abcnews.go.com/International/defiant-syrian-president-bashar-al-assad-denies-ordering/story?id=15098612). Observing that "Barbara is the first American television journalist allowed access to the country since a nine-month old revolution began," Bill Weir asked 82-year-old Walters how Assad compares with Saddam Hussein, Qaddafi and Mubarak. Walters's response:

"He is not a grim, strong man the way Mubarak was. He is not a wild crazy person -- at least that's the way Qaddafi seemed to us. He is calm, he is soft spoken, he is articulate, he speaks very good English, there were no ground rules, he answered every question, but there is this disconnect, Bill, between what we hear about this country -- the reports that we have seen -- and what he says, and it's hard to put the two things together."

This is not Walters's first encounter with Assad. In 2008, Walters vacationed in Syria and had a "very long lunch" with Assad and his wife, some three years after Assad ordered the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in Beirut. Following her meal, Walters reported back on her impressions of the Assads at that time (http://newsbusters.org/blogs/justin-mccarthy/2008/07/07/barbara-walters-syrian-dicator-charming-intelligent):

"From my experience, he was a very intelligent, a well informed, thoughtful, we spoke perfect English, wants very much to have relations with this country, has some solutions for ending the war in Iraq. She was educated in England, worked in this country, speaks English the way I’m talking to you, lovely, intelligent. I don’t want people to say 'oh you’re brainwashed.' But that was not it. They just were very charming, intelligent. She has a cooperative, a group teaching children to be entrepreneurs with Harvard University, was raised in England, worked in this country. So this is not what we expected in terms of the leaders."

Do Walters's thoughts sound familiar to you? They should. They echo the sentiments of former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who, after meeting with Assad in Damascus in 2007, labeled Assad a "model Arab leader" (http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/03/assad_fooled_us_twice_shame_on.html).

Now consider Nicholas Kristof's most recent New York Times op-ed, entitled "Joining a Dinner in a Muslim Brotherhood Home" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/08/opinion/kristof-joining-a-dinner-in-a-muslim-brotherhood-home.html?hp#comments), in which Kristof describes his chatter over dinner with an educated, 24-year-old hostess, who seeks to allay Western anxiety over the Muslim Brotherhood's goals in Egypt, leading Kristof to conclude:

"So a bit of nervousness is fine, but let’s not overdo the hand-wringing — or lose perspective. What’s historic in Egypt today is not so much the rise of any one party as the apparent slow emergence of democracy in the heart of the Arab world."

On the basis of his dinner banter, Kristof would have his readership ignore the Brotherhood's long history of hostility to Western values, women's rights and religious freedom (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/12/nicholas-kristof-joining-dinner-in.html).

Meanwhile, in an article published in Asharq al-Awsat yesterday, Mahmoud Hussein, the Brotherhood's secretary-general, suggested that the Brotherhood would annul Egypt's peace treaty with Israel (http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/muslim-brotherhood-egypt-israel-peace-treaty-needs-to-be-reviewed-1.400541).

Barbara Walters on "Nightline" is now claiming that there is a "disconnect" between the current ruthlessness in Syria and the manner in which Assad perceives this barbarism. In fact, there is no such disconnect. Assad is a cold-blooded murderer and an accomplished liar. The only "disconnect" is to be found in gullible liberal media personalities, such as Walters and Kristof, and left-leaning politicians, such as Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry and Jimmy Carter, who, after being wined and dined by well-mannered persons with Western academic degrees and near perfect English in the Muslim Middle East, cannot comprehend how these people are capable of such boundless savagery.

Paul Krugman, "All the G.O.P.’s Gekkos": Was Obama the Beneficiary of a Gift That Should Have Been Reported to the IRS?

2011-12-09T00:03:00.000-08:00

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "All the G.O.P.’s Gekkos" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/09/opinion/krugman-all-the-gops-gekkos.html?hp), Paul Krugman compares Mitt Romney’s lucrative business activity at Bain Capital with the greed and malfeasance of Gordon Gekko, the fictional antagonist in Oliver Stone's movie "Wall Street.” Acknowledging toward the end of his opinion piece that Romney is not a villain, Krugman concludes:

"The truth is that what’s good for the 1 percent, or even better the 0.1 percent, isn’t necessarily good for the rest of America — and Mr. Romney’s career illustrates that point perfectly. There’s no need, and no reason, to hate Mr. Romney and others like him. We do, however, need to get such people paying more in taxes — and we shouldn’t let myths about 'job creators' get in the way."

"Such people" should be paying more in taxes? I agree, and this includes persons such as Obama supporters George Soros and Jon Corzine.

And what about millionaire Barack Obama himself?

On the same day Obama purchased his Chicago mansion, the wife of convicted felon Tony Rezko bought the adjacent empty lot from the same seller, who wanted to sell both properties together. However, as reported by ABC News (http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4111483&page=1):

"While Rezko's wife paid the full asking price for the land, Obama paid $300,000 under the asking price for the house. The house sold for $1,650,000 and the price Rezko's wife paid for the land was $625,000.

Obama denies there was anything unusual about the price disparity. He says the price on the house was dropped because it had been on the market for some time but that the price for the adjacent land remained high because there was another offer."

"Nothing unusual about the price disparity"? As reported by The Washington Times in 2008 (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/nov/04/fbi-asked-questions-on-rezko-land-deal/?page=all), a Chicago real estate specialist claimed that the price paid by Rezko's wife for the adjoining property was excessive, whereas Obama paid significantly less than market value:

"A former Illinois real estate specialist says FBI agents have questioned him about a Chicago property that had been bought by convicted felon Tony Rezko’s wife and later sold to the couple’s next-door neighbor, Sen. Barack Obama.

. . . .

'Agents and I talked about payoff, bribe, kickback for a long time, though it took them only a short number of minutes of talking with me while looking at the appraisal to acknowledge what they already seemed to know: The Rezko lot was grossly overvalued,' Mr. Conner told The Washington Times Monday.

'Rezko paid the asking price on the same day Obama paid $300,000 less than the asking price to the same seller for his adjacent mansion,' he said. 'This begs the question of payoff, bribe, kickback.'

In a wrongful-termination complaint filed last month in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Mr. Conner said his appraisal of the Rezko property, held in Rita Malki Rezko’s name, was replaced with a higher one and he was fired when he questioned the document."

Let's ignore any possible allegation of a bribe or kickback and also not examine the question of how community organizer Barack Obama and his wife managed to finance a $1,650,000 house. Instead, let's focus on whether Obama received a gift, which went unreported to the IRS. According to the IRS (http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=108139,00.html#2), a gift is defined as "Any transfer to an individual, either directly or indirectly, where full consideration (measured in money or money's worth) is not received in return."

In 2005, when the Obama/Rezko real estate transaction was consummated, there was an annual exclusion of $11,000 to each donee. Did Obama receive a "gift" in excess of $11,000? Should a Form 709 have been filed by the Rezkos, listing Obama as a "donee"?

Meanwhile, a hypocritical Paul Krugman would only have us examine Republican avarice. The reality is that the stench of politics permeates both sides of the aisle.

Nicholas Kristof, "Joining a Dinner in a Muslim Brotherhood Home": Another Useful Idiot

2011-12-07T23:29:00.000-08:00

Walter Duranty was a journalist who served as the Moscow bureau chief of the New York Times from 1922 through 1936 and received a Pulitzer Prize in 1932 for his stories in 1931 on the Soviet Union. Exalting Stalin, Duranty denied the existence of famine in the Soviet Union, which resulted in the deaths of some 10 million people between 1931 and 1932.

Fast forward to 2009: Columnist Roger Cohen sought to indoctrinate New York Times readers that Iran is "not totalitarian" (see: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/02/opinion/02cohen.html).

Today, Nicholas Kristof wishes to convince us that the US has nothing to fear from Egypt's ascendant Muslim Brotherhood. In his latest New York Times opinion piece "Joining a Dinner in a Muslim Brotherhood Home" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/08/opinion/kristof-joining-a-dinner-in-a-muslim-brotherhood-home.html?hp#comments), Kristof describes his chatter over dinner with an educated, 24-year-old hostess, who seeks to allay Western anxiety over the Brotherhood's goals. Kristof concludes:

"Revolutions are often messy, and it took Americans seven years from their victory in the American Revolution at Yorktown to get a ratified Constitution. Indonesia, after its 1998 revolution, felt very much like Egypt does today. It endured upheavals from a fundamentalist Islamic current, yet it pulled through.

So a bit of nervousness is fine, but let’s not overdo the hand-wringing — or lose perspective. What’s historic in Egypt today is not so much the rise of any one party as the apparent slow emergence of democracy in the heart of the Arab world."

Having read Kristof this morning, I am trying to keep my breakfast down.

Notwithstanding the assurances of Kristof's enchanting hostess, consider a June 8, 2011 interview published by the Egyptian daily Al-Shorouq (http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/193/5404.htm), in which Dr. Kamal Al-Helbawy, a former Muslim Brotherhood spokesman in the West, stated:

"There will be no contradictions. Our thinking and our affiliation are to the exalted Allah. Our affiliation is to Islam. The global state of Islam is our ideal."

Reflect upon a June 11, 2011 article on the Muslim Brotherhood's Website (http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/193/5432.htm), which declared:

"[However,] we must not impose Islamic shari'a, forcing the people to adopt something about which they are ignorant and with which they are unfamiliar... If we do this, [various] ploys will be used to circumvent it, and there will be hypocrisy. [People] will exhibit Islamic [behavior] only outwardly...

. . . .

"There is no other way but gradual action, preparing the [people's] souls and setting an example, so that faith will enter their hearts... Gradual action does not impose Islam at once, but rather step by step, in order to facilitate understanding, studying, acceptance, and submission."

Listen to a February 7, 2011 interview with Kamal Al-Hilbawi, former speaker of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, on Al-Alam TV (http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/193/4990.htm), in which he says:

"We think highly of a country whose president is important, courageous, and has a vision, which he presents in the UN, in Geneva, and everywhere. We think highly of a country that has a wise government, a country that confronts Western hegemony, and is scientifically and technologically advanced. Unfortunately, these characteristics can be found only in the Islamic Republic of Iran."

Chew over the January 30, 2011 interview with Muhammad Ghanem on Al-Alam TV (http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/193/4972.htm), during which the Muslim Brotherhood representative in London asserted:

"I am absolutely certain that this revolution will not die, and that the next step must be one of civil disobedience. This civil disobedience will generate strife among the Egyptians. This disobedience must include halting passage through the Suez Canal, stopping the supply of petroleum and natural gas to Israel, and preparing for war with Israel."

Dwell upon the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood's political platform (http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/193/4970.htm):

"On our part, we believe that the burdens of presidency must not be placed on a woman's shoulders – any more than supervising and leading the army – since they contradict her nature and the rest of her social and humanitarian roles."

And contemplate the words from a 2010 sermon delivered by Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammad Badi' (http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/193/4650.htm):

"Resistance is the only solution against the Zio-American arrogance and tyranny, and all we need is for the Arab and Muslim peoples to stand behind it and support it. The peoples know well who is [carrying out] resistance and who has sold out the [Palestinian] cause and bargained over it. We say to our brothers the mujahideen in Gaza: be patient, persist in [your jihad], and know that Allah is with you..."

. . . .

The U.S. is now experiencing the beginning of its end, and is heading towards its demise."

By now, you've probably got my drift. Kristof, however, doesn't understand that in the Muslim Middle East, prevarication, i.e. taqiyya (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/04/taqiyya-when-lying-is-ordained-from.html), is sanctioned from above when seeking to vanquish non-believers.

Yet another useful idiot. It's fast becoming a New York Times tradition . . .

Thomas Friedman, "Egypt, the Beginning or the End?": Reality Slaps Tom in the Face

2011-12-06T22:59:00.000-08:00

Do you remember the horse apples that Thomas Friedman tossed at his readership earlier this year concerning events in Cairo's Tahrir Square? Let me remind you. In an emotive February New York Times op-ed entitled "They Did It" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/opinion/13friedman.html?ref=thomaslfriedman), Friedman wrote:

"They did this all by themselves. That is so important. One of the most powerful chants I heard in [Tahrir] square on Friday night was: 'The people made the regime step down.'

This sense of self-empowerment and authenticity — we did this for ourselves, by ourselves — is what makes Egypt’s democracy movement such a potential game-changer for the whole region.

. . . .

This could get interesting — for all the region’s autocrats. Egypt’s youthful and resourceful democrats are just getting started."

Needless to say, Friedman began to backtrack from his jubilance later in the year. In a May New York Times op-ed entitled "Pay Attention" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/opinion/29friedmanOpEd.html?ref=opinion), Friedman quoted an Egyptian "reform party leader" as saying:

“We as secular forces prefer to have some time to consolidate our parties. We must thank the army for the role it played. But it was our revolution, not a coup d’état. ... If there are fair elections, the Muslim Brotherhood will only get 20 percent.”

20 percent? Yeah, right. The Muslim Brotherhood took 40 percent in the first stage of the election process, and the Salafis, who make the Muslim Brotherhood appear moderate, took another 25 percent.

Today, Friedman is back with more twaddle in "Egypt, the Beginning or the End?" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/opinion/friedman-egypt-the-beginning-or-the-end.html?ref=opinion), seeking to excuse the poor election showing of the "liberal Egyptian Bloc," which received only 15 percent of the vote. Friedman, showing signs of sobriety, writes:

"The fact that the Muslim Brotherhood and the even more fundamentalist Salafist Nour Party have garnered some 65 percent of the votes in the first round of Egypt’s free parliamentary elections since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak should hardly come as a surprise. Given the way that the military regimes in the Arab world decimated all independent secular political parties over the last 50 years, there is little chance of any Arab country going from Mubarak to Jefferson without going through some Khomeini.

But whether this is the end of the Egyptian democracy rebellion, just a phase in it or an inevitable religious political expression that will have to coexist with the military and secular reform agendas remains to be seen. The laws of gravity, both political and economic, have yet to assert themselves on whoever will lead Egypt, which is why today I am in a listening and watching mode, with more questions than answers."

The election results "should hardly come as a surprise"? Nice try, Tom. What happened to your prior rosy assertion that "Egypt’s youthful and resourceful democrats are just getting started"?

Unlike Friedman, as far back as February I warned that Egyptian-style "democracy" would prove unpalatable to Western tastes (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/02/roger-cohens-hosni-mubarak-agonistes.html), observing that a recent Pew Research Center poll found, for example, that more than 75% of Egyptian Muslims favor the death penalty for those who leave the Muslim faith. Given the Pew statistics, and given that the oppressed Christian Coptic minority in Egypt, comprising 9% of the population, would never side with the Brotherhood or the Salafis, the some 65% of the vote received by the Brotherhood and the Salafis was carved in stone from day one.

Friedman asks whether this is the beginning or the end for Egypt. The answer is simple. As reported by David Rosenberg in an article entitled "Plunging foreign reserves pose new threat to Egypt" (http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=248066), published by the Jerusalem Post on Sunday:

"Egypt’s political and economic clocks are running on dangerously different speeds: While Egyptians make repeat visits to the polls over the next three months to elect a new government and debate the future of their country under Islamist rule, the country’s foreign currency reserves are rapidly running down to perilous levels.

The reserves dropped to just over $22 billion in October from $36 billion since the start of the revolution last January. But with the latest round of unrest and the prospect of Islamist rule, the pace of the decline has picked up. On Thursday, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) forecasted that the figure would plummet to just $15 billion by the end of January.

. . . .

Plunging forex reserves are symptomatic of economy coming apart. Egypt eked out some economic growth in the second quarter of the year, but not enough to claw back the 4.2% drop in gross domestic product that occurred in the first quarter. The IMF expects the GDP to grow just 1.2%, down from 5.1% in 2010.

Revenue from tourism, a major source of foreign currency for Egypt as well as a major employer, dropped by more than a third in the first half of the year."

Let me put it in simpler language: Egypt stands ready to implode, and the Frankenstein monster that most likely will emerge from the rubble will not take after Western democracies. I hope that answers Friedman, who has lost all semblance of credibility.

Roger Cohen, "Come Home to Israel": More Unbalanced Self-Hatred

2011-12-05T22:21:00.000-08:00

The onslaught against tiny Israel on the op-ed page of The New York Times continues. On November 18, in "The Voice of a Woman" (http://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/18/the-voice-of-a-woman/), Shmuel Rosner highlighted instances where ultra-Orthodox Israei soldiers have walked out of performances when women began to sing. On November 22, Sarah Schulman wrote an inane piece entitled "Israel and 'Pinkwashing'" (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/search/label/Sarah%20Schulman), claiming that Israel was promoting gay rights in order to disguise oppression of Palestinians. Today, Roger Cohen feeds his anti-Israel obsession in "Come Home to Israel" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/opinion/cohen-come-home-to-israel.html?hp), in which he complains about a short-lived advertising campaign intended to persuade Israelis living in the US to return to Israel. Cohen begins by stating:

"I have several reactions to this little saga. The first is that I know several Israeli expatriates or would-be expatriates and their feelings are consistent. They are troubled by the illiberal drift of Israeli politics, the growth of a harsh nationalism, the increasing influence of the ultrareligious, the endlessness of the 'situation,' and the tension inherent in a status quo that will one day threaten either Israel’s Jewishness or its democracy.

They have left or seek to leave because they don’t want all that and no longer believe there is going to be significant change. The ads play to Israeli patriotism, but it’s not patriotism that expatriates lack. It’s hope that their Israel can be salvaged and a two-state peace achieved."

Cohen knows several Israeli expatriates or would-be expatriates? Fascinating. I know seven million Israelis who would not consider leaving, including many, like myself, who favor a two-state solution, hope that one day there will be a Palestinian entity willing to accept a Jewish state, and oppose any attempts by Israel's ultra-religious minority to limit their freedoms.

Cohen continues:

"My second reaction is that if Netanyahu could show a fraction of the nimbleness evident when American Jews are offended in instances where Turks are offended (by the killing of their citizens in international waters), or where President Barack Obama is offended (by ongoing settlement expansion in the West Bank against his express request), or where Egyptians are offended (by Israel’s dismissal of their democratic aspirations), then Israel would be in a better, less isolated place today."

Of course, no mention that the UN's Palmer Commission determined that Israel's interception of the Mavi Marmara in international waters was lawful, although excessive force was said to have been used (see: http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=236380). Regarding ongoing settlement expansion in the West Bank which purportedly offended Obama's sensitivities, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat acknowledged, based on aerial photography, that settlements cover only 1.1 percent of the West Bank (see: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/11/17/settlements-obstacle-to-peace/).

With respect to Israel's "dismissal" of Egypt's "democratic aspirations," the results of Egypt's recent elections, in which the Muslim Brotherhood and extremist Salafis received an overwhelming majority of the ballots cast (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/12/egypt-stripping-away-democratic-veil.html), speak volumes. In fact, the results of Egypt's elections should come as no surprise, given that more than three-quarters of Egyptian Muslims favor the death penalty for those who leave the Muslim faith (see: http://pewglobal.org/2010/12/02/muslims-around-the-world-divided-on-hamas-and-hezbollah/). Forgive me, if I, too, dismiss Egypt's "democratic aspirations."

Cohen's op-ed comes at a time when a scandal has arisen involving a speech by Howard Gutman, the U.S. ambassador to Belgium, blaming Israel for anti-Semitism (see Jonathan Tobin's excellent analysis in Commentary: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/12/05/gutman-anti-semtism-obam-administration/), and shortly after US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta blamed Israel, as did Cohen, for its isolation (see: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/03/world/middleeast/panetta-says-israel-must-mend-ties-with-arab-neighbors.html?_r=1&hp).

Are there problems in Israel involving racism, discrimination and inequality? Absolutely. However, Israel is a vibrant young democracy in which an independent legal system addresses these and other problems with which I have personally had to contend in Israeli courts.

Is Israel isolating itself? My answer is that no matter what concessions Israel should and ultimately will make in order to achieve peace, if and when there is finally a Palestinian counterparty able to accept Israel's existence, Israel, as a homeland to the Jews in the Middle East, will always be isolated, and there is no concession that Israel can make, other than national disbandment, i.e. suicide, that will satisfy al-Qaeda, Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Salafis in Egypt, or the mullahs in Iran.

Paul Krugman, "Send in the Clueless": And What Will Happen Then?

2011-12-04T19:17:00.000-08:00

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Send in the Clueless" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/05/opinion/send-in-the-clueless.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss), Paul Krugman observes that given the "dire economic situation, 2012 should be a year of Republican triumph." However, claiming that Romney is "totally cynical" and that Gingrich is "totally clueless," Krugman thinks that the Republicans "may nonetheless snatch defeat from the jaws of victory." He concludes:

"The same metaphor, it seems to me, might apply to the G.O.P. pursuit of the White House next year. If the dog actually catches the car — the actual job of running the U.S. government — it will have no idea what to do, because the realities of government in the 21st century bear no resemblance to the mythology all ambitious Republican politicians must pretend to believe. And what will happen then?"

Indeed, what will happen then? In fact, perhaps we already have an answer.

Obama is certainly not clueless, but he is cynical. He was perfectly willing to lie about his 20-year relationship with the racist Reverend Wright in order to be elected. And given the "dire economic situation" of 2008, Americans and the liberal American media were willing to ignore his relationship with Tony Rezko, who helped Obama purchase his Chicago home by way of a sweetheart real estate deal, and who was sentenced last month to 10 1/2 years in prison for corruption and extortion.

Of course, Rezko's sentencing escaped the attention of Krugman and his columnist friends at The Times. Regarding Rezko's conviction, Obama stated, "This isn't the Tony Rezko I knew." Yeah, right.

Deemed the most "liberal" of American senators, Obama needed to lie about his relationship with Wright and disguise his thoughts, e.g., hostility to Israel, in order to be nominated and elected. Moreover, the exigencies of office, at least during his first term, have demonstrated that Obama is anything but honest. As observed in a previous blog entry, consider how Obama has reversed himself over the past three years:

• He promised to close Guantanamo.
• Although he has been a primary beneficiary of donations from financial institutions over the years, he now understands the underpinnings of OWS.
• Although he condemned Bush administration "extra-legal" behavior, he has actively engaged in targeted killings using drones and has come out in favor of "prolonged detention."
• He deviated from his timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq.
• No one would have ever imagined that he would escalate US ground involvement in Afghanistan.
• He promised to recognize the Armenian genocide, but now avoids the topic in order to pacify Turkey.
• With the economy in a tailspin, he has not kept his promise to create a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
• Although he signed an executive order restricting former lobbyists from working in his administration for at least two years, William Lynn, a former Raytheon lobbyist, was appointed Deputy Secretary of Defense.

Freed from the constraints of re-election, no one knows how far left Obama could veer if given a second term as president.

My response to the question posed by Krugman at the end of his opinion piece, "And what will happen then?": First, all politicians are cynical, i.e. lie. Moreover, if a cynical politician, who needs to disguise his centrist, as opposed to rightist, positions in order to obtain the Republican nomination, is elected president in 2012, it will certainly be no worse than what America experienced under Obama, who needed to disguise his leftist, as opposed to centrist, positions. My concern is "what will happen" if Obama no longer needs to hide his radicalism during a possible second term.

Maureen Dowd, "Out of Africa and Into Iowa": An Ejaculation Problem

2011-12-03T21:40:00.000-08:00

In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Out of Africa and Into Iowa" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/opinion/sunday/dowd-out-of-africa-and-into-iowa.html), Maureen Dowd again savages would-be Republican presidential nominee Newt Gingrich:

"Newt Gingrich's mind is in love with itself.

It has persuaded itself that it is brilliant when it is merely promiscuous. This is not a serious mind. Gingrich is not, to put it mildly, a systematic thinker.

His mind is a jumble, an amateurish mess lacking impulse control. He plays air guitar with ideas, producing air ideas. He ejaculates concepts, notions and theories that are as inconsistent as his behavior."

Gingrich "ejaculates" inconsistent notions and theories? I agree, Maureen, that Gingrich is not -- like Herman Cain before him -- presidential timber, but the choice of words? Why the need for the salty language?

The op-ed page of The New York Times is becoming a bit like tag team wrestling. On Sunday's, Maureen Dowd stomps on Newt, while on Thursdays and most Saturday's, Gail Collins predictably slams Mitt.

I don't know about you, but I never found professional wrestling intellectually stimulating, or, for that matter, entertaining.

Thomas Friedman, "This Is a Big Deal": This Is a Little Moronic

2011-12-03T21:12:00.000-08:00

Thomas Friedman, no longer seeking salvation from a third party presidential candidate (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/opinion/sunday/24friedman.html), is back to pandering to Obama. In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "This Is a Big Deal" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/opinion/sunday/friedman-this-is-a-big-deal.html?_r=1), Friedman begins by acknowledging Obama's dismal environmental record:

"In many ways, President Obama has been a disappointment on energy and the environment. He has been completely missing in action on the climate debate. His decision to block his own Environmental Protection Agency from setting new rules to cut smog levels was disappointing. And, while I believe in using the balance sheet of the U.S. government to spur clean-tech research and start-ups, Solyndra was a case of embarrassing excess — precisely what happens when you rely too much on government push not consumer pull, spurred by price and regulatory signals."

However -- you guessed it -- all is forgiven, inasmuch as Obama is backing a deal with US automakers, which will go into effect in 2017 and require annual mileage improvements of 5 percent for cars until 2025.

Excuse me, but let's suppose Obama is re-elected in 2012, he isn't going to be around as president in 2017, if the automakers don't deliver on their promise. 2025? I may not be around at all by then.

This is a big deal? Poppycock! But just go right on groveling, Tom.

Egypt: Stripping Away the "Democratic" Veil

2011-12-02T23:34:00.000-08:00

Think back to January and February of this year, when demonstrators in Cairo's Tahrir Square brought down Hosni Mubarak.

Remember how the three op-ed musketeers of The New York Times, Thomas Friedman, Nicholas Kristof and Roger Cohen, converged upon the scene with a horde of other foreign journalists, all seeking out English speaking professionals with higher educations ready to extol the virtues of the Arab Spring. Needless to say, the primitive sorts with the rotten teeth from the Muslim Brotherhood, who formed the shock troops in the street battles with Mubarak loyalists, never appeared behind Western journalists' microphones.

Fast forward some ten months: The first results of Egypt's staggered election process are now in, and lo and behold, Muslim Brotherhood candidates have captured some 43% of the vote, while radical Salafi Muslim candidates, who remarkably make the Muslim Brotherhood appear moderate, took some 30% of the vote. In short, Islamist candidates took almost three-quarters of all ballots cast. While pondering the runaway success of the Islamist candidates, take into consideration that Egypt's Christian Copts, who want nothing to do with radical Islam, comprise approximately 9% of the population, which makes the success of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis that much more of a landslide.

A shocker? Some Western journalists, disappointed by the election results, note that only the Muslim Brotherhood was prepared for the vote with a longstanding political organization at the ready. However, this excuse fails to explain the success of the Salafis.

For readers of this blog, the results of Egypt's election process should come as no surprise. Compare the 75% of voters who supported the Islamist parties with the some 75% of Egyptians, who, according to a December 2010 Pew Research Center poll (http://pewglobal.org/2010/12/02/muslims-around-the-world-divided-on-hamas-and-hezbollah/), adhere to strict Islamic tenets:

"At least three-quarters of Muslims in Egypt . . . say they would favor making each of the following the law in their countries: stoning people who commit adultery, whippings and cutting off of hands for crimes like theft and robbery and the death penalty for those who leave the Muslim religion."

In fact, the results of Egypt's elections were preordained. "Arab Spring"? My derrière!

Iran: Obama's Secret Agenda

2011-12-01T22:50:00.000-08:00

Although you have been made to believe that Obama's opposition to a US Senate amendment, enabling the US president to sanction foreign banks carrying out a "significant financial transaction with the Central Bank of Iran," is premised upon concern for the US economy, think again.

The amendment sponsored by Democratic Senator Robert Menendez and Republican Senator Mark Kirk was approved yesterday by 100-0; however, not before David Cohen, the U.S. Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, attempted, on Obama's behalf, to torpedo the proposed legislation. Watch as a livid Senator Menendez rips into Cohen for this act of hyprocrisy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G46Fnc_gVx4).

Earlier this week, Obama participated in a fundraiser at the Manhattan home of Jack Rosen, Chairman of the American Jewish Congress, which raised $300,000 for Obama's re-election campaign. After Rosen stated, "it would be remiss for me not to say there are many in the Jewish community who are concerned" about the relationship between Israel and the US, Obama replied (http://gretawire.foxnewsinsider.com/2011/11/30/what-did-president-obama-say-tonight-at-a-campaign-event/):

"And as Jack alluded to, 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."

At no point during his talk at Rosen's home did Obama mention Iran, and for good reason. Although the UK is now sanctioning Iran's central bank, and France is considering following suit, Obama is refusing to go along with the UK, purportedly because such action could affect the price of oil and negatively affect the US economy. In fact, the price of oil and the state of the economy are not the reasons for Obama's refusal.

When Obama became president, rapprochement with Iran was the keystone of his new radical foreign policy, and he was getting all the support from the press, e.g., the editorial board of The New York Times and columnist Roger Cohen, that he could possibly require (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/04/obama-iran-and-twittergate-jaccuse.html).

But then came the fraudulent election of Ahmadinejad in June 2009, when Iranian protesters took to the streets in what became known as the "Green Revolution." Beaten, imprisoned, tortured and murdered, the protesters called out Obama's name from the streets of Tehran, but Obama ignored their pleas for help, refusing even to bring the matter before the United Nations. Obama's indifference to the Green Revolution was a calculated decision to adhere to his policy of currying favor with the mullahs, which until today has not paid dividends. Unhindered by Obama, Iran has continued its grim quest for nuclear weapons.

Last week, David Cohen, who was excoriated by Senator Menendez, traveled to the United Arab Emirates and Israel to discuss Obama's decision to declare Iran a jurisdiction of "primary money laundering concern." However, as someone who has worked with financial institutions in the field of money laundering prevention, I can assure you that this pronouncement will have no effect whatsoever on the willingness of banks to maintain their relationships with Tehran. On the other hand, sanctioning foreign banks for transactions with the central bank of Iran would throw a monkey wrench into the Iranian economy.

The reality is that a certain key advisor to Obama, implacably hostile to Israel, is unwilling to sanction Iran's central bank. It is being claimed that given the chaos emerging in Egypt and Syria and the potential for sectarian conflict in an Iraq following the evacuation of American troops, the US will need to achieve a modus vivendi with the mullahs. No, you will not find this in the press.

Hence, Cohen's attempt to derail sanctions against Iran's central bank. Hence, US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta's recent declarations, which ruled out military options against Iran.

Saudi Arabia is willing to increase oil output if the US will put the screws to Tehran, but Obama doesn't want any part of it. It's not about oil, and it's not about the economy.

And although both Israel and the UAE, in exchange for US-manufactured bunker bombs, have agreed to play along with Obama's delaying tactics (there is no denying the Procrastinator-in-Chief), the situation grows more dire by the day.

Charles Krauthammer, "Mitt vs. Newt": Will Republicans Opt for Hara-kiri?

2011-12-01T21:07:00.000-08:00

Charles Krauthammer writes in a perspicacious Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Mitt vs. Newt" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mitt-vs-newt/2011/12/01/gIQAtSfOIO_story.html?hpid=z3):

"My own view is that Republicans would have been better served by the candidacies of Mitch Daniels, Paul Ryan or Chris Christie. Unfortunately, none is running. You play the hand you’re dealt. This is a weak Republican field with two significantly flawed front-runners contesting an immensely important election. If Obama wins, he will take the country to a place from which it will not be able to return (which is precisely his own objective for a second term)."

Play the hand you're dealt? Sorry, but if it's Newt, it's time to fold. According to Public Policy Polling's latest Florida poll (http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2011/12/florida-shows-perils-of-gingrich-for-gop.html), if Romney is the Republican nominee, Obama currently leads Romney 45-44, whereas if Gingrich is the Republican nominee, Obama leads 50-44.

Or, in a nutshell, will the Republicans nominate Newt and opt for hara-kiri?

Nicholas Kristof, "A Banker Speaks, With Regret": The "Federal Government" Is Wrong

2011-12-01T06:09:00.000-08:00

Nicholas Kristof in his latest New York Times op-ed, "A Banker Speaks, With Regret" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/01/opinion/kristof-a-banker-speaks-with-regret.html?_r=1&hp), writes:

"That’s why the Occupy movement resonates so deeply: When the federal government goes all-out to rescue errant bankers, and stiffs homeowners, that’s not just bad economics. It’s also wrong."

Excuse me, Nicholas, but who exactly is this "federal government"? Could it possibly include the president, of whom you wrote less than a week ago in "President as Piñata" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/opinion/sunday/Kristof-President-As-Pinata.html?src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB), "Obama has done better than many critics on the left or the right give him credit for"?

Sorry, Nicholas, but you can't have your cake and eat it, too.

New York Times, "DNA Sequencing Caught in Deluge of Data": Why Are They Not Speaking With Compugen?

2011-12-01T01:46:00.000-08:00

Prior to becoming chairman of the board of Compugen Ltd., Mr. Martin Gerstel was co-chairman and CEO of ALZA Corporation, which he helped found in 1968, and which was sold to Johnson & Johnson for more than $10 billion. A biotech visionary to whom George Gilder's book "The Israel Test" devotes a full chapter, Mr. Gerstel foresaw that Big Pharma's pipelines, dependent upon high throughput and ultra high throughput technologies, would ultimately hit the wall. Anyone who has been privileged to hear Mr. Gerstel speak, also knows that he has long predicted that Big Pharma would ultimately be flooded with oceans of data from which no one would be able to make heads or tails. Mr. Gerstel is again being proven correct.

In a New York Times article entitled "DNA Sequencing Caught in Deluge of Data" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/01/business/dna-sequencing-caught-in-deluge-of-data.html?_r=2&hp) by Andrew Pollack, it is observed that DNA sequencing is outstripping "the ability of researchers to store, transmit and especially to analyze the data." Pollack goes on to say:

"One near victim of the data explosion has been a federal online archive of raw sequencing data. The amount stored has more than tripled just since the beginning of the year, reaching 300 trillion DNA bases and taking up nearly 700 trillion bytes of computer memory.

. . . .

Moreover, DNA is just part of the story. To truly understand biology, researchers are gathering data on the RNA, proteins and chemicals in cells. That data can be even more voluminous than data on genes. And those different types of data have to be integrated.

. . . .

Professor Brown of Michigan State said: 'We are going to have to come up with really clever ways to throw away data so we can see new stuff.'"

Query: Why aren't these researchers speaking with Compugen, a tiny Israeli biotech company, which, for the past decade, has sought to understand key life processes at the molecular level by modeling, rather than collecting, data? Compugen's efforts over the past decade have given rise to multiple predictive discovery platforms, which have already yielded significant new therapeutic candidates predicted in silico (by computer). Moreover, Compugen's computerized ability to predict new drug candidates is swift and costs a tiny fraction of what is required by other pharma companies to find new candidates.

Evidencing the validity of their technique, Compugen has made several recent announcements concerning the predictive discovery of novel B7/CD28 family members with significant therapeutic potential in the fields of oncology and immunology (see, most recently: http://www.cgen.com/Content.aspx?Page=press_releases&NewsId=584).

In short, collecting data is per se of little value, unless you can create hypotheses which can be validated or refuted by the data, in either event leading to a better understanding of the processes, thereby facilitating reasoned intervention.

[As noted in prior blog entries, I am a Compugen shareholder, this blog entry is not a recommendation to buy or sell Compugen shares, and in September 2009 I began work as a part-time external consultant to Compugen. The opinions expressed herein are mine and are based on publicly available information. This blog entry has not been authorized, approved or reviewed prior to posting by Compugen.]

Obama Defends Israel Policy at Manhattan Home of American Jewish Congress Chairman

2011-11-30T23:05:00.000-08:00

As reported in a Reuters article in The Jerusalem Post entitled "Obama defends Israel policy at New York fundraiser" (http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=247683), Obama yesterday participated in a fundraiser at the home of Jack Rosen, Chairman of the American Jewish Congress, which raised $300,000 for Obama's re-election campaign. After Rosen stated, "it would be remiss for me not to say there are many in the Jewish community who are concerned" about the relationship between Israel and the US, Obama replied:

"I try not to pat myself too much on the back, but this administration has done more for the security of the state of Israel than any previous administration. We don't compromise when it comes to Israel's security ... and that will continue."

Also as reported by Reuters, Rosen sought to reassure the president by observing:

"America has never been as supportive of the state of Israel as President Obama and his administration."

The article goes on to state that Obama has "been credited for taking a tough line with Iran, Israel's arch-enemy."

Unlike Rosen, I live in Israel, not in Manhattan, and still serve in the IDF reserves. My oldest son serves as a reservist in the paratroops, my daughter serves as a medic in an elite combat unit, and my youngest son has just received his first enlistment order. Unlike Rosen, I do not believe that the Obama administration "has done more for the security of the state of Israel than any previous administration," and I am convinced that his re-election would threaten the existence of Israel.

The central premise of the Obama administration's foreign policy in the Middle East, stitched together by radical Israel-hater, Samantha Power, is that Israel foments all tension in the region. This thesis has been disproven by the so-called "Arab Spring," yet the Obama administration persists in demanding compromise only from Israel, notwithstanding the refusal of Palestinian President Abbas to acknowledge the legitimacy of a Jewish state. Freed from the constraints of re-election, no one knows what life-threatening concessions Obama and Power might seek to ram down Israel's throat.

Although I am not a supporter of the Likud, I am appalled by the manner in which Obama has sought to demonize and delegitimize Netanyahu, by showing him out the back door of the White House and villifying him in discussions with Sarkozy, for which he has yet to apologize.

After becoming president, Obama was quick to visit Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey, but pointedly avoided landing in Israel. Today, given the hostile reception he would face in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, there is little chance of an Obama visit. I suppose one should be asking, who knows better about Israel's security, Jack Rosen or those living in this country and facing 50,000 Hezbollah rockets and missiles?

Obama has taken "a tough line with Iran"? Poppycock! Obama spent his first year in office appeasing this tyrannical regime. His secretary of defense, Leon Panetta, recently ruled out any military option to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/11/barack-obama-on-iran-more-delay-from.html), and unlike the UK, Obama refuses to sanction Iran's central bank.

With friends like Obama, who needs enemies?

Concerning the American Jewish Congress, go to their website (http://www.ajcongress.org/site/PageServer?pagename=homepage), and you will find three requests for donations: "Donate" in the upper toolbar, "Make a Donation Online" midway down on the left, and "Support the vital work of the American Jewish Congress, Donate" at the bottom. My thought about donations to the American Jewish Congress and the funds collected for Obama's re-election at Rosen's home: A pity the $300,000 was not given instead to those living in the impoverished southern Israeli town of Sderot, who live under constant threat of bombardment from Gaza and whose homes were never visited by Obama.

Gail Collins, "The Mitt Romney Pardon": More Gas From Gail

2011-11-30T22:16:00.000-08:00

Another Thursday, and who would ever begin to imagine?: Another Gail Collins New York Times op-ed about Mitt Romney, entitled "The Mitt Romney Pardon" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/01/opinion/gail-collins-mitt-romney-pardon.html?hp).

Collins is obsessed with Romney, and in past weeks, we have seen such winsome op-ed titles as "Mitt and Begonia-Gate," "The Curse of the Mitt," and "Mitt, Mitt, Mitt." She writes about Romney with even greater regularity than Roger Cohen writes of his own personal bugaboo, i.e. Israel. And then there is that lame "running joke" about Seamus the dog, which has her fans in breathless anticipation how she will introduce this twaddle into her next opinion piece.

As I noted yesterday, I think the current field of Republican candidates for president is an embarrassment, and I am sickened that Gingrich has become a frontrunner for the nomination. And yes, Romney is a notorious flip-flopper, but the Republicans do not have a monopoly on hypocrisy. Consider how Obama has reversed himself over the past three years:

• He promised to close Guantanamo.
• Although he has been a primary beneficiary of donations from financial institutions, he now sympathizes with OWS.
• Although he condemned Bush administration "extra-legal" behavior, he has actively engaged in targeted killings using drones and has come out in favor of "prolonged detention."
• He deviated from his timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq.
• No escalated US ground involvement in Afghanistan.
• He promised to recognize the Armenian genocide, but now avoids the topic in order to pacify Turkey.
• With the economy in a tailspin, he has not kept his promise to create a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
• Although he signed an executive order restricting former lobbyists from working in his administration for at least two years, William Lynn, a former Raytheon lobbyist, was appointed Deputy Secretary of Defense.

But not a word about any of this from Gail. For her it's all about Seamus the dog. I wonder if during dinner parties she regales those around the table with this insipid story. I pity them.

Thomas Friedman, "The Arab Awakening and Israel": Horsefeathers

2011-11-30T00:44:00.000-08:00

I ordinarily don't say all that much about myself or my family by way of this blog. Although well over 50, I still serve as a reservist in the Israeli army, but no longer in a combat unit. However, like many who have served in combat units, I have my nightmares and acknowledge my "survivors guilt," and I have never forgotten how our Tel Aviv apartment shook when Scuds from Iraq fell on the city during the First Gulf War. My oldest son, an infant during the First Gulf War, but now a reservist in the paratroops, has already had his first intimate brush with death, and watched his officer die a few steps away several short years ago. My daughter is currently serving as a medic in an elite combat unit.

Given all of the above, and given the 50,000 rockets and missiles being aimed at Israel by Hezbollah, not to mention the arsenals in Gaza and Iran being readied for the Zionist enemy, you just can't imagine the pleasure I get from reading Thomas Friedman's New York Times advisory missives, written from his mansion in Maryland.

In "The Arab Awakening and Israel" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/30/opinion/israel-and-the-arab-awakening.html?hp), Friedman would explain to us the dilemma faced by Israel:

"Israel is facing the biggest erosion of its strategic environment since its founding. It is alienated from its longtime ally Turkey. Its archenemy Iran is suspected of developing a nuclear bomb. The two strongest states on its border — Syria and Egypt — are being convulsed by revolutions. The two weakest states on its border — Gaza and Lebanon — are controlled by Hamas and Hezbollah."

Thanks for alerting me to the danger, Tom. Friedman's prescription for addressing the danger is for Israel to support Palestinian Prime Minister Fayyad:

"Israel has an Arab awakening in its own backyard in the person of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad of the Palestinian Authority. He’s been the most radical Arab leader of all. He is the first Palestinian leader to say: judge me on my performance in improving my peoples’ lives, not on my rhetoric. His focus has been on building institutions — including what Israelis admit is a security force that has helped to keep Israel peaceful — so Palestinians will be ready for a two-state solution. Instead of rewarding him, Israel has been withholding $100 million in Palestinian tax revenues that Fayyad needs — in punishment for the Palestinians pressing for a state at the U.N. — to pay the security forces that help to protect Israel. That is crazy."

Well, first let's get our facts straight concerning the funds which have been withheld for all of one month, as a result, inter alia, of Fatah-Hamas unity talks. As reported by The Jerusalem Post (http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=247502):

"Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is expected to convene his senior cabinet on Wednesday to decide on the release of $100 million in Palestinian tax revenue that Israel has been withholding since the beginning of the month.

While it was not immediately clear whether Netanyahu would convene his forum of eight senior ministers to decide on the matter, or whether it would be raised at the weekly security cabinet meeting of 14 ministers, one senior government source said the prime minister has a majority in both forums for freeing up the funds."

Okay, so Tom's a little behind the curve, but is Friedman also unaware that Netanyahu was personally responsible for reducing the number of West Bank checkpoints from 41 to 15 over the past three years, thereby contributing to growth in West Bank GDP?

Friedman admonishes Israel to "strengthen Fayyadism":

"This would not only help stabilize Israel’s own backyard — and prevent another uprising that would spread like wildfire to the Arab world without the old dictators to hold it back — but would lay the foundation for a two-state solution and for better relations with the Arab peoples. Remember, those Arab peoples are going to have a lot more say in how they are ruled and with whom they have peace. In that context, Israel will be so much better off if it is seen as strengthening responsible and democratic Palestinian leaders."

Ah, yes, "responsible and democratic Palestinian leaders." I suppose Tom is referring to Palestinian Authority Chairman Abbas, who has now served two years beyond his term and refuses to hold democratic elections in the West Bank. Then there is also Abbas's ongoing flirtation with Hamas, which in addition to firing rockets and mortar shells into southern Israel on almost a daily basis, calls for the murder of all Jews, not just Israelis. Then there is also the very recent decision of Abbas to pay honorariums to released terrorists using US aid (see: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/10/23/palestinian-subsidies-terrorists-aid-cutoff/).

By all means: let's provide Abbas and Fayyad with our unbridled support. Thank you, Tom, for your profound insights, which have made my morning that much brighter. I just want to pinch your chubby cheeks.

[As indicated above, Israel's inner cabinet today approved the release of Palestinian tax revenue withheld since the beginning of the month.]

Maureen Dowd, "My Man Newt": Republicans Have Greater Talent for Hypocrisy Than Democrats

2011-11-29T22:57:00.000-08:00

After a brief absence from the op-ed page of The New York Times, Maureen Dowd is back with "My Man Newt" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/30/opinion/my-man-newt.html?hp), in which she savages Romney and Gingrich:

"Mitt Romney is a phony with gobs of hair gel. Newt Gingrich is a phony with gobs of historical grandiosity.

. . . .

Romney is a mundane opportunist who reverses himself on core issues. Gingrich is a megalomaniacal opportunist who brazenly indulges in the same sins that he rails about to tear down political rivals.

Republicans have a far greater talent for hypocrisy than easily cowed Democrats do — and no doubt appreciate that in a leader."

Let's get this straight: I think the current field of Republican candidates for president is an embarrassment, and I cannot begin to fathom how Newt Gingrich has become a frontrunner for the nomination. On the other hand, the Republicans do not have a monopoly on hypocrisy.

Consider how Obama has reversed himself over the past three years:

• He promised to close Guantanamo.
• Although he has been a primary beneficiary of donations from financial institutions over the years, he now understands the underpinnings of OWS.
• Although he condemned Bush administration "extra-legal" behavior, he has actively engaged in targeted killings using drones and has come out in favor of "prolonged detention."
• He deviated from his timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq.
• No one would have ever imagined that he would escalate US ground involvement in Afghanistan.
• He promised to recognize the Armenian genocide, but now avoids the topic in order to pacify Turkey.
• With the economy in a tailspin, he has not kept his promise to create a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
• Although he signed an executive order restricting former lobbyists from working in his administration for at least two years, William Lynn, a former Raytheon lobbyist, was appointed Deputy Secretary of Defense.

Hypocrisy or the exigencies of office, i.e. a slap in the face from reality? Whichever you choose, Obama has been anything but honest.

A more recent example of Obama's tartuffery? Observe what New Jersey Governor Chris Christie had to say about Obama's reluctance to become involved with the deliberations of the supercommittee encharged with debt reduction (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/69280.html):

"I was angry this weekend, listening to the spin coming out of the administration, about the failure of the supercommittee, and that the president knew it was doomed for failure, so he didn’t get involved. Well then what the hell are we paying you for? It’s doomed for failure so I’m not getting involved? Well, what have you been doing, exactly?”

Now if only Christie were to become angry enough to backtrack and announce his candidacy for the Republican nomination . . .