Category Archives: Israel

Here in Israel, the election campaign is as brutal and nasty as the winter’s weather has been in New Jersey. It has, though, elicited this rare agreement among all the competing parties. They all agree that anyone who is not a candidate from their own party is a scoundrel, unfit to lead, and will guide the country toward imminent catastrophe if he/she is allowed anywhere near the reins of power. Not all unity is comforting.

The contentiousness is attributable in the first instance to the parliamentary system extant in Israel, with proportional representation that sees many small parties competing for small shares of the pie. Such an unwieldy system has never produced a majority party; yet other parliamentary democracies have not engendered the same viciousness in its campaigns or incapacity to govern after the elections have taken place. (There are eccezioni.) More likely, the acrimony is due to the fragmentation of the electorate and the inability of any leader to project a vision that is appealing to, or even interested in, a majority of the nation.

This “group identity” politics was pioneered by FDR, who concentrated on attracting support from a variety of disparate interest groups (labor unions, farmers, Jews and blacks, to state the four leading blocs) and handily won his elections from that base. In Israel, the “victorious” party will win – if it is fortunate, and if that indeed can be called a victory – anywhere from 20-25% of the national vote. Said another way, the new Prime Minister will be opposed by 75-80% of the nation. That is not exactly a ringing endorsement or a formula for success in governance.

As such, each party seeks just enough votes to get a seat at the governing table, enabling it to provide the benefits (usually money in one form or another) to its voters. These voters reflect different elements of society who each desire its share, and, however incomplete and in no particular order, include: labor unions, peaceniks, settlers, Russians, Arabs, religious Zionists, Haredim, working people, non-working people, the rich, the poor, the middle class, the honest, the not-yet-honest, et al. Each group wants something – and usually something that other groups do not wish to give: increased welfare allowances, more government spending, less government spending, higher taxes on the rich, lower taxes for everyone, more army service for all, less army service for all or for some, a more religious state, a more secular state, amore socialist state, a more capitalist state, etc. The various parties contort themselves into finding some way into the governing coalition, get enough of what they need to mollify their base, and then jump ship when they can’t get more. And we wonder why no government is stable or able to effect any meaningful changes in policy.

There are daily polls measuring the sentiment of the electorate. Israelis poll themselves like a hypochondriac measures his pulse: incessantly and always with the direst possible conclusions. It augments the tension that already exists, owing to the constant threat of Arab terror, the Iranian bomb, the perceived unfriendliness of the American President and other such trifles.

The Jewish Home Party (Habayit Hayehudi) is one of the few parties that does aspire to national leadership and seeks to expand its influence beyond its natural base. That is both its strength and its weakness. The fact that in the last election the party list included men and women, religious and secular, was, as noted here, an honest reflection of what today’s Jewish home looks like. It was a welcome and, for the most part, unprecedented development in Israel.

But leader Naftali Bennett stumbled recently in using one of his personal picks for the party list to nominate a secular soccer player. The hostile reaction encouraged the former athlete to decline the offer. Certainly, Bennett meant well – it was an attempt to be trendy, appeal to Sefaradim and to other secular voters. Nonetheless, he violated one of the first rules of politics: do not offend your base! Secure your base and seek to expand it, but do not repel your natural electorate and assume they have nowhere else to go. The most damaging accusation against the “Jewish Home” is that it constitutes just a “Likud B.” If so, then voters will naturally be drawn to “Likud A.” This precipitated a recent decline in the Jewish Home’s standing in the polls, but it seems to have righted itself. And just in time: it is the party of the right, staunch advocates of Jewish settlement throughout the land of Israel, a strong defense both militarily and diplomatically (summarized in the best campaign slogan: “we have ceased apologizing”), and the application of Torah to modern circumstances.

Its other weakness is that, notwithstanding its outreach to all sectors of the population and its desire to be a national party, most of the country is still locked in to the parochial, sectoral, zero-sum politics of the past. Many (most?) voters still want that – the small party that will wield outsized influence and earn them some of the spoils of government. It is as hard to compete against free stuff in Israel as it is in America. (Labor Party billboard with the year’s most astonishing political promise: Efes kshishim aniyim toch shana – or, “no poor elderly people within one year.” Huh? Does anyone believe that?) And so voters remain drawn to the narrow, partisan vision rather than the broad vision, and some secular voters will never vote a religious party no matter how it is constituted.

Most other contestants are essentially vanity parties, led by individuals who want to exercise power for a small group and protect that group’s interests, not to mention their own perks. These parties are headed by Lieberman, Deri, Lapid, Yishai, and Kachlon. Sadly, the Haredi party – Degel HaTorah – has never aspired to national leadership and has little to offer to the debate on the application of Torah to a modern society. It is still mired in the old politics of trying to grab as many things off the table as is possible – welfare, child allowances, kollel stipends, military service exemptions – before others cry foul. That is sad. If Haredim would take a more active role in society, in the public debate, and in the development of the Jewish state, Israel would be a different country.

The main opposition to Likud is a revived Labor Party, cleverly renaming itself “the Zionist camp” even though its list contains candidates who favor the expulsion of Jews from their homes and the end of the Jewish settlement, who construe the Hatikva as racist, and whose leaders present as more post-Zionist than Zionist. Over her long political career, Tzippi Livni has been on every side of every issue at least once, while moving right to left, and, like a circus acrobat, can twist herself into any position for the sake of attracting votes. Her partner – Buji Herzog (with Bibi and Bogie, every Israeli leader seems to require a childish nickname) – is the choice of President Obama, who so admires his malleability that he has sent over part of his campaign team to assist the Labor election effort, much like Bill Clinton did – to Netanyahu in fact – in the 1999 election. One would think that Herzog has no chance but the Israeli public has long been fickle, and swings back and forth from right to left almost every other election since the early 1980’s. And the peace idol still lords over a decreasing but still sizable element of the population. Illusions die hard, but the real problem is that real people die as a result of those illusions.

That leaves the current prime minister and front-runner Binyamin Netanyahu. If elected again he may exceed David Ben-Gurion as Israel’s longest serving prime minister – hard to fathom given the antipathy so many media types have for him. However one feels about him, the daily accusations against him and especially his wife – and I mean daily – are really beneath contempt, and so obviously contrived as to be laughable. Sara was accused last week of stealing the deposit money on bottles used in the prime minister’s residence, and the two were accused this week of double billing on their overseas trips in years past (both charges quickly disappeared). In every election cycle for almost two decades, she has been attacked by disgruntled employees. In fact, I have yet to hear of even a single “gruntled” employee; they are all disgruntled. It is a shameful display of media distortion and excess and it is hard to imagine a politician who has been more consistently mistreated by the media than PM Netanyahu.

I am lukewarm towards the Prime Minister because, even though his rhetoric – especially during campaigns – is inspiring, he has been a very cautious leader, essentially maintaining the status quo in a very volatile region and gradually leaving Israel more vulnerable. He always seems to do enough so as not to be accused of doing nothing but never enough to actually make a difference and change the dynamic. Perhaps that is part of the tightrope that he walks daily balancing all the diverse interests of the nation, the entreaties of friends and the blandishments of enemies.

In effect, he responds to every enemy attack on Israel – but no more. He has led two invasions of Gaza, both with inconclusive results. He has stood up to a feckless and dangerous American president – but so far in words more than in deeds. He supports Jewish settlement, but officially froze it for almost a year and unofficially for far longer. He supports rights in theory – prayer on the Temple Mount, for example – but not in practice. He has forcefully spoken and written against craven surrenders to terrorists and yet released more than 1000 to secure the release of Gilad Shalit, and continued to provide electricity, food and fuel to Gazans even during the battles. He has championed the right-wing without doing many simple and basic steps that would appeal to the right-wing. Ultimately his words expose a much more determined leader than his actions alone would justify. He is a centrist because that wins elections, even if it disables his actual policies.

Worse, regardless of the campaign slogans, there is a real fear that a victorious Netanyahu will seek a national unity government with the left, if only because that will win him good local and international press and diplomatic plaudits. Whatever protestations are issued now will be ignored the day after the election, as they were in 2012, the last time this dance was held. But such a government would be a disaster for Israel. That prospect alone is worth this timely reminder: it has been Likud politicians who have surrendered most of the land liberated in the 1967 war. It has always been one of the ironies of Israeli political life that Labor proposes and Likud disposes. May Hashem protect us from that scenario again!

In this, Naftali Bennett makes a compelling case for a strong and large “Jewish Home.” It is not only that he is a better ideological fit for the Religious Zionist voter, but also that he is the only leader who can serve as a brake on Netanyahu’s populist ambitions. Today’s insults will be forgotten after the polls close and each party scrambles for its share of the water in the trough.

A large “Jewish Home” will ensure a government of the right that will be sensitive to the traditions and world view of the Torah Zionist world. A small “Jewish Home” will almost ensure the short-term popularity of the Israeli leaders with the most of the international community that has soured on the Jewish historical narrative, Jewish rights and Jewish self-defense but at enormous cost to Israel. It will almost ensure the reality of a second Palestinian state being created with all that entails for Israel’s identity and security.

The strongest argument raised by the left against Netanyahu is the facile appeal for “change.” Americans can surely warn Israelis about the disasters that come about in the wake of that empty call.

The dust storms now sweeping the country have fostered a murkiness that mirrors that of Israel’s political scene. The stakes are great, but then again, the stakes always seem great. Yet, as always, “there are many thoughts in the mind of man, but the plan of G-d that shall prevail.”

There was a character in Chicago who felt himself so inconsequential, so invisible, to others that he dubbed himself “Mr. Cellophane.” Barack Obama is neither invisible nor inconsequential, but he is so transparent as to deserve the moniker “The Cellophane President.” Just read or listen to the State of the Union address, and you can see right through him.

It is conceded that he delivers a speech well. Some of the boasts can be forgiven as well, despite their detachment from reality. The deficit has been cut more than half, not that difficult considering that he ran up multi-trillion dollar deficits in his first four years in office, an unprecedented feat. America leads the world today in the production of oil and natural gas, a fact having absolutely nothing to do with the White House which has stymied the production of both since 2009. The proliferation of energy is entirely due to the private sector, which has been clamoring for years for the right to drill offshore and build the Keystone XL pipeline and has been thwarted by President Obama. The price of oil has dropped precipitously, which he touts despite his utter uninvolvement.

The pleas for bipartisanship are by now so hollow as to be risible. He implores Congress to talk to him – and then flies off to Idaho and Kansas to complain that Congress won’t talk to him. Huh? Perhaps he should stick around for a day or two. He has pioneered the permanent campaign because campaigning is his natural skill: the articulation of sentiments and the dispensing of rhetoric, sometimes lofty and inspiring and sometimes rancorous and tenebrous, are his stock-in-trade. He should never be the CEO of any corporation (much less the US), but he would excel as Vice-President of Marketing. The marketer need concern himself only with selling the product, and not at all with the nature of the product itself – its uses, its viability, and its manufacture. Just sell the product. “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor!” Enough said.

His method of governance, so to speak, is galling. Catch the words, not just the tone. Accept his policies or be castigated as “partisan.” (He is never partisan.) Adopt his “practical” solutions, or you are playing politics. If Congress tries to undo anything that he has done – whether or not it is working or popular – it will be vetoed. If he and Congress do not agree, then “work with” him where they do agree. The thought that he should work with them – indeed, the thought that any idea that he has not spawned has any merit – has clearly not dawned on him. And by the snarky but likely rehearsed crack (“I won both elections”), it hasn’t yet hit him that everyone on the flooe with him also won their elections. He is not the only elected official in the nation. Oh, and then lament the sour tone of modern politics. That’s rich. Or oleaginous. Or both.

It is a clever polemical tactic – take credit for whatever good and ignore (or blame someone else – Republicans? Bush? Partisan hacks?) for the bad. Figures lie and liars can figure. One can parse the economic statistics in five different ways, pro and con. Official unemployment is down, but tens of millions of Americans have dropped out of the work force and/or are not looking for jobs (so they don’t register in the unemployment rate) or are working part-time (so they count as employed but cannot support themselves). The recovery would have happened if Donald Duck was the president – it’s the natural economic cycle – but growth, jobs and personal income are being artificially suppressed because of the increased costs to businesses for Obamacare and over-regulation. That is why his solution is more handouts to the “middle class,” rather than health care freedom, lower tax rates and deregulation. Tax and spend, again? Really?

But the President is most dangerously out of touch on foreign affairs. After years of saying that Al Qaeda is “on the run,” “decimated,” etc., a resurgent Al Qaeda went…unmentioned in the speech. Terror still has an amorphous provenance – “extremists!” – and not, perish the thought, radical Islam. How will decent Muslims deal with the catastrophe unleashed on mankind by their co-religionists if the so-called leader of the free world accords them no role in the process, indeed, deems it repugnant and inaccurate to link terror to Islam at all?

Perhaps nothing demonstrates Obama’s disconnect as much as this: the enemy de jour is ISIS (ISIL, as he persists in labeling them, contra their own designation), and that enemy’s advances have been halted, or so Obama opines. Well, here’s this morning’s report from the Institute for the Study of War, which daily tracks the conflict in Iraq and Syria, region by region, town by town:

      “The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) has begun to expand its presence in the Syrian central corridor which stretches from the Jordanian border through Damascus to the central cities of Homs and Hama. The “central corridor” is highly-contested key terrain for both the Syrian regime and its armed opposition, while ISIS presence has generally been limited in the area until recently. As one major exception, ISIS maintained a notable foothold in several opposition-held areas of Damascus in early 2014 before retreating due to pressure from local rebel groups. A small ISIS contingent, largely overlooked, endured quietly in the southern suburbs of Damascus throughout late 2014. Over the past two months, ISIS has once again escalated its military and public relations activities in this area, threatening to divert both regime and rebel resources away from active fronts in the Damascus area in order to contend with the ISIS threat. This development may provide an indicator of ISIS’s broader expansion plans in western Syria and the potential response of Syrian opposition fighters to this expansion.”

If you just peruse the map, you will see that ISIS, rather than being on the run, now controls almost half of Syria and most of western Iraq. Israel is well aware of the danger, as is Jordan, as is Saudi Arabia. Only Obama seems blithely dismissive of their prowess and progress, as the success of ISIS does not fit his political narrative as the omnipotent shaper of world events “from behind.” Yemen, a US ally, is about to fall to radical Islam. Obama has still not reconciled himself to the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt. Finger-wagging does not seem to be a sufficient deterrent to people who readily wield hatchets and massacre with abandon.

As was forecast here several times, Obama has little interest in halting Iran’s nuclear program, and will negotiate and negotiate with them until the initial blast. His best scenario is kicking the can down the road so it becomes the next president’s problem. “Not my job!” That’s what makes Congress’ invitation to PM Netanyahu to come address a joint session next month on the twin threats of radical Islam and Iran’s nuclear ambitions so intriguing. Rarely does one find a congressional smack down of a president so blatant, transparent and delicious. The President can hardly complain that Congress did not consult him when he never consults Congress before acting unilaterally. And Congress – on a bipartisan basis, led admirably for years on this issue by our own Senator Bob Menendez – clearly is in favor of passing strong sanctions legislation now, to go into effect when the current round of negotiations fails in June.

In essence, few presidents have been distrusted by Congress more than Obama is by the current legislature, and there are few leaders in the world who are as disliked by Obama as is Netanyahu. What a triangle – Congress is using Netanyahu to poke and prod Obama, and rally support for the two-thirds Congressional majority that can override Obama’s expected veto of sanctions legislation. Netanyahu loves it as well.  Right in the middle of a heavily contested election campaign, Netanyahu gets to look magisterial in the well of Congress, defending Israel’s interests and tweaking an American president who is widely disliked in Israel. It can only win him votes and support, one reason why his visit might be sabotaged by the administration before he even arrives, and why Obama’s favorites in Israel ‘s upcoming elections – the malleable Herzog and Livni – will dutifully condemn the proposed visit as a gimmick. It is a chess game.

Except for the fact that there are real dangers in the world to which Obama seems detached as he pushes for universal child care or something, always paid for by someone else. Terror has grown exponentially on his watch. Country after country has been pulverized, and most security experts see another devastating attack in the US as simply a matter of time. America is the country most equipped to lead the world and engage the enemy. It has the capability. Does it have the will? The leadership?

Not yet. And no amount of verbiage, empty promises, recycled speeches, boasts and cellophane can cover that up.

President Obama’s overture to Cuba – reversing a staple of American diplomacy of more than fifty years – fits the pattern of his conduct of foreign policy since he took office. He has routinely courted enemies and alienated friends. The latter approach – think Israel, Britain, Poland, the Czech Republic, etc. – is peculiar both in statecraft and in life. The former approach at least, in theory, has the merit of fulfilling a dictum of our Sages: “Who is powerful? He who turns his enemy into a friend” (Avot d’Rabbi Natan, Ch. 23).

That is in theory. In practice, it is laudable only if the enemy actually becomes a friend, as opposed to remaining an enemy exploiting the weaknesses of the moving party to strengthen itself, enrich its rulers and further enslave its people. Judging by the early statements from the Cuban dictators, only a dewy-eyed optimist or a person of the political left who is ideologically comfortable with Marxism would anticipate any success here. Obama’s rationale – “if something hasn’t worked for fifty years, it is time to try something different” – begs the question: what exactly hasn’t worked? If the goal is to isolate Cuba to force political liberalization, then Cuba has been isolated, is impoverished, and is not self-sufficient. Every inducement to change is in place, if the dictators so desired. But political liberalization has always been a pipedream, as dictators rarely need to be responsive to the needs of the citizenry, and especially not when the regime’s opponents are regularly jailed for long periods of time for even mild protests.

The Cuban government has certainly expressed an interest in American dollars and investment, but it is farfetched to conclude that any of that bounty will filter down to the average citizen. In any event, rogues find it relatively easy to wait out a sanctions regime, and in recent years have dangled spurious concessions in front of Obama’s diplomats to successfully induce their dismantlement (Iran, Russia). There is no reason why this should be different and every reason why it should be exactly the same – same game, same tactics, same outcome.

That being said, what exactly is the value of a boycott? It seems to have worked only with the apartheid governments of South Africa and Rhodesia but those were unique situations – minority governments suppressing the majority population. (Few seem to care that, at least in Zimbabwe, blacks are persecuted more today living under the Mugabe regime than under the white government.) Otherwise, boycotts are usually not successful, and not only because they create an underground market for needed goods and services. I have seen Cuban cigars for sale in Canada, Denmark, Russia and Israel. Most of the world’s countries do not seem to be bothered by the excesses of the Cuban regime. Even the United States exhibits selective outrage against Communist dictatorships, doing business with Russia and China for decades while shunning Cuba. Certainly the human rights records of those two countries inspired Cuba for much of the last half-century, and America’s relaxation of sanctions against Iran has enabled big business to restart relationships with that human rights-abusing, Holocaust-denying and nuclear bomb-building government.

So, why was Cuba singled out?

A number of possibilities exist. Cuba under Batista was an American ally and a magnet for investment (especially mob investment). The loss of that capital surely grated. Cuba is also a scant 90 miles from Florida, and the presence of a Communist outpost so close to US soil was always a cause for concern. Of course, the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961 gave the US a black eye and the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 brought the US and the Soviet Union to the brink of a nuclear exchange, both of which surely underscored Cuba’s negative image in the American eye. And the Cuban émigré community is a potent political force, especially in Florida, and consists of people who suffered enormously to other US nemeses in that part of the world,under Castro. Many have relatives who are still stuck in that island prison. Those reasons are surely valid but do not explain the shunning of Cuba as compared to other US nemeses in that part of the world, such as Venezuela in the last 20 years.

There is another possibility: American foreign policy has always been a bit schizophrenic, in part because of the unresolved clash between the realists and the moralists. There has always been a moralistic streak in US diplomacy, which represents the highest aspirations of the American character. This country – until recently – always tended to embrace fellow democracies and other nations that shared core American values. Those countries were showered with support and embraced with friendship. But, by the same token, the realists recognized that no country has permanent allies or friends but only permanent interests, and the promotion of those interests has frequently demanded the maintenance of relations with some unsavory governments.

This type of diplomacy required “holding one’s nose” while doing business, and encompassed dictators across the globe, from Latin America to the Pacific to Africa. It was best exemplified by a statement attributed to FDR and referring to Nicaragua’s Somoza (the first): “Somoza may be an SOB but he’s our SOB.” Needless to say, that quote – and sentiment – has been applied to many other dictators who have been allied with America.

Such an approach is not completely unreasonable. The person or nation that wishes to associate only with the completely righteous will find itself lonely and isolated. It is unrealistic to expect the complete isolation of every scoundrel. On the other hand, that association will inevitably drain the good character out of even the most resistant entity. (Targum Yonatan, explaining the injunction in the Decalogue against murder, admonishes Jews “not to be friends or partners with murderers.” There is a moral price that is paid for those relationships; often, evil itself becomes less horrific and the innocent suffer even more.)

Furthermore, there is an argument to be made for non-interference by outsiders in another country’s domestic affairs (if only the world would leave Israel alone and not become apoplectic every time a porch is built in Jerusalem!), but that too can be taken to an extreme. That attitude would justify the world’s disregard of the Holocaust in its time, Stalin’s and Mao’s genocide in their own countries, and of course even lesser abuses of any country’s citizens. That would be unconscionable.

How then does the US retain relations with some evildoers and simultaneously maintain its self-image as defender of liberty, freedom and other moral norms? Perhaps – and this is pure speculation – by singling out some countries – like Cuba – for “special” harsh treatment as an affirmation of American values. Is it fair? Not really. But such is far better than turning into an amoral entity like Europe that for decades sought to sell out Israel for Arab oil and is presently just selling Israel out, period. Even paying lip service to core values has lasting significance.

It is a stretch to say that Obama’s planned recognition of Cuba is designed to “open up” Cuba so that the average citizen is lifted out of poverty, or that the air of liberty will suddenly waft through that Communist jail and transform the society, or even that a post-Castro Cuba will find its way back into the free world. Cuba is not destitute because of the US boycott; there is nothing marketed here that Cubans cannot import from the rest of the world – Latin America, Asia and Europe. Cuba is destitute because its rulers enrich themselves at the expense of the citizenry, and jail anyone with an untoward thought. Ceasing the boycott while keeping the same corrupt system of government will help the elites and not the people.

Many remember the Cuban boat people who risked their lives fleeing to US shores on rickety boats. The test of this relationship will be whether or not those who wish to leave are allowed to leave, those incarcerated for their opposition to Castro will be released, and those American dollars invested in Cuba better the material lives of those who stay.

Why then is Obama doing this? Because he can. He is a man much more comfortable with the rhetoric and ideology of the Third World, and sees the American boycott of Cuba as a relic of America’s imperialist past. Indeed, the moral preening of US diplomacy has, in recent years, only been exercised against Israel. One example suffices: a recent study reported that 96% of those killed in US bombing raids in Syria have been civilians, but Israel was forced to stand down from Operation Protective Edge in Gaza because roughly 30% of those killed were civilians. And, yet, Israel was accused by the State Department of “not doing enough” to avoid civilian casualties. Go figure.

Obama has sought to re-orient American foreign policy and the outreach to Cuba is part of that. The good news – if there is any good news – is that this reorientation is unlikely to be continued by Obama’s successor because it is empowering many objectionable agents. The bad news is that, by then, the power of Iran and the militarism of Russia, among others, will be very difficult to reverse.

NOTE: My new book “Tzadka Mimeni: The Jewish Ethic of Personal Responsibility” can be ordered at a discount from Amazon.com and at a slightly greater discount at  Sales@gefenpublishing.com, or purchased at fine Jewish bookstores. Enjoy!

– RSP