Veni, Vidi, Vici….Obama Visits Israel

Veni, Vidi, Vici….Obama Visits Israel

By Sherwin Pomerantz

My readers are quite familiar with the fact that I did not think that Barack Obama should have been re-elected to a second term as President of the United States of America.  I felt that way before the election and retain that feeling because I do not think that his socialist tendencies are in the best interests of my birth country.  His record as CEO of the United States, if it were a company instead of a country, would make any Board of Directors anxious to replace him.

Having said that, he made a visit to Israel last week and, to use words similar to those uttered by Julius Caesar in 47 BCE, he came, he saw and he conquered.

During Obama’s visit here he said and did all the right things.  He approached Israel as the friendly country that it is, as the strategic partner that it is in this region and as the only bastion of democracy that this area has known for centuries.  From his cordial embrace of Prime Minister Netanyahu on landing here on Wednesday, to his meeting with President Peres, his outstanding speech to the students who gathered in Jerusalem on Thursday afternoon and his touching visit to Yad Vashem and the grave of former Prime Minister Rabin, he did everything flawlessly. 

His words to the students gathered on Thursday at the Jerusalem Convention Center were a skilled combination of good common sense and practical advice.  The only thing some of us here could possibly disagree with was whether or not a two state solution is, in fact, the best way to make peace with the Palestinians or if there is some other construct that would give us a greater sense of security and them a sense of peoplehood.  After all, pretty much everyone here agrees that some accommodation must be made if we are going to continue to thrive in this region and not become totally politically isolated.

In his remarks to the Palestinian leadership he was honest, direct and constructive as he pointed out the need for acceptance of reality on their part as well if we have any hope of moving forward together.

Sadly, there are always negative voices here on both sides of the border and while most of us basked in the warmth that the US president exuded, others found reason to doubt his sincerity, and continue to question his motives.  I feel sorry for those who are not able to extract even a shred of positive karma from the just-concluded visit.

Of course, the trip ended with the long awaited apology to Turkey for the miscalculations associated with the Mavi Marmara incident three years ago and the agreement on Israel’s part to pay compensation for the loss of life that resulted.  This was certainly a coup for Obama and it will be comforting, once again, to have full relations with Turkey restored.

Which all leads me to the conclusion that perhaps Obama is really an expert world leader in spite of my criticism of him as a President.  It just may be that, for him, the United States is simply too small a “theater” in which to operate and that he simply does better on the world stage where he can leverage his three redeeming qualities: (a) intelligence, (b) charisma, and (c) influence.  On the world stage he does not have to deal with the challenges of congressional politics and can paint with a much broader brush, a task he seems to do so well.

I am thankful he visited us (in spite of the havoc it cause here for two days of continual road closures) and hope that the side of the President that we saw here last week will be the one that continues to be dominant during the rest of his term. All of us will be the better for this if it turns out to be true.

Israel's Disappointing Political Process

 Israel’s Disappointing Political Process

By Sherwin Pomerantz

There are times, like today, when I really miss and envy the political process in my birth country, the United States of America.

Yesterday Israel swore in its 33^rd government since the country’s creation in 1948.  The new cabinet seems to me to be a clear reflection of what the voters here stated loud and clear on Election Day in January, to wit:

·         There is no better person in the country today than Benjamin Netanyahu to be the Prime Minister.

·         But there is disappointment in certain aspects of how he runs the country so let’s clip his wings a bit and not give him as strong a mandate as in the previous election.

·         It’s time for new blood in the Knesset, so let’s elect 43 of the 120 delegates who have never served before and have no allegiance to political kingmakers and see how they make out.

·         We are concerned about how best to deal with the fact that Israel has the highest percentage of any OECD country of people not in the work force who are eligible to be in the work force and we need to address that in order to remain economically stable.

·         Perhaps it is time for the government coalition not to include the religious parties and to at least begin to address the issue of separation of church and state.

This, of course, is my personal interpretation although the election of two brand new parties to the 2^nd (Yesh Atid) and 3^rd (Bayit HaYehudi) place positions as vote-getters along with the reduction in seats of the first place Likud-Beytenu faction would seem to support my position.

After weeks of coalition building today’s papers detail the members of a cabinet thankfully reduced in size from the last government (which saves those of us who are taxpayers millions of dollars).  One would think that the press and electorate would wish them well.

Ah, but this is Israel and the tradition here is exactly opposite from that of the US.  In the US there is a tradition, after an election, of people rallying together for the good and welfare of the community in order to move the public sector forward. Sadly, in Israel, the approach is exactly the opposite where the losers work hard to prove that those who voted the elected officials into office made a mistake.

Last Friday’s papers in the religious community, for example, blared out the headline “An Evil Government” once it was announced that the coalition had been formed and the religious parties would be in the opposition.

This morning’s Ha’aretz, in reviewing the new ministers, referred nastily to Rabbi Shai Peron, a member of the Yesh Atid party and the new Minister of Education as “one who used to run a yeshiva and will now be in charge of the entire educational system,” as if it should be clear to all of us that he will fail.  This, of course, is the same paper that four years ago praised the appointment of Yuval Steinitz as Minister of Finance even though he had no experience whatsoever in that discipline.

Finally, pretty much every news outlet is already predicting the fact that the new government will be unmanageable and will have a limited life.

How sad.  How sad that this country which has become the envy of the world (even of our enemies) when it comes to technological achievement cannot mature in the political sphere to the point where we applaud, support and encourage the success of a new government, regardless of our private disappointments.

Benjamin Franklin once said “Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do.”  That’s a lesson that our electorate needs to internalize for the ultimate good and welfare of the State of Israel, the fulfillment of God’s promise to those he brought out of Egypt so many years ago.