How Does One Tell the President He is Dead Wrong?

Israeli President Peres was in Aqaba, Jordan giving a speech to the WEF (World Economic Forum) over the weekend. When the Israeli president along with the Israeli media entered the hall the Jordanian contingency walked out and refused until the Israelis had been removed claiming they were unwelcome in their home. This was in line with the semi-official boycott of all Israelis and Israeli-related events by professional groups in Jordan. With intervention by WEF officials who provided sufficient flattery and praise, the Jordanian contingent returned probably with a feeling of great accomplishment. Whatever makes one happy, I guess.

 

There had been a fair amount of consternation in Israel over the rumors and reports revolving around what President Peres had told interviewers about his intended speech (Transcript of planned speech can be seen at the end of article). His stated content relayed by the President in his various interviews inferred he would proclaim Israeli readiness to take serious measures for peace. President Peres explained in one interview that his planned statement to Abbas would be, “You are my partner and I am your partner. Let’s promote peace. I know that you know that there aren’t many differences between us. I know that you know that the differences that exist can be bridged.” Peres also reported that he plans to tell the attendees referring to the Saudi Plan with the agreed alterations reported to have been approved by the Arab League. “Israel wants peace. There is an overwhelming majority here that favors a diplomatic solution of ‘two states for two peoples’ on the 1967 lines, with mutually agreed and equitable changes to the border.”

 

These statements would be laid out before 800 representatives from 60 countries at the WEF confab, of which 430 will come from Middle Eastern countries. Among those attending, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, Jordan’s King Abdullah, and United States Secretary of State John Kerry are worthy of special note as every syllable spoken by President Peres will be taken very seriously by each of them and may come back to injure Israel though that is definitely not the President’s intentions. What is unfortunate is that every day that President Peres awakens, for him it is September 14, 1993, and the Oslo Accords signing ceremony happened just yesterday and hopes of peace being imminent abound throughout the land. President Peres honestly cannot help but believe in the imminence of peace as his entire career, his entire life, revolves around reaching a peace with the Palestinians and is unable to divorce himself from the monster he, along with Ehud Barak, created, the Oslo Accords. This eternal driving impetus has forced President Peres to take the job of President of Israel beyond its normal ceremonial role and utilized the position to political ends of finally reaching the elusive peace that has eluded him for all these years. All of this must be weighed and the balance found with the rest of the body of lifetime achievements all for his love of Eretz Yisroel for she has been the one driving love of his life. It is that love that has so captured his mind in that singular focus of effort towards peace at any cost and that is what has become a dangerous force that has backfired so completely. The wrong turn the peace process took is not the fault of President Peres, Ehud Barak, Yitzhak Rabin, or any of the Israeli Prime Ministers who have gone to monumental lengths trying to make peace, but the fault resides with the deceits and deceptions of Yasser Arafat and his second in command, Mahmoud Abbas, who utilized the Oslo Accords and the entire peace process as a weapon in a war to eradicate Israel by whatever means necessary. That President Peres became enslaved into making a peace no matter the costs is not something to be denounced and does not place him as a target for blame but rather he is to be accepted for the goodness in his heart. Keeping this in mind, Israeli leadership will also need to rescue Israel from being harmed by those who actually intend to damage Israel by using President Peres’s words spoken out of an honest and overwhelming desire to find at long last a peace for his first love, Israel.

 

There will be many who will warn of the great harm presumably caused by President Peres and his words spoken in Jordan. There will be those who will convict him of politicizing the Presidency. Some may even denunciate President Peres as being an enemy out to destroy Israel placing her people in great peril. May those who may choose this path please consider all of what President Peres has accomplished for Israel, consider that Simon Peres has held virtually every critical position in the Israeli government and always with honor and honesty, and remember that President Peres began his life helping to form, build and establish Israel and has dedicated his life and every ounce of his efforts all for and in the service of Israel. Let he who has a record near as distinguished be the first to speak, but that would leave almost everybody silent, wouldn’t it. For those who care, read his actual speech below and you decide whether or not President Peres deserves praise or condemnation.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Transcript of Israeli President Peres’s speech at the

 World Economic Forum in Aqaba, Jordan.

 

Thank you, Your Majesty, for graciously hosting us under your roof.

Your Majesty, thank you for inspiring the Middle East with responsibility and hope.

Ladies and Gentleman,

History is made of biographies of men and women who failed to forecast the future. We were born in the age of agriculture, and reborn in the age of science.

This new age changed our agenda and our lives. Depending on land divided people. Borders were marked and armies were built to defend them. The yields of the land hung on the travail of farmers, and the grace of heaven that blessed us with rain or punished us with drought.

The yields were limited.

Science is borderless, and its achievements are limitless. Armies cannot control science. Police cannot arrest innovation. Globality and isolation do not go together. Modern agriculture is cultivated with computers, rather than with ploughs. Sciences enables us to make three drops of water from one drop.

Israel’s shortage of soil and rain has created an agriculture based on hi-tech. Israel is sharing its experience with many other countries and is willing to share it with its neighbors as well. Israel is moved by developments, not just by events.

Looking at the developments in the Middle East today, it is blessed with a young generation, one of the youngest in the world. 99 million of its inhabitants are already online. The young generation uses modern tools to enter the new age.

Friends, the Arab Spring voiced by so many youngsters may become an opportunity for jobs and progress. The age of science calls for economic cooperation, educational exchanges, and scientific collaboration. It provides equal opportunities for young and old, and equal rights for women.

Despite the many hurdles on the way to peace, we must never lose sight of the positive developments in our region. Egypt and Israel made peace. Jordan and Israel made peace. These agreements stand the test of time.

We extend our hand in peace to all countries in the Middle East.

There is no country, no religion, which we consider as enemies. The only enemies are the enemies of peace. The Iranian people are not our enemies. It is the Iranian regime’s policy which is a threat to us all.

Our region, and the whole world, cannot accept this brutal regime’s hegemonic ambitions. And the international community cannot tolerate brutal threatening weapons as a norm for the rest of the world.

Friends, we and our Palestinian neighbors must return to negotiations as soon as possible and bring peace. President Abbas, you are our partner and we are yours. You share our hopes and efforts for peace, and we share yours. We can and should make the breakthrough. We should not permit the hurdles to overcome us. History will judge us not by the process of negotiations, but by its outcome. The today obstacles will pale in the light of peace.

The “Arab Peace Initiative” is a meaningful change and a strategic opportunity. It replaces the strategies of war with the wisdom of peace.

We must depart from the skepticism that claims that war is inevitable.

War is not inevitable. Peace is inevitable.

We appreciate the presence of the American Secretary of State John Kerry at this gathering. Secretary Kerry brings with him an impressive momentum and desire to contribute to the completion of the peace process. It will be matched with an imaginative economic plan. President Obama, while visiting our region, offered a new opening for the peace prospect. Dear John, I know that all sides can count on your determination.

The peace process already has a beginning. We have agreed on a common ground to complete it. A two state solution. A Jewish state — Israel — and an Arab state — Palestine. Living side by side in peace, dignity and freedom.

Friends, we Israelis and Palestinians are aware that peace is first and foremost for us and depends upon us. I know from experience how difficult these decisions are to make, on both sides. But this is the time.

Our leaders must say yes to a future of peace.

Our leaders must overcome the difficulties and the dangers, and lead their peoples to a better tomorrow. What holds back the renewal of the peace negotiations are some gaps in the bridge between the beginning and the conclusion. Knowing very well the nature of the missing link, I am convinced that this gap can be bridged.

Ladies and Gentlemen, there is still an open wound on the map and this is the terrible bloodshed in Syria. Secretary Kerry is currently trying to bring an end to this tragedy. Israel is not intervening in the Syrian crisis. We support the Secretary’s efforts to bring an end to the violence. We are silent, but not indifferent. There is a need to lower the flames.

Ladies and Gentleman, the potential in our region is remarkable. The attempts to release this potential are worthy and needed. We welcome the efforts of “Breaking the Impasse” initiative.

The fact that hundreds of business leaders from both sides are joining hands to promote the two-state solution and to emphasize the urgency in reaching that solution is an important development. These people can attest to how valuable peace is for economic prospective. Peace should be made between people, not just between governments.

Friends, I am here to express the hope and desire of the Israeli people to bring an end to the conflict and a beginning to a peaceful new age. I hope that this forum will voice a timely call against skepticism. I pray that it will allow for tomorrow’s horizon to shine bright. A horizon that will illuminate the fruits of freedom, science and progress.

Let us cast away the divides and suspicions of the past as a future of harmony awaits. We are still writing the biography of the unknown future.

My friends, it must be a future of peace.

Thank you.

 

How Jews Living in West Bank Affect the Palestinians

We hear so much noise about the areas known historically as Judea, Samaria and Benyamin which were recently retagged as the West Bank in order to make them sound less Jewish. We hear about the need for the Palestinian Authority to be granted full autonomy of an independent nation with complete control over this West Bank as well as Gaza. Part of the problem with this presentation is that the Palestinians have two completely separate, mutually exclusive, actively competitive, viciously antagonistic governing agents with Hamas controlling and ruling over Gaza while the Palestinian Authority Fatah organization controlling and ruling over Area A the West Bank. Hamas is led by Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh while the Palestinian Authority leader is President Mahmoud Abbas. Since the two factions split after the Hamas violent coup which placed them in control of Gaza in June 2007, all efforts to reunite the two groups have utterly failed. Part of the problem is that Hamas is based in Islamic religious governance while the Palestinian Authority is aligned with Fatah which is secular socialist governance and such philosophies are very much similar to oil and water, they do not mix well. The power struggle between these two groups drips with the avarice and hatreds such that the resultant atmosphere is not conducive to healthy economic policies therefore depressing economic growth potentials due to crippling corruption. The situation has resulted in totally failed governance in almost every category which has become completely reliant on foreign generosity lurching from one financial catastrophe to the next. Such poor governance constantly leads to the need to plead to the world for emergency funding. This has resulted in high unemployment for the Palestinian Arab people living under the direct controlling rule of either Hamas or the Palestinian Authority in either Gaza or Area A in the West Bank. Yet there is one group who has 100% employment as the Palestinian Authority places every Palestinian terrorist or criminal who has been sentenced to prison in Israel, whether they are members in the PLO, Fatah, Hamas, or any other terror related group, where they receive some of the highest salaries which are directly proportional to the number of Israelis they were able to maim and murder. This would almost be the guaranteed condition over the entire areas of Gaza and the West Bank should the entirety of these areas be placed under solely Palestinian governance.

 

Should anybody desire to find a more optimistic and promising atmosphere where the overwhelming majority of the people are employed and making significantly higher salaries resulting in a higher standard of living, one need not leave the West Bank, one simply needs to visit the areas where modern governance encourages economic ventures and the size and scope of government is limited. These areas are not under either Hamas or the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinians living in these areas are largely employed with comparatively no unemployment when compared to the Palestinians living in Area A. The major difference in the condition for these Palestinians is they live among Israeli settlers. Much of the world decries the supposed conditions under which Palestinians are forced to live in areas where they share the lands with the Israeli settler who are mostly Jewish. There are so numerous different origins of the Israelis living in Samaria and Judea that any attempt to stereotype them as just religious Jews is not only pointless but in complete denial of reality. The Jews who have chosen to live in what the world refers to as the West Bank consist of religious and secular Jews, Israeli Arabs both Christian and Muslim, Secular Jews, Zionist Jews, Jews seeking a more relaxed atmosphere in which to live, farmers, people working locally as well as many whose work is in Tel Aviv who commute, IDF soldiers, physicians, nurses, computer programmers, entrepreneurs, and people from every walk of life one can find. There is a major Israeli University in Ariel called, oddly enough, Ariel University.

 

But what is most interesting is the completely impossible situation under which the Jews and Palestinian Arabs face living close to each other with all the serious relationship problems which are the constant fare in the mainstream media coverage of the Jewish settlers living beyond the Green Line. For the best example of how all of this has an effect, all one need do is visit Ariel University, Barkan Industrial Park, Shahak Industrial Park, and the other industrial parks, farms, vineyards, wineries, business parks, and other businesses and witness a bit of the truth about the Israeli controlled areas of Judea and Samaria. What becomes evident very quickly is that there is no distinction between Jews, Muslims, Christians and those of other religions, Jews and Arabs, Asian ancestry and European ancestry, or religious and secular. Approximately half of the employees along with their supervisors and management in both large and small industrial enterprises are West Bank Arabs employed there right next to West Bank Jews. The same goes for students and professors to a great extent at Ariel University. Throughout the main settlement areas of the West Bank the Jews and Palestinian Arabs live and work together in harmony without any trouble, violence, oppressions or any of the myriad of misconceptions that spring from a media more interested in forcing the issue of the oppressor Jews dispossessing the unfortunate Arab victims of Jewish hegemony. The fact that the Palestinian Arabs who live and work among the Jewish settlers in Judea and Samaria have a much higher standard of living is a little secret of which the mainstream media refuses to inform the world. The fact that the rule is cooperation and an improved life for those Palestinians fortunate to reside in the developed mixed Jewish and Arab areas and that the terrorism and violence are the exception must be suppressed as there exists an entire industry based upon the Jewish oppressions of the Arabs. The problem is people living and working in harmony just does not sell newspapers or newscasts anywhere near as well as explosions and violence. The real truth is that the standard of living for the Palestinian Arabs throughout Gaza and the West Bank was among the fastest growing GDP of anywhere in the world from 1973 through 1992. Then, starting in 1993 when Yasser Arafat returned and the very same Palestinians were placed in a semi-autonomous self-ruled areas under the Palestinian Authority the GDP and standard of living reversed and has continued to drop ever since. The wonderful and hopeful truth which the media insists does not exist is that where Palestinian Arabs live together in relative harmony and mutual tolerance with Jews in Area C of the West Bank, sharing the advantages of the rule of law and entrepreneurial opportunity live better lives than their Palestinian brothers living in Area A and Gaza where the leadership is under the Palestinian Authority or Hamas which consist of dictatorial regimes. If people throughout the world truly wish the best of possibilities for the Palestinian people, perhaps they would be better able to decide where to place their efforts after taking an actual investigation of the separate Areas in the West Bank and Gaza and ask the Palestinians who reside within and amongst the Jews in Area C and those living in Palestinian autonomous areas of Area A and Gaza and then decide which group lives a more productive and preferred life. Finding the truth would definitely be an eye-opening experience which would likely deliver a viewpoint not covered by the mainstream media and actually actively hidden by the mainstream media.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Republicans and the Empty Promise Syndrome

First off we need to define the Empty Promise Syndrome, sometimes called the Wimpy argument quoting the Popeye cartoon character who was always offering to “Pay you next Tuesday for a hamburger today.” Those cartoons must have had many Republican politicians earning money on the side as extras on the set as Wimpy never seemed to have any shortage of hamburgers to gulp down. To trace the beginning of the Empty Promise Syndrome infecting Republican politicians we need to go all the way back to 1986 of the Reagan Presidency and the Immigration Reform Bill which legalized at a minimum the three-million illegal aliens residing throughout the United States while promising to address and provide for a system of border enforcement which would make the borders of the United States virtually impenetrable. Currently there exist an estimated eleven- million to possibly over eighteen-million illegal aliens, the euphemistically denoted undocumented workers, citizens without papers, undocumented aliens, and any other of a half dozen terms which dance around but would never use such a harsh and loaded term as illegal. Somehow the agreement to grant citizenship today and impose enforcement tomorrow never quite delivered when tomorrow rolled around, a lot like Wimpy who can never be found on Tuesdays. But there are so many other examples that we had best stick to the two latest in the series.

 

If we were to remember back to just before Thanksgiving and on close to Christmas and then New Years the news reports were all buzzing about some looming doomsday threat called the Fiscal Cliff. The Republicans demanded spending cuts which would be at least equal to any tax increases. They would have preferred, or so they claimed, to have far more of the deficit cut by spending cuts than relying on tax increases. President Obama was insistent that the deficit reduction be levied completely by increased taxes on the rich as they had to be made to pay their fair share. With what were defined in perfect threats from on high was this sequester which would cut spending severely without any concerns for what was necessity and what was less vital and would destroy uncountable programs for the poor, the elderly, the children, the ecology, the Earth, the whatever you cared about and especially the military while ending the great recovery we have been experiencing (though many myself included are loathe to see any solid signs of this recovery unless that is what higher grocery prices are now called). In the end, President Wimpy offered spending cuts by March 1 for taxes on the rich today and the Republicans gave Obama everything he requested and set a new sequester date to force spending cuts as promised.

 

Well, here we are fast approaching March 1 and President Obama is demanding changes in the code resulting in more tax revenue and attempting to reduce spending cuts in any programs or departments with possible exceptions of certain areas the President finds unnecessary such as the Military. It is likely that President Obama would gladly put off any spending cuts forever and simply rearrange the tax codes and eliminate deductable items or at least reduce them or cap them all in order to cut the deficit without cutting spending. Actually, the President has even proposed that his adjustments to tax deductions and the tax codes will produce so much deficit reduction that he will even be able to propose additional spending with the extra funds his accounting has predicted. If the Republicans allow the President to fiddle with the tax code and tax deductions in lieu of the spending cuts promised at the end of last year’s Fiscal Cliff negotiations, they will have forfeited the collateral supposedly granted them of tax increases on the wealthy then for spending cuts and only spending cuts now. This simply means that if the President insists on increasing tax revenues instead of more spending cuts the Republicans should stand loudly upon the promise by the President that this would be the time for spending cuts and only spending cuts. Force the argument to be either the President reaches an agreement on spending cuts or President Obama will be responsible for the sequestration cuts when they occur. Force the choice on President Obama and the Democrats by passing a spending cuts bill which delivers what was promised and announce that the House of Representatives has met their responsibility and produced legislation for rational and safe spending cuts to reduce the deficit and that it is now left to the Democrat controlled Senate and the President to meet their obligations and keep their promises. After all, it is not like the across the board cuts required by the sequestration alternative would actually be anywhere near as debilitating as has been expressed by the fear mongering going on in some of the media and the White House.

 

Then there is another repeat performance being played out in Congress and that is once again immigration reform. This is forming up to be a complete and exact repeat of what occurred during the second half of President Reagan’s time in the White House and many of the exact same players are simply dusting off their old scripts and adjusting a few numbers and going through the same motions using the same terms and offering the same old lies as promises. As the old adage says, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” There is absolutely no reason for the Republicans, and any Democrats who actually care about the rule of law and the safety of the United States, allowing any form of amnesty or forgiveness and allowances to remain inside the borders, let alone working, for the approximately eleven million illegal aliens until there exist in place solid and uncompromising enforcement procedures that include security controls, observation abilities, formidable border barrier systems, and every possible technique applied and utilized to prevent any further illegal infiltrations. There can be no allowance of we will secure the border next Tuesday for total amnesty, or whatever sly and misleading name it be given, today. That was the basic promise which was never intended to be kept in 1986 and will likely be the offer given once again with every single amount of deceit included today.

 

There is one large and very unfortunate problem with the above. The truth be told there are many Republican who desire the lie of enforcement later for allowance and a path to citizenship today as that way they can unfurl the banner of supporting a closed border while not actually getting a closed border. Both sides, the Democrats in order to gather more voters for their candidates and the Republicans to provide less expensive labor for certain industries and businesses, honestly work together to guarantee that those they allowed into the United States are rewarded every so many years with citizenship and at the same time keep the border porous letting in the next wave of voters and workers enter the United States illegally to the benefit of both sides coffers and votes for reelection. One should not be too surprised then when once again we will witness a deceitful front played by those for whom taking a strong stand against illegal immigration and its effects upon the United States once again feign disgust when their votes allowing for immediate forgiveness in any form for the illegal immigrants currently in the country allowing them to remain, keep their jobs, and eventually gain an easy path to full citizenship while enforcement of our laws and control of the border are put aside to be addressed later. Of course later never comes as it is always now and later is, well, later. Do not expect this round to result in anything which falls far from the indecency pulled over on the American people in 1986 when Reagan allowed amnesty on the promise of future enforcement. We are still waiting for that later enforcement and who knows which later will arrive first; the last one or the one we can expect in the near future when the grand immigration compromise is announced with great fanfare and applause all around. My bet is neither enforcement will materialize before the Congress and some future President assure us that these thirty-some-million undocumented citizens will be the last and by allowing them legalization and documentation it will facilitate their soon enforcing our laws and border, and then there will be three soon to come promises.

 

Beyond the Cusp