Cut gas taxes

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Editorials/Article.aspx?id=259797

On Wednesday night at midnight, gasoline prices will rise to record levels. A liter of 95 octane gas will climb about 30 agorot and cost about NIS 8, approximately double the price in the US and about the same level as in Germany, Italy and Norway.

Treasury officials say the rise in gas prices is a direct result of global trends. Should tensions explode between the West and Tehran over the Iranian regime’s push to develop nuclear weapons, say economists, oil supply could be disrupted. Anticipation of a sudden shortage has been driving prices up.

Despite claims by Treasury officials, however, international analysts are actually predicting that oil prices, which have dropped slightly in recent days, will continue to fall in the near future. As Israelis prepare for yet another gas price hike at home, it seems that there is an opposite trend worldwide. A report released recently by Capital Economics predicts that oil prices could fall as much as $10 a barrel.

Other factors that might drive down gas prices include release of emergency crude stock and the perception that Iran will not make good on its threat to block the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil tankers pass every day.

Though Treasury officials would like you to think otherwise, the price at the pump is only partly connected to global market trends. More than any other factor it is government policy that determines price disparities around the globe from Rome to Los Angeles, from Oslo to Cairo. In Latin American and Middle East nations, such as Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, oil is produced by government-owned companies and local gas prices are kept low as a benefit to citizens.

In contrast, in many European countries and in Israel, gas is heavily taxed.

In addition to the 16 percent value-added tax, we are forced to pay a NIS 2.96 excise tax on every liter of gasoline. The price of a liter of gasoline is further jacked up due to the fact that we pay VAT not just on the gas but also on the excise tax. This redundant taxation – an indirect tax on an indirect tax – adds nearly half a shekel to each liter of gasoline. And this is a regressive tax, since both rich and poor own cars or use public transportation that will also be affected by the price rise.

MK Meir Sheetrit (Kadima) has drafted a bill – slated to come up for a vote Wednesday in the Knesset – that would do away with this redundant tax. In parallel, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has asked the director-general of the Prime Minister’s office, Harel Locker, a former tax attorney, to look into alternatives that would lower gas prices. And MK Carmel Shama-Cohen (Likud), chairman of the Knesset Economics Committee, has drafted a bill to be presented Wednesday that calls for temporary cuts in VAT when gas prices climb above NIS 6.6 per liter.

But Treasury officials are warning that gas taxes must not be touched. Every 10 agorot tax reduction will result in a state revenue shortfall of NIS 700 million a year, they say. And gas tax revenues are already expected to fall as a result of the higher gas prices that cause people to use their cars less. Besides, according to Doron Cohen, the temporary director-general of the Treasury, the Finance Ministry has already agreed to a NIS 2.5 billion decrease in gas tax revenues as part of the Trajtenberg Committee recommendations.

Cohen was referring to the cancellation of a planned excise tax hike. The hike was recommended by Bank of Israel economists in a 2010 report as a means of reducing pollution by discouraging Israelis from driving too much. Cohen said that instead of cutting gas taxes, which would force the government to cut the budgets of various ministries, citizens should buy more fuel efficient cars and drive less.

We agree that for the sake of pollution reduction and energy conservation, it would be advisable for Israelis to drive less and use more fuel efficient cars.

However, we do not believe that the state should be using taxation to coercively reeducate its citizens.

And if a tax cut results in lower state revenues, so be it; the gas tax should never have been charged in the first place.

Begin's legacy

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Editorials/Article.aspx?id=259663

On the 20th anniversary of Menachem Begin’s death, many are revisiting the former prime minister’s important legacy.

Perhaps the most significant aspect of Begin’s political leadership was his unique ability to bridge the gap between ideological purity and political realism, an important component of his ultimate political success.

It was in large part due to Begin’s pragmatism and moderation that violence was avoided immediately after the establishment of the State of Israel.

On June 6, 1948, the Hagana, under orders from David Ben-Gurion, fired upon and sank the Altalena, an arms ship belonging to the Irgun, the Revisionist Movement’s military arm headed by Begin. If not for Begin’s responsible leadership, the situation could easily have spiraled out of control and led to more bloodshed.

But Begin, essentially bowing to Ben-Gurion’s will and preferring compromise and moderation over stubborn pride, vowed there would be no civil war among Jews.

Throughout his long years in the opposition, Begin resolved to keep Herut, the party he formed with the establishment of the state, in the political mainstream.

To do so, he worked toward, and eventually succeeded in, moderating and incorporating some of the ideological purists of the Revisionist Movement and the Lehi (Freedom Fighters for Israel), or Stern Group, into Herut.

In 1965, Begin orchestrated an alignment with the centrist Liberal party to form Gahal (Herut-Liberal Bloc), which garnered 26 mandates in that year’s election.

It was the entry of Gahal into the Labor-led national-unity government just before the outbreak of the Six Day War that permanently freed Begin from his political isolation.

But while Begin exercised political sagacity, he continued to hold to strong ideological principles, such as the belief in keeping the whole Land of Israel, particular Judea and Samaria. In August 1970, he quit the government headed by Golda Meir to protest initial acceptance of the Rogers Plan, which included a ceasefire agreement with Egypt along the Suez Canal and would have brought the Soviet Union into peace negotiations on the side of the Arabs. Begin said he opposed the government’s formal acceptance of UN Security Council Resolution 242, which is based on “peace for withdrawal,” including in Judea and Samaria.

After the devastating Yom Kippur War, with the Labor Party’s hegemony increasingly called into question, Begin joined forces with Ariel Sharon to mastermind the birth of the Likud out of Gahal and several smaller factions. His political savvy was vindicated in 1977 with the Likud’s electoral upset, overturning Labor’s decades-long monopoly on power.

Immediately upon entering office, Begin sent out signals to his Arab neighbors that he was prepared to enter into a peace agreement. Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian president, apparently sensed that Begin was a strong ruler capable of making peace, and answered his overtures. Misnamed the Sadat initiative, the resulting 1979 Peace Treaty was in reality a product of Begin’s push for peace.

Perhaps Begin’s unique ability to bridge the gap between ideological purity and political realism can be attributed to his liberal ideological roots. Like his mentor, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, Begin believed strongly in maintaining a robust liberal democracy that protected free speech and the human rights of both Jews and non- Jews. As far back as 1956, Begin demanded that the Knesset “not legislate any law that limits freedom of expression, orally or in writing.”

He strongly opposed Emergency Defense Regulations dating back to the British Mandate, which severely restricted Arab Israelis’ basic freedoms in the decades after the War of Independence. He also pushed for a strong and independent Supreme Court – though he never supported judicial activism. And he was instrumental in facilitating the appointment of the nation’s first Arab Supreme Court Justice. Begin’s readiness to champion the rights of minorities was probably bolstered by his experiences as a Jew living in Poland between the two world wars and later as a Zionist activist in Palestine under British rule.

Begin’s unique combination of political pragmatism and moderation are an important legacy. We can only hope that our contemporary politicians learn from his example.        

Grunis's restraint

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Editorials/Article.aspx?id=259504

Justice Dorit Beinisch will be stepping down Tuesday as Supreme Court president at the age of 70. Does this mark the end of an era of judicial activism begun by her predecessor and mentor, former president Aharon Barak? Undoubtedly, incoming president Justice Asher Grunis favors more judicial restraint than his predecessors Barak and Beinisch.

In a number of rulings, Grunis has shown an aversion to judicial activism. Just last week, Grunis dissented from the High Court of Justice’s majority decision against extending the Tal Law, which legislated exemptions from military service.

Grunis, in a lone opinion, held that the court had no business interfering with an issue that should be left up to democratically elected lawmakers. Part of Grunis’s reasoning was practical. The incoming president rightly argued that the highly volatile issue of haredi draft-dodging, which has sparked heated debate for decades, would not be solved by a single court ruling. But Grunis also based his decision on the more fundamental belief that the court should limit judicial review of legislation to a minimum.

Grunis used the same sort of judicial restraint in additional cases such as in last week’s High Court decision not to strike down the Disengagement Pardons Law, which exonerates right-wing activists from all but the most violent crimes perpetrated during demonstrations against the dismantling of settlements in the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria.

In January, Grunis ruled in favor of upholding the Citizenship and Entry Law, which restricts the right of Palestinians married to Israelis receiving Israeli citizenship. In both these cases, Grunis shared the majority opinion.

Grunis is also in favor of doing away with a legal innovation first initiated by Aharon Barak in the mid-1980s when Meir Shamgar served as Supreme Court president. In Barak’s creative jurisprudence, any citizen may ask the court to block action by the government even if the citizen is not personally affected by it and therefore lacks “standing.”

Allowing anyone to preoccupy the court with frivolous petitions “which must be addressed posthaste,” wrote Grunis in a May 2011 decision that rejected a request to disqualify a recipient of the Israel Prize, “robs the court of valuable time and forces it to put on hold scheduled cases which ought to be accorded priority.”

In large part due to the fact that almost anyone can petition almost anything, the High Court has been flooded with petitions. Approximately 10,000 petitions are brought before the court every year, about half of which are discussed. For the sake of comparison, the US Supreme Court – which serves primarily as an appeals court and restricts itself to hearing only petitions from individuals with “standing” – deals with about 80 cases a year.

It is not immediately clear what kind of influence Grunis will have on the Supreme Court’s rulings in the future. His ability to hand-pick panels of judges to deal with particularly sensitive cases is limited. Court tradition dictates that a judge’s seniority, not his or her opinions, decides the formation of panels – whether these be the typical three-judge panels or expanded panels chosen to deal with more contentious cases.

But if Grunis does manage to have an impact, say by virtue of his personal leadership qualities, we believe it would be a positive development. By exercising judicial restraint and by restricting the right to petition the court to those with “standing,” Grunis might succeed in alleviating the court’s heavy work load, thus speeding the judicial process. Also, by recognizing that not everything can be ruled upon judicially, the Supreme Court will force our lawmakers to deal with the most controversial issues and make the decisions they were voted into office to make.

There will always be a need for judicial review. Tolerance, pluralism and respect for minority rights must continue to be protected by the Supreme Court. There is always a danger that a “tyranny of the majority” will trample the rights of those who are not properly represented in our political system.

But the Supreme Court’s strength and legitimacy is best protected when exercised with restraint and when judges are not perceived as partisan or politically motivated. Grunis’s moderate approach will best ensure that the court remains a respected and honored institution.

Change without coercion

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Editorials/Article.aspx?id=259182

In the wake of the Tal Law’s demise, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu faces tough choices. He could try to patch together yet another ad hoc Tal Law-like arrangement with the haredi parties that would maintain, with a few cosmetic changes, the present “status quo” that enables 60,000-plus draft-age haredi men to skirt military service.

Doing so would place him in direct confrontation with Israel Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Liberman, who has already said publicly that he will not tolerate any more stopgap arrangements with the ultra-Orthodox and that the time has come to settle the issue of haredi draft-dodging once and for all.

Appeasing the haredim would also hurt Netanyahu’s popularity among many Israelis who are rightly convinced that the present situation is, as Bank of Israel Gov. Stanley Fischer pointed out last year, “unsustainable.”

Over half of haredi families live under the poverty line, since haredi men cannot legally work as long as they indefinitely postpone mandatory military service to devote themselves to Torah study. This creates an increasingly draining burden on those Israelis who are productive and support the welfare state.

According to a 2007 Bank of Israel study, 70 percent of ultra-Orthodox men were neither employed nor actively seeking employment. Haredi draft-dodging is also undermining the “people’s army ethos” that posits that all able-bodied men should take part in the defense of the country. About a quarter of all 18-year-old Jewish men do not enlist in the IDF, over half of whom are haredi. In 2011, 72.5% of 18-years-old Tel Avivians were drafted. In Bnei Brak, 12.6% were.

Alternatively, Netanyahu could opt to draft legislation opposed by Shas and United Torah Judaism – the two haredi coalition partners – that would put significant pressure on haredim to enlist in the IDF or perform some other form of national service. This might appease Liberman’s Israel Beiteinu and the grassroots movements pushing for a more equal sharing of the military burden. But it would also precipitate the collapse of the government coalition.

The haredi parties – faced with the prospect of the forced draft of tens of thousands of yeshiva students – would likely leave the government. Rabbi Elazar Menachem Man Shach, the unrivaled leader of haredi Jewry in Israel who passed away in 2001, declared that it was better to emigrate than to be drafted into the IDF. Without the haredi parties, the prime minister would have no choice but to call early elections.

Haredi politicians would undoubtedly see the electoral potential in fostering feelings of victimization and religious persecution. Netanyahu might also be tempted to take the route of coercion.

Taking a strong stand against the haredim might increase Netanyahu’s popularity, take away voters from Israel Beiteinu and preempt Yair Lapid and Kadima who are likely to run on campaigns calling to draft the ultra-Orthodox. However, though we empathize with the desire to force haredim to accept a more equitable share of national responsibility, it would be unwise and counterproductive to use coercion.

In nearly every realm of their lives, haredim are undergoing rapid changes, despite the opposition of official haredi leadership.

From colleges that cater exclusively to the haredi population that are producing haredi lawyers, accountants, social workers, computer programmers and psychologists, to widespread Internet use. An entire genre of fiction, including science fiction, written by haredim for haredim has developed and popular haredi parental guidance literature, influenced by Western psychology, now advises parents to replace strict hierarchical relationships between parents and children with a more democratic, liberal-minded approach as a means of stemming defections among haredi youths.

The best way of retarding this process of integration – which includes a growing number of haredi men who are enlisting in the IDF – would be to launch an offensive against the haredi community. Integration is an evolutionary process that can be nurtured, even encouraged, but that cannot be forced.

Consumer power

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Editorials/Article.aspx?id=258657

Yoav Rokach-Penn probably did not imagine he would breathe new life into the grassroots consumer uprising first launched this summer. But that is precisely what he did when he walked into his local Shop Rite in New Jersey, took a picture of an Israeli-made candy bar, and posted it on his Facebook juxtaposed with a picture of the price-tag for the identical candy bar in Israel.

The price for Elite-Strauss’s Pesek Zman candy bar in New Jersey was just 74 cents (including taxes) compared to NIS 6.29 (about $1.70) in Israel. Rokach-Penn’s Facebook picture quickly went viral over the weekend.

On Saturday evening, in a feeble and somewhat disingenuous attempt to defuse the situation, Elite-Strauss’s PR people posted a message on the firm’s Facebook page citing the high cost of living in Israel as justification for the higher prices charged here. Fuel is more expensive in Israel, claimed Strauss, as are housing, transportation, production costs and taxes.

But consumers were not buying Elite-Strauss’s lame excuse and the market was unforgiving. On Sunday Strauss’s shares dropped 3.5%, representing a NIS 170 million decrease in market capitalization in active trading.

Unfortunately, candy bars, a product we can all easily do without, is not the only food item that is significantly more expensive in Israel than most places in the world.

Food prices in Israel in 2008 were 15 percent higher than the average for OECD countries, according to a Bank of Israel study released a month ago. And in the years since the situation has probably gotten worse by about ten percent, estimated Bank of Israel economists.

Some of the reasons for our ridiculously high prices are obvious and eminently solvable. For instance, it is widely known that the milk, fresh meat and fish markets are protected from foreign competition by high tariffs (there is a 150% tax on imported milk and butter) combined with cartel-like price fixing inside Israel.

This government has taken steps in the right direction.

Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz signed a directive December abolishing customs duties on hundreds of imports.

The changes, recommended by the Trajtenberg Committee, created in response to this summer’s demonstrations, went into effect on January 1 and are expected to cost the government more than $100 million annually in lost revenue while saving consumers that same amount.

But counterproductive steps have been taken as well.

Last March, the Netanyahu government, usually so strongly pro-free market, passed the Law for the Planning of the Dairy Market. In the 50-0 vote, the Knesset approved legislation reminiscent of now-defunct centrally- planned economies. Instead of allowing free market forces to sort out supply and demand in the dairy market, a special “quota committee” would determine annual dairy output. Though the law gives the Industry, Trade and Employment minister the prerogative to open up the local dairy market to international competition, Shalom Simhon, the present minister who is seen as representing the interests of moshavim (many of which are major producers of milk), has said publicly that doing so would be ineffective and would take too long.

The olive oil and honey markets are governed by a similar combination of price collusion and protection from foreign competition via tariffs. For instance, a study published by the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies showed that due to tariffs and price collusion an average one-liter bottle of olive oil, at NIS 17, costs three times more in Israel than it does in Spain and Greece.

Other factors contribute to high food prices, such as the strong demand for kosher products, which makes it more difficult for non-kosher imports to compete.

Israelis also seem to be more willing than their foreign counterparts to pay more for imported brand-name products.

This might be because Israelis attach more importance to brands or because they have become accustomed to paying exorbitant prices for staple products.

But the tide is turning. People like Rokach-Penn or Itzik Elrov, the haredi man from Bnei Brak who launched the Great Israeli Cottage Cheese Uprising via Facebook in June or a group of retired men and women based in Even Yehuda called the Club for Smart Consumerism who monitor and publicize prices charged by local supermarkets are developing a more informed and mature consumer culture.

Our society is fed up with the sort of price gouging perpetrated by a host of food manufacturers, brand-name importers, and various other opportunists. Business people who fail to note the sea change taking place in Israeli society and change their greedy ways will be punished by a new generation of enlightened consumers.

The drop in Strauss’s share price is just a taste of the potential influence an angry and mobilized consumer populace can wield.

The status quo

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Editorials/Article.aspx?id=258813

Halting public transportation from sundown Friday until Saturday would be considered a deviation from what is known as “the status quo.” A modus vivendi between religious and secular, the status quo, which dates from the pre-state era, essentially set down the limits for religious encroachment into civil and public life in the fledgling Jewish state.

Marriage and divorce in accordance with Halacha, the serving of kosher food in all state institutions, the establishment of state-funded religious education and the exemption of women – and a small, elite group of male Torah scholars – from military service are all included in what is loosely referred to as the status quo.

Many mistakenly believe that the status quo is the result of haredi political extortion. According to this false narrative, the haredim threatened to join forces with anti-Zionist British foreign secretary Ernest Bevin against the creation of Israel unless David Ben-Gurion and other leaders of the Yishuv caved in to their demands for a “more Jewish” state.

In reality, as sociologist Menachem Friedman has shown, the status quo is the result of a mutual understanding among the secular Zionist leadership and haredi rabbis and politicians that finding a means of coexistence was essential to fostering the unity and social cohesion needing to meet the many challenges facing Israel, from fighting the War of Independence and absorbing hundreds of thousands of immigrants to building the first Jewish sovereignty in nearly two millennia.

Still, initiatives are launched from time to time to change the status quo, which technically dates back to a June 1947 letter written by Ben-Gurion to Yitzhak Meir Levin and other leaders of Agudat Israel promising “consideration” for religious sensibilities. The most recent example was a decision Monday by the Tel Aviv City Council to ask the Transportation Ministry for permission to operate public transportation in the metropolis on Shabbat.

Tamar Zandberg, the Meretz councilwoman who proposed the motion – passed in a 13-7 vote and supported by Mayor Ron Huldai – argued: “It is unacceptable to continue living in accordance with an arrangement dating back over 60 years that determines such a significant part of our lifestyle.”

Indeed, cogent arguments can be made in favor of permitting public transportation in Tel Aviv, a predominantly secular place with a unique cultural character setting it apart from other cities. Since before the establishment of the state, Haifa and Nazareth – including Upper Nazareth – have operated public transportation due to their large Arab populations. The same is true for Eilat, probably due to its tourism town character and the fact that it is isolated from the rest of Israel. Similarly, the “Tel Aviv bubble” is unique for its consciously secular orientation and its high proportion of foreign workers and migrants.

If a poll were conducted, the vast majority of Tel Aviv’s residents would probably vote in favor of public transportation on Shabbat. A nationwide poll conducted in 2010 by the Smith Institute for Hiddush, an organization fighting for separation of state and religion, found that 63 percent of Israelis favored public transportation on Shabbat, including 93% of secular Israelis.

Nevertheless, permitting public transportation in Tel Aviv – dubbed “the first Hebrew city” – would mark a deviation from tradition as enshrined in the status quo.

Should a simple vote be enough to do away with a longstanding tradition of keeping Shabbat in the public sphere? Should even Tel Aviv – a cosmopolitan bastion of secularism considered to be the best gay travel destination in the world – abandon that modicum of Jewishness that only serves to accentuate its eclectic uniqueness? How much do Tel Aviv’s residents truly suffer due to a lack of public transportation on Shabbat? Is alleviating this suffering worth doing away with a cultural and religious fixture?

Unfortunately, it is unlikely that a soul-searching public discussion of these issues and others – such as the environmental benefits of halting public transportation one day a week – will ever take place.

In part, this is because Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz has quashed debate by announcing that he would veto the Tel Aviv City Council’s initiative, effectively using coercion to protect the status quo. Public discourse on such issues tends to be so polarized that true dialogue is impossible. We can only hope that the day will come when a truly free and open debate – and reevaluation – of the status quo will be possible.

Fighting the apartheid libel

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Editorials/Article.aspx?id=258507

In 2005, the first year college students organized to compare the situation in Judea and Samaria to South African apartheid, events were restricted to the University of Toronto.

By 2006, the hate-fest had spread to Montreal and Oxford. In 2007, it grew to eight cities; in 2008, to 24; in 2009, to 38; in 2010, to over 40; and last year to 55 cities.

This year, Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) – from February 20 to March 11 – will be “celebrated” in even more cities worldwide, from Europe and South Africa to the Middle East and North America.

What is the best way of combating this worrying spread of the apartheid libel, which historian Robert Wistrich has noted in his book, A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad, has its intellectual roots in Soviet propaganda? One of the answers has been provided by the Public Diplomacy Ministry. Some 100 Israelis from diverse backgrounds – Ethiopian immigrants, Arabs, homosexuals, settlers, security experts and artists – will fan out on college campuses across the globe during IAW. Having undergone weeks of training by the ministry, the envoys – chosen to show that Israel has a multicultural society that values equality and human rights – will fight what Public Diplomacy Minister Yuli Edelstein calls the “disease” of ignorance.

However, while we wish the envoys much success, experts at fighting anti-Israel sentiment on college campuses have learned that the best defense is a strong offense. The natural tendency when confronted with rabid Israel-bashing is to respond immediately, set the record straight, refute inaccuracies and confront boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) supporters.

But by allowing Israel’s detractors to frame the discussion, pro-Israel activists run the risk of losing their efficacy. Instead of trying to convince IAW participants of their errors, picketing their activities or clashing directly in any other way, the best tactic may be to be proactive.

Pro-Israel students at the University of Pennsylvania provided a good example of how to effectively combat Israel bashing. When anti-Israel activists on campus held a national BDS conference earlier this month, pro-Israel organizers chose not to confront the BDS supporters, but not to ignore them either.

A wide range of programs, activities and outreach efforts targeted groups both small and large within the campus community that were ready to listen. Israel Peace Week, which is in its third year, is another initiative that refrains from direct confrontation with Israel-bashers while putting forward its own agenda.

Still, pro-Israel activities on campus – such as Israel Peace Week or the University of Pennsylvania initiative – should be part of a year-round effort.

Burning Campus? Rethinking Israel Advocacy at America’s Universities and Colleges, a 48-page document recently published by The David Project, represents perhaps the first concerted effort to combat anti-Israel sentiment and activities on US campuses.

One of the central recommendations made in the document, also known as the “White Paper,” is an emphasis on the importance of reaching out to student groups of all kinds – including African-American, Latino and American- Indian – throughout the year.

It is too late to launch into action when IAW rolls around.

Rather, ties need to be nurtured throughout the year. When a BDS conference or some other anti-Israel activity hits a campus, pro-Israel activists should already be well-positioned to rally support.

Other tips mentioned in the White Paper include realizing the futility of reaching out to students and faculty in the humanities and social science departments – often a hotbed of extreme left-wing ideology inimical to Israel.

In contrast, students and faculty in the business and science departments tend to be more willing to listen. Also, special effort should be made to focus on “influencers” – the college newspaper editors, student government leaders and dominant fraternity and sorority members – who can help make a wider impact.

It is important never to forget that many of the activists behind IAW and BDS are not interested in simply “reforming” Israel. As Norman Finkelstein made clear recently at Imperial College, London, leaders of the BDS movement “think they are really clever” by covering up their real intentions when they call for a “three-tier” agenda of ending the occupation, demanding the right of return for all Palestinian refugees and equal rights for all Arabs in Israel. “You know and I know what the result is. There is no Israel!” he said.           

The Cyprus connection

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Editorials/Article.aspx?id=258207

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s historic trip Thursday to Cyprus – the first by an Israeli prime minister – is being presented by many as a direct result of Israel’s deteriorating relations with Turkey.

Seeking to avoid offending Turkey – which invaded the northern half of Cyprus in 1974 and is hostile to the Greek-allied south – Israel was traditionally wary of cultivating relations with Nicosia. However, Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamic AKP party has gradually but steadily moved away from Kemal Ataturk’s secularist policies and Western orientation toward an alignment with Arab neighbors and the terrorist organization Hamas, seemingly as part of an anachronistic obsession with reinstating the old Ottoman Empire.

Israel, in response, began to strengthen its relations with Cyprus and Greece and reconsider its position on the Armenian and Kurdish national movements. This explanation is only partially correct. While the deterioration of relations with Turkey was undoubtedly a catalyst, warming relations with Cyprus are part of a larger reorientation of Israeli foreign policy. Even before May 2010’s Mavi Marmara fiasco, Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman had launched a concerted effort to reengage with numerous countries that had fallen out of close relations with Jerusalem.

If since the 1993 Oslo Accords inordinate diplomatic effort was concentrated on the Washington-Ramallah track, under Liberman the Foreign Ministry began to focus more energies on cultivating closer ties with Balkan countries such as Bulgaria, Bosnia and Greece – not principally as a counter-weight to the weakening ties with Ankara, but as a wider change in foreign policy strategy. More effort is also being made to strengthen ties with Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, China and India.

Our fast-developing relations with Cyprus are also fostered by mutual fossil energy interests. The Cyprus Energy Regulatory Authority, the country’s national energy company and two Israeli firms – Delek Drilling and Avner Oil Exploration – hold shares in Texas-based Noble Energy, an oil and gas exploration firm. Noble has been leading exploration and exploitation of oil and gas reserves under the Mediterranean Sea in areas delineated in a December 2010 agreement between Jerusalem and Nicosia as part of the two countries’ Exclusive Economic Zones. Tamar, the world’s largest gas find in 2009, and Leviathan, an even bigger gas field, will supply all our domestic needs and provide significant export revenues as well.

Further consolidating the ties between Cyprus and Israel has been Turkish belligerence. Ankara, in the name of the Turkish-occupied northern half of Cyprus, and Lebanon, backed by the Shi’ite terrorist organization Hezbollah, have laid unjustified claims to the oil and gas findings. On November 23, for instance, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz claimed that Israeli and Cyprian gas and oil explorations in the eastern Mediterranean were illegal and questioned the Exclusive Economic Zones demarcated by the two countries. In September 2011, Erdogan said that Turkey “will take appropriate steps” and “prevent unilateral exploitation by Israel of natural resources of the eastern Mediterranean.”

In mid-September, Turkey sent three naval ships to “protect” a Norwegian boat hired by the Turkish government to conduct gas explorations in the territorial waters of the Republic of Cyprus. And on December 21, 2011, Turkish warships demonstratively shelled the strip of water dividing the Israeli Leviathan and Cyprian Bloc 12 gas fields.

Israel and Cyprus cannot simply cave in to Turkish bullying. Indeed, neither seems to be doing so. Cypriot President Demetris Christofias said Thursday during a press conference with Netanyahu: “I call upon the international community, and especially the European Union, to send a strong message to Turkey that it must stop violating and start respecting international law, especially if it looks forward to becoming a member of the European family.”

And while Netanyahu was silent on Turkish aggression during his Cyprus visit, Israel has deployed drones and unmanned marine vehicles, equipped with night vision devices, radars and multiple launch systems, to protect its drilling platforms. And the cancellation on December 22 of the $90 million sale to the Turkish Air Force of Elbit’s hi-tech surveillance system was interpreted by some as timed to send a signal to Ankara to stop its campaign of harassment in and around Israel’s gas fields.

Under the circumstances it is important that Israel continue to develop strong ties with both Cyprus and Greece. Netanyahu’s unprecedented visit to Cyprus is a integral part of that endeavor.   

The Greek example

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Editorials/Article.aspx?id=257691




Last summer’s demonstrations in Israel have brought to the forefront socioeconomic issues. It was largely due to an increased sensitivity to the somewhat nebulous concept of “social justice” that enabled the Histradrut labor federation to launch a general strike last week for contract workers’ rights.

The horrid treatment of these outsourced, temporary employees has been going on for years. But it was only after the summer’s demonstrations, which managed to mobilize record numbers of average Israelis to take to the streets over issues such as exorbitantly priced housing and consumer goods, unaffordable education and gaps between the rich and the poor, that the requisite public consciousness was raised. Indeed, unlike past strikes, there was wide public support for the Histadrut’s battle for contracted workers.

Delays at Ben-Gurion Airport, the stench of uncollected garbage, closed banks and post offices were all worth it. Even the news media were largely sympathetic to the strike.

Meanwhile, according to a study by the Bank of Israel released this week, the socioeconomic demonstrations of the summer helped to keep down inflation in the last two quarters of 2011. In its Monetary Policy Report, the central bank noted that food prices dropped by 8.1 percent in the third quarter of 2011.

The price drop, said Bank of Israel’s economists, was the direct result of the pressure put on large food producers and importers by last summer’s demonstrators to reduce profit margins.

And on Monday, the Knesset Finance Committee approved a transfer of NIS 1.3 billion to help fund free preschool education for children aged three and four. The move, which will lower childcare costs for thousands of middle-class families and make it economically feasible for more mothers to get a job, is one of the central recommendations of the Trajtenberg Committee, which was created to answer the demands of the protesters.

But while the demonstrations have raised public consciousness about “social justice” and brought about positive change, it is important that the government remain vigilant against attempts to undermine fiscal discipline or endanger in any other way our economy’s ability to weather the economic slowdown that is expected in coming months.

Our leaders must resist populist calls to foster “social justice” by increasing government expenditures or by implementing pseudo-socialist programs such as expanding the public sector.

In this context it is instructive to learn from Greece, a country facing economic collapse. It would be an exaggeration to claim that the faults in Israel’s economy are comparable to Greece’s. However, there are similarities worth mentioning. Perhaps the most glaring distortion of Greece’s economy is its public sector.

Greece’s public employees are notorious for their exceedingly attractive work conditions. Regardless of their skills, these workers receive high salaries and cannot be fired. One cannot help but think of our own port workers in Ashdod and Haifa or Israel Electric Corporation employees – two of the strongest Histradrut-organized labor unions. Indeed, in large part due to the Catholic-wedding style employer-employee relations in our own public sector, there has been a growing reliance on outsourced, temporary and contracted manpower.

Lacking labor market flexibility, many managers in our public sector are forced to hire temps through manpower agencies. Though the Histadrut is being credited with coming to the aid of the contract workers, the labor federation’s own unions are largely responsible for creating the need for contracted employment.

Last summer’s demonstrations have released positive forces for change. Significant progress has been made in the fields of contract workers’ rights, food prices and free preschool. The government must be careful, however, not to get swept away in a populist flood of support for spendthrift fiscal policies or imprudent, pseudo- socialist “solutions” to our economic ailments.

The best policy for economic health is minimizing state intervention in the economy, reducing the size of the public sector and encouraging free, fair competition.

Greece provides an excellent example of what happens when these principles are abandoned.    

Iran's tentacles

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Editorials/Article.aspx?id=257848

Thankfully, the terrorist attacks staged in New Delhi and Tbilisi and orchestrated by Iran’s mullah regime with the help of its proxy Hezbollah were not fatal. Tal Yehoshua-Koren, the wife of an Israeli diplomat, was hurled out of her car from the impact of the bomb attached to the vehicle. Her condition was described as serious but improving.

Family members in Israel said that under the circumstances, it was “miraculous” that she and her driver, Manoj Sharma, had not been killed.

Meanwhile, in Georgia, a bomb targeting a non- Israeli employee of the Israeli Embassy there was discovered before it went off.

Israel’s good fortune held out on Tuesday after an apparent “work accident” resulted in the premature explosion of a bomb that Iranian agents were preparing in Bangkok. Saeib Morabi, who attempted to escape after the explosion, threw a grenade at police in hot pursuit. The grenade bounced off a tree, landed near Morabi and blew off the man’s legs.

But Israel cannot continue to rely on flukes and miracles.

The Islamic Republic and Hezbollah have proven in the past that they are capable of carrying out murderous terror attacks – not just against Israel. Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh was responsible for the 1983 US Marine barracks bombing in Beirut that killed 241 American servicemen and 58 French paratroopers, and the 1983 US Embassy attack that killed 60 people in the same city.

Four years ago Sunday, Mughniyeh was taken out of service, decapitated when the headrest of his car seat exploded while he was driving in Damascus. Indeed, the recent spate of attacks was timed to coincide with the anniversary of his death.

But Hezbollah is just a proxy for Iran, the world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism. Iran’s mullahs were behind the bombing of Buenos Aires’s AMIA Jewish community center and the Israeli Embassy there in the 1990s.

Revolutionary Guard operatives and their Shi’ite collaborators have been a destabilizing force in Iraq, murdering US troops and Sunni Iraqis there. Iran also supports anti-Western forces in Afghanistan and smuggles arms and missiles to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

Tehran has joined forces with Syrian President Bashar Assad to brutally put down that country’s popular uprising. Iran is apparently also behind the failed attempt to murder the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States.

Condemnation of the attacks in New Delhi and Tbilisi came from across the board. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Indian and Georgian authorities to “investigate these incidents and bring the perpetrators to justice.”

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton indicated the US was ready to assist with the investigation of “these cowardly acts.” Clinton also said that America’s “thoughts and prayers” were with Yehoshua-Koren and Sharma and their families.

UK Foreign Secretary William Hague also called to investigate the “deliberate attacks” and added that British citizens’ “thoughts” were with the wounded and their families.

HOWEVER, INVESTIGATIONS, prayers and thoughts are not enough. It has become abundantly clear that Iran is a menace to the West. The violent rhetoric of the Islamic Republic’s official leaders and their active support for terrorist attacks both in the region and around the world cannot be dismissed merely with empty condemnations. Covert attacks and the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists have so far been restricted to delaying Iran’s progress toward developing nuclear weapons. But after the recent spate of attacks, a new, more aggressive response should be coordinated among Western nations.

Military sources told The Jerusalem Post’s Yaakov Katz Monday that one of the motives behind the attacks in New Delhi and Tbilisi was Iran’s desire to deter the West from a military attack on its nuclear facilities by showing that its proxy – Hezbollah – could spread its terrorist tentacles anywhere it wanted, even as far away as Georgia and India.

A fierce Western response to these attacks, in contrast, would send a counter-message to the mullahs in Tehran: Just as tentacles can spread out, they can also be amputated.      

Electoral reform

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=257235

Since the establishment of the Jewish state over six decades ago, there have been repeated attempts to change Israel’s electoral system.

Born in a moment of severe crisis with the War of the Independence still raging, and left nearly unchanged since, the system of proportional representation allocates power among political parties according to the percentage of overall votes each receives in a single, nationwide election.

Any party that manages to receive at least 2 percent of the vote gains entry.

Proportional representation with a relatively low threshold percentage – only the Netherlands has a lower threshold at 0.67% – tend to encourage the creation of fringe political parties – such as the Pensioners Party – with radical or narrow agendas that represent only a fraction of the population or with fleeting popularity.

Government coalitions are created by pulling together a patchwork of diverse factions. These governments are plagued with chronic division and instability. In many cases, a single small party can bring down a government, giving it inordinate leveraging power. Politicians tend to be unknown sycophants willing to toe the party line who are unconcerned with representing the voters since their reelection depends on internal party politics, not personal popularity.

As early as October 1948, just months after the creation of the state, Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, sought to change the system. Ben-Gurion wanted to institute a plurality voting system similar to the British model.

Voters would cast ballots for candidates running in district elections. The candidate receiving the most votes would be declared the winner. Votes cast for losing candidates would be discarded. This system is also known as the “first past the post” or “winner takes all” mechanism.

As noted by former executive editor of The Jerusalem Post Amotz Asa-El, in an article titled “Israel’s electoral complex” that appeared in Azure (Autumn, 2008), about 10 bills calling for regional elections were presented to the Knesset between 1958 and 1988.

All such attempts at reform were torpedoed by small parties that were members of consecutive government coalitions – especially religious parties – and stood to lose the most.

Now a new attempt is being launched to bring about electoral reform.

Former Mossad director Meir Dagan has started a grassroots movement called Yesh Sikui (“There is a chance”).

According to Ma’ariv, the initiative is backed by businessman Gad Ze’evi, former IDF chief Amnon Lipkin-Shahak and PR guru Reuven Adler. Interdisciplinary Center president Prof. Uriel Reichman, a longtime advocate of electoral reform, is also said to be involved.

Dagan and others are calling to institute a system in which half of the Knesset’s 120 lawmakers will be voted into office in regional elections. The other half will continue to be elected in national elections. By instituting regional elections, Dagan hopes to change the dynamic in which many MKs are chosen for their subservience to a single leader or party mechanism (Shas and Israel Beiteinu come to mind) or to a central committee.

Instead, leaders with strong grassroots backing will be brought into politics. These men and women will be forced to represent their voters in the Knesset, not the party hacks. And voters will expect MKs to be responsive to their demands, which will encourage more civic consciousness.

Holding regional elections increases the chances that lawmakers will be chosen for their unique talents, pragmatism and ability to get things done.

Another proposal being put forward by Dagan is to raise the election threshold from 2% to 3%, which will encourage voters to choose larger, more mainstream parties, thus bringing more stability to government coalitions.

Before these reforms can be implemented, many obstacles need to be overcome. Arabs and haredim must be assured that their unique interests would be protected.

Old political sensibilities, such as the belief that political representation should be given to every minority in the nation, would have to be reconsidered and, perhaps, discarded.

Splitting up the nation into regions would be controversial and could open the way for gerrymandering.

We hope Dagan will succeed in sparking a public debate that reevaluates our political system in a critical light.

Only once the wider public fully understands the ailments of our present political system and considers the alternatives will there be a chance that an initiative for electoral reform can succeed where previous attempts failed.           

Unity or peace?

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Editorials/Article.aspx?id=256906

Hamas, recognized as a terrorist organization by the European Union and the United States, appears to be undergoing a worrisome process of legitimization of late.

Over the past few months, Ismail Haniyeh has been meeting and greeting the heads of numerous “moderate” Muslim states, including Turkey, Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain, where he has been received with much pomp and ceremony. Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, accompanied by Qatar’s crown prince, Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, was, meanwhile, hosted at the end of January by Jordan’s King Abdullah II.

All of these meetings, even if they have only symbolic meaning, mark a change in the way states in the region view Hamas. In the past, Sunni Arab rulers nominally aligned with the West shunned Hamas. Sunni Hamas was forced to form allegiances with Alawiteruled Syria and Shi’ite Iran.

However, with the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Brotherhood-affiliated Ennahda party in Tunisia, Hamas – also a Muslim Brotherhood offshoot – has gradually undergone a process of reorientation, aligning itself and identifying with the popular uprisings in the region known as the Arab Spring.

Hamas’s latest bid for normalization was Monday’s Doha Declaration, a reconciliation agreement designed to end differences between it and Fatah. Signed under the auspices of Qatar, the declaration appoints Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as interim prime minister of a joint Hamas-Fatah unity government.

The main mission, the agreement stipulates, would be to prepare for presidential and parliamentary elections and rebuild the Gaza Strip. Incorporation of Hamas into the PLO, which consists of several groups, the largest of which is Fatah, will also be discussed. If all goes as planned, Hamas will become an integral part of the official Palestinian political leadership.

The only problem with all of this unity is that Hamas remains an anti-Semitic terrorist organization committed to the destruction of Israel. Hamas, which includes in its official charter The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, has not accepted the three minimal requirements for official recognition demanded of it by the Quartet on the Middle East, a mediating body made up of representatives of the US, the UN, Russia and the EU. These requirements are recognizing Israel’s right to exist, abandoning terrorism, and accepting previous Israeli- Palestinian agreements.

During his visits around the region, Haniyeh reiterated Hamas’s well-known position calling for the “liberation of Palestine from the Jordan [River] to the [Mediterranean] Sea” through jihad. He vowed never to recognize the “Israeli entity” and said he would leverage the Arab Spring to achieve this goal.

Under the circumstances, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s reaction to the Doha Declaration was eminently reasonable: “President Abbas, you can’t have it both ways. It’s either a pact with Hamas or peace with Israel. It’s one or the other. You can’t have them both.”

Unfortunately, the idea that it is impossible to reconcile a Fatah-Hamas unity deal with an Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative was not immediately clear to all.

A spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton repeated the EU’s position that it considers Palestinian reconciliation an important step toward Mideast peace. Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told Abbas that reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas should not be seen as contradictory or mutually exclusive with negotiations with Israel.

It is imperative that the international community stand by the Quartet’s three conditions for normalizing relations with Hamas. So long as Hamas continues to hold to its commitment to violent struggle, refuses to recognize Israel and rejects past peace agreements, it will be impossible to develop formal ties with Hamas – or with a Palestinian leadership willing to enter into a unity agreement with it.

Many in the international community might be under the false impression that recognizing a Palestinian government that includes the terrorist organization will enable the more moderate Fatah to effect change in Hamas. But we believe it is much more likely that Hamas, riding a wave of new-found popularity in the region, will gradually take over Fatah.

The shofar blowers

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Editorials/Article.aspx?id=256290

At first glance, a recent Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court decision appeared reasonable enough. Police officers should be allowed the discretion to prohibit certain public acts becausethey could lead to disruption of public order and violence. Sometimes, argued Judge Shirley Renner, an individual’s right to expression must be subordinated to public order and security.

US Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’s example of shouting “fire” in a crowded theater comes to mind. However, Renner was referring to a much more benign act: the blowing of a shofar. She ruled that police can, when they see fit, forbid Jewish worshipers from blowing the shofar becausedoing so might incense Muslims and lead to violence.

The specific case dates back to Rosh Hashana 2006 at the Kotel Hakatan, literally the “small wall.”

The Kotel Hakatan, located in the Old City of Jerusalem’s Muslim Quarter, is one of the northern sections of the Western Wall. Since it is located closer to that portion of the destroyed Temple known as the Holy of Holies, for many – including a contingent of rabbis from all streams of Orthodoxy – it is considered as sacred if not more so than the Western Wall Plaza where most Jewish prayers are held.

On the second day of Rosh Hashana, which fell in 2006 during Ramadan, police ordered Eliyahu Kleiman, a young yeshiva student, to stop blowing the shofar. Kleiman, who was in the middle of prayers, did not respond and continued to blow. Police then dragged him away from the area and detained him for questioning.

Apparently out of a desire to adhere to a measure of political correctness, Renner refrained from using terms such as “Islamic extremists” or “Muslim zealots” to describe those who might feel offended by the blowing of a shofar. Instead, she referred vaguely to the potential for “disturbances” and “disruption of order.”

The tendency to cave in to the bullying techniques of religious radicals has its roots in the Israeli judiciary.

In May 2003, the High Court of Justice, in a 5-4 decision, ruled that the Women of the Wall could not pray out loud at the Western Wall. The court based its argument on thepremise that the women’s prayer endangered public order.

Although they did not phrase it quite this way, the justices, including the then-president of the Supreme Court Aharon Barak, argued that the presence of the Women of the Wall whipped the haredi public – both male and female – into a wildly ecstatic, uncontrollable rage that would lead to rioting. The State of Israel, meanwhile, helpless in the face of this unbridled frenzy of zealotry, could not guarantee the safety of the women or of the wider public. Therefore, the Women of the Wall, for their own good, had to be consigned to an alternative site, Robinson’s Arch, near but separated from the Western Wall. (The women refused to relocate to the Kotel Hakatan because it is located in the Muslim Quarter.)

In both cases the court decisions are problematic. First, they encourage extremism. If every time Muslims or haredim use violence to get what they want – namely restrictions on the religious freedoms of their foes – they will be encouraged to stage additional riots to exact more gains. The irrationality of some Muslims, haredim and other religious fanatics should not be accommodated and rewarded. Police and the courts should make it clear that blowing a shofar or praying out loud are not forms of incitement, but simple acts of faith that must be tolerated.

Also, the rulings by Renner and Barak are based on a “blame-the-victim” reasoning. The assumption is that a Jewish woman who dares to pray at the Western Wall in an unorthodox way or a Jewish man who blows a shofar in a Muslim-populated area is asking for trouble. Would the courts or the police make the same argument in the case of a scantily dressed woman who was raped or a West Bank settler who was killed in a terrorist attack? The clear message that the Israeli law enforcement authorities and courts should send out is that violence of any kind is an illegitimate form of protest. Instead, a different message altogether is being relayed.

Bullies are being accommodated because they resort to violence while those who don’t have seen their religious freedoms infringed. The inevitable conclusion to be drawn is that irrational behavior and intimidation pay.