The Gamble of Trump: Editorial, Wall Street Journal, Nov. 6, 2016 — The case for Donald Trump is political disruption.
The Rise and Fall of Hillary Clinton: Father Raymond J. de Souza, National Post, Nov. 7, 2016 — One hundred years ago this month, after nearly 68 years as emperor of Austria-Hungary, Franz Joseph died, leaving the throne to his grandnephew Charles.
Israel is the Sane, Stable Democracy: David M. Weinberg, Israel Hayom, Nov. 4, 2016 — What can one say about the ghastly U.S. presidential election campaign that is (thankfully) coming to an end next week?
Will Betraying Israel be Obama’s Farewell Gesture?: Isi Leibler, Jerusalem Post, Nov. 1, 2016 — Throughout his entire presidential term of nearly eight years, US President Barak Obama has insisted that he “has Israel’s back.”
Sanctity and Dispossession: Mark Steyn, Jewish World Review, Nov. 8, 2016
Obama’s ‘Hope and Change’ has Given us ‘Fear and Loathing’: Michael Goodwin, New York Post, Nov. 6, 2016
History Repeats as Farce, Then as 2016: Joseph Rago, Wall Street Journal, Nov. 4, 2016
Why No #Never Hilllary?: Jonathan Rosenblum, Jewish World Review, Nov. 8, 2016
Editorial
Wall Street Journal, Nov. 6, 2016
The case for Donald Trump is political disruption. A broken Washington needs to be shaken up and refocused on the public good, and who better to do it than an outsider beholden to neither political party? If only that reform possibility didn’t arrive as a flawed personality who has few convictions and knows little about the world.
The best hope for a Trump Presidency is that he has aligned himself with enough sound policy impulses that he could liberate the U.S. economy to grow faster again. He would stop the crush of new regulation, restore a freer market for health insurance, unleash U.S. energy production, and reform the tax code. His default priority would be growth, which the U.S. desperately needs after a decade of progressive focus on income redistribution and the worst economic recovery in 70 years.
Assuming Republicans hold Congress, the House GOP has already put many of these reforms in legislative language. Mr. Trump could adopt them as his own reform agenda and get a fast start on governing. With a GOP Senate he could fill Antonin Scalia’s seat on the Supreme Court with someone from the fine list of candidates he has publicly released. For many voters, the future of the Court is by itself enough reason to support Mr. Trump.
Yet while this could be a 1980-like moment of economic renewal, Mr. Trump is no Ronald Reagan. The Gipper came to office with a coherent and firmly held world view formed by decades of reading and experience as a Governor. It isn’t obvious that Mr. Trump reads anything at all. He absorbs what he knows through conversation and watching TV, and he has no consistent philosophy.
This makes it hard to predict how he would respond to the shocks and surprises that buffet any President. His firmest policy conviction seems to be that trade is a zero-sum game and that America is losing from global commerce. But if he follows through on his vow to withdraw from trade pacts, impose tariffs on imports and punish U.S. companies that invest abroad, he could cause a recession. The main economic battle in a Trump Administration would be between his pro-growth domestic reforms and his anti-growth trade policy.
The strongest argument against Mr. Trump, as Hillary Clinton has recognized, concerns his temperament and political character. His politics is almost entirely personal, not ideological. He overreacts to criticism and luxuriates in personal feuds. President Obama’s greatest failure has been to govern in a deliberately polarizing fashion, and Mr. Trump’s response has been to campaign the same way. If the businessman loses a race that Republicans should win this year, one reason will be that his often harsh rhetoric has repelled women, minorities and younger voters. He ignores or twists inconvenient facts, and even when he has a good point his exaggerations make it harder to persuade the public. Yet a President needs the power to persuade.
The least convincing Never Trump argument is that he would rampage through government as an authoritarian. That ignores the checks and balances in Washington that constrain GOP Presidents in particular. If Mr. Trump wins, the media would awaken from their Obama-era slumbers and dog his Administration with a vengeance. The permanent bureaucracy would resist his political appointees, working with the media to build public opposition.
The more realistic concern, especially for conservatives, is that Mr. Trump would be as haphazard in office as he has been as a candidate and thus fail to change Washington as he has promised. Mr. Trump would start out with more than half the country disliking him, and most of his advisers lack government experience. Too many blunders or an early recession could cause voters to sweep out the GOP Congress in 2018, setting up a return to an all-progressive government in 2020. Another risk comes from the negative impulses on the political right that Mr. Trump’s meanest rhetoric has awakened. Populism has its uses, and the media stereotypes of Mr. Trump’s supporters don’t capture their variety and general goodwill. But populism becomes dangerous when it is rooted too much in ethnicity or class.
Mr. Trump’s Breitbart posse has a vendetta against Republicans on Capitol Hill and is motivated by brooding resentments that too often veer into white-identity politics. If Mr. Trump indulged these sentiments as President, he would further polarize the country and alienate non-whites for a generation. Then there is the biggest Trump gamble of all—foreign and security policy. The good news is that Mr. Trump wants to rebuild U.S. defenses that have eroded on Mr. Obama’s watch. He would be more candid about, and more aggressive against, the Islamist terror threat… [To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link —Ed.]
THE RISE AND FALL OF HILLARY CLINTON
Father Raymond J. de Souza
National Post, Nov. 7, 2016
One hundred years ago this month, after nearly 68 years as emperor of Austria-Hungary, Franz Joseph died, leaving the throne to his grandnephew Charles. The last ruler of the Hapsburg monarchy had a short reign, the liquidation of his empire and the abolition of his royal house being among the terms of peace that ended the First World War. Driven into exile, he died in Madeira before his 35th birthday.
Charles was a holy man who understood that he had a duty to serve his people and to work assiduously for peace. In 2004, he was beatified by Pope John Paul II. This election day in the U.S., the witness of Blessed Charles is a reminder that holiness and high office are not incompatible, and that great power can be a means of humble service. That he reigned a century ago is also a reminder that history is not a matter of progress, for the descent of man, and woman, from Blessed Charles to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, is steep and stomach-churning.
I have no greater gifts of electoral analysis, so I presume that Clinton, the heir presumptive, will emerge triumphant Tuesday night. She is not, as her opponent said, a “nasty woman,” but the return of the Clintons is a nasty business, indeed. After this sordid year, perhaps the single service that Trump has rendered was to expose just how nasty the establishment culture of entitlement is in America, of which the Clintons are both exemplars and experts. The Economist has spent the entirety of 2016 expressing the exasperation of the transatlantic establishment, which believes that Americans have been insufficiently appreciative of Clinton. After all, the “establishment politics that Mrs Clinton encapsulates almost to the point of parody” is what voices like The Economist think, on balance, is a good thing.
Trump, it is universally agreed, is a master of mendacity. But it is also true that, in Hillary Clinton’s 40 years in public life, she has mastered the art of prevarication. Her husband, possessing greater charm, preferred the brazen lie. Nevertheless, despite the cataract of untruths that cascaded from Trump, he did tell one truth over and over again: America’s political establishment could be bought and sold. He knew this because he had bought and sold it himself, while attending to his celebrity properties.
Trump ran for president having held no public office. A lacuna to be sure, but surely as troubling is the permanent political class, which does nothing but trade public offices. The Clinton family business of personal enrichment through public office is odious, but by no means unique. It has become something of a norm, but no one has done it better, or for as long. To hear Clinton and her ilk speak of public service is nauseating, unless it is to be understood as the public servicing her family. Yet this is the way the permanent political class operates. They decide who is in and who is out, and whatever arrangements need to be made to protect each other. When Trump blasted the Clintons last summer for having a man as repellent at Anthony Weiner in their inner circle, it was one of many ways in which the privileges of the political class were finally being called into question.
Astonishingly, it fell to Trump — a narcissistic blowhard who is clearly unfit for the presidency — to play the role of the boy who declared that the emperor had no clothes. It took a wealthy man entirely outside the normal partisan apparatus to say what no one in the imperial court is permitted to say — namely, that the system is corrupt, and that the Clintons, seeking the White House a quarter-century apart, are this generation’s most corrupt couple. Hillary Clinton, with the connivance of the partisan and media establishment, the co-operation of a politicized justice system and resources accrued from rapacious influence-peddling, will have heaved herself over the finish line for the presidency as she always has: within the rule, but just so. Trump changed the rules in 2016. Clinton will win the election, but her presidency is already lost.
ISRAEL IS THE SANE, STABLE DEMOCRACY
David M. Weinberg
Israel Hayom, Nov. 4, 2016
What can one say about the ghastly U.S. presidential election campaign that is (thankfully) coming to an end next week? That we cry for America, the greatest nation on the face of this earth, which is self-immolating; sunk by candidates who are insincere, uncouth, and unprincipled. The crude campaigns of both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton leave the U.S. badly divided along the lines of race, economic status and political ideology; with dark forces of intolerance dominating every talk show and rally. Alas, there is almost no discussion of important policy issues in a world where U.S. leadership acutely is being challenged.
What can we say? Say this: In comparative perspective, Israel seems like the sane, stable democracy these days. Consider the situation in America to the situation in Israel on almost any foreign or domestic issue, and you're forced to admit that, heck, Israel is in a better place. To begin with, perhaps Israel's system of government — long maligned — is more satisfying and representative. Voters here in Israel have more than two binary choices for leader of the country. Don't tens of millions of Americans wish that they had a serious third-party candidate to vote for this year?
And for all the rough and tumble nature of Israeli party politics, hasn't the cutthroat, populist primary system in America disappointed Republicans and Democrats alike? By the way, Israel had a female leader (Golda Meir) almost 50 years ago, while in America they're still arguing about the glass ceiling and wondering whether a woman can be trusted with the highest office in the land. It's true that Israel hasn't had a black, or a Sephardi, prime minister, while America has elected an African-American as president twice. But given the ongoing and escalating race riots in U.S. inner cities, I'm not sure that America has too much to brag about in this field. In any case, Jews from Arab lands have served in Israel as military chief of staff, defense minister, president, and Supreme Court justice.
As for the quality of candidates for national leader, I bet you that Americans would bus themselves in droves to the polling stations in order to vote for Benjamin Netanyahu if he were running as a candidate in this U.S. election! Now consider the language used in campaigns. Israeli politicians regularly accuse each other of fascism and corruption, which is bad enough. But no one mixes female hygiene, the size of male organs, and other deplorables into political discourse. Nobody in Israel has questioned the integrity of our electoral system either, even when the result was decided by a hair — for example when Netanyahu edged Shimon Peres out of office in 1996 by less than 1% of the vote. Nobody claimed the vote was rigged and nobody threatened to reject the result.
Israeli prosecutors have actually put corrupt politicians behind bars, including a president, prime minister, finance and interior minister, and others. They didn't cover up and close the books on crimes akin to "extreme carelessness" in handling "very sensitive, highly classified information that possibly was accessed by hostile actors" — which is what the FBI did this year. More important is the fact that Israel has charted for itself intelligent courses in foreign and domestic policy, which is far more than can be said of the U.S. in the Barack Obama era and likely beyond. Furthermore, such issues are actually debated intensely in Israeli election campaigns, whereas the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign has been dominated by personal insults and peccadilloes, rather than policy.
Israel has a working national health system that, for all its problems, is the envy of most countries in the world. Everybody benefits from considerably comprehensive mandatory coverage. Obama's health reforms have been a disaster, yet neither presidential candidate has bothered to present a realistic plan to fix things.
Israel built a fence to keep millions of illegal immigrants from Africa from flooding into the country through Sinai, and passed several iterations of tough yet humanitarian immigration/deportation laws that have been debated at length in parliament and the highest court. It is a controversial policy arena that has been met head-on by intelligent debate and determined government action.
In the U.S., beyond Trump's lazy, hazy and haphazard Mexican wall idea, neither he nor his opponent have offered any realistic approaches to confronting immigration issues. There is a serious and worthy debate underway in Israel about the direction, composition, and scope of powers of the Supreme Court. The justice minister is also seeking to reform the selection process for justices, in an above-board and open process that will involve give-and-take between conservatives and liberals. In the U.S., however, the Supreme Court has become the ultimate political football, with presidents unabashedly yanking it left and right, and the fiercely partisan Congress flat-out blocking presidential appointments just because.
Who has handled relations with Russia better in recent years, Netanyahu or Obama? The Israeli prime minister has navigated a difficult situation with Russian fighter jets flying along our northern border, backing our enemies — without incident; while the American president has completely botched his ballyhooed "reset" with Moscow, and let Putin muscle into Eastern Europe and the Mideast.
Who has done a better job of setting down red lines regarding the conflict in Syria? With determination, Netanyahu has relayed the limits of what Israel can tolerate north of its borders, keeping Hezbollah and Iran at bay for the time being. He quietly and smartly has used humanitarian diplomacy with rebel groups to safeguard the border too. Obama on the other hand, whimpered down from the red lines he loudly set over chemical weapons and other war crimes in Syria, leaving America with little credibility or clout.
Who has more allies now in the Arab world — Israel or the U.S.? Egpyt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states today tacitly rely on Netanyahu's acumen and security assistance more than they count on Obama. Only the mullahs in Iran have a better relationship with the White House than with the Israeli Prime Minister's Office; and the Obama-Rouhani nuclear accord isn't a great feather in America's cap either.
This listing of America's woes and foibles and their comparison to Israel's relative resiliencies, is not meant to gloat. It is with sorrow that I chronicle the yanking of America off its solid policy moorings by an outlier president, and its sullying by a loutish election campaign. I weep for America and wish it a speedy and full recovery. The world needs America to bounce back, and I am praying that it will. But the contrast detailed here should instill some modesty in American politicians and pundits (and Jewish community leaders) who are quick to lecture Israel about what it must do on a range of external and internal matters. Hey, American friends, get your act together before hectoring Israel..
WILL BETRAYING ISRAEL BE OBAMA’S FAREWELL GESTURE?
Isi Leibler
Jerusalem Post, Nov. 1, 2016
Throughout his entire presidential term of nearly eight years, US President Barak Obama has insisted that he “has Israel’s back.” The reality is that Obama’s appalling foreign policy has been geared toward the creation of “daylight” between the US and Israel. To this end, Obama reneged on the longstanding bipartisan policy that the US would never be a party to forcing Israel into reverting to the 1949 armistice lines. That policy was reflected in the carefully drafted UN Security Council Resolution 242, unanimously adopted on November 22, 1967, which intimated that Israel would never be expected to revert to indefensible borders. The armistice lines imposed at the end of the War of Independence were never considered formal borders. They left Israel only 14 km. wide at its narrowest point and were described by foreign minister Abba Eban as the “Auschwitz borders.”
In explaining the language of UN Resolution 242, US ambassador to the UN Arthur Goldberg was specific. In order to achieve “secure and recognized boundaries” there would be a necessity for both parties to make “territorial adjustments in their peace settlement, encompassing less than a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the occupied territories, inasmuch as Israel’s prior frontiers had proved to be notably insecure.” It was also clearly understood that withdrawals would only take place in the context of an overall peace settlement.
In September 1968, president Lyndon Johnson stated that “it is clear … that a return to the situation of 4 June 1967 will not bring peace. There must be secure and there must be recognized borders.” President Ronald Reagan in September 1982 stated, “In the pre-1967 borders, Israel was barely 10 miles wide at its narrowest point. The bulk of Israel’s population lived within artillery range of hostile armies. I am not about to ask Israel to live that way again.” Secretary of state George Shultz in September 1988 declared, “Israel will never negotiate from, or return to, the lines of partition or to the 1967 borders.” President Bill Clinton in his final January 2001 attempt to promote a solution continued to emphasize the importance to Israel of “secure and recognized boundaries.”
Even the Palestinians who initially bitterly opposed Resolution 242 ultimately accepted it when the PLO signed the Declaration of Principles with Israel in September 1993. In an April 14, 2004 letter to prime minister Ariel Sharon responding to Israel’s announcement of the unilateral Gaza withdrawal, US president George W. Bush wrote that “the United States reiterates its steadfast commitment to Israel’s security, including secure, defensible borders.” More explicitly, Bush stated that “in light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion. It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities.”
The US Congress endorsed the letter in joint resolutions by the Senate (95-3) and the House (407-9). Sharon regarded these Bush commitments as a negotiated deal based on his total withdrawal from Gaza. He considered it to be his most important diplomatic achievement and used it vigorously in an attempt to justify what subsequently proved to be the disastrous withdrawal from Gaza. As late as November 2009 secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who was a major critic of Israel within the Obama administration, still acknowledged the goal of “a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflects subsequent developments and meets Israeli security requirements.”
On May 19, 2011, in a shameful humiliation, without any prior notice, just hours before meeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Obama stunned his guest by radically reneging on and deviating from this longstanding bipartisan US policy. He did so when it was clear that the PA was totally inflexible and the entire region was being engulfed by a barbaric civil war. Obama chose that time to state that “the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states.” If adopted, that would effectively impose the indefensible 1949 armistice lines as the benchmark for opening future negotiations, with any variation subject to Palestinian consent. Given the consistent Palestinian track record of refusing to make any concessions, the concept of “mutually agreed swaps” is pure fantasy. The fallback would be imposing the 1967 borders which would entail forfeiting secure borders and ceding the major settlement blocs including the Jewish neighborhoods of east Jerusalem – something that no Israeli government could contemplate…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link —Ed.]
Sanctity and Dispossession: Mark Steyn, Jewish World Review, Nov. 8, 2016—The latest amusing electoral intervention by James Comey? As I wrote on the very day the FBI Director "re-opened" the Hillary investigation: I suppose if you've run one sham investigation there's no harm in running a second. And so it proved.
Obama’s ‘Hope and Change’ has Given us ‘Fear and Loathing’: Michael Goodwin, New York Post, Nov. 6, 2016—So this is how Hope & Change ends. With the FBI in turmoil, with surging anti-police violence, with fears of voter fraud and foreign hacking, with a sluggish economy, with a terror warning and with two unpopular presidential candidates tearing at each other like wolves. Heckuva job, Barack Obama!
History Repeats as Farce, Then as 2016: Joseph Rago, Wall Street Journal, Nov. 4, 2016—Americans elected the greatest president, Lincoln, four years after the worst, Buchanan, so there’s some hope that 2020 will redeem 2016, whoever wins on Tuesday.
Why No #Never Hilllary?: Jonathan Rosenblum, Jewish World Review, Nov. 8, 2016—Thumbing through latest issue of the Yale Law Report recently, I came across my class secretary's quarterly musings in which he recounts how he first heard Hillary Clinton speak at our fifteenth class reunion, the year her husband was running for his first term.
