A Call for Reciprocity in Egypt-Israel Relations

I was fortunate to have been sent the following article, which touches on a little-known aspect of Egypt-Israel relations. And it calls for a more self-respecting attitude on the part of Israel's leaders when it comes to dealing with the Egyptian quasi-pharaonic regime. Enjoy.

Netanyahu should bring reciprocity to Egypt-Israel relations
by Mordechai Eisenberg Adv

Olmert opened the U.S. market for Egypt with the QIZ. Egypt rewards him by chocking the Israeli energy market with EMG. Its time for a change.

Since Ehud Olmert (as Minister of Trade and Industry) signed with his Egyptian counterpart Rachid Mohammad
The QIZ agreement allows Egyptian products to enter the U.S. tax free, as though they were made in Israel.
Rachid the QIZ (Qualified Industrial Zone) agreement, the U.S. market has been open for Egyptian goods, which enjoy the competitive advantage of no import taxes. This is only due to Olmert’s generosity. The QIZ agreement allows Egyptian products to enter the U.S. tax free, as though they were made in Israel. All they need to qualify is to constitute less then 20% Israeli-made input.

Thus, the U.S. market is flooded with Egyptian textiles; the Egyptian treasury is two billion dollars richer every year and the Egyptian economy enjoys tens of thousands of new jobs. What does Israel get in return? Nothing except for the continued violation of Cairo’s commitment to sell natural gas to the Israeli market.

For years we warned against entrusting our energy needs with Egypt. Who in his right mind, we asked, would agree that one pipeline, which opens and shuts with one valve, and starts at El-Arish, will control our electricity production?

For almost a year now, these warnings are no longer a theory. Since the gas pipeline was inaugurated, there has not been one day of normal supply. Weeks of total shut down are followed by months of delivery at less than half the contracted quantity. Technical excuses are followed by "cultural explanations" of unexpected domestic demand during the month of Ramadan. Well, Ramadan is long over; Jordan, Syria and all other clients get their gas on schedule - all except the Israeli market.

Here, costly and polluting fuels are used instead of the promised and contracted Egyptian natural gas. And what does Olmert do? Nothing!

It is time for a change. It is time for less smiles and more firmness. It is time for reciprocity, and the one to demand it is the one who introduced the term into our regional politics: Benjamin Netanyahu.

Upon assuming office he should establish a new and long overdue norm in Egypt-Israel economic relations: "If you don’t give - you don’t receive."

Mordechai Eisenberg is chairman of The Movement for Fairness in Government

The Left’s New Spin, Unity Coalition, and Small Parties

The Left’s New Spin

As it already became clear Thursday that Netanyahu will almost certainly be the next Prime Minister, the left already started to look for a way to spin his victory into a loss. Tzipi Livni and the media, although they could no longer tell the public that the left won, realized that at least they could say that Bibi lost.

Ynet in its leading article said, “While the President is making a decision, it is becoming clear that it will be difficult for Likud to make a wide and stable government.” The article goes on to quote Kadima MK Roni Bar-On, who said Kadima should go to the opposition. “Kadima is the only alternative to Netanyahu’s extreme government,” he said. He also went on to predict that the “government that will be formed will last for the shortest amount of time in the history of Israel.”

Meaning the new claim on the left: a majority government isn’t “stable.” 65 members of the Knesset have agreed that Netanyahu should be Prime Minister. Has anyone forgotten how many are left wing? Only 44. So in the left’s new arithmetic, 65 versus 44 isn’t good enough. According to them, 60 percent of the public is not fit to rule.

A National Unity Government?

Netanyahu has said numerous times in the past few weeks that he wants a unity government including Kadima. Why? Mainly because the more MKs Netanyahu has in his government, the more power he gains at the expense of the individual parties. In Israel, 60 MKs are needed to govern. That means that if Netanyahu only has a coalition of 65 MKs, any one of the parties can pull out and take down the government. If Kadima would agree to join, no one party would have that veto power.

Voting for Smaller Parties

This short lesson in Israeli politics shows why people who voted for smaller parties at the expense of voting for the Likud made the right choice. If a 65 MK coalition does indeed form, Netanyahu cannot risk making a policy decision which would cause any of the parties to pull out. He cannot make a decision against the religious parties, because they have 20 MKs. He cannot make a decision against Lieberman’s interests, because he has 15 MKs. And finally he cannot even make a decision against the national religious parties’ interests, because they have 7 MKs.

In short, we can hope that in opposition to the left’s claim, if Netanyahu succeeds in forming a 65 MK government it can be both stable and reflect the wishes of the majority of Israelis. In addition, there is reason to hope that it will be a government which will be right-wing, pro-religion, and pro-the Land of Israel.

A German-American who stood up

Here's a nice article about how to deal with anti-Semitism.

By RAFAEL MEDOFF

The recent wave of anti-Semitic outbursts in various countries raises important questions about how to respond effectively to such assaults. A little-known episode that took place 65 years ago last week, involving a German-American high school principal, may provide some guidance.

A photo provided by police shows the letters "SS" (standing for Schutzstaffel, the security and paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party) smeared on a gravestone at a Jewish cemetery in Czestochowa, Poland.

The latest outrages have included the planting of a bomb at the Lutzk Progressive Jewish Congregation, in the Ukrainian city of Kiev; the mob attack on the Tiferet Israel Synagogue in Caracas, Venezuela; an eightfold increase in anti-Semitic attacks in England; and shouts of "Hamas! Hamas! Jews to the gas!" at a rally in Amsterdam.

In the United States, incidents have ranged from celebrity outbursts such as rock singer Courtney Love accusing "Jew loan officers and Jew private banks" of stealing from her, to sixth graders in St. Louis staging a "Hit a Jew Day" in their school. Curiously, their principal, Linda Lelonek, decided that the students' action was not anti-Semitic, on the grounds that "you've got remorse, you've got tears, you've got embarrassment. Not anti-Semitic behavior at all."

Sixty-five years ago last week, a German-American high-school principal in New York was confronted with anti-Semitism and responded very differently. In February 1944, five students from Andrew Jackson High School in Queens were caught painting anti-Semitic slogans in the nearby town of Queens Village.

Principal Ralph Haller faced a dilemma. Technically, he had no jurisdiction over what students did outside school grounds. But he understood the moral importance of going beyond the letter of the law to find a way to punish the attackers and send a message to potential anti-Semitic vandals everywhere.

Where there was a will, there was a way. Searching the rule books, Haller found he was permitted to prevent a student from graduating if he or she demonstrated "poor American citizenship." At a meeting of parents on February 12, 1944, the principal declared: "I consider such [anti-Semitic] activities totally in contradiction to everything that the America of today or the America which we hope to have tomorrow stands for." Therefore, he announced, his new policy would be to consider anti-Semitism by definition as un-American, and he would block the graduation of any student involved in anti-Semitic acts.

Haller noted that he had "counseled with many non-Jewish principals" as well as assistant superintendent of schools William Hamm, and found them all in agreement with his choice of punishment. Haller emphasized that as a Protestant and a German-American, "I feel that I have the right and duty to speak out on this issue."

Haller's action is all the more impressive when one recalls the extent of anti-Semitism and pro-Nazi sentiment among his fellow German-Americans. Just five years earlier, more than 20,000 Bund supporters had filled Madison Square Garden for a pro-Hitler rally. And in nearby Suffolk County in the late 1930s, tens of thousands of German-Americans each weekend flocked to Camp Siegfried, a pro-Hitler summer retreat, for Nazi-style parades, propaganda sessions and rounds of the "Horst Wessel Song" ("When Jewish blood drips from the knife/Then will the German people prosper").

But Ralph Haller was cut from a different cloth. He stood apart from the crowd - and stood up for justice by thinking outside the box.

Today, too, creative and courageous thinking is needed to combat the rising tide of anti-Semitism.

School principals need to respond swiftly and forcefully to anti-Semitic eruptions. The "Hit a Jew Day" students in St. Louis deserved more than brief suspensions. And it was wrong for the principal to refrain from penalizing other students who verbally taunted Jewish children and encouraged the "hitters."
Principals should not make excuses for violent, bigoted students.

Celebrity anti-Semitism should not be laughed off. We all chuckle at the foibles of public figures. But when their unorthodox behavior crosses the line into expressions of bigotry, it is no longer harmless fun. The culprits need to be ostracized.

World leaders need to speak out. The European Union Parliament, which has been meeting in Strasbourg, has so far refrained from explicitly condemning the recent wave of anti-Semitism. The EU's voice needs to be heard, loud and clear.

Economic leverage should be used to combat anti-Semitism. Some regimes that the US and Europe regard as friendly, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, permit the inclusion of anti-Semitic material in their government-controlled media and school textbooks. Western economic aid to such regimes should be used to exert pressure against anti-Semitism - just as international pressure forced the United Arab Emirates in 2004 to shut down the Zayed Center, which promoted anti-Semitism and Holocaust-denial.

Anti-Semitism can never be completely eliminated. But leaders who make an extra effort to penalize offenders can help create an environment in which hatred is regarded as unacceptable and haters are confined to the furthest margins of society.

That's what Ralph Haller was trying to do in 1944. Let's learn from his example.

The writer is director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, which focuses on issues related to America's response to the Holocaust.

The article above appeared in the Jerusalem Post, on February 15, 2009 and is reprinted by permission of the author.