Bigotry in the US and Israel

Tom Friedman's column in today's NYT is probably meant to be a warning to US politicians not to speak evil of their opponents, to me it is confirmation of bigotry in Israeli society, which Jews usually denounce as antisemitism if anyone dares speak it aloud.  As a Jew, Tom Friedman may come under more criticism than a gentile, but he has been an objective newsman in both the Israeli and the Arab world before returning to the US.  Discussing the film, "Rabin: The Last Day," the director said Rabin's murder "came at the end of a hate campaign" that included "the parliamentary right, led by the Likud (party), already then headed by Benjamin Netanyahu."

Friedman says this film is a warning to American Republican candidates who are stirring up similiar hate-filled emotions in the US.     He is right that hate is not a good basis for a campaign,  But if something is an issue, you should not refuse to talk about it just because you might hurt homebody's feelings, but there is no need to threaten or encourage violence.  I don't think either Trump or Carson has done that.

The US has not descended to the level that Israel reached at the time of Rabin, as described in the film.  Israelis should remember that people who live in glass houses should not throw stones.  Let them work out their own political problems with their Muslim neighbors and then lecture us on how to deal with our own political system.

Congressman Perlmutter Supports Iran Nuclear Deal

Congressman Perlmutter answered my last letter encouraging him to support the Iran nuclear deal.  He said that he would support it, combined with strong support for Israel.

Letter from the congressman:

September 4, 2015 Dear James, Thank you for contacting me about the Iran nuclear agreement. I appreciate hearing from you on such an important issue, because it enables me to better represent the beliefs and values of our district. I support the Iran Agreement negotiated by the United States, Germany, China, United Kingdom, France, Russia, the European Union and Iran. The U.S. and its international partners have committed to a diplomatic solution I believe reduces and limits Iran's ability to develop or manufacture nuclear weapons and is in America's best interests. This Agreement should also reduce nuclear tensions in the Middle East and will make our friend and ally, Israel, safer and less prone to nuclear conflict with Iran. I have reached these conclusions after reading the Agreement and its attachments, reviewing numerous articles pro and con, attending classified briefings, discussing the Agreement with its proponents and opponents, and listening to military and diplomatic experts, as well as constituents. This Agreement has far reaching and historical impacts for our foreign policy and for our international security. The Agreement is a nuclear non-proliferation agreement limiting Iran's capacity to build nuclear bombs. It is not, nor is it intended to be, a peace agreement which resolves or eliminates all threats. So, despite the diplomatic progress made toward reducing Iran's nuclear capabilities under the Agreement, further steps must be taken to deter and discourage Iran from fulfilling its threats and to assist Israel in defending its national security. Consequently, I am working with Congressional leadership and the Obama Administration to assure: 1) Israel receives an "unprecedented level of military, intelligence, and security cooperation from the United States; 2) America works with Israel to develop and share the latest military technology, including technology to penetrate deep bunkers; 3) Congress completes and extends legislation that provides military and foreign aid to Israel over the next 10 years; 4) Congress maintains oversight of the Agreement and its implementation as well as other laws and sanctions pertaining to Iran through frequent classified and unclassified briefings; 5) and America opposes any type of resolution brought before the United Nations that is one-sided or biased against Israel or which harms Israel's national security. The best path forward is to support the Agreement and to enact legislation that maintains a strong military presence in or around the Middle East and which provides unprecedented aid to Israel. I encourage you to continue to contact me about the issues that are important to you.  Please visit our website at www.perlmutter.house.gov to sign up for my e-newsletter and receive periodic updates on my activities as your representative in Washington. Sincerely, Ed Perlmutter Member of Congress

Americans Ignore Australia

Today I watched several US morning news shows - CBS & Morning Joe - and then I watched Aljazeera.  One of Aljazeera's lead stories was the fact that Australia had a new Prime Minister.  Neither of the US shows had mentioned that.  All of the the US networks focus on easy news.  They have virtually no staff overseas.  They send their one foreign correspondent to wherever the hot spot of the day is, now the refugees in Europe.  If they have any foreign story, it is that one hot spot, and often there is not foreign reporting.  Lately anything from the Middle East has just been reported from the foreign correspondent's base in Turkey.  If it's a European story, it's likely just to be reported from London, and if it's Asian, from Beijing or Shanghai, wherever their one correspondent is based.  Aljazeera actually has correspondents who go the where the news is happening, even if it is not in a major capital.

Instead of reporting news, the so-called news shows in the US mainly have pundit talking heads, pontificating about the US election, which is still more than a year off.  Right now, the campaign is really just a reality show, which partly explains why Donald Trump is doing so well.  He is good at reality TV, and the networks love him because he boosts ratings without requiring the networks to do any work.  There is always some new meaningless poll they can talk about.  With the advent of cell phones, polls are virtually worthless, but the pundits latch on to them as if they were solid gold.

Besides Aljazeera, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are about the the only organizations doing serious reporting.  Even on American stories, the networks seldom do any investigative reporting.  They just go to press conferences at the White House, the forest fire, or wherever the press gaggle assembles.  America is supposed to be an important country leading the world, but it's difficult for Americans to find out what is happening around the world, or even what is happening in the US.  How corrupt is Congress?  Americans have opinions, but nobody gives them the facts to back up or refute their opinions.

IIASA and Richard Perle

For a substantial part of my Foreign Service career, while Reagan was President, I frequently crossed swords with Richard Perle at the Pentagon.  He was much superior to me.  He was an assistant secretary of Defense; for much of this time I was a junior officer at the State Department.  However, I often worked on technology transfer issues, and Perle was very interested in technology transfer issues, especially as they related to the old Soviet Union.  He always kept an eagle eye on CoCom, the old Coordinating Committee that regulated technology transfers from Western, allied countries to the Soviet Union. 

My first brush with him must have been shortly after Reagan was elected and Perle was installed at the Pentagon.  I got a call from the science advisor to the State Department Under Secretary who handled technology transfers.  He said that Perle was cutting America’s support for and participation in IIASA. 

IIASA is the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria.  (IIASA web site, and IIASA Wikipedia entry.)  In the Cold War 1980s its mission was to promote cooperation between scientists from Western and Communist countries.  Perle was apparently concerned that it might be a conduit for uncontrolled technology transfer from the West to the East.  It was such an innocuous, academic institution that this seemed ridiculous.  The Under Secretary’s science advisor and I tried to stop Perle from blocking US participation, but as I recall, we failed. 

The good news is that IIASA survived and is still going today, with a broader mandate, since the old bipolar Cold War has ended.  It was my introduction to Richard Perle, who always seemed to be on the opposite side of issues that we were both interested in, from East-West technology transfers to third world transfers involving nuclear proliferation or other high tech problems.