Daniel Lubetzky

Daniel Levy asserts (see his Point #4) that the Bush Administration is blocking negotiations that both the Syrian and Israeli Heads of State desire.  He quotes Ambassador Martin Indyk (a member of our Honorary Board and a man who nobody would accuse of coming from the left) on his testimony to the House Foreign Relations Committee:

As I understand it, the Bush Administration is unwilling to encourage Israeli-Syrian peace negotiations…this puts the U.S. in the unprecedented and invidious position of opposing an opportunity for Arab-Israeli peacemaking even when our ally Israel is keen to pursue it.

This guy, Randy Pausch, is truly inspiring.  Make sure you tune in till the end of his presentation.

The Jerusalem Post reports that Olmert is again being investigated on allegations about political fundraising activities that took place well prior to his tenure as Prime Minister.

Some opposition lawmakers called on him to resign because of the investigations.

Prior investigations that started with a lot of bravado have gone nowhere, as Knesset member Yoel Hasson (who serves on OneVoice’s Board) noted.

To me the plethora of failed investigations is evidence of the politicization of the legal process, as opposed to evidence of wrongdoing.

ALL of these investigations relate to the period when Olmert was running for Mayor of Jerusalem, as part of the Likud party, and with a far more hawkish stance of things.  Much of his financial support presumably came from very conservative Jewish sources that are not happy with Olmert’s peacemaking efforts.

It seems quite possible, or likely, that some of Olmert’s past donors are disenchanted with his goal to strike a framework agreement with the Palestinians this year, and they are trying to "cooperate" with the Israeli police to derail the hope of a two-state-solution. 

Is this a proper outcome of the democratic process? 

As is most common in stable democracies, shouldn’t the Head of State have a significant degree of immunity from politically-inspired allegations, particularly if dating back to before the Head of State’s tenure, and particularly if not dealing with national security issues?

Today Sherazad Hamit and I were in the Bay Area to discuss OneVoice’s campaign for 2008 with several of our supporters.

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Ben Stein’s article in the New York Times Wall Street, Run Amok highlights one of the core reasons why our financial system is not working: investment bankers are incentivized to leverage themselves to the sky; the more debt they take, the more their upside from structured deals and the more compensation they get, with the downside severely mollified by the public serving as the unwitting insurer.

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  Our OneVoice team in Gaza continues to work with the local communities across Gaza – this last week in Gaza City – to build a human infrastructure of citizens committed to a two-state solution.

Is it me or did anyone else notice the extreme bias of the media against Barak Obama this Sunday in all news shows?  Whether it’s just a media circus game to extend the political party with a longer nomination fight, or whether it was Senator Clinton’s machine that appealed to the media establishment, it is fascinating how biased the media was.

The clearest and most patent example of downright dishonest coverage came this Sunday around 1:40pm EST when Jim Acosta from CNN covered the Indiana contest as follows:

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With growing human population and consumption, our planet is already strained with water scarcity, fossil fuel scarcity, food scarcity, mineral scarcity, and environmental degradation.  Is the big picture that humans will eventually kill each other to compete for scarce resources?

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My sister had a really interesting observation on the modern forms of bondage that we experience, relating to the spiritual aspects of Passover…

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The most humble eat grains and seeds.  They don’t have anything else.  They live off the earth.

The poor eat refined starches, rice, beans.  They can’t afford anything else.

The luxury many strive for is perceived to be meat.

Then the cycle gets completed.  As people learn more about nutrition and the environment, they start avoiding meat, they start avoiding refined sugars and starches, and they steer back to grains, seeds, vegetables and fruits straight from nature.