There is little doubt that the leader of the greatest nation on the face of the Earth, the United States of America, could learn much from the leader of one of the smallest nations on the face of the Earth, Israel.
There is little doubt that Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, not only can explain free market economics, but that he understands exactly what is occurring in the Middle East. And, has proven he can implement policies, with his strongest ally, the United States of America, to keep his nation and people safe among bloodthirsty nations that would like nothing better than to annihilate the State of Israel.
Here is a video of Netanyahu speaking at the American Enterprise Institute …
Netanyahu on economics …
So how do I explain the idea of free markets and their centrality in today’s world? And so, three weeks later, I did a press conference and I said, I want to fall back on my first day in basic training in the Israeli paratroops.
The commander put us in a straight line and he said, you are now going to take a race. But it’s a special kind of race. Each man looked to his right; you are the first man, he pointed to me. Put the guy to your right on your shoulders, and the next guy did that, and then the guy after him did that. And I got a pretty big guy. He was heavy. The next guy was the smallest guy in the platoon, and he got the biggest guy on his shoulders. And the third guy was a big guy, and he got a small guy, and so on. And then the commander blew the whistle. I barely managed to move forward. The next guy, the guy next to me, the small guy with the big guy on his shoulders, collapsed. And the third guy took off like a rocket and won the race.
And I said, in the modern economies, all national economies are pairs of a public sector sitting on the shoulder of the private sector. In our case, the public sector became too big, too fat. (Applause.) And we’re about to collapse. So we have to put the fat man on a diet and we have to strengthen the guy at the bottom, give him a lot of oxygen in his lungs. That means lowering tax rates. And, third, we have to remove the obstacles, the barriers to the race, barriers to competition.
By the way, this became known as the fat man/thin man thing, and taxi drivers could repeat it. But, effectively, we ended up doing exactly that.
We constrained the growth of public spending. We lowered tax rates. I had a big argument about that. They said who’s this guy “Laufer”? I said, no, no, it’s not “Laufer.” His name is Laffer. And we actually tried it. And it works. It worked for us, big time. (Applause.)
And we instituted a lot, a lot of reforms. I mean, even earlier, as prime minister in my first term, I removed, you know, all constraints on foreign currency exchange. And that was supposed to collapse our economy. And, of course, everybody was warning me that a mountain of money will move. It did – into the country, you know.
An elegant and understandable explanation of why a growing public sector, including its corrupt public employee unions, will eventually collapse the private sector.
Netanyahu on the Palestinian issues …
The reason, first of all, the conflict that we have in the Middle East is multiple. It used to be said that the core of the conflict, in the singular, in the Middle East is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Well, that went by the window. When you see Iraq collapsing, Syria collapsing, Yemen collapsing, Libya collapsing and everything else in turmoil, nothing to do with us.
The core of the conflicts in the Middle East is the battle between modernity and early, primitive medievalism. That’s the core of the conflicts. (Applause.)
The core of the specific conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is the persistent Palestinian refusal to recognize a Jewish state in any boundary. This is why this conflict persisted for 50 years before there was a state, before there were territories, before there were settlements.
If that were the core of the conflict, the settlements, why did it take place when my grandfather landed in Jaffa in 1920? Jews were murdered then for what? There was no West Bank. There were no settlements. Now, that continued in 1921, 1929, 1936, 1939, 1948. What was that all about? Nineteen sixty-seven, for nearly half a century we were being attacked because there was a persistent refusal to accept us in any boundary.
Well, we got into these territories as a result of the conflict. And what Arab propaganda has done by endless repetition is to turn the result of the conflict into its cause.
Now, how do you know that that’s the case? Because we left Gaza completely, every last centimeter, and they’re still firing rockets at us from Gaza. And when you ask them, why are you doing this? Is it to liberate the West Bank? And they say, yeah, sure. That too, but no. It’s to liberate Palestine, you know, Acre, Haifa, Jaffa. They always get back to Jaffa.
So now I turn to the other guys, to the Palestinian Authority and not to Hamas. At least they don’t practice violence, which is important. And I say, well, what about you? Are you willing to recognize the Jewish state? Are you willing to recognize the fact – you’ll have a nation-state for the Palestinian people.
How about a nation-state for the Jewish people? I mean, after all, we’ve only been there almost 4,000 years, and we recognize there’s two peoples there. We’re willing to make the deal. Are you willing to make the deal? Are you willing to recognize the Jewish state?
Because there’s no point in making another Palestinian state, another Arab state that will continue the battle from improved lines against the Jewish state. Are you willing to end the conflict, give up the claim of the so-called right of return? Make peace.
And you know what happens when you ask them that? They move. They say, oh, we’re willing to recognize Israel. I didn’t ask Israel. I said are you willing to terminate all claims to the Jewish state? You won’t get Jaffa. You won’t flood us with refugees. Are you willing to do that? And the answer is they’re not. We will have peace when the Palestinians will accord us what they ask us to accord them.
We’re willing to have – let them have a state of their own. They have to reconcile themselves to the fact that we have a state of our own and it’s here to stay. That is the core of the problem. (Applause.) In the Middle East, modernity against medievalism, Israel and the Palestinians, the persistent refusal to recognize a Jewish state in any boundary. I hope that changes.
Again, an elegant and understandable explanation of why there cannot be any peace between Israel and the Palestinian state. Unfortunately, President Obama, and now John Kerry, keep demanding that Israel cede ground to the Palestinians – but have never gotten beyond a simple declaration that the Palestinians are willing to recognize Israel as a sovereign state and give up their ambitions to occupy Israel in the future.
What is going on now …
President Obama certainly needs something from the American Jews: support for the progressive socialist democrats in the upcoming 2016 presidential election cycle.
After disrespecting Benjamin Netanyahu and the State of Israel for the entirety of his presidency, Jews are starting to notice that Obama’s worldview is not only pro-Muslim, pro-Palestinian, anti-Jew, but also bad for the economy and the safety and security of the United States.
Obama is also having a difficult time convincing his core constituency, the Blacks, that they have not been disrespected, disadvantaged, and murdered in the inner cities under democrat governance. That their jobs are flowing to illegal aliens. And, that any promise President Obama makes is as big a lie as “If you want to keep your doctor, you can keep your doctor. Period.”
So how else can you explain the release of a man fairly convicted for selling out his nation to convey classified information to Israel. Yes, we spy on them and they spy on us. But, there are consequences to being a traitor.
Jonathan Pollard, American Who Spied for Israel, Released After 30 Years
For 30 years, Mr. Pollard was at the center of a profound struggle between Washington and Jerusalem, one that shadowed American presidents and Israeli prime ministers since Ronald Reagan was in the White House. The Americans called him a traitor. The Israelis deemed him a soldier, to some a hero. At times, both made him a diplomatic bargaining chip.
The only American ever sentenced to life in prison for spying for an ally, Mr. Pollard was freed on parole to an uncertain future.
“After three long and difficult decades, Jonathan has been reunited with his family,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said in a statement from Jerusalem. Noting that he had “raised Jonathan’s case for years” with American leaders, Mr. Netanyahu added, “May this Sabbath bring him much joy and peace that will continue in the years and decades ahead.” <Source>
The only thing that could have convinced President Obama to release Pollard is he needs the disaffected Jews to overlook ant-Jewish behavior and return to the fold. In fact, it appears that Obama is hedging his bet for round two – keeping Pollard from traveling to Israel, where he is regarded as a hero by many – until Obama is ready to make secondary demands.
Bottom line …
Watch Netanyahu’s speak. This is what a patriot sounds like when he is defending his nation and his people; both militarily and economically. Men and women serve openly side-by-side in the Israeli defense forces. There are no social experiments involving gays and transgenders. The Israelis need everyone pulling together to face existential threats. They take care of their own people. They try to unite rather than divide.
Israel is perhaps one of the only places where leaders are not deified and vociferously questioned by a tough media and an even tougher public. Israel is the only place where you have arguments for argument’s sake and eleven opinions are likely to come from ten people in the same room. But, in the final analysis, they act together. They have learned that people, Israelis and Arabs alike, will do bad things on occasion; commit heinous acts. But they do not let that define them as a people and their leaders do not exploit the tragedy and crisis for domestic political gain.
If we continue under the progressive social democrats into pursuing President Obama’s divisive and transformative politics, we are doomed as a nation. Or as my best friend Al is wont to say, “We are so screwed.”
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