Warren Buffett’s letter to his editors and publishers | JIMROMENESKO.COM.

Reblogged from Keeping Score:

Good piece

The Netanyahu-Mofaz unity government deal was carried out with such efficiency, secrecy and deceit that one cannot but compare it to an operation of the IDF’s elite General Staff Reconnaissance Unit – the Sayeret Matkal.

And with all the top players in this political drama having served in The Unit, some of them at the same time, one perhaps shouldn’t be so surprised at the way it was concocted and executed.

Ehud Barak, the mythical Sayeret Matkal commando of Sabena and Beirut fame, and holder of the “most cunning and decorated soldier in Israel’s history” title – the IDF’s Odysseus – was in on the unity government deal from the beginning. Some would say that it even originated with him. Facing almost certain death at the polls in an early September election, Barak did what any Special Operations commando in his position would do: he pulled a rabbit out of his hat, climbed into the hat, disappeared, and emerged on the other side of the stage as the puppet master. The rabbit, in this case almost the entire Knesset, meanwhile, was left alone on the stage, glaring at the lights.

Shaul Mofaz, who was part of the Sayeret Matkal unit that raided Entebbe, knows that he who dares, wins; he knows a golden opportunity when he sees one, and he knows how to seize it. The unity deal with Netanyahu was cloaked in lies and deceptions: “Netanyahu is a liar; his is the worst government in history; and I will never, ever join his government,” Mofaz kept on saying, while all the time quietly preparing to link up with a fellow Sayeret Matkal comrade, Bibi Netanyahu.

Netanyahu himself served under Barak in The Unit – and must have loved the intricate simplicity of the unity government deal.

So how many Special Operations men are there in this government now?

Mofaz, Netanyahu, Barak, Avi Dichter, Moshe Yaalon, Yochanan Plesner were in Sayeret Matkal; Yariv Levin served in IDF intelligence; Yossi Peled took part in the rescue of Ethiopian Jews; Israel Hasson was deputy director of the Shin Bet.

And that’s only the people we know about…

As a former South African who grew up in the Eighties and Nineties in a Jewish family in Krugersdorp, and now as an editor of the English edition of Israel’s largest circulation daily, I believe I have an insight into Bloom’s contention that South Africa’s Jewish community needs a Beinart-type messiah to lead them out of the darkness that is their “Israel right-or-wrong” mentality.

By striking the kind of deal he struck with Shaul Mofaz of Kadima, the deal of his life, the Prime Minister has put himself out of the reach of his party’s right wing, out of the reach of Lieberman’s machinations, out of the reach of Shas’ extortions, and out of the reach of Barack Obama. He’s also buried Yair Lapid, who must now go back and have a hard think about his next move. Netanyahu is also out of the reach of Labor’s Shelly Yechimovich, Meretz, and the Arab parties – in other words, the Opposition, which together make up no more than 25 Knesset mandates. That’s not even enough MKs to force Netanyahu to appear at a Knesset hearing to defend his government’s policies. Without any real opposition to his government, and without a quarrelsome coalition to worry about, Netanyahu has put himself beyond anyone’s reach. He has, in essence, become the most politically powerful prime minister in Israel’s history. He has become the Supreme Leader. Netanyahu is so powerful he can legislate basic laws if he wants to. Now everyone will be obedient: Mofaz for sure, Lieberman will be, the haredim will be, the settlers will be, Barak obviously; Yechimovich is weakened, Lapid is destroyed. Netanyahu, like a supreme leader, has left destruction and creation in his wake. But with such power comes immense responsibility, and the pitfalls of hubris.

If Netanyahu can keep this coalition government together until October 2013, the date of the next elections, and if he wins those elections and manages to stay in power for a full third term after that, his combined rule as Prime Minister of Israel would be about 11.5 years. Just under David Ben Gurion’s combined 12 years.

And while Barack Obama will fight for four more years, Netanyahu has all but assured himself five-and-a-half more years in power. Netanyahu may be the Israeli PM until January 2018.

What effect will the deal have on the burning issues of the day? Netanyahu now leads a centrist government of 94 MKs, a wide and stable coalition. Foreign news organizations can no longer call his government a “narrow right-wing coalition government.” As his new coalition partner Mofaz said Tuesday, there is now a golden opportunity to make some deep, historic structural changes to Israeli society and politics. To change the system of government, to address the imbalance in the burden of military and national service, and to attempt a territorial compromise with the Palestinians. No previous Israeli prime minister has managed to do all three, largely because no previous Israeli prime minister has had such a wide coalition, with 94MKs, and such potential stability and power. In short, no Israeli prime minister has been a Supreme Leader before.

Netanyahu and Mofaz have set the bar very high for their joint government: producing an alternative to the Tal Law, changing the system of government, forging a deal with the Palestinians, and passing a balanced budget.

The question now is if we will see Netanyahu wield such power wisely and manage to make all these changes. Will we see what Netanyahu really wants, his diplomatic vision? Will the Palestinians miss another opportunity to make peace, now that their Israeli partner seems to be in a prime position to deliver a deal? Will there be progress on the Palestinian track? Potentially. Polls have consistently shown a majority of Israelis in favor of a peace deal with the Palestinians based on territorial swaps and solid security guarantees. It won’t be easy, and the American administration might push harder on Netanyahu now that he has the political depth to make such a deal.

Will Netanyahu change the Tal Law. Netanyahu will want to keep the ultra-Orthodox in the coalition if he can, just in case Mofaz or Lieberman or both play any dirty tricks on him. So he’ll have to find a watered-down Tal Law alternative, just strong enough to satisfy the secular middle class, and just weak enough not to break the china with the haredim. But even if the haredim bolt, Netanyahu will stay with a strong 78MKs.

Will we see changes in the system of government – this is the wet dream of many people, but this will be very hard to achieve, again because of the ultra-Orthodox parties, who will want to maintain the status quo. But even without Shas and UTJ, Netanyahu’s government will be strong enough to survive and make serious changes.

What about Iran? With or without a wide national unity government, Netanyahu would have made his own decision on whether to attack Iran alone, i.e. without American backing, or even American knowledge, with Mofaz or without Mofaz. But having Mofaz, a former chief of staff and minister of defense at his side, and with Ehud Barak on his other side, Netanyahu will feel more confident regarding the way forward regarding Iran. While it may make it easier now for the PM to strike Iran, he still has to wait out the P5+1 negotiations, currently scheduled for May 23 in Baghdad.

When I lived in Givatayim, I called the police hundreds of times to do something about the group of teens who would show up on the corner of my building every night in their cars, blare their music, drink, shout, and rev their engines until 4am. Finally the patrols started coming, the kids would disperse, but come back later at night. I carried on calling, and once I heard a cop tell one of the kids, “I’ve told you not to be here, I told you there was another place a few blocks away, why don’t you listen?” as if he knew the kid, and maybe he did. They went away for a few days and then came back. The cops never took their IDs, never took their names, never took away [their parents' cars]. And these kids never gave a damn about the people they were keeping up late at night. Education, enforcement, nada. I could never understand what was going through the minds of these kids. Didn’t they come from homes where people slept at night? Didn’t they have parents who go to work in the morning and need their sleep? Did these teens think that the surrounding buildings were vacant, that they could make as much noise as they wanted to because there was nobody around? No, I don’t think so. I think these kids just didn’t give a damn about anybody but themselves, because that’s how they were raised. Because their parents are the same. Because their parents are probably the kind of people who cut in front of you in line, cut in front of you on the roads, leave litter in national parks, and the millions of little things that people WHO HAVE NO CONSIDERATION FOR OTHERS do every day.

Police say they can’t be at all places at all times. So they should give the municipalities powers of arrest, give them a municipal guard, or civilian patrols. The residents know the neighborhoods better, let them do the job. But now the Beersheba mayor says the municipalities don’t have the manpower, or the mandate to do the job. The mayors want the responsibility and the authority. While the police and the municipalities pass the buck, and the government doesn’t decide how to act, people die.

I can’t tell you how many times I dreamt of walking down there to those kids, with my cricket bat in hand, cricket helmet on, and breaking their heads. But I never did, probably for the same reason that all of my neighbors never did either: because the kids who can so easily disregard the rights of others to peace and quiet can also so easily stab you in the chest and leave you for dead.

2. It’s incredible how many Israeli politicians raise their political financing in America from wealthy Jews, while at the same time doing so little to advance Israeli-Diaspora relations. They only talk to American Jews when they need money.

3. Palestinian administrative detention prisoners in Israel are on hunger strike. I wonder what Hamas would have done if Gilad Shalit had gone on hunger strike in their basement. Maybe that’s the order the IDF should give its troops in case of abduction: if you are kidnapped and find yourself a prisoner in a dungeon, don’t worry, go on hunger strike, the international pressure on the terrorists who took you will grow so intense that they will have to let you out. The Red Cross will cry bloody murder. Physicians for Human Rights will petition the UN. Yeah, right.

One constant we continue to hear from Israeli counterparts is how much they appreciate the Administration’s efforts and U.S.-Israeli cooperation at the UN and multilaterally, and how problematic it would be if the United States was not in these bodies to defend Israel.

Brimmer goes through an exhaustive list of things the Obama administration has done for Israel over the past several years, and if you look at the whole picture, you cannot but think that if it weren’t for the support of the US administration, Israel would be in deep, deep poo.

Worth a read. Quite remarkeable really just how dependent Israel is on the US for its diplomatic cover.

It’s hush-hush no more. Former spymasters are coming out of the woodworks to spook the current government into not attacking Iran.

First it was Meir Dagan, the “superhero” Spymaster from the Mossad, who, as soon as he left the service, launched a campaign against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak – over the issue of attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities. In his own words, Dagan says that a military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities is the “stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.” He also says that he has no faith in Netanyahu and Barak’s ability to lead the country into such a fateful decision.

And now comes Yuval Diskin, the former head of the internal spy service, the Shin Bet. In YouTube videos released over the weekend, the former security chief goes one up on even Dagan’s scathing criticism of the Israeli leadership.

In the videos, Diskin makes the following main points:

1. The current Israeli government has no interest in negotiating with the Palestinian Authority because PM Netanyahu knows that if he makes even the slightest compromise or move toward the Palestinians that his erstwhile stable coalition will implode.

2. Anything else the government says about this issue is rubbish. Don’t believe the spin coming from Jerusalem that there is no partner on the Palestinian side. It’s true, says Diskin, I’ve been there and I’ve seen this government up close.

3. The Palestinians have made their mistakes for sure, but their frustration with the Israeli government is justified as it is the latter that is not interested in real talks.

4. Don’t believe the spin that if Israel attacks Iran then the Iranians will not obtain nuclear weapons. All the experts, says Diskin, say that if Israel attacks Iran, the Mullahs will recover quickly [Meir Dagan says 1 to 2 years], will build nuclear weapons much quicker, and will have the legitimacy to do so [Dagan agrees with him on this and adds that the benefits of an attack do not outweigh the consequences].

5. To top it off: Diskin has absolutely no faith in the Netanyahu-Barak government.

So what’s going on here? Why have the country’s two top former spymasters, both who served in their positions for lengthy periods and were very well respected, turned on the government with such viciousness? Are Dagan and Diskin coordinating their efforts? PM Netanyahu has been building legitimacy for an Israeli strike on Iran for years, using the the threat of a second Holocaust as his ultimate justification for the Jews doing everything they need to do to stop their annihilation. Dagan and Diskin seem to be wanting to chip away at the legitimacy.

Both former spymasters left their government jobs in acrimonious circumstances. Dagan was refused an extension of his service by one year, and Diskin was passed-over as Dagan’s replacement for the job of Mossad director. They both have axes to grind with Netanyahu and Barak.

Dagan says he is absolutely entitled to his opinion, that he is not giving away any state secrets or operational details. Nobody is going to shut me up, Dagan says often. He’s concerned about the rush to war with Iran, and it seems that Diskin is too.

Dagan has also said that all of the country’s current top defense and security brass agree with him that now is not the time to attack Iran, that sanctions should be given their chance, and that if there really is no choice at the end of the road, then the Americans should be brought into the picture.

Neither Diskin nor Dagan are against the Israeli military option against Iran per se, they’re against it at this time.

Could it be that Diskin and Dagan are smelling elections in the air? They definitely seem to be trying to damage Netanyahu and Barak’s government. The question now is, how the government and its supporters will respond [so far they have attacked the messengers and not their message]. The only government official who has responded with a serious message is Cabinet Secretary Zvika Hauser, who said Sunday that Diskin’s comments seriously damage Israel’s efforts to forge and maintenance an international coalition of pressure on the Iranian regime to pull back from its military nuclear program. The more credible the threat of an Israeli military strike, the more the world will work to stop Iran before the Israelis do, the thinking goes – and this is a valid argument indeed. Diskin may be damaging Israel’s vital strategic interests, or he may not, depending on your views on this matter.

And the other question is what effect, if any, Dagan and Diskin’s attacks will have on the voting public and the elections. And finally, are there others who will come forward with similar statements? We might soon here from former IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, who probably has the most bile in his gut for Ehud Barak, more than anyone in the defense establishment, current and former. And what of Amos Yadlin, former head of IDF Military Intelligence?

In a country where security is held above everything, and security men – generals and spymasters – are held in the highest regard and are easily electable to high office, many Israelis could be influenced by Dagan and Diskin’s message that Bibi and Barak are not trustworthy. This is worrying for the ordinary citizen, who trusts his and her generals and spymasters, and now has to increasingly choose between them and their elected officials.

Watch Yuval Diskin

Watch Meir Dagan here

I will leave it to others to expound on Israel’s wonderful achievements over the past 64 years. There are plenty of examples, and many people are doing great things to shore up our morale and show our positive side. We indeed have a wonderful country, a miracle really, a dynamo which thrives on adversity and intensity. We are unique in the world, and I love my country very much. It is because of this love, and because I believe that my job as a journalist is to point out the cracks in the system, the things that need fixing, I will rather give you my analysis of some of the important things that I think you need to know if you are to make informed decisions regarding your life here. Furthermore, it is quite likely that we will have general elections here before next year’s 65th Independence Day, and if elections are to be held, and you plan on voting, which I hope you do, you should make an informed choice.

Our governments – and here I’m talking about all our past governments not just the current one – are unable to plan and execute long-term strategic national projects. About 70% of the government’s decisions are not carried through and implemented. There is a huge amount of populist legislation, tons of bureaucracy, foot-dragging, empty promises, lack of accountability, lack of oversight, nepotism and corruption. Year after year, our State Comptroller publishes reports showing vast amounts of incompetence, corruption and waste; and worst of all, non-implementation of previous reports. We, the citizens of Israel, continue to not hold our authorities responsible. This is our political culture; these are the men and women who staff our halls of power. We put them there, and we must demand more of them. As you look at the political parties on offer for the next elections, look for parties and politicians who have a record of getting things done, of honest, hard legislative work, and stay away from politicians who are just full of hot air.

We currently have 28 ministers and 11 deputy ministers, and all of them also serve in the Knesset, so their time and energies are split between running their ministries, servicing the needs of their political parties, and seeing to their own reelection possibilities. This is just not the right way to run a country.

There is a huge grey market, and lots of people are not paying taxes. A massive amount of money goes to waste every day because of our unwieldy and non-transparent bureaucracy and because our Tax Authority is understaffed and itself hobbled by suspicions of corruption.

It is crystal clear that we need to change the system of government, to make government more accountable to the voters, to break the power of small sectoral parties, and to stabilize our governments so that they can rule for at least 4 years and carry out long-term projects of national importance. We cannot continue to swap governments every 2 to 3 years. Nothing of consequence gets done.

We cannot continue to allow the ultra-Orthodox parties to hold their own people hostage to backwardness, poverty, and a life of blind servitude to hundred year old self-styled ‘geniuses’, while also holding the secular middle class hostage to their growing material demands, and bleeding it dry. 64 years after the establishment of the state, every working person in this country is supporting himself/ herself, as well as another person. If the ultra-Orthodox do not enter the workforce, and soon, this country’s middle class will collapse under the strain. Israel’s economy can’t support the growing ratio of work force versus dependents. The working-aged population is shrinking while the number of dependents (people under 15 and over 65 is growing) grows. The numbers don’t add up, it cannot work any other way. It cannot be that a young, secular, married couple, who both work full-time jobs, and who both served in the army, cannot afford to buy even a modest home in this country, while a young, haredi couple, who did not serve in the army nor perform national service, and who do not work, get subsidized housing in which to raise a family. There is no justice in this. I respect the Haredi way of life, but I do not see a contradiction with work, national service, and Torah study.

We need equality of service for all Israelis. Equal burden, equal rights. When Ben Gurion made an agreement with the Haredim that instead of serving in the army they would set up yeshivas and reconstitute the Torah study that was nearly wiped out in the Holocaust, he agreed to some 450 of them. Now in 2012 there are some 66,000 young ultra-Orthodox men who do not serve and do not work. This is not equal burden. They get free education while secular students who serve in the army have to pay for university tuition. There is no justice in this. Why are we letting this continue? Only in Israel do Haredi men not work. Where I grew up in Johannesburg, haredi men work and learn. In America, they work and learn. All over the world Haredi men work and learn. Just here they don’t. The secular majority and the Haredi minority must learn to coexist in this country while respecting each other’s ways, in the knowledge that we all have to pitch in and do our part. Nobody is outside the tent.

The decision of ‘who is a Jew’ is determined by religious political parties who, together with our acquiescence to the situation, push away from the Jewish nation large groups of people who do not ascribe to the Orthodox worldview. An increasing number of Israelis, religious, traditional, and secular, are sick and tired of the rabbinates and their overbearing mandates and humiliations. As things stand now, any third-rate, self-styled ‘gaon’ rabbi in any city can rule whatever he wants – who is a Jew and who is not, who can get married and who cannot [like the chief rabbi of Ashkelon who ruled that only circumcised men can register for marriage], where women can sit on a bus and where they cannot, which buses can drive on which roads, which planes can fly on which days, and so on and so forth. City rabbis can also retroactively annul conversions performed by other rabbis in other cities – creating absolute anarchy, chaos, and much pain for ordinary people. In effect, much of this country’s day-to-day life – marriage, divorce, birth, death, food, cultural events, and public transportation – are determined by religious authorities. Fearful of these religious authorities, public companies remove women from their advertising. More and more Israelis are looking for alternatives to the rabbinates. It is time we opened Judaism up. People should be allowed to practice their faith as they see fit. The government can and should strengthen Jewish education, Jewish culture, Jewish history, and Jewish traditions, but it should do so in an inclusive way. And by doing this, we can liberate Judaism from its increasingly political overtones.

We still don’t have defined borders, we still don’t have a constitution, and we still cannot separate religion from state. We like to call ourselves a modern Western democracy, but on these fundamental issues, we are far from it.

The greatest threat to Israel, in my opinion, is that within the country there are several groups who are working to change the very essence and character of the state. These are no longer extremist, fringe groups. They are part of the political system. There are religious groups that want to turn Israel into a Halachic state, a country ruled by religious edicts, rabbis and the Torah. This would put us on the same footing as Iran. On the extreme right there are groups who say they want to establish the Kingdom of Judea in Judea and Samaria. On the extreme left there are groups who want to turn Israel into a binational state. In other words, not a Jewish state, not an Israeli state, but a state of all its people [including the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank]. Another group does not identify with the state at all, some of them are Arabs and some of them are Jews, and they would prefer this state falls. Again, these are not extremist groups on the outer edges of Israeli society. These are, rather, organized groups within the political system, with Knesset representation, some of whom are in the current governing coalition. And this is our greatest challenge: how do we, as a divided nation surrounded by hostile neighbors, bridge these enormous gaps in the world-views of the groups that make up our population? How do we settle on a majority, moderate view of Zionism without trampling on the rights of the minorities? How do we exist as a democratic state, while also trying to be a Jewish state? It is this vision, after all, that a majority of Israelis want to see here. All these tensions and fissures are pulling against each other daily; increasingly bursting out in violence and vitriol; and it seems that even now, 64 years after the establishment of the state, we are no closer to a resolution. The fissures within our society are threatening to pull us apart. The tone of our debate with one another has become shrill. Haredim call our policemen Nazis. Seculars call Haredim leeches. Settlers call Arab-Israelis traitors. Boycotts are flying left and right. We need to tone down, and we need to appoint leaders who are inclusive, not populist rabble-rousers.

We face extreme challenges from outside our borders. The ‘Arab Spring’ has unleashed volatile forces all around us; we are nowhere nearer a peace agreement with an increasingly recalcitrant, reticent, and bombastic Palestinian leadership; Iran is hell-bent on producing nuclear weapons; our peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan are teetering; our relationship with our American and European allies is strained; our legitimate right to exist and defend ourselves is being challenged on university campuses, across the world’s media, by trade unions, and even the German literati; and we are on the cusp of serious global financial downturn whose consequences on our economy could be severe.

I believe that it is in our power to successfully navigate all of these external challenges, but only if we pull together, tone down our harshness towards each other, treat each other with more consideration and respect. We must demand equality in our society and accountability from our governments. If we do, we’ll be OK.

Happy Independence Day.

Read “You Know You’re an Israeli When..”

What does the future hold for the Israel-Egypt relationship? Will Egypt become increasingly, openly hostile? Will the Camp David Peace Accords between the two neighbors hold? Will Egypt provide diplomatic and security cover for Hamas in Gaza? How will the central government in Cairo, whoever it turns out to be, handle the growing lawlessness of the Sinai Peninsula?

These are just some of the important questions people are asking themselves regarding the important relationship between Israel and Egypt since the overthrow of the Mubarak regime. They are coming up again today as the Egyptian national gas company unilaterally terminated its contract with Israel.

The first, most pressing issue is the constant stream of terror from the Sinai, and its strategic implications for both countries. Sinai is three times the size of Israel. It is a vast badlands that is becoming a serious strategic headache for Israel. The central government in Cairo has lost control of the territory, which is now rife with armed Bedouin groups and Islamic fundamentalist cells. The two are mixing and influencing each other for the first time, and the result is noxious. The Bedouins have traditionally not been Islamic fundamentalists, and that could be changing. Israeli military intelligence has revealed that the IDF has thwarted about 10 terror plots being hatched in the Sinai. That’s a lot. Israel will find it increasingly difficult not to enter the Sinai in force and take care of the problem. But if Cairo doesn’t take care of the problem, we might have to. And that could lead to the dreaded confrontation between Israel and Egypt. This might even be what the various terror groups in Gaza and the Sinai are aiming for.

The peace treaty with Israel will not likely be abrogated, but the border will not be quiet. There are those who believe that it is inevitable that the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists take control over all Egypt. I wouldn’t rush into this conclusion. The Egyptian military has in its hands all of the powers of the Presidency, and the Parliament is not in control of the country yet. One of the main bones of contention now in Egypt between the military and the Islamists is over who will write the country’s new constitution. So far, the military has not allowed the Parliament to determine the nature of the new constitution, and it is unlikely that they will allow this in the future. In the impossible economic and diplomatic situation that Egypt finds itself in today, the military cannot allow the Islamists to create the conditions for an Islamic state governed by Sharia Law, devoid of tourism, development, international investment, and antagonistic to the West.

Egypt is on the brink of economic meltdown: tourism has taken a huge hit and their oil reserves are spent. There is a reduction in the number of ships passing through the Suez Canal because of piracy and the attendant rise in insurance costs, and in addition, the canal is still not able to support the passage of very large tankers. Add to this the recent uptick in the demands of African nations to change the Nile Waters Agreement status quo, especially South Sudan, which is demanding a redistribution of water. According to Reuters, the Egyptian government has spent more than $20 billion in foreign reserves to prop up the country’s currency since last year’s uprising. Reserves fell by another $600 million in March to $15.12 billion, equivalent to less than three months of imports.

Internal security issues, and political instability are also a challenge for the authorities. Add all of this together, and you get a picture of a country in trouble, with the ruling military council wanting desperately not to allow a slide into the abyss. Field Marshal Tantawi, the de facto ruler of Egypt, and his mates get the picture. They are not inclined to let the Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood take total control of Egypt, and they are not inclined to let Egypt slide into war with Israel. They may be inclined to play into the Egyptian street’s hatred of Israel, just a little bit, to gain some brownie points ahead of some tough economic and political decisions, and that’s what we may be seeing with regard to the gas deal stoppage. A change in the constitution, a halt to US military and financial aid, this is too high a price for the Egyptian military. There are enough actors in Egypt who want to avoid a total Islamist takeover.