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Opinion
Reece Terry, publisher
Mark Boehler, editor
4A • Wednesday, January 4, 2017
Corinth, Miss.
Obama to Israel: Drop dead A headline that would become famous appeared in the New York Daily News in October 1975 after then-President Gerald Ford denied federal assistance to spare the city from bankruptcy. It read: “Ford to Cal City: Drop Dead.” President Obama has told Thomas Israel much the same. By inColumnist structing his U.N. ambassador not to veto a resolution condemning Israel for building so-called settlements on disputed land, the president has aided and comforted that nation’s enemies. The U.S. abstention will inevitably invite stepped-up attacks against Israelis, as well as calls for more boycotts by the European Union, whose ugly anti-Semitic past and present is well documented. In the Middle East, this symbolic act will send a strong message to Israel’s enemies. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the resolution a “shameful ambush” and “distorted,” noting, “It states that the Jewish quarter and Western Wall (in Jerusalem) are occupied, which is absurd.” Netanyahu, who has had a tense relationship with President Obama, suggested he expects better relations between the U.S. and Israel after Donald Trump becomes president. Netanyahu likes to cite history to show how the Jews were in the land long before Arab peoples showed up and started rewriting the past to the point that it belongs in the fiction section of bookstores. What makes anyone think that what Israel does, or does not do, has any effect on the behavior and declared religious mandate of those dedicated to eliminating the country and killing and/or expelling every Jew from it? Did unilaterally relinquishing Gaza bring Israel closer to peace? It did not. Instead, it invited Hamas to use the region as a launching pad for terrorist attacks. It is the same with agreements between Palestinian and Israeli leaders. Israel released terrorist prisoners and got more terror. Israel gave up land and got more terror. Only the deliberately blind and deaf who refuse to believe the stated and repeated goals of Palestinian leadership and much of the Arab world to eliminate Israel still think that the key to peace and stability lies solely with that country. What kind of state would the Palestinians establish? Their leaders have already said it would be one without Jews. Netanyahu noted that in any other scenario this would be seen as “ethnic cleansing,” but because much of the world hates Jews and is embarrassed by Israel and its prosperity, it applies a different standard to the Palestinians. The late Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin once told me that while Israel needs friends, it could never fully trust any nation for its security. The Obama administration’s refusal to veto the U.N. resolution is more proof he was right. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) says he will ask Congress to stop sending money to the U.N. until the resolution is repealed. His proposal is gaining support among some pro-Israel Democrats. Netanyahu has announced the termination of programs and aid to nations that voted in favor of the resolution and recalled some of his country’s ambassadors from those states. At a time when Jews the world over are celebrating Hanukkah and the miracle of lights, Barack Obama has attempted to turn out the light on the Jewish state. Israel will survive, because it has survived worse than a U.N. resolution, but the action will only encourage her enemies. The prophet Isaiah wrote: “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem” (Isaiah 40:2). The Psalmist said: “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:6). In his final insult to Israel, President Obama has spoken harshly and ensured there will be more war, not peace. The Nobel committee should demand he return his prematurely awarded Peace Prize.
Prayer for today Lord God, help me to see my mistakes, and bring me to the realization of my life. Grant that I may no longer use the time that thou gavest me to learn in, heedlessly, but to give it my best thought and care. Amen.
A verse to share Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. —Colossians 3:9-10
Can Trump and Putin avert Cold War II? In retaliation for the hacking of John Podesta and the DNC, Barack Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats and ordered closure of their country houses on Long Island and Maryland’s Eastern shore. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that 35 U.S. diplomats would be expelled. But Vladimir Putin stepped in, declined to retaliate at all, and invited the U.S. diplomats in Moscow and their children to the Christmas and New Year’s party at the Kremlin. “A soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger,” reads Proverbs 15:1. “Great move,” tweeted Presidentelect Trump, “I always knew he was very smart!” Among our Russophobes, one can almost hear the gnashing of teeth. Clearly, Putin believes the Trump presidency offers Russia the prospect of a better relationship with the United States. He appears to want this, and most Americans seem to want the same. After all, Hillary Clinton, who accused Trump of being “Putin’s puppet,” lost. Is then a Cold War II between Russia and the U.S. avoidable? That question raises several others. Who is more responsible
for both great powers having reached this level of animosity and acrimony, Pat 25 years Buchanan after Ronald Reagan Columnist walked armin-arm with Mikhail Gorbachev through Red Square? And what are the causes of the emerging Cold War II? Comes the retort: Putin has put nuclear-capable missiles in the Kaliningrad enclave between Poland and Lithuania. True, but who began this escalation? George W. Bush was the one who trashed Richard Nixon’s ABM Treaty and Obama put anti-missile missiles in Poland. After invading Iraq, George W. Bush moved NATO into the Baltic States in violation of a commitment given to Gorbachev by his father to not move NATO into Eastern Europe if the Red Army withdrew. Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, says John McCain. Russia did, after Georgia invaded its breakaway province of South Ossetia and killed Russian peacekeepers. Putin threw the Georgians out, occupied part of Georgia, and then
withdrew. Russia, it is said, has supported Syria’s Bashar Assad, bombed U.S.-backed rebels and participated in the Aleppo slaughter. But who started this horrific civil war in Syria? Was it not our Gulf allies, Turkey, and ourselves by backing an insurgency against a regime that had been Russia’s ally for decades and hosts Russia’s only naval base in the Mediterranean? Did we not exercise the same right of assisting a beleaguered ally when we sent 500,000 troops to aid South Vietnam against a Viet Cong insurgency supported by Hanoi, Beijing and Moscow? That’s what allies do. The unanswered question: Why did we support the overthrow of Assad when the likely successor regime would have been Islamist and murderously hostile toward Syria’s Christians? Russia, we are told, committed aggression against Ukraine by invading Crimea. But Russia did not invade Crimea. To secure their Black Sea naval base, Russia executed a bloodless coup, but only after the U.S. backed the overthrow of the pro-Russian elected government in Kiev.
Has Putin no right to be concerned about his lost countrymen? Unlike America’s elites, Putin is an ethnonationalist in a time when tribalism is shoving aside transnationalism as the force of the future. In the new struggle we are in, the ethnonational state seems ascendant over the multicultural, multiethnic, multiracial, multilingual “universal nation” whose avatar is Barack Obama. Putin does not seek to destroy or conquer us or Europe. He wants Russia, and her interests, and her rights as a great power to be respected. He is not mucking around in our front yard; we are in his. The worst mistake President Trump could make would be to let the Russophobes grab the wheel and steer us into another Cold War that could be as costly as the first, and might not end as peacefully. Reagan’s outstretched hand to Gorbachev worked. Trump has nothing to lose by extending his to Vladimir Putin, and much perhaps to win. Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of the new book “The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose From Defeat to Create the New Majority.”
Schools, slush funds could be top topics this session OXFORD — It will be a short session, only 90 days. Mississippi lawmakers will be back home while the azaleas are still in bloom, at least in some parts of the state. What will make headlines? No one ever really knows for sure, but K-12 education is a safe bet. House Speaker Philip Gunn, R-Clinton, says he wants to talk about campaign finance reform a bit more, too. Three months ago, legislative leaders signed a contract with EdBuild, a new consulting firm that studies school funding methodologies. The gist is that the leadership wants to explore alternatives to the Mississippi Adequate Education Program’s formula, set into law 20 years ago and provided with full funding only twice. The formula was adopted in a year when the U.S. Department of Justice was threatening to sue Mississippi, as it had other states, for not equalizing funding between “rich” districts and “poor” districts. The formula does that. No suit was filed. Formulas aside, K-12 education has steadily received more and more millions
Reece Terry
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while, in the big picture, lawmakers and the public have been less and less satisfied Charlie with results. Mitchell Stories such as the Columnist F-rated Jackson Public Schools providing a $5,000 bonus to its superintendent and another $195,000 when he resigned last year don’t exactly build confidence that all is on the up and up. There are great public schools in Mississippi, serving their mission against all odds. And there are some that are awful. The education lobby believes the role of EdBuild will be to serve as the experts upon whose advice charter schools will be expanded. The EdBuild chief says that’s not so, but the Legislature’s desire to contract-out education is no secret. Many districts outsource pupil transportation and food services, so why not the whole ball game? Here’s why: The same “quality” factors infest the charter school world as the public school world. Some
charter schools fit the ideal: Dedicated, attentive, involved parents providing a nurturing learning environment. Some are corporate cash mills where profit maximization is Job 1 (and only). Wise lawmakers will not jump on the bandwagon without copious research and incorporating safeguards as wells as best practices that have proven effective elsewhere. During the 2016 session the state Senate passed some rules on how lawmakers handle and report campaign funds that aligned with federal rules. A somewhat shameful gutting followed in the House. Speaker Gunn says the topic will be revisited. In truth, Mississippi’s system can be used by the dishonest to launder bribes. Most ludicrous is that a candidate may obtain a credit card in the campaign’s name, use that card for any expense — prom dress for a child, birthday present for the spouse, vacation in Aruba — then report the total as “Visa bill.” Itemization is not required, so no one can know how or where, exactly, donated funds were spent.
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Lawmakers may also build up their campaign treasury with donations and keep the money when leaving office. Although the IRS would consider a cash-out as taxable income, a corrupt lawmaker could likely escape conviction by selling votes and using the campaign bank account to store the loot as a retirement fund. Gunn told The ClarionLedger he wants both provisions changed. He’s to be commended for going on record supporting moves to, perhaps, add public trust in those who serve. The push for campaign finance reform died in the House last year. (There was a voice vote on the floor, but no request that individual votes be recorded.) And it could again, despite what the leadership says should happen. But it’s a new year. New start. Hope springs eternal that legislators, increasingly insistent that schools and school teachers be accountable, will choose to take a sip from that cup as well. Charlie Mitchell is a Mississippi journalist. Write to him at cmitchell43@yahoo. com.
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