The Jewish Voice
PAGE 44
OCTOBER 2, 2009
Jack Hidary's Proposal Became "Cash for Clunkers":...Continued from page 9 reduced emissions - a huge metropolis just beginning to replace old, wasteful technologies ... like the overhead lights in the Sheraton conference room.” Under which he had just spoken. Jack Hidary, is chairman of SmartTransportation.org, a nonprofit coalition of organizations dedicated to promoting clean technology in the transportation sector across the United States. This is only one of the multiple entrepreneurial/social engineering concept businesses he has created in a multifaceted career of “serial entrepreneurship.” Bracken Hendricks, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, said American consumers had essentially changed how they thought about purchasing cars, considering purchase to be a “more strategic investment
decision that considers the cost of maintenance and savings from fuel efficiency.” He discussed additional fuel reduction ideas such as ridesharing and eventually getting more personal cars off the road. Background: Jack D. Hidary, after studying philosophy and neuroscience at Columbia University, became a very successful entrepreneur in the finance and technology sectors, and later cofounded SmartTransportation.org, a nationwide organization dedicated to encouraging clean technology in the transportation sector, which has, among other achievements, led a coalition to establish thousands of hybrid taxis in New York and other cities. He also currently serves on the advisory board to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and is board chair of
AmericansforCleanEnergy.org. At 41, Jack Hidary already has a wide range of career successes. He has founded, bought and sold multiple companies in many areas of energy and advanced communications. In April 2009, the Hidary Group bought the majority interest in Primary Insight – www.primaryinsight.com –which “covers sectors ranging from energy and renewables to technology, media, telecom and emerging markets.” He is a co-founder of Vista Research (subsequently sold to the Standard & Poor's division of McGraw-Hill. Almost 15 years ago, in 1995, he co-founded and was President and CEO of EarthWeb/Dice, noted as the third fastest growing IT Company. It currently trades on the NYSE under ticker DHX. Hidary’s involvement in issues of energy
and transportation are extensive. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Clinton Global Initiative, and chairman and co-founder of the Freedom Prize Foundation (www.freedomprize.org). The Freedom Prizes were mandated by Congress in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (Title X: 1008). Hidary studied philosophy and neuroscience at Columbia University. He received a fellowship to conduct research using positron emission tomography (PET) and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to study brain and disease states. He grew up in Brooklyn where his family is active in many charitable causes including UJA. His family is very active in programing and charitable work in the Sephardic community.
20 Terrorist’s Released for Sign of Life from Gilad Schalit...Continued from page 4 attempted murder and carrying a knife with intent to harm. • Jihad abu-Turki – attempted murder and carrying a knife with intent to harm • Bara'ah Malki – attempted murder and carrying a knife with intent to harm • Bukhari Muhammad Saleh Layla – attempted murder
• Fatema Yunis Azzeq – indicted for illegal military training, carrying a firearm, attempted murder. • Neveen Khalil Abdallah Daka – attempted murder • Kifah Bahash – assault on a military official • Linan Yussef Mussa Hanani Abu
Gholma carrying a firearm Shereen Muhammad Khalil Hassan attempted murder • Sana Hajajre Salah – attempted murder and carrying a knife with intent to harm • Manal Ziad Muhammad Raja Saba’nah – attempted murder • Hamdan Abd Jiyad Zuhur – attempted murder
• Baid Ahmed Yusuf Hiyam – affiliation with an illegal organization • Nahada Farhat da'areh, indicted for assault on a military official, • Nagua Abdelgani - indicted for affiliation with an illegal organization.
ty, but simultaneously will not increase the size of the federal def icit or be funded with tax hikes - and this is impossible. Obama's health care plan will fail either to pass into law, or if it becomes law, it will fail to live up to his promises. Obama's failures in both foreign and domestic policy have weakened him politically. His response to this newfound weakness has been to put himself into the public eye seemingly around the clock. Apparently the thinking behind the move is that while Obama's policies are unpopular, Obama's personal popularity remains high, so if he personalizes his policies, it will become more diff icult for his opponents to argue against them. But alasm this policy too has failed. The more Obama exposes himself, the less he is able to leverage his personal celebrity into political power. The question for the US's spurned allies in general -- and for Israel in particular — is whether we are better off with a politically strong Obama or a politically weak Obama. Given that the general thrust of his foreign policy is detrimental to our interests, America's allies are best served by a weak Obama. Already this week Israel benef itted from his weakness. It was Obama's weakness that dictated his need to stage a photo-op with Netanyahu and Abbas at the UN. And it was this need — to be seen as doing something productive —
that outweighed Obama's desire to put the screws on Israel by preconditioning talks with a freeze on Jewish construction. So Obama was forced to relent at least temporarily and Netanyahu won his f irst round against Obama. During a television interview this week Senator John McCain was asked for his opinion of Brzezinski's recommendation that the US shoot down IAF jets en route to Iran in a hypothetical Israeli airstrike against Iran's nuclear installations. He responded with derisive laughter. And indeed, the notion that the US would go to war against Israel to protect Iran's nuclear installations is laughably absurd. The weaker Obama becomes politically, the more readily Democrats and liberal reporters alike will acknowledge that attacking US allies while scraping and bowing before US foes is a ridiculous strategy for foreign affairs. Certainly no self-proclaimed realist can defend a policy based on denuding the US of its power and forsaking a USbased international system for one dictated by its foes. It is true that a weakened Obama will seek to win cheap points by putting the squeeze on Israel. But it is also true that the weaker Obama becomes, the less capable he will be of carrying through on his bullying threats against Israel and against fellow democracies around the world.
An Enfeebled Obama...Continued from page 21 general. Since Obama took off ice, he has been abandoning one US ally after another while seeking to curry favor with one US adversary after another. At every turn, America's allies - from Israel to Honduras, to Columbia, South Korea, and Japan to Poland and the Czech Republic - have reacted with disbelief and horror to his treachery. And at every turn, America's adversaries from Iran to Venezuela to North Korea and Russia - have responded with derision and contempt to his seemingly obsessive attempts to appease them. The horror Obama has instilled in America's friends and the contempt he has evoked from its enemies have not caused him to change course. The fact that his policies throughout the world have already failed to bring a change in the so-called international community's treatment of the US has not led him to reconsider those policies. As many Western Europeans have begun to openly acknowledge, the man they once likened to the messiah is nothing but a politician — and a weak, bungling one at that. Even Britain's Economist is laughing at him. But Obama is unmoved by any of this, and as his speech at the UN General Assembly made clear, he is moving full speed ahead in his plans to subordinate US foreign policy to the UN. Obama's stubborn insistence on advancing his feckless foreign policy in
the face of its already apparent colossal failure is of a piece with his unswerving commitment to his domestic agenda in spite of its apparent colossal failure. Obama's economic stimulus package failed to stimulate the US economy and increased the US's economic def icit to heights undreamed of by his predecessors. His nationalization of major US corporations like General Motors, his cash-for-clunkers program to stimulate the US auto industry and his massive encroachments on the banking and f inancial industries have done nothing to increase economic growth in the US and indeed, unemployment has reached generational highs. And yet, rather than reconsider his belief in vastly expanding the size of the federal government's control over the private sector, Obama has insistently pushed for further governmental control over the US economy - most notably in his drive to transform the US health care industry. Both Obama's supporters and his opponents have claimed that his presidency may well stand or fall on his ability to pass a health care reform law in the coming months. But the fact of the matter is that if he succeeds in passing such a law, his success will be a Pyrrhic victory because Obama has promised that his plan will do the impossible, and therefore it will unquestionably fail. Obama has promised that the health care plan he supports will increase access to health services and improve their quali-