Op-Ed Columnist - Fayyad's Road to Palestine - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Columnist - Fayyad's Road to Palestine - NYTimes.com
This op-ed is a perfect example of the distortions of the left against Israel.
As usual, Mr. Cohen manages to adopt someone else's narrative and demonize Israel at the same time, without a word on how Israel (the dreaded Netanyahu, no less) has helped Fayyad be successful, such as removing scores of road blocks, facilitating the arming and training of his security forces, loosening economic limitations on business with the Palestinians by Israel, the Palestinians' biggest market, and overall encouraging Israeli cooperation in the development of the Palestinians' economy. Don't take my word for this, google Tony Blair, the Quartet's economic representative to the Paelstinians.

And by the way, Cohen, stop perpetuating the fiction of Israel's massive taking of West Bank land, implying the Palestinians are limited to small corners of the West Bank. Look at the map -- it is simply not true. Yes road blocks still exist, though they have been drastically scaled back, and yes, the security fence does still exist, but for the most part it follows the pre-1967 line, and no more than several percent of Palestinian territory are on the Israeli side of the fence. Then again, Palestinian Arabs are allowed to live in relative peace in Israel proper, while Palestinian territory must remain eternally Judenrein by right -- another of the many double standards applied by Cohen and his fellow travellers towards the Jewish state.

With respect to proactive actions to defend Israel's security, Israels have learned the hard way from a myriad of brutal Palestinian attacks against Israeli civilians that they must remain vigilant, even more so when the PA, led by Fayyad, continues to demonize Israelis and Jews to its people, starting with vicious anti-Semitic teachings at the elementary school level, and do nothing to prepare their people to accept the concept of living side by side with a Jewish Israeli nation. Naming squares, streets and schools after terrorist murderers of civilians does not accomplish this task. It is different to prepare your people for independence, than to prepare it to live peacefully alongside its enemy, and Cohen misses this distinction. One would think that Cohen would at least mention this critical factor in really achieving peace, but he doesn't, showing that painting his political narrative is his be all and end all.

The Israelis have been far from perfect, but these simplistic one sided opinion pieces do nothing to elucidate the issues.

Senators vs. Goldman Sachs - WSJ.com

Senators vs. Goldman Sachs - WSJ.com: "Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri veered closer to the truth when she described Goldman's facilitation of trading in mortgage-related instruments as 'pure gambling' and told the executives: 'and you are the house.'

This was a valuable contribution. It reminded spectators that the transactions getting all of the attention—synthetic collateralized debt obligations (CDOs)—did not contain any mortgages. These were side bets. One could argue, as an astute reader did in a recent letter to the Editor, that investors like Mr. Paulson may even have helped reduce the impact of the housing crisis because they allowed stupid housing bulls to make their bets without actually creating any more bad loans.

If yesterday's hearing had any value, it was the recognition, even by the Senate inquisitors, of the real root causes of the crisis: too many bad mortgage loans with poor underwriting, and too many pools of these bad loans carrying a triple-A rating. Exploring the creation of junk loans should lead Senate investigators to the same place where most of the taxpayer losses are occurring—Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Former Fannie Mae Chief Credit Officer Edward Pinto calculates that as of June 2008, the toxic twins and other government entities were responsible for more than $2.7 trillion in subprime and Alt-A mortgage exposure. Goldman's mortgage business was small potatoes in comparison; in fact this figure is three times Goldman's entire balance sheet.

The Senate's pending financial-regulation bill has no reform of Fannie and Freddie. Fresh off their meeting yesterday with the marketplace, the committee members might start on the road to useful reform by insisting on a rewrite."

Op-Ed Contributor - Meet the Real Villain of the Financial Crisis. - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Contributor - Meet the Real Villain of the Financial Crisis. - NYTimes.com: "Yet, in the end, it comes down to this: Goldman Sachs, ACA Capital, IKB Deutsche Industriebank and even the rating agencies never had any duty to protect us from their greed. There was one entity that did — our government.

But it was the purported regulators, including the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision, that used their power not to protect, but rather to prevent predatory lending laws. The Federal Reserve, which could have cracked down on lending practices at any time, did next to nothing, thereby putting us at risk as both consumers and taxpayers. All of these regulators, along with the S.E.C., failed to look at the bad loans that were moving through the nation’s banking system, even though there were plentiful warnings about them.

More important, it was Congress that sat by idly as consumer advocates warned that people were getting loans they’d never be able to pay back. It was Congress that refused to regulate derivatives, despite ample evidence dating back to 1994 of the dangers they posed. It was Congress that repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated investment and commercial banking, yet failed to update the fraying regulatory system.

It was Congress that spread the politically convenient gospel of home ownership, despite data and testimony showing that much of what was going on had little to do with putting people in homes. And it’s Congress that has been either unwilling or unable to put in place rules that have a shot at making things better. The financial crisis began almost three years ago and it’s still not clear if we’ll have meaningful new legislation. In fact, Senate Republicans on Monday voted to block floor debate on the latest attempt at a reform bill.

Come to think about it, shouldn’t Congress have its turn on the hot seat as well? Seeing Goldman executives get their comeuppance may make us all feel better in the short term. But today’s spectacle shouldn’t provide our government with a convenient way to deflect the blame it so richly deserves."

Burgeoning Indian-Israeli Alliance is the counter to the Islamization of Turkey

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security

Watchdog: BBC biased against Israel

Watchdog: BBC biased against Israel