Rewarding Moments: Prizeworthy vs. Praiseworthy

by Michael Widlanski

http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/06/26/rewarding-moments-prizeworthy-vs-praiseworthy/

Awards and prizes appear to be the ultimate credential, from the Oscar to the Grammy. But in complex matters—foreign policy, national security, terrorism—the verdict of elite committees is very undependable.

Over the last decade, the sheen has worn off two of the most prestigious awards—the Nobel Peace Prize and the Pulitzer Prize in Journalism.

Unlike the esteemed Nobel Prizes in literature and sciences from the Royal Swedish Academy, the “Nobel Peace Prize” is granted by a five-member panel named by Norway’s parliament, sometimes carrying the fishy aroma of Norway’s politics.

Often, its decisions reek like Norwegian salmon gone bad: giving President Jimmy Carter a prize for  meeting the peace-loving terrorists of Hamas and the tyrants of North Korea. Had Shakespeare been alive in 2002, he might have re-written the famous line in Hamlet to read: “something is rotten in the state of Norway.”

When Norway chose Obama for the Peace Prize even before he began his job as President of the United States, it reflected Norwegian politics—and its wishful thinking in world affairs, not any achievements on Obama’s part. The prize signaled Norway’s critique of America’s customary leadership role, while backing Obama’s multilateral and “lead-from-behind” attitude.

Norwegians probably now frown about stories of President Obama personally picking terrorists to kill by remote-control devices, probably dismayed hearing him brag how he determined, he directed, and he virtually pulled the trigger to kill Osama Bin-Laden. Many Americans disagree. They think it was one of Obama’s best decisions, though hardly an original idea of Obama’s.

The first U.S. president to win a Nobel (in 1906) was  the first president to venture abroad while in office—Theodore Roosevelt. TR helped end of the Russo-Japanese War. Obama has done nothing even remotely resembling such a peace-making effort. Rather, he assumed the Russians wanted a “re-start” worldwide—peace in Europe and Asia—only now learning that they preferred war in Georgia and supported tyrants in Iran and Syria. Obama’s negotiating skills also failed as he overstepped in Israeli-Palestinian talks, setting them back 20 years.

When Norway’s panel gave a Peace Prize to Al Gore for promoting his doctrine of man-made global warming, critics had trouble finding the link between temperature and planetary peace, as well as the scientific and policy justifications of the award. After all, there are some doubts whether global temperatures have risen in the last 15 years, and there are serious doubts about the role of man in possible climate change.

Several studies by Europe’s science conglomerate CERN indicate that solar storms and sunspot activity are far more important than man in global climate changes.

Unless you are a scientist or a global-warming junkie, you might not know this, because the news media are often shallow and predictable in these matters, and they are often similarly superficial about deciding the most cherished award in journalism: the Pulitzer Prize.

In the last six years, at least three Pulitzer Prizes were awarded to reporters or news media who attacked the U.S.-led war on Arab-Islamic terror: The Associated Press won this year for assailing the New York Police Department’s plans to monitor suspicious Muslim activities in and around New York—a place where such activities have already led to many attacks and thousands of lost lives. Meanwhile, The New York Times won once—in 2008—for outing U.S. interrogation efforts against terrorists, and it won again in 2006 for disclosing a U.S. monitoring of terrorists’ phone calls and ways to track suspicious money transfers in the banking system.

Did these news stories exhibit real investigatory excellence and enterprise or were they simply—like the Nobel Peace prizes to Carter, Gore and Obama—evidence of a certain political predilection?

Can we imagine the 1945 Pulitzer Prize panel giving an award to a newspaper that disclosed Allied preparations for D-Day, or a 1946 Pulitzer jury bestowing an award that revealed the secrets of America’s nuclear bomb program before Harry Truman decided he was going to bomb Hiroshima and shock the Japanese into surrender?

These  awards and their panels have become little more than labels. Like the terms “moderate,” “extremist,” “conservative” and “liberal,” the terms “Pulitzer-prize-winning” and “Nobel-Prize-winning” tell us more about those labeling and awarding than those being labeled.
To understand what’s for real under the label or the prize, we need to do some investigating: to investigate the motives of those attaching the label or bestowing the award.

When President Barack Obama recently gave the U.S. Medal of Freedom to Israeli President Shimon Peres, it was a good way for Obama to make a gesture to U.S. Jews and other supporters of Israel in an election year. But does the award itself prove that Peres succeeded in winning freedom or peace?
After all, Peres’s biggest achievement is authoring the PLO-Israeli pacts known as “The Oslo Accords” of 1993. They were a big hit in Norway, and Peres won a Nobel Peace prize for his part. Yet, the treaties led to the most blood-soaked decade in Israel’s history as a state. Peres and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin trusted the good will of Yasser Arafat and his PLO.

Peres tried to block the 1981 Israeli attack on Saddam Hussein’s atomic reactor that ended Iraq’s nuclear weapons program. By giving Peres a medal, Obama shows he likes “peacemakers” who avoid attacking dictators’ nuclear reactors (Attention: Iran). Obama’s medal to Peres also hints it is not so terrible to trust terrorists and dictators, to give them a second and third chance even if thousands of people end up paying with their lives.
Yes, another award-winning moment.

Eyes wide shut

by Ruthie Blum

President Shimon Peres is living proof of the fact that Israeli political leaders never die, neither literally nor figuratively. No matter how many times they get voted out of office or humiliated in some other way — not only through financial or sexual misconduct, but also in those cases — they keep popping back up like those annoying ads on the Internet.

This is not their fault. The system enables it, the public expects it, and the players involved understandably would rather remain on the scene than to retire into oblivion.

It is said that familiarity breeds contempt. If so, it is no wonder that the public feels such disdain for its elected officials. The Jewish state is so tiny that even Average Joes are likely to have some kind of personal association with the figures who determine their fate.

But let us not forget that familiarity also provides comfort. So it is often easier to bemoan the lack of leadership and complain that the younger generation is not producing quality politicians than it is to see strangers at the helm. At least we know exactly at whom to hiss during the nightly news. We feel free to get up and make coffee without worrying about missing something he or she said in our absence.

Predictability is as soothing — and snore-inducing — as a lullaby.

No leader in this country is as predictable and snore-inducing as Peres. Not only because he has been on the scene for so long, but due to his having long ago taken up residence in la-la-land — a place he dubbed the “New Middle East.”

It was with no small degree of relief, then, when he was finally given a job that is well suited to his talents and tastes, and to our view of his actual abilities. The fact that Peres succeeded former President Moshe Katsav, who is currently serving seven years in prison for rape, elicited a sigh of relief similar to that which was heaved across the United States when the White House was fumigated from Bill Clinton’s sleaze. Whatever else can be, and is, said about Peres, including about his alleged affairs over the years, he is viewed as someone possessing class and gravitas — qualities perfect for Israel's presidency, a position that is chiefly ceremonial.

Not that Peres sees it that way. In fact, in spite of being forbidden in his current role to further any political stance, he continues to spout his “peace at all costs” ideology at every opportunity. This provided U.S. President Barack Obama with a great opportunity to appear pro-Israel by awarding him the Medal of Freedom. The fact that Peres’ politics are far more radical than most Jews are willing to acknowledge is not supposed to matter within Israel — where the presidency is ostensibly neutral. But outside of Israel it matters a great deal, which is why Peres loves taking trips abroad.

It is also why, for the past four years, he has hosted “Facing Tomorrow: the Israeli Presidential Conference,” a kind of Davos-like event funded by rich cronies who share his notion that Israel has to “give peace a chance,” no matter how often its doing so has failed as a result of Palestinian intransigence and no matter how many Israelis are holed up in bomb shelters due to Iran-funded rocket fire from territory ceded by Israel.

Indeed, at this year’s three-day conference — which included a wide array of leftist speakers from Israel and abroad, including Peter Beinart of “boycott settlements” fame — one would not have had a clue that missiles were flying into Israeli cities at an astounding rate. The amount of blah-blah devoted to insisting that there were steps Israel could take to persuade the Palestinians that it was seeking peace in good faith, coupled with the loud music in the lobby (which included songs such as John Lennon’s “Imagine”), would have drowned out the sound of Grads and Qassams exploding, even if they had struck Jerusalem, where the conference was held, rather than an hour away, where they actually struck.

In Thursday’s morning plenary session, entitled “Learning from Mistakes on the Way to Tomorrow,” Peres gave a speech that shed light on this phenomenon. The following are actual statements he made, which serve as examples of why it is increasingly difficult to write political satire these days:

“In order to make peace, you have to close your eyes,” he said. “You cannot make love or peace with open eyes.” (Much laughter from the packed audience; hints of sex tend to have that effect.)

“Let’s make investigating committees not about our mistakes, but about our successes.” (Applause.)

“The appetite to govern, rule and be famous are valueless.” (Laughter, only from me.)

“One mistake I made was participating in the government decision not to talk to the PLO. This was a mistake, because if you talk to them, maybe they won’t shoot!” (Really?)

“People think that to be strong means having the upper hand. But maybe generosity is more powerful than power.” (Here he used the Marshall Plan as an example of how the United States gave without receiving anything in return. He did not mention that this came after defeating the Nazis in battle.)

There is a common quip Israelis use in relation to the nearly 89-year-old Peres and his endless energy, to the effect that he will be around to dance on all of our graves. Sadly, too many of our graves already exist due to “peace” plans he supported with his eyes shut.

Happily, Peres is no longer in the position to govern and rule — the appetite for which he advises the rest of us to curb. He is left only with fame — and frequent flyer miles — the hunger for which he tells us to shun.

La-la land must be such a nice place to live.

Ruthie Blum, a former senior editor at The Jerusalem Post, is the author of “To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the ‘Arab Spring,’” soon to be released by RVP Press.http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=2104