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

Sharing the blame

Yes, Olmert and Peretz should resign, but people like Oppenheimer, Peres and Beilin should have the decency to shut up and take responsibility for the incredible damage they have already done

by Naomi Ragen
www.ynetnews.com
August 27, 2006

What I find most upsetting about the last month and a half is how little people talk about history.

The disastrous war with Lebanon was a long time in the making, with roots that go back many years: The decision to unilaterally run out of Lebanon in the middle of the night and to allow Hizbullah to endlessly arm itself on our borders, the disastrous unilateral disengagement that convinced our enemies we were morons prime for the taking and the budget cuts and politicization that have weakened the IDF.

All these things did not happen yesterday, and so a political party that was elected yesterday cannot be held solely responsible.

Now, don't misunderstand me. I said before the elections that Kadima was a bunch of losers that had gathered together in one place, and I was unfortunately correct. I am of the firm belief that Ehud Olmert, Amir Peretz, and Mr. Halutz should have the decency to resign over their incompetence. No question.

But that doesn't mean that the individuals and organizations responsible, including Ehud Barak, Shaul Mofaz, Peace Now, Women in Black, Four Mothers, Shimon Peres, and Yossi Beilin -- should sit back and get an exemption.

They were fighting, you had a Frappacino.

When I see smug peace-nowers like Mr. Oppenheimer on television attacking the head of the reservists protest movement, I want to shout at him: What right do you have to open your mouth and say anything to soldiers who fought in Lebanon to save your skin?

Haven't you and your kind done enough damage with your policies and your insane vision that has put our reservists on the front lines while you continue your diet of cake and Frappacino in Tel Aviv cafes, safe from rockets and mortars?

Where is the responsibility of the entire "peace" movement for all that has happened here, starting with the brainwashing of the Israeli people to take in Arafat, to give up land that is now being used as basis for the war of annihilation against us?

For policies that have proved an unmitigated disaster? They just go on and on, sharing their "wisdom" giving us their opinions, as if nothing has happened, priming us to get the next bunch of soldiers killed.

Yes, Mr. Olmert should resign, along with Mr. Peretz and Mr. Halutz. And people like Mr. Oppenheimer and Mr. Peres and Mr. Beilin should not be interviewed on television or have their words printed in newspapers. They should have the decency to shut up and take responsibility for the incredible damage they have already done to this country.

Lying through his teeth

by The Perescope

Guess who lied through his teeth last night on TV and got away with it?

Interviewed by legendary anchor Haim Yavin on Mabat, Israel Television's evening newscast, Shimon Peres stated that the "Grapes of Wrath" operation against Hizbollah terrorists, which he conducted in Lebanon during his brief tenure as Israel's prime minister in 1996, "was a great success." And in response, Yavin, a political Peresite known as Israel's "Mr. Television," didn't even wink.

With hindsight, there is no doubt that Operation Grapes of Wrath was a tremendous failure. After an Israeli shell went off-course and accidentally killed more than a hundred Lebanese civilians, Peres was anxious to end the hostilities, which began when Hizbollah launched katyusha rockets on Israeli towns and villages. Under international mediation, Peres agreed to a ceasefire, under whose inequitable terms Israel and the Hizbollah would not fire on each other. As a result of agreeing to tie the hands of the Israeli army, Peres's ceasefire allowed Hizbollah to rearm. This was ultimately untenable, and, as a result, Israel was eventually forced to withdraw overnight from Lebanon in 2000 with its tail between its legs.

The Hizbollah saw that, correctly, as a great victory on their part. They became the first Arab fighting force to expel Israel from territory without any quid-pro-quo. The great Hizbollah victory over the Israeli army was hailed by jihadists and rejectionists across the Muslim world as the precedent for future action, and was a model for Yasser Arafat's decision to launch his terror war against Israel later that year. If, after all, a Shi'ite militia could expel Israel by force from Lebanon, Arafat, who fancied himself as a later-day Saladin, could settle for no less in Palestine.

The war Israel is now waging in Lebanon is the inevitable result of its abandonment of its south Lebanon security zone in 2000. As long as Israel exercised control there, either directly or through the now-disbanded pro-Israel South Lebanon Army (SLA), Hizbollah was unable to launch rockets against Israeli towns and villages in the Galilee. In the past six years, Hizbollah has used its freedom of action in south Lebanon not only to re-arm, but also to import vast quantities of weapons from Syria and Iran, together with Iranian "advisors."

While Peres lied through his teeth, hundreds of thousands of Israelis were huddled in bomb shelters. Katyushas and Iranian-made Fajar rockets had brought death and destruction across the Galilee, from Haifa to Tiberias. And the man whose diplomatic malfeasance paved the way for such a tragedy continues to escape responsibility.

No Qassams in Peres-land

Sorry, Mr. Peres, but barrage of Qassams is good reason for hysteria
by Guy Benyovits
Yediot Ahronot
June 21, 2006

Out in Peres-land, residents have woken up to another blissful day of optimistic news. News editors, not wanting to frighten listeners, don't report the fact that several missiles have hit a school in a forlorn city in the south. A few children have been hurt, several suffered shock and will require extensive psychological counseling.

But residents of the town themselves, wanting to prevent unnecessary panic, chose to remain silent, rather than vent their pain to the country at large. The government of Peres-land has rubbed their hands together with satisfaction. Aahhh, what a well-functioning country we have. Model citizenry and media. Just like it was with Ben-Gurion.

Don't get so excited
Good morning, Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres (perhaps the greeting "Red Dawn" would be more appropriate in this case). Monday, in the presence of six of the country's most influential political reporters, you uttered the following words: "This hysteria over the Qassams must end… "We're just adding to the hysteria. What happened? Kiryat Shmona was shelled for years. What, there weren't missiles?"

The next morning, you were already on the radio complaining that you'd been misunderstood. Once again, you've been taken out of context. You really meant, "Only the media is hysterical, and a small number of Sderot residents are making a lot of noise."

No comparison
Let's spend a minute talking about your claims. True, Kiryat Shmona suffered shelling attacks for years, and drew Israel into a blood-soaked war that took the lives of hundreds of soldiers. But what, exactly, has this got to do with Sderot?

Now for the media and Sderot residents. It is the job of both of these groups to arouse your lazy government to action. Hundreds of rockets have hit this town, Mr. Peres. It is a legitimate reason for hysteria.

Hysteria about the fact that the government has failed to protect its citizens. We may not be talking about the high-class suburb of Ramat Aviv where you live, but allow me to assume that if as much as one stray rock fell there, the rock-thrower would be "done away with" immediately.

But you know, it's just Sderot we're talking about, a forlorn "southern" town. It's easy to forget it's just an hour from Tel Aviv.

Learning from London
In your imagination, Mr. Peres, Sderot residents must learn from their counterparts in London during the Nazi blitzkrieg during World War II. A "stiff upper lip," it's called.

But residents of London had no choice. They knew their government, headed by Winston Churchill, was fighting and making every military effort to ensure Britain's continued existence. Churchill may have called for Britons' "blood, sweat and tears," but he also waged war with all the weapons at his disposal.

But you, Mr. Peres, you politicians have thrown little more than empty promises, with the exception of the occasional bomb against civilians – that have helped fan the flames.

Pre-planned response?
Suddenly, we are left with the feeling that maybe, just maybe, the issue here has nothing to do with government failure, not even with its failure to defend the residents of Sderot.

Could it be that the whole exercise was planned from the beginning, with the intention of building support for the "realignment" plan? That very same, fantastic one-sided plan (we are now seeing the benefits of that plan's predecessor), based on the idea that "there is no one to talk with."

As long as we refuse to talk, we will have Qassams, we will resume targeted killings, and we will create a situation of ongoing warfare.

Saving realignment
But if we stop, things between the two sides will disintegrate. If we let Mahmoud Abbas "solve" the problem of Hamas (as he has tried to do via the referendum and other political tricks), pay attention to what the world has been telling us in recent weeks (like ignorant children) and focus on setting stable, quiet borders around Gaza – the realignment will become damaged goods that nobody wants.

Seems to me, Mr. Peres, that this is exactly what you are hoping for. That you, too, think "realignment" is but one more "scribble," part spin and part outrageous dream, based on the principle of "I'll make my own decisions and carry them out. Let the other guys jump off a cliff."

In the meanwhile, the only thing jumping are the paramedics in Sderot. That, and the neat IDF statistics about the number of Qassams falling on the city.

He's one horny old man

by The Perescope

You’ve got to pity the man, it was so bizarre. Having been upstaged in the news following Ariel Sharon’s two strokes and the ensuing election campaign, all Noble Prize winner Shimon Peres wanted to do was attract a bit of attention and return to the front pages. So he sat down and thought up another one of his famous Big Ideas.

The Peres Center for Peace, whose main activity is rewarding large salaries to its staff of Peres cronies and groupies, would invite aging sex symbol Sharon Stone to Israel to meet Israeli and Palestinian children, tour a farm and visit a few other sites that are ostensibly under the patronage of the institution that the megalomaniac named after himself. Most importantly, Stone would breakfast with Shimon Peres himself on March 8, after which they would hold a joint press conference. The cameras would flutter and Peres would appear on CNN and, the following morning, on page 1 around the world.

What Peres’s inflated ego didn’t take fully into account, however, was that the journalists who showed up at his manufactured press conference didn’t give a whit about him. All they wanted to do was snap their photos of Sharon Stone and, maybe, get the lowdown on the sequel to Basic Instinct, which was about to premiere half a world away in Hollywood.

Understanding that this was her opportunity to grab a bit of publicity, too, she quickly complied. Rather than babble about Peres’s New Middle East, Stone babbled about her wardrobe, or lack of it, in her new movie:

"People just are sitting there going, like, 'I don't care what she's saying, I don't care what she's saying, I just want to know, does she get naked in the movie? Is she naked? Nude nude nude naked. Do I see her boobies? I don't care what she's saying, I don't care, I don't care, is she naked?' So let's just get through to that... YES!"

Well, what can one add? Stone’s soliloquy about appearing naked in her new movie is no less embarrassing than Peres’s New Middle East. It’s also relatively quite similar to Peres’s role in Oslo, where he got caught with his pants down

Peres was for sale, now he's sold

Report: Peres accepted illegal payments
by Dan Izenberg and Jerusalem Post Staff
April 27, 2006

As first reported by The Jerusalem Post some three months ago, State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss confirmed Thursday morning that MK Shimon Peres (Kadima) is suspected of accepting illegal contributions for his Labor Party primaries campaign.

According to the allegations, Peres received a forbidden donation of some $320,000 from two overseas donors on the eve of his loss to Amir Peretz in the party leadership race.

The State Comptroller's Office reported that Peres received donations of $100,000 each, from businessmen Haim Saban and Bruce Rappaport, and $120,000 from Daniel Abrams. The figures were provided by Peres himself.

The details of the report have already been brought to the attention of Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz and Peres has employed the services of attorney Ram Caspi.

Yoram Dori, an adviser to Peres, denied the allegations.

"Shimon Peres did not violate any laws. All campaign funding was done in accordance with the regulations," Dori said.

The complete State Comptroller report was set to be published in three weeks.

"We must make sure the law is upheld exactly as legislated by the Knesset," Lindenstrauss told the Post. "We must deal with these donations with an iron fist to make sure the law is observed."