Diggapedia

  I am political junkie and with the exception of the constant barrage of negative ad campaigns, I love the election process.   The polling, the analysis, the strategy; it’s great theater and drama.   This week, I was able to experience an Israeli Parliamentary election for the first time, and if you think American elections have drama and political gamesmanship, it can pale in comparison to the Israeli version with its 10 or so competitive parties.   And while there was great disappointment in the Israeli left, likewise on the U.S. left, the drama created from a “too close to call” on election night to a comfortable win by Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party the next morning offered flashbacks to US Presidential elections in 2000 and 2004.   It was a frantic and frenetic final 72 hours indeed. But first a little background on Israel and parliamentary elections.   Unlike in the U.S., where the electorate directly chooses the executive and legislative re...

  As a frequent visitor to Israel, I often leave conflicted.   I love the food, I have many friends that have open their homes to me, the history is unparalleled, the spirit of inventorship rivals any other nation, and the never say die attitude is inspirational.   And yet, I am troubled, like many, about the region’s oldest democracy as it struggles with its identify and future.   Can Israel be both a democratic state and a Jewish state?   In its pursuit for the latter will it sacrifice the former? Last week I happened to be in Israel when key points of the Kerry Plan were released to the public courtesy of New York Times’ Thomas Friedman (who was visiting and staying in the same hotel as yours truly).   I won’t bore you with the details of the plan, but it was interesting to witness firsthand the “he said/he said” schoolyard silliness within the Netanyahu government.   If the Israeli government, and its outspoken ministers spent as much tim...

News and Digganalysis 1.        Big week at the Supreme Court for same sex marriage.   On Tuesday, the court will hear arguments challenging the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8 and on Wednesday arguments on the Defense of Marriage Act will be heard.   In the meantime social conservatives like Ralph Reed will argue that the 58% of Americans, per recent polls, are wrong.   The time has come for conservatives to realize that same sex marriage and the commensurate benefits are not progressive ideals, but AMERICAN ideals.   I hope the old white men on the court also realize the same.   Civil rights for all IS American Exceptionalism. 2.        The story of the banking failure in Cyprus and the subsequent bailout from the troika of the IMF, EU, and ECB is a complex mélange of punishment, politics, and warning.    Warning #1: If your house-of-cards economy is based primarily o...

Another post from 40,000 feet above the Atlantic on my way back from Israel, and like every previous visit there was plenty of news, experiences, fun, hard work, and observations.   And of course wherever there’s an election, there is election analysis. Over a week ago, 64% of Israelis went to the polls to elect a new government after the current government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for early elections.   Netanyahu’s Likud party and its coalition partners assumed an easy go of it and that the electorate would deliver a mandate of four more years of lip service concerning a two state solution, bellicose relations with the US, increased isolation from Europe, and more settlement building.   Well a funny thing happened on the way to the polls, of the 120 Knesset (Parliament) seats up for grabs, 60 seats when to left or center-left parties, and 60 seats when to right or center-right parties. Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud party (Likud merged with Yisrael Beite...

1)       Will lactose intolerant people be as indifferent to the milk cliff as nonsmokers are to increased tobacco taxes? 2)       Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his Likud party are seeing its January 22 nd election popularity waning at the expense of his former aide Naftali Bennett and the rightist Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home) party.   The 40 year old son of American immigrants, Bennett has called for unconstrained settlement expansion while opposing the creation of a Palestinian state.   Since Netanyahu will not have a majority, he will have to choose between a hard right wing coalition or the mish mash of center left parties to form a government.   The stakes are high and could set the peace process back 20 years.   Sadly, I see Netanyahu choosing his former aide, putting the Israeli government at odds with its patron in Washington.   What is even more disappointing is the clear shift in the Israeli ...

·          Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdogan loves to chastise Israel for its treatment of Palestinians living in Gaza.   I could take him seriously if he wasn’t systematically trying to wipe out Kurds living in Turkey. ·          The next time the Muslim Brotherhood and it’s new government feel the need to criticize Israel for its handling of Gaza, perhaps they should look in the mirror and ask themselves about how they treat Egypt’s Coptic Christians. ·          If the Netanyahu government cared about Israel’s long term security, it would work out a deal with Fatah.   Alas, his Likud led RW government cannot see the inevitable. ·          Yes it is true that Social Security has not been a significant contributor to the current deficits and debt.   Nonetheless, it along with Medicare, are bridges we wil...