By Ira Sharkansky

JERUSALEM—One of the themes in Tzipi Livni's campaign was "Bibi, I don't believe him." Others say that Benyamin Netanyahu changes his mind with every conversation. Bill Clinton's White House spokesman described him as "one of the most obnoxious individuals you're going to come into - just a liar and a cheat. He could open his mouth and you could have no confidence that anything that came out of it was the truth." Dennis Ross described one of his sessions in the White House as "nearly insufferable." President Clinton asked, "Who the -- does he think he is?"

Livni's message may have contributed to the one-seat edge in the Knesset that Kadima won over Likud. Nevertheless, Bibi proved to have the best chance of forming a government coalition.

This week we have seen his weakness and strength. The budget he presented for government approval would be cut by 14 billion shekels over two years, with deep cuts coming in welfare and defense. Child support payments would be cut by 10 percent, despite a commitment to one of his coalition partners to increase them. Also cut would be payments for the handicapped and Holocaust survivors. There would be a 50 shekel fee for every day a patient is hospitalized. There would be a freeze in public sector wages. The retirement age for career military personnel would be increased. The defense budget would be cut by 5 billion shekels over two years.

A day and one half later the government approved a budget with no cuts in welfare payments, no charge for hospitalization, no freeze of public sector salaries, and a cut of defense spending of 1.5 billion shekels rather than 5 billion shekels. However, there would be a 6.5 percent cut in all ministries' budgets in both years of the budget, the value added tax would increase by 1 percent, and expanded to fruits and vegetables.

The details are confusing and not all that important. There are additional steps between the government's budget and the actual spending of the money. First the Knesset must approve it, and later the Accountant General in the finance ministry must actually release the funds on quarterly allotments to the ministries and other administrative units. Both steps provide opportunities for fiddling. The international economic crisis made the process to date more dramatic than usual, and will influence how much money comes into the government via taxes, and how much flows out as expenditures. Natural disasters or war can upset all expectations.

What is interesting in this week's flip flops are their demonstration about Netanyahu's style of governing, or not governing. Also apparent is the centrality of the budget and its lack of clarity.

Bibi was at the center of the budget process by boasting of economic expertise (including a claim to have been offered the post of finance minister in Italy), and giving himself and an aide from outside of the public service key roles in the intense dealing that shifted prominent elements of spending and taxation over the course of 36 hours. The party operative and PhD in philosophy that he appointed as minister of finance appeared to be a figurehead who stumbled through media interviews in which he did little more than assert his cooperation with the prime minister. The respected head of the budget unit in the finance ministry resigned in protest.

Like the budgets of other governments, Israel's is a large and detailed collection of documents, filled with do's and don'ts for taxes and spending that amount to a sizable portion of national wealth. In Israel's case it is about 44 percent of Gross Domestic Product.. Accompanying the budget is a "law of arrangements" that details changes in existing laws presented in a way that is incomprehensible to all but a handful of bureaucrats, politicians and beneficiaries.

The budget is comparable to the human brain. Both are central organs that determine what the rest of the body does,  and both are the subject of research by economists

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and political scientists on the one hand, and a host of biological scientists on the other. Each cluster of specialists has learned a great deal about what they are studying, but has a longer list of what they want to know, but they have not been able to discover as yet.

Netanyahu's smooth rhetoric is the flip side of his reputation for unreliability. He is presenting the budget as his success in achieving harmony between competing interests. To him it represents reluctant compromises, but a well balanced set of agreements with representatives of the public and private sectors, including unions and the leaders of industry and finance. Its reduction in the top rate of the income tax will keep funds flowing to investment, and its increase in the value added tax and its extension to fruits and vegetables, despite falling most heavily on the poor, will help reduce the deficit and pay for increases in welfare payments.

All that may be true. It is not easy to judge the policy implications of an opaque budget at any time, and especially during a time of economic fluidity. To the extent that politics depends on at least a minimum of trust, however, the fluidity of Netanyahu's commitments is a problem for all who must deal with him.

This week his partners in deliberations were colleagues in the government, key bureaucrats, the head of the Labor Federation, and representatives of large employers. Next week it will be the President of the United States. The prime minister will go to Washington saying that it is not timely to talk about a Palestinian state, and that Israel's first priority is the threat of Iranian nuclear weapons. It is anybody's guess what he will be saying in Washington, and then when he returns to Israel. We can only hope that he achieves better rapport with the Obama White House than he did with Bill Clinton's.

Sharkansky is professor emeritus of political science at Hebrew University.  His email:   msira@mscc.huji.ac.il

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Editor's Note: We are trying out a service that provides news releases to us from federal government agencies as well as from members of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives. Utilizing this service, we intend to track issues affecting the Middle East, domestic and foreign Jewish communities, and also keep abreast of legislation being pursued by Jewish members of Congress. We solicit reader input to this feature. Email editor@sandiegojewishworld.com

Markey urges Obama not to send
sensitive nuclear materials to UAE

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Press Release)– Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment, on Wednesday released the following statement on the horrific torture videotapes that have recently emerged from the United Arab Emirates:

“The recently released videotapes of torture being committed by a member of the UAE royal family, aided by officers of the state, are horrific beyond description,” said Markey. “The UAE government is now claiming that they are taking action and conducting an investigation, but this incident raises profound questions about whether the rule of law is truth or fiction in the UAE.

“President Obama is currently deciding whether or not to move forward with an agreement for nuclear cooperation with the UAE, negotiated and signed in the final days of the Bush Administration. I have repeatedly urged President Obama to not submit this nuclear cooperation agreement to the Congress for approval, and I hope the UAE torture tapes will convince the President that the UAE is not an appropriate place to send sensitive U.S. nuclear technology.

“A country where the laws can be flouted by the rich and powerful is not a country that can safeguard sensitive U.S. nuclear technology,” said Markey.

Preceding provided by Congressman Markey

McCollum: Israeli settlement expansion
undermines U.S. security

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Press Release)–Congresswoman Betty McCollum (Democrat, Farm Labor-Minnesota) on Wednesday questioned Jack Lew, Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources, regarding the Fiscal Year 2010 international affairs budget request during a hearing of the Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and released her statement. The statement below does not include Mr. Lew’s response.

Mr. Lew, first I’d like to congratulate the Administration on this budget request. I strongly support the “smart power” strategy described in your testimony. I look forward to working with the Administration on our shared priorities, including global health, climate change and agricultural development.

I was also encouraged to hear a strong statement from you in support of Middle East peace and a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an urgent national security priority of the United States, but I have serious concerns about the new Israeli government’s failure to embrace the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

This budget commits billions of taxpayer dollars to Israel and hundreds of millions to the Palestinians in pursuit of mutual peace and security. The American people are making a serious investment in peace.

However, U.S. support must be matched with accountability. It is time for both Palestinians and Israelis to be accountable for removing obstacles to peace.

One of those obstacles to peace and security is the Government of Israel’s continued support for the expansion of settlements and the failure to prevent the establishment of illegal outposts on Palestinian land – land that must one day be included as part of a future Palestinian state.

Since 1967, homes have been built for 470,000 Israelis in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In the past three years, Israel built over 5,000 homes in West Bank settlements and another 500 bids for housing were issued. Continued settlement expansion will only lead to one conclusion – a one state solution – and this is an unacceptable solution.

The continued expansion of settlements not only undermines the peace process, it undermines U.S. national security. In fact, settlement expansion also undermines Israel’s security – and America’s investments in Israeli security.

Last week, Vice-President Biden directly confronted the issue in a speech to AIPAC saying: “Israel has to work for a two-state solution … not build more settlements, dismantle existing outposts, and allow Palestinians freedom of movement.”

I support the Vice-President’s statement. And I would like to be totally clear on the Administration’s position.

Does the U.S. government oppose the Israeli government’s policy of settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem?

Can you assure me that none of the $2.8 billion in funds provided to Israel through Foreign Military Financing will be used to enable or facilitate the expansion or maintenance of settlements?

Since settlement expansion is contrary to U.S. policy and undermines U.S. national security interests, what is our government going to do to hold our partner Israel accountable if they choose to continue their policy of settlement expansion?

I feel a sense of urgency in the push to peace. Time is not on our side. Every day settlement expansion continues, a two-state solution becomes farther out of reach.

Preceding provided by Congresswoman McCollum

Boxer, Feingold hold hearing
on rapes in Congo, Sudan

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (Democrat, California), along with Senator Russ Feingold (Democrat, Wisconsin), on Wednesday chaired a joint hearing of the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on International Operations and Organizations, Human Rights, Democracy and Global Women’s Issues and the Subcommittee on African Affairs. The hearing was titled, “Confronting Rape and Other Forms of Violence Against Women in Conflict Zones – Spotlight: Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan.”

The following was Senator Boxer’s opening statement as prepared for delivery:

Good afternoon. I would like to express my gratitude to Sen. Feingold for agreeing to hold this joint subcommittee hearing with me today, and to our ranking members Sen. Wicker and Sen. Isakson.

I’d also like to express a warm welcome to our distinguished first panel. I think the strong representation we have today from the Administration speaks to the gravity of this heartbreaking issue. Unfortunately, it also speaks to the complexity of the challenges at hand.

I know that efforts have been made to address sexual violence in conflict zones to date. But it is unacceptable that we continue to hear reports of thousands of women and children being brutally raped—some are merely infants. If raping an infant is not a crime against humanity, I don’t know what is.

Today, we will spotlight Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo in order to examine the brutal sexual violence that women around the globe are subjected to during conflict.

As you will hear from our distinguished panelists, violating a woman in this manner often goes far beyond mutilating her body. It is an effort to destroy families, communities, and entire societies.

I keep coming back to a passage from a report issued by Refugees International because I think it captures best what is going on in Darfur, Sudan. Rape, it says, is “an integral part of the pattern of violence that the government of Sudan is inflicting upon the targeted ethnic groups in Darfur...The raping of Darfuri women is not sporadic or random, but is inexorably linked to the systematic destruction of their communities.”

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the magnitude of the problem defies comprehension. Hundreds of thousands of women and children have been raped during the course of a conflict that has spanned the last twelve years. And while the country has made strides toward stability—including holding democratic elections—the rapes are continuing at a grotesque rate.

According to Human Rights Watch, the “number of women and girls raped since January has significantly increased in areas of military operations by armed groups and soldiers of the Congolese army.”

I was particularly touched by a quote issued by 71 Congolese women’s organizations about how the sexual violence is impacting their society and their lives.

“We are vulnerable in our fields, in the streets, and even in our own homes. Even our daughters as young as three years old are vulnerable when they are playing with their friends or on their way to school. The nuclear family, the base of our society, no longer exists…There is a crisis of authority and a culture of impunity.”

This must stop. And colleagues we must come together—across all the lines that normally divide us—to end this madness.

Preceding provided by Senator Boxer

Cardin lauds Obama and Holder
for their steps to end torture

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Press Release)— U.S. Senator Benjamin L. Cardin (Democrat, Maryland), Chairman of the Judiciary Terrorism and Homeland Security Subcommittee, on Wednesday reiterated his praise for the Obama Administration release of Bush-era opinions from the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel regarding interrogation techniques used on terror suspects.

Senator Cardin's remarks came in response to a hearing of the Administrative Oversight and the Courts Subcommittee hearing entitled, "What Went Wrong: Torture and the Office of Legal Counsel in the Bush Administration."

“Today’s hearing provides a powerful illustration of how the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in the Bush Administration's Justice Department got it wrong when it came to torture. Torture is illegal, hurts our efforts to build a coalition to defeat terrorism around the world, and is not an effective method for obtaining reliable information," said Senator Cardin.

"I commend President Obama and Attorney General Holder for releasing these opinions from the Office of Legal Counsel. I am pleased that after reviewing the opinions and the interrogation techniques described, the OLC has decided to withdraw them, and has made absolutely clear that our government does not condone torture. Attorney General Holder and President Obama have taken an important step in restoring the rule of law."

Preceding provided by Senator Cardin

Kohl says more attention due U.S. food safety

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Press Release)– U.S. Senator Herb Kohl (Democrat, Wisconsin), in remarks Wednesday morning before the Administration’s new Food Safety Working Group, said “there needs to be an urgency and seriousness” to the work of strengthening the nation’s food safety system.

The group that met included Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebellius and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, as well consumer protection and health experts from across the country. Kohl also invited the head of the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, Rod Nilsestuen, to present the perspective of a state agency that has a role in food safety.

“It’s hard for me to imagine an issue more fundamental to American families. We need to make sure government at every level is pulling toward a better food system,” Kohl said.

Kohl is the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, which has jurisdiction over funding for the nation’s two main agencies tasked with keeping the food supply safe: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Food Safety and Inspection Service within the Department of Agriculture.

In 2007, Kohl convened hearings on food safety in both Washington and Wisconsin, and has since worked to boost funding for the FDA, increase the number of food safety inspectors domestically and abroad, and develop new, regional rapid response teams across the country to identify and isolate contaminated produce at its source.

“It became clear to me several years ago that our food safety needs more attention. I helped direct more resources to both the FDA and the USDA over the past few years, but money alone is not the answer. A task this critical and fundamental is going to


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require cooperation and smarter targeting of resources,” Kohl told the group.

In FY2008, Kohl worked to provide an increase of $90 million over the Bush Administration’s request for the FDA, much of it directed to food safety. For FY2009, one of Kohl’s priorities was to increase funding for the FDA of nearly $325 million over the previous year.

Going forward, Kohl is focusing his efforts on the need for federal-state coordination in national food safety matters, including inspections, centralized information and coordinated communication.

Preceding provided by Senator Kohl

Lautenberg rues Senate defeat
of credit card interest limits

WASHINGTON, DC (Press Release)– Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) today expressed disappointment regarding the failure of the Senate to pass an amendment that would cap the Annual Percentage Rate (APR) consumers pay at 15 percent, the same interest rate cap that Congress imposed on loans and credit cards issued by credit unions almost 30 years ago.

The lack of a national APR has allowed banks to charge interest rates as high as 41 percent on credit cards while receiving zero interest loans from the Federal Reserve. Some Americans currently pay between 15 and 19 percent APR.

“Since credit card companies seem unwilling to put any limit on the unconscionable interest rates they charge to Americans, Congress needs to step in and protect consumers,” Sen. Lautenberg said. “Especially during this economic downturn, we have to stop credit card companies from taking an already bad situation for struggling families and making it worse.”

In 1980, Congress imposed a 15 percent rate cap on loans and credit cards issued by credit unions. The provision Sen. Lautenberg supported would have extended that rate cap to credit cards offered by commercial banks.

Until 1978, approximately half of the states had laws capping credit card interest rates. While several of these state laws remain, they were effectively overturned by a 1978 Supreme Court decision (Marquette National Bank v. First of Omaha Service Corp) which concluded that national banks could charge whatever interest rate they wanted if they moved to a state without a law.

The APR provision was offered to legislation co-sponsored by Sen. Lautenberg, the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act (CARD), which would protect consumers from unfair and unacceptable credit card practices, ending abusive fees and rate increases, ensuring more disclosure and strengthening oversight. The CARD Act was authored by Sen. Christopher Dodd (Democrat, Connecticut) and, in addition to Sen. Lautenberg, was cosponsored by more than 20 Senators.

Preceding provided by Sen. Lautenberg

Levin approves Obama's steps
to regulate financial markets

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Press Release)– Sen. Carl Levin, (Democrat, Michigan), issued the following statement Wednesday on the Obama Administration’s proposal for regulating derivatives. As chairman of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Levin has overseen a number investigations that examined issues related to derivatives and introduced legislation, including S. 961 and S. 447, to strengthen derivatives regulation.

“Today, Secretary Geithner sent a letter to the Congressional leadership providing greater clarity on the Administration’s proposal for regulating over-the-counter derivatives. It was time to put some meat on the bones, and the Administration provided some of that by calling for federal regulators to be given comprehensive authority, for the first time, to police all derivative markets and derivative dealers; for the establishment of clearing, margin, and capital requirements to reduce risk; and for authority to impose position limits on over-the-counter derivatives to prevent market manipulation and excessive speculation. The letter also proposed important derivative reporting and recordkeeping requirements that could be satisfied in part by clearinghouse or regulated trade repository records.

“The Geithner letter offers sound proposals that should be acted on as soon as possible. Some of the ideas are not new, but have appeared in financial reform legislation in this and previous Congresses. What is new is a more complete picture of President Obama’s vision for preventing misconduct, reducing risk, and restoring government oversight in the financial markets. “It is long past time to start regulating derivatives. Right now, trillions of dollars in derivative transactions known as swaps are going full bore with virtually no oversight, because federal regulators are prohibited by law from regulating them. Swaps are typically agreements between two parties placing a bet on future cash flows, such as whether a stock price, interest rate, commodity price or currency value will rise or fall. Credit default swaps are bets on whether a company will default on payment of its debts. We all know how financial institutions and traders have used—and abused—credit default swaps. Many also know that, last fall, then Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission Christopher Cox urged Congress to give the government immediate authority to regulate those swaps, but nothing yet has been done.

“Last week, I introduced with Senator Susan Collins, R-Maine, legislation to take the first step. The Levin-Collins bill, S. 961, would repeal existing statutory provisions that prohibit federal regulators from exercising authority over swaps. It would then give back to federal regulators the authority to police the swaps market that the Congress took away in the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. Our bill doesn’t take the next step of specifying how swaps should be regulated, as the Geithner letter does, but would clear the decks for more comprehensive reform.

“Derivatives markets continue to pose trillion-dollar risks that call out for government oversight and regulation. I look forward to working with the Administration and my colleagues in the Congress to put the cop back on the beat in the derivatives markets this year.”

Preceding provided by Senator Levin

Lieberman says Obama correctly
prohibits abuse photos publication

WASHINGTON, DC (Press Release)-- Senators Joe Lieberman (Independent, Connecticut) and Lindsey Graham (Republican, South Carolina) issued the following statement in response to the announcement that President Obama will oppose the release of photos depicting abuse of detainees:

"We applaud the President for making the right decision for our troops and our country to fight the release of the photographs of the detainees. The publication of those photographs would only endanger the safety of our troops who go into harm's way in defense of America. Our country has taken steps to prevent any future abuse of detainees and no public good is now served by releasing these photographs. The President did exactly the right thing in carrying out his responsibilities as Commander-in-Chief. The fact that the President reconsidered the decision is a strength not a weakness."

Preceding provided by Senator Lieberman


Schumer says overseas many U.S. soldiers
disenfranchised during the 2008 election

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Press Release)—U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer (Democrat, New York), the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, released troubling new data Wednesday suggesting that during the 2008 presidential election, more than a quarter of the ballots requested by U.S. military personnel deployed overseas—and other eligible voters living abroad—went either uncollected or uncounted.

Speaking at a Senate hearing on the matter, Schumer said he would seek to craft bipartisan legislation in the weeks ahead to comprehensively address problems affecting the overseas balloting process to prevent such disenfranchisement in the future.

“It is unacceptable that bureaucratic snafus could prevent our troops from exercising the very rights they are fighting to protect,” Schumer said. “This data provides only a snapshot of the problem, but it is enough to show that the balloting process for service members is clearly in need of an overhaul. We have an obligation to make it easier, not harder, for our military to cast their ballots when they are away on active-duty.”

Schumer said the estimate was based on figures provided to the committee by election officials in seven of the states with the highest number of deployed troops. In 2008, military personnel and some civilians hailing from these states requested 441,000 ballots in order to vote from overseas locations, as allowed by the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA). Of those, 98,633 were never received back by the election officials in the U.S. and so were declared “lost” ballots. Another 13,504 were received but rejected for various reasons including a missing signature or failure to notarize, as is required in some states. When combined, these two categories amount to 112,137 voters in those seven states—or 25.42% of the 441,000 who requested ballots—being disenfranchised, Schumer said.

A chart containing the data cited by Schumer appears below. The Rules Committee, in conjunction with the Congressional Research Service, culled the data by surveying election offices in seven states with high numbers of military personnel: California, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington and West Virginia. According to March 2009 statistics provided by the Pentagon, the ranks of deployed troops from these seven states represent nearly half – or 43.5 percent – of all U.S. active-duty and reserve troops currently deployed overseas.

State: California

Ballots mailed out: 102,983

Ballots returned as undeliverable: 3,054

Ballots returned, but rejected: 3,969

Ballots cast in election
“Lost votes” [(Mailed Out) 65,836 - (Accounted Ballots)]30,124
Percent “lost”: 29.25

Schumer—speaking before several ex-soldiers who testified about their failed attempts to vote in previous elections—said the high number of disenfranchised overseas voters illustrates fundamental flaws within the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP). That is the program within the Defense Department that handles the election process for military personnel and other overseas voters.

At the hearing, Schumer urged Gail McGinn, the Pentagon’s Acting Undersecretary for Personnel and Readiness, to quickly select a qualified individual to take over as head of FVAP. Schumer also said a comprehensive approach would be needed to address problems within FVAP. Chief among those problems, he said, was a lack of synchronization in the timeline for distributing ballots to voters overseas. Schumer noted that it is a “chronic” occurrence for military voters to be sent a ballot without sufficient lead-time to complete it and send it back in time to be counted. According to some estimates, it can take up to 13 days for a ballot to even reach an overseas voter. In addition, a recent Pew study determined that 25 states do not afford overseas voters, including military personnel, with enough time to complete

Schumer also said that voting assistance officers may also need enhanced training to better facilitate the election process overseas. He also called for increased awareness about Federal Write-In Ballots, which are a federally provided alternative ballot that can be used as a fail-safe when a state-issued ballot does not arrive in time.

For other states, read Senator Schumer's complete press release


Congressman Hodes calls
for carpooling tax credits

WASHINGTON, DC (Press Release)--- As New Hampshire celebrates green commuting week, Congressman Paul Hodes (Democrat, New Hampshire) reintroduced legislation that would give New Hampshire businesses a federal tax credit for encouraging their employees to carpool.

His legislation would create a tax credit for businesses for fifty percent of any amount they pay to their employees as part of a reimbursement program for carpooling to work. It will also allow state and local governments to participate as well, and they would receive additional annual funding for programs that encourage carpooling to the office.

"With gas prices beginning to rise as we approach Memorial Day, this tax credit could give New Hampshire commuters more incentives for carpooling which will help commuters save on gas costs, improve our environment and reduce our dependence on foreign oil that is hurting our economy and jeopardizing our national security," Congressman Paul Hodes said.

RideShare, a carpool matching service, with the New Hampshire Department of Transportation has been a successful program in providing carpooling options for New Hampshire commuters. Commuters seeking to use the program can contact them at this link.

Congressman Hodes introduced similar legislation during the 110th Congress.

Preceding provided by Congressman Hodes