IHT Publishes Israel-friendly Cartoon

Thursday's International Herald Tribune has published a cartoon that shows President Obama in two frames.

"Syria's Assad is out of control!
There's only one thing to do."

"Hope that Israel shows some guts!"

I don't know how such a sentiment escaped the oversight of Serge Schemann, whose idea of balance is to present an Arab or European critic of Israel countered by a Jewish or Israeli critic of Israel.

Nice way to start a Thursday morning.

Modest Step Toward Electoral Reform?

The Israeli Cabinet is set to propose a bill that if passed into law would be a modest step toward badly needed electoral reform.

The measure includes raising the electoral threshold to 4% -- I'd like to see it higher but this would be a good beginning.

It would limit the number of cabinet ministers to 19 and it would require that 61 Knesset members support a vote of no confidence.

In sum, it would foster a less parochial, more centrist, more stable, more efficient government and could strengthen the Knesset. Now, so many MKs are also ministers or deputy ministers that legislative oversight of the executive is weak.

I'd still like to see half the Knesset elected on the basis of constituency representation.

File Under "The masses are asses."

Curious, troubling, survey released by Fairleigh Dickinson
University’s Public Mind on Wednesday finds that 29 percent of
Americans think that an armed revolution might be necessary in the next few years -- five percent unsure.

Here is the press release:
http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2013/guncontrol/

Mechina Academies: Israel's Gap-Year Phenomenon"

My latest piece, "Mechina Academies: Israel's

 Gap-Year Phenomenon" 

now available to subscribers of the

 Christian Zionist magazine

 "Israel My

 Glory

"http://www.foi.org/magazine/  

May/June issue