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Is poverty here to stay?
Originally published 5 May 2005 in The Jerusalem Post

A pack of media mavens, notably Ruth Sinai of Haaretz, savaged Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, claiming his adoption of the Irish model would result – and indeed has already resulted, they claim – in increased, rather than diminished, poverty. Definitely so, if you subscribe to the statistical nonsense that misrepresents the number of the poor by making it dependent on relative rather than real values.

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Here comes the counter-revolution
Originally published 17 Apr 2005 in The Jerusalem Post

A group of neo-Marxists, anti-globalists and plain old-time socialists are seeking to found a new college “to create a cadre of people … able to engage in well-informed debate and critically challenge the prevailing neo-liberal and neo-conservative social and political trends” – that is, to militate against economic reform.

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In critical condition
Originally published 5 Feb 2005 in The Jerusalem Post

Most people resist changing their habits. And that includes harassed and exhausted Israelis. This change avoidance might explain the success of vested interests in preserving the status quo in our ailing health system.

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Death of a salesman
Originally published 4 Feb 2005 in The Jerusalem Post

Arthur Miller’s death was the occasion for almost universal praise. Critics and writers ignored Miller’s common intellectual malaise of hating his own country because it failed to practice an abstract ideal of perfect justice, while condoning and even supporting extremely repressive regimes because they mouthed the right slogans about human rights, self-determination, equality etc.

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Dovrat Commission tinkers while education system burns
Originally published 5 Jan 2005 in The Jerusalem Post

Israel claims to offer free education, but in fact parents pay not only once, but twice: high taxes finance a bloated educational bureaucracy, then poor teaching and various fees create a costly “gray education”. The recently published Dovrat Commission report attempts to solve these problems, but no mere administrative and technical reform can save a system whose failure is rooted in misguided objectives and a faulty ethos.

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