September 7, 2010 Time Magazine Does it Again, Abbas Attacks Ahmadinejad, Israel Invest to Little on Students

Time Magazine has once again managed to inject itself into the Arab Israeli conflict in a controversial way. This time, with a cover story that entitled "Why Israel Doesn’t Care About Peace" The cover, illustrated with a Star of David, is an outrageous cover story coming out the week that peace negotiations began (Time now publishes on Friday). While there is a kernal of truth the actual story (yes Israelis are pessimistic with the possibility of a peace deal– since few Israelis believe peace is actually possible; and yes, Israelis are worried about materialist things like everyone else in the West. However, the article misses the bottom line point that if Israelis believed there was a possibility of real peace the overwhelming majority would support it. It's hard to understand Time Magazine. Though Times' original founder and owner Henry Luce was not considered a supporter of Israel, Luce is long dead and the parent company of Time Magazine (Time Warner) is one large media conglomerate. Going back to their famous article stating that "Begin rhymes with Fagin" Time has had infamously anti-Israel articles.

Two execellent commentaries on the piece were written by Brent Stephens in today's Wall Street Journal: Rhymes with Fagin

Also check out, Daniel Gordis' article in Commentary entitled Acceptable in Polite Society

On a more positive note the head of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas has made a strong attack against Iranian Ahmadinejad, asking what gave him the right to attack the peace corps. Abbas' attack questioned Ahmadinejad's legitimacy, stating that Ahmadinejad had stolen the election and that the Iranian Shite regime was a greater threat to the Arab world than Israel ever was. Its ironic that Iran, which has historically had good relations with Israel and the Jewish people has used the issue of Israel to try to achevie legitimacy and leadership in the Arab/Islamic world. There attempts may have provided the best possibility in a decade to reach a true peace with the largely Sunni Palestinians and their supporters in the Sunnii Arab world. Both Jordan and Egypt have echoed Abbas' comments and this provides Israel with a unique possibility of reaching a peace agreement.

One of the results of being part of the OECD is that Israel is now compared to other OECD states when it comes to education. Today a report came out showing that Israel ranked at the bottom when it came to investments in education. Some of the results... On one hand, Israeli students have the highest number of hours of study. The average Israeli elementary school student learns 1044 hours a year; compared to 822 in the average OECD states. In Israeli HS students learn 1139 hours/year; compared with 910 in the average western state. The results do not reflect their investment of time, most likely because the average class size in Israel is 33, as opposed to 24 students in the average class in the west. Salaries of teachers are also the lowest,. with starting salaries for new teachers in Israel being $1,800 per month, compared with an average starting salary in the US of $3,600/month.

Overall, the average investiment in educating an Israeli student is half of what the American investment per student is today.