I know it’s going to sound like I’m lying, but earlier this week I saw speaking in person President Obama, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Israeli President Shimon Peres, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and some others! Why are all these super important people in one place, talking to me (yeah ok, me and 13,000 other people, but don’t get bogged down in the details)? Easy. They were all there to discuss politics with American pro-Israel supporters at an AIPAC Policy Conference. The big topic was a nuclear Iran and how to deal, and there were some historic speeches and debates taking place right before my eyes. I try to avoid politics on my blog so I’ll let you come to your own conclusions about the Iran sitch, but FYI your conclusion should be that if Iran has nukes the whole world is screwed.
How I imagine the POTUS would react if we met |
Full disclosure here, I’m proudly pro-Israel, but maybe not for the reasons that you think. The reason most people think I’m pro-Israel –> Because I’m Jewish. The reason I’m actually pro-Israel –> Because Israel puts great emphasis on the same ideals and values on which America was founded, and I profoundly believe in a democracy that encourages hard work and innovation to succeed despite difficulties. I mean, I’m also a very proud supporter of America. Oh, and because I’m Jewish.
I think Israel and America advance the world with their entrepreneurship. I can give a million examples, though the one I prefer to use is not exactly a sexy topic of discussion… but Israelis performed a virtual miracle in turning their desert land into a fertile agricultural land! They did it by figuring out some secrets about water (won’t bore you with the details but there are plenty of places on the web to read up about it), which is a scarce resource and surely will become a problem in the future that Israel has solved for the world. Thanks in advance for helping us avert a worldwide water shortage crisis! And it’s not an accident that Warren Buffet invested 4 billion dollars (yeah, as in, $4,000,000,000) to purchase part of an Israeli company. I can’t recommend enough the book Start-Up Nation about how and why Israelis are so innovative (yep, still have a lot of free reading time as a housewife!).
So… I also got a guy arrested (I think that was a first for me!) There were some protesters who sneaked into the conference and cut off a speech by screaming down the aisle and holding up a big banner that was anti-war in Iran. The Secret Service ran over and immediately arrested her, but failed to notice there was a guy photographing her who was also a protester. I leaned over, called Secret Service over, pointed out the photographer and said “he was with that girl, you should arrest him, too.” And so they did. Man, do I feel powerful!
Oh, and no big deal, but I also lobbied Congress (to urge them to support the full Foreign Aid bill in FY2013). Yep, I walked into a Congressman’s office, sat right down next to him and told him how I thought he should vote… and he had to at least pretend to listen and be interested!