Being Pro-Memphis: Attitude Does Matter

I have lived in Memphis for 56 years, and for the first time in my life, I feel Memphis is slowly chugging down the right track to realizing its potential - and hopefully becoming a progressive, dynamic Southern city of choice. Sure, we have the same laundry list of urban problems that exist in other major metropolitan areas - crime, poverty, corruption, as well as recession related economic issues. In fact, many of those issues loom larger than in other comparable cities and may end up being more difficult to reverse. My optimism stems from the sincere belief that Memphis has a strong core of pro-Memphis citizen/leaders, a Mayor who is honest, understands the issues and sincerely wants to make Memphis a better place. As citizens of the City of Memphis, we can’t leave this job solely to the people at the top of the governmental, business and social strata. While they can get top-down initiatives started all day long, it takes a supportive broad based citizenry to make it all work. Instead of harping on the ever-present negativity, maybe we should start supporting positive initiatives, as well as thinking more about solutions and acting on those ideas.

Turning a city around is not done in 5 years. We are lucky to have a beautiful preserved downtown area, the largest Urban Park in the country, the longest rails to trails bike path conversion in Tennessee, a beautiful new Law School and Art School downtown, one of the best distribution networks in the world – and soon we will have a refurbished airport with Southwest airlines!

The path to success is not a destination; it’s a never ending journey that starts one step at a time.

The Israeli "Settlement Issue".

The CA’s 10/21/10 AP news story (p.A4) entitled “Israeli settlers work quickly, build hundreds of new homes” is a good example of agenda based reporting. The agenda in this case is to misrepresent the “settlement issue” and to demonize Israel – part and parcel of the Palestinian strategy to delegitimize Israel in the court of global public opinion. The fact that the reporter’s name was missing from the piece also makes one suspect that their prior writings were equally as biased against Israel.

The term “settlements” is misleading. In most cases, the Israeli “settlements” in the West Bank are as large as most small American cities, with all the conveniences and infrastructure that would rival any new city in America. These cities contain hundreds of thousands of Israelis and a 10 month building moratorium will inevitably result in a backlog of building projects that are a result of natural growth. It should be noted that almost all growth has been up and not out.

The Palestinians theoretically should have a sense of urgency to make a peace agreement with Israel under these circumstances – that is if peace was their actual goal. Even if these settlements are in “any potential peace agreement scenario”, why can’t these Jewish citizens live in the Palestinian state like the Israeli Arabs live in Israel? Isn’t that insinuating that the Palestinians want to legitimize the “ethnic cleansing” of Jews from any potential Palestinian state?

Secondly, building in these Israeli cities is not an obstacle to the peace process, as the last 10 month moratorium has demonstrated. The Israelis have been waiting patiently to negotiate for the past year, but Palestinian political division, lack of Palestinian will to make peace, Iranian interference and a general inability for the Palestinians to deliver on any promises is the greatest obstacle to peace. There is no question that Israel has the legal structure, political unity and self-discipline to follow up on their side of any agreement.

Last but not least, President Obama has done more to retard the possibility of peace negotiations bearing fruit, as his administration has legitimized the “settlement building” issue - providing cover for the Palestinians to refuse to even sit down at the negotiating table. The Israelis can’t make peace alone, and there is no Palestinian entity that can deliver on ANY peace process proposals - nor is there even a legitimate Palestinian entity to make decisions on behalf of the Palestinian people. Israel is literally sitting in a cage, surrounded by hostile Iranian surrogate terrorist armies to their South (Hamas) , and their North (Hezbollah). Couple these border threats with the overt Iranian nuclear threats against Israel, and the “settlement issue” looks – and is – an insignificant and manufactured issue. The core impediment to peace is Iran. Without Iran’s support of Hamas and Hezbollah, the peace process would at least be able to see a ray of light.