Pro-Israel Blog-Off Winner Gets His Reward

Pro-Israel Blog-Off winner Uri Gobey of Israel Muse has been handed his prize – a brand spanking new iPad – thanks to our friends at Honest Reporting.

HonestReporting's Simon Plosker presents Pro-Israel Blogoff winner Uri Gobey with an iPad.

I would like to have been part of the above photo, but my need to be at least semi anonymous, coupled with a demanding schedule, precluded this. I nevertheless hope to be able to congratulate Uri in person some other time.

In the meantime, you can take the photo as proof that when I offer a prize for a contest, it is a real prize. Perhaps this will encourage even greater participation in next year’s Blog-Off.

19 thoughts on “Pro-Israel Blog-Off Winner Gets His Reward”

  1. With the housing stuff going on, I would like to mention our own recent difficult experiences with this.

    In Israel, there is no rental housing in the American sense. Since we do not want to make permanent decisions as to where to live, we rent yearly leases from a private individual. Even the nicest landlord (as ours was) has no commitment to keeping you on each year; eventually he wants to give it to a relative or sell it (our case).

    Your lease starts with several paragraphs stating that this is temporary, and you are not under the draconian Renter Protection Act. You often need guarantors and/or a bank check. If he paints the apt., you have to when leaving (cost us more than moving). You pay real estate tax and all utilites. Appliances are considered furnishing – not standard.

    We just had to move. This move wiped out our short-term capital. (No hard currency left – just dollars. :-))

    1. I am quite bummed out by the experience, and why? Well, a company tried to open apartment houses, and went bankrupt. Why? Well, my understanding is that the renter protection is so strong, that they could not evict, raise rents, etc. So instead, because of all these wonderful "rights", we have no rights at all. (Kind of like trying to be an employee in some parts of Europe.)

      So what do the protesters want to do? Work with the free market? Nah! They want MORE socialism. I hear they want rent control (and yes, my rent HAS gone up); soon I won't be able to rent at all!

      Legislating against (as opposed to with) the laws of economics is about as successful as legislating against the laws of nature.

      1. Oh I meant to ask about that, but I got caught up with returning to the States.

        hahahahaha. You need to read Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt. Its available online, but unfortunately the Rent Control chapter is only in the print edition. He goes into how all these ideas completely backfire.

        1. Guess what one of the protesters' demands is? Rent control. So we won't be able to rent at all. And the "best" is some sort of control on private medicine. The only reason socialized medicine works at all here is because going outside the system is relatively inexpensive (although admittedly not for the average Israeli).

          The were having a nice laugh reading the demands of the Glen Beck radio show (Hey, I need to listen to something while working!) yesterday. Absolutely ludicrous. Oh and support for Likud has not gone down, may have increased a bit.

          (I am not saying there is no role for the government in dealing with the current bubble. But you have to work WITH the laws of economics; otherwise it's like trying to defy gravity.)

          1. Yea, the signs say WELFARE STATE NOW, as if you dont have one already.

            Yea the polls all say he will hold or gain, which is hilarious. All the anti-Israel media here (I unfortunately have to deal with a lot between my leftist friends and libertiarian sites) thinks some revolution is starting and Netanyahu will be pushed out. I try to explain that even elections are unlikely.

            Exactly. Thats a perfect analogy. Israels economy would bounce up to European standards if all these barriers, regulations, and bureaucracy were removed.

    2. My post got lost, so I just wanted to say that my point was that the problem here is the extreme rental protection, that has the reverse affect so that you have no rights at all. The obvious solution is to loosen the act, but of course that does not feed into the politics of the protesters, who want the opposite.

      1. Explained above. I do not have a clear answer yet, but I suspect it's the renter-protection act. I was told there were apartment houses, and they went bankrupt. Also, it's not really in the culture anymore. (P.S. Romania is the same.)

  2. This is amazing! The weekly standard posted a State Department press release stating that U.S. citizens born in Jerusalem could not have Israel as place as birth. They contrasted this with a White House photo of a meeting of Biden with Peres in "Jerusalem, Israel". Within TWO HOURS, the White House found the photo, and scrubbed "Israel" out of it.
    http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/white-house-c

    This is a friend?

    (P.S. The Republican house did try to do something about it this year.)

    h/t Glen Beck radio show

    1. If bringing the two sides together for peace talks were only that easy. I'm not sure what beef the U.S. State Department has with the idea that Jerusalem is in Israel. It's kind of obvious if you ask me.

      1. You understand, it doesn't matter what part of Jerusalem. This rediculous charade means (or at least used to) that people born IN Jerusalem need to go to the counselate, rather that the embassy.

        "I'm not sure what beef the U.S. State Department has with the idea that Jerusalem is in Israel." Because they're a bunch of Arabists? Wish they were the British Foreign Office? This is not Obama; this is the most unAmerican part of the US government.

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