“He turns 87 in December, he’s been out of office for 21 years, yet he has more fire in the belly than most prime-time pols. Ed Koch still stirs the drink.
His latest bold stroke aims to punish his Democratic Party for backing President Obama’s policy on Israel. Hoping to pry Jews away from Obama, Koch is offering to endorse the Republican in the special election for the House seat formerly held by the disgraced Anthony Weiner.
“If Jewish New Yorkers and others who support Israel were to turn away from the Democratic Party in that congressional election and elect the Republican candidate to Congress in 2011, it might very well cause President Obama to change his hostile position on the State of Israel,” Koch wrote in a recent commentary. In an interview, he admitted to me he is disappointed the bid hasn’t gotten more traction. But, as always, he remains firm in his determination to shake up the status quo.
He is also happy to embarrass the Jewish Dems in Congress who refuse to publicly criticize Obama, even as they privately claim they lobby behind the scenes to get him to change course. Koch scoffs at their timidity, comparing them to “mice.”
“I don’t understand why people aren’t standing up and yelling and screaming,” he said of top elected officials. “They are much too quiet. Sooner or later, the Jews will wake up.”
He cites a Gallup poll showing Republicans are far more sympathetic to Israel than Democrats, yet Jews are among the most reliable Dems. Obama got 78 percent of the Jewish vote in 2008, only slightly higher than the historic pattern.
Whatever the number next year, Koch will not be part of it. He already said he will not vote for Obama unless he restores America’s special relationship with Israel.
The heart of his criticism is that Obama is pushing Israel for concessions without demanding that Hamas, the terror group now part of the Palestinian government, agree to stop using violence and recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Koch is right — all of Obama’s demands are on Israel, which has the perverse effect of legitimizing Arab violence. It is also a denial of the truth that the real problem is a Palestinian culture still bent on destroying Israel.
Koch’s election offer includes a caveat: The GOP candidate, Robert Turner, must not only break with Obama on Israel, but also with the GOP plan to privatize Medicare and Social Security and make Medicaid a block-grant program. Koch says all three must be reformed so they can be saved, but doesn’t want them to lose federal entitlement status.
Koch, of course, has tilted at the uber-liberal Democratic windmill before. During his successful campaign for mayor in 1977, he embarrassed President Jimmy Carter by publicly handing Carter a letter that was critical of his policy toward Israel. In 1988, he said Jews “would have to be crazy” to vote for Jesse Jackson in the New York presidential primary.
By comparison, he’s been relatively mild on Obama. I accused him of mellowing.
He laughed and said that, in fact, he had voted for Carter both in 1976 and 1980. As for Jackson, he said, “If I had to do it over again, I would say it is not in the best interest of Jews to vote for Jackson.”
So, he is mellowing, at least in tone.
“But the substance is the same,” he quickly added.
So it is. And for that, more power to him.’ MICHAEL GOODWIN, NEW YORK POST
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 Greenpeace protesters donned white Hazmat suits to destroy a crop of genetically modified wheat at the CSIRO experimental station.Credit: Greenpeace SYDNEY: In the early hours of July 14, Greenpeace protestors gained illegal entry into an experimental CSIRO operated farm near Canberra and destroyed a crop of genetically modified (GM) wheat.Australia’s national science organisation had been growing GM wheat at its Ginninderra Experiment Station, and was recently granted approval by the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator (OGTR), a government oversight agency, to begin human trials. “Human trials were expected to begin sometime in the next few months to a year,” said Jeremy Burdon, chief of the division of Plant Industry at CSIRO. “The worst case scenario now is that the [field] trial will have to be abandoned and resumed some time next year.” The wheat’s genetic makeup has been altered to improve its nutritional value, said Burdon. Modifying the level of resistant starch could impact where the digestive process takes place in the gut, and could have health benefits for obesity and bowel cancer. Greenpeace films destruction Wearing white Hazmat suits that don the Greenpeace brand down each arm, the protestors used weed trimmers to methodically mow down the GM crops housed in the CSIRO’s compound, and filmed themselves in the act. Greenpeace is citing fears that GM wheat crops are unsafe for human consumption and could spread unabated, contaminating Australia’s bulk wheat supply, as the reason for their action. The protestors created what the organisation calls “a decontamination area” to dispose of the crops. “The EU, Russia, and even North America have rejected GM wheat because it hasn’t been proven safe to eat,” says Laura Kelly, who heads the food and farming campaign for Greenpeace Australia Pacific. Kelly also claimed that the CSIRO “is in bed with foreign biotech companies,” which she said stand to make billions of dollars by attaching patents to Australian wheat. She said this affiliation is compromising their research direction and adherence to safety regulations. Australian regulation is stringent According to Burdon, however, CSIRO would not proceed with any project it wasn’t entirely certain about. “We’ve been down this road in the past, where we had a program around modifying legumes,” he said. “That had a problem with activating some allergies in mice and we canned it – it didn’t go any further.” “CSIRO takes very seriously its responsibility to safety around everything it does,” he added, noting that the OGTR regulations are incredibly strict and the CSIRO has carefully abided by all protocol as it’s moved through animal trials with its GM wheat. Internationally, Australia has some of the most stringent guidelines and regulations surrounding GM work, agrees Andrew Jacobs, a genetic engineer with the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics (ACPFG) at the University of Adelaide. “The process to get to field trials is longwinded and rigorous… If there was a significant concern that sort of thing would get picked up well before human trials.” “Wheat and barley are some of the most advanced GM plants in Australia,” Jacobs added. “The ones proposed for field trials have probably been grown and monitored in a controlled environment for the last 10 years.” |
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