Biden made Trump look a paragon of discretion

Loose Lips Contest

“Trump revealed intelligence secrets to Russians in Oval Office.” That 2017 Reuters headline came about after the newly minted president was accused of risking an allied intelligence asset (it turned out to be Israeli) after sharing information on ISIS with the Russians.

Fast-forward to 2022, and as President Biden bared his soul to the Russians at a rambling press conference last week, he made Trump look a paragon of discretion.

Having warned Putin of “disastrous” consequences for attacking Ukraine, Biden seemed to indicate that a limited foray wouldn’t trigger a response. “It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion, and we [in NATO] end up fighting about what we should do, not do,” he said.

Handed an opportunity to dig himself out of his hole by a journalist asking whether he had just green-lighted an invasion, Biden dug deeper, saying, “It did sound like that, didn’t it?”

Cue the inevitable clean-up operation from the White House.

Having endangered not one allied intelligence source, but an entire allied country by revealing to the Russians the most closely guarded American policy — its red lines — you might think that Biden would get the full screaming headlines treatment.

Not a bit of it.

“Biden tries to clear up ‘minor incursion’ confusion,” headlined Reuters.

Corbynista Comeback

Incredible as it seems, only two years after he delivered a landslide UK election victory for the Conservatives, Boris Johnson is hanging on to power by a rapidly fraying cord.

And while that is a political story of its own, the parallel rise of the Labour Party — they are now 32 points ahead of the Conservatives in London — is cause for disquiet among the Jewish community.

That’s because it’s also a mere two years since Jeremy Corbyn headed Labour. Although current leader Keir Starmer has repudiated his former boss’s anti-Semitism, it remains a salient fact that both Starmer and most of the Shadow Cabinet were part of Corbyn’s front bench.

So while the danger of a Corbyn in Downing Street was averted two years ago — and the man himself sent into political exile along with the hard left — the trauma of his near miss is fresh. But if the Conservatives implode, is Britain’s Jewish community really ready for rule by his fellow travelers?

—Gedalia Guttentag

265

This is the number of points the S&P stock market index lost last week, in a dramatic fall that reminded many of February 2020, when the onset of Covid wiped trillions in value from the market.

Back then, though, the recovery was very fast, and markets closed 2020 with bumper profits that lasted throughout most of 2021, even as unemployment rose amid the global pandemic.

This time around, things could be different. In recent months, the US economy has faced rising inflation and a Federal Reserve set on hiking interest rates to contend with the jump in raw material prices. Some commentators estimate that the recovery this time will be slower than in 2020, as investors look beyond the stock market to safer investments. As evidence, they point to the fact that cryptocurrencies are also crashing, while the price of gold is actually rising.

Whether markets rally after a pessimistic beginning to 2022 or deteriorate is unknown, but what’s now widely acknowledged is that the economic consequences of Covid will be with us for years to come.

—Omri Nahmias

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 896)