Don't Forget Egypt

The world is a crazy place right now. It is such a whirlwind of political and seismic earthquakes that yesterday's revolution in Egypt is starting to feel as far away as the French Revolution. With the LIbyan's defying madman Qadaffi and the earth shaking in Bahrain, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia and God willing Iran, it is tough to stay focused on the brave people of Tahrir sqaure and their fight for Democracy. But stay focused we must.

Democracy, as Natan Sharansky, has pointed out, is not elections. Democracy is the ability of people to stand up in the town square and shout whatever is on your mind without fear of retribution. "Jimmy Carter Democracy," where the former peanut farmer turned president, turns up and declares that there were free and fair elections is a recipe for regime change and not true democracy. one set of free and fair elections in Egypt could yield the same result as what happened to the poor people of Gaza, a reign of terror by Hamas and other Islamic radicals.

The western world and world leaders need to focus together with the PEOPLE of Egypt on a Marshall Plan for Egypt, to put the economic and political infrastructure in place to transition Egypt to a free and vibrant democracy and growing free economy. Nobody should be distracted by the revolutions and chaos in other parts of the Middle East and North Africa. Egypt is the largest country in the neighborhood and as Egypt goes so should the rest of the Arab world.

This requires focus, fortitude and foresight. It will require massive investment in the economy and freedom. If the world is distracted, we could easily see radical Islam rise to power in Egypt and then the wonderful revolution of Egypt's young generation, our generation, will have gone for naught. Regime change to the Egyptian army or Hamas-like political-terror force is not an option for the free world and is not a future for Egypt. Let's stay focused and lock arms with the Egyptian youth for a better and truly democratic future.

Come on Tom!!!

On my way to work this morning, I heard Israeli radio describe New York Times' columnist Tom Friedman's lambasting of the Israeli government in yesterday's NYT. When I got to the office, I calmly read Friedman's post online. Thankfully, on many levels, it was not as caustic nor as accurate as I assumed. In fact, I found myself agreeing with much of his main thesis but taking significant issue with his tangents, historical accuracy and the main victim of his piercing pen.

Friedman's core thesis is that Egypt was on a one way road to freedom and that quest should have been supported. Says Friedman based on a conversation with an "Egyptian Opposition Newspaper Editor":

This was about Egypt and about the longing of Egyptians for the most basic human rights, which were described to me by opposition Egyptian newspaper editor Ibrahim Essa as “freedom, dignity and justice.’’ It doesn’t get any more primal than that.

I agree.

Then the attack on Israel begins:

And when young Egyptians looked around the region and asked: Who is with us in this quest and who is not?, the two big countries they knew were against them were Israel and Saudi Arabia. Sad. The children of Egypt were having their liberation moment and the children of Israel decided to side with Pharaoh – right to the very end.

Quite an eloquent biblical analogy Tom, and even quite correct. However, you forgot to include the US, Barack Obama and most of Western Europe in your list. In fact, all western countries have been endlessly propping up dictators in the Middle East and standing behind the "Stability" Mubarak offered for too long. They were ALL on the wrong side of history. And Tom, you should know a lot about the dictators of Saudi Arabia. Didn't you cozy up to the King (then Crown Prince) years ago who whispered in your ear the Friedman/Abdullah plan for peace in the Middle East? You can read his mind, can't you? Isn't he an unstable dictator as well? I did not hear any concern then for the primal rights of Saudi Arabians? And, do you really think the Egyptian youth, yearning for freedom and starving for decent jobs and education were thinking of Israel?? But I digress.

Friedman then picks on his favorite target: Netanyahu's government. Writes, Friedman,

"Israel today has the most out-of-touch, in-bred, unimaginative and cliché-driven cabinet it has ever had."

Well, I partially agree with this as well. I actually think that the entire Knesset is out of touch, as is much of the US Congress and many other "leaders." The world is changing at a rapid pace, making terms and alliances of the past nonsensical; many politicians outdated and past notions of leadership anachronistic. Egypt, as Umair Haque (a true visionary blogger who was on the right side of history from the get-go) has argued, has taught the world a lesson from the cozy relationships between Washington and Wall Street to those between Jerusalem, Washington, Riyadh and Cairo. Nobody saw this revolution coming and few reacted correctly, not even you Tom. That does not excuse the reaction of the Israeli government but it does put it in context. I agree that given Israel's high tech experience the country should be behind social revolutions. We actually were in favor on Facebook (see below). However, the Israeli government is not Israel's democratic and forward-thinking high tech economy, nor, it turns out, is the State Department, nor the "disgusted" White House. Heck, our Knesset members do not even know how to use Facebook or Twitter themselves so unlike the uber-connected Obama, they may not have even heard of the Twitter revolution...

Which brings me to the next part of Friedman's post, President Obama. Friedman writes:

The Obama Administration and its utterly out-of-touch envoy Frank G. Wisner did not get this early on. But President Obama, or actually, Barack Obama – because he seemed to finally shuck off all his own expert advisers and give voice to his real, personal feelings – eloquently got America back in line with the real currents here with his post-Mubarak speech.

Come on Tom...Give me a break. The US administration was rudderless. As I wrote over a week ago, Obama kept feeling in the dark for the winner. And, as Hamid Dabashi wrote on CNN, this was not exactly Obama's Nobel Peace Prize Moment. Your rewriting of history around Obama's oratory skills does not become you, nor is it accurate. If Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Barak were guilty then so was Barack. You should have said that they ("leaders") should have ALL sat quietly or found the right side of the revolution but it is easy to play selective Monday morning quarterback on a blog or under the New York Times masthead, especially with Netanyahu as the target.

Then Tom, you finally hit your stride, (and I applaud you for that) quoting from someone who knows more about dictatorships than anyone, Natan Sharansky. Writes Friedman of one of my heroes:

"I thought the one Israeli figure who totally got it right was former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky, who, in a long-interview with the Jerusalem Post’s editor David Horovitz last Friday, said, according to Horovitz, “that partnerships with dictatorships are unsustainable – that people cannot permanently be repressed, that they will push for freedom the moment they sense weakness in their tyrannical leaderships. In his assessment, Israel and the West are fortunate that this Arab revolution is unfolding in countries still closely tied to the West, in societies yet to have been battered into an overwhelming retreat toward Islamic fundamentalism.’’

As Sharansky put it in his own words: “If the free world helps the people on the streets, and turns into the allies of these people instead of being the allies of the dictators, then there is a unique chance to build a new pact between the free world and the Arab world.”

I think he is exactly right – not because I know where Egypt is heading, or because I think it is on some smooth track now toward certain democracy. It is because I don’t know where Egypt is going. I just know this: the old order here has been broken."

Days before the WSJ article interviewing Sharansky and the Jerusalem Post article you referenced, I posted the below on Facebook, generating a bunch of supportive comments. You see Tom, the Israeli people remembered Sharansky's great book and vision, the basis for the Bush doctrine, even before the revolution's final outcome was decided. We just knew it. Even the Wall Street Journal "knew it" before Mubarak took off for Sharm. But not you, Tom.

It would appear to me, that it will take someone familiar either with tyranny like Sharansky, or members of the new young generation to get us, all of us, to find our authentic voice, understand new dynamics, organize and lead the 21st century. Sharansky was unschooled in the current world of politics and found himself outside the political system. But Sharansky knows authenticity and primal yearnings from the depth of KGB isolation. The new generation in Egypt, the US, Israel and elsewhere, yearning for a voice, has been outside the political system tweeting in frustration to be heard above the newspapers and the old political order. But we are now being starting to be heard. And, in Egypt they have started to lead. As the 21st century beckons, authenticity is rising above both oratory and autocracy, tweets are toppling tyranny and the feed is where you, Tom, can find all the news that is fit to contribute.

Saving a Life of a Special Woman Who Saved Many Lives

An Article by Gal Beckman in The Forward about Enid Wurtman touched me, emotionally and personally. Enid Wurtman is my partner Elie's mother and she needs a kidney. I knew from Elie that she has been ill but, until the article, I did not know that she was in urgent need of a kidney.

Before the article, I knew that Enid was deeply involved in saving Soviet Jewry. Until the article, I did not appreciate how involved she was. I went to rallies outside in the UN in the cold. Enid went to freezing Moscow to share some light with the refuseniks.

Writes Gal:

That was the year (1973) Enid, a social worker, and her husband, Stuart, both in their early 30s and from Philadelphia, made their first visit to the Soviet Union, an eight-day trip to Moscow and Leningrad. It changed their lives. They met Soviet Jews who had been denied exit visas and were suffering all kinds of deprivation — losing their jobs, having their children thrown out of universities, their telephones cut off. Enid immediately identified with them. She felt as if she were seeing an alternate vision of how her own life would have turned out if her grandparents hadn’t left Russia. And she decided that she had to devote herself to helping these new friends.
Back in Philadelphia, she became involved with the local Soviet Jewry organizations and returned to the Soviet Union two more times in the 1970s to visit Yuli and others. One of her contacts was Anatoly Shcharansky (now Natan Sharansky), the charismatic, young spokesman of the activists. After a trip in 1976, she brought out a tape of Shcharansky rambling sweetly to his wife, Avital, then far away from him in Israel. On it, he says, “Enid asks how to help us. Yes, many people love us.”
In 1977, Enid herself made aliyah with her family. She felt she could no longer fight for others who were being denied the right to live in Israel while not taking the step herself. She never stopped working for Soviet Jews though, organizing protests, writing a column for the Jerusalem Post and keeping track of all the details of the activists’ lives — who was being detained, who was sick, who needed financial help. Yuli said there were years when they spoke on the phone every other day.
“Because of people like Enid, we could stand all the suffering,” said Yuli. “If these two million came out to freedom and if several thousand didn’t die, it’s thanks to people like Enid. She was completely devoted, crazy to the point where no logic, no family could stop her from helping us. It was almost an obsession.”

She started a fund, Emergency Aid for Refuseniks, and has worked tirelessly, while earning no income herself, keeping track of those former activists who need some kind of welfare and making sure they get it.
According to her old friend, Sharansky, “No one spent more energy in Israel to help those former refuseniks than Enid.”

Now, Enid, Elie's mother, needs help. She needs a kidney. So if you have information on potential Kidney donors, please help by contacting enid@wurtman.com

Celebrating The Obvious AND the Unsung Heroes of the Answers.com and MobileAccess Acquisitions

Answers.com and MobileAccess, the two Israeli companies acquired last week, shared one thing in common: my former firm Israel Seed Partners invested in both of them. They share something else in common: both had near-death experiences before taking off. In the case of Answers.com, the company was basically out of money approximately 9 months before its ultimately successful small IPO and in the case of MobileAccess it went through bankruptcy proceedings.MobileAccess CEO Yehuda Holtzman and Answers.com founder and CEO Bob Rosenschein deserve accolades for their roles in leading these companies to success. I was closer to Bob and Answers so I can tell you from firsthand experience that the "pivot" from desktop software to webservice and from information-behind-a-word to instant answers was no easy feat. T

he foresight to acquire what ultimately became Wikianswers and propelled a

nswers.com to a top 50 internet property was all Bob's and he deserves this success. Yehuda went through multiple management changes over 12+ years and funding rounds galore and persevered to success. He too deserves this success. These two CEOs prove that perseverance and belief in your product and company can overcome many obstacles in the lives of a startup and new generations of entrepreneurs should learn from it.

I want to also highlight two unsung heroes who you will not find in the newspapers. My two former partners, Neil Cohen and Jon Medved. In each case, Neil in the case of MobileAccess and Jon in the case of Answers.com, they played pivotal roles to save the companies from death. Neil shepherded MobileAccess through the bankruptcy hearings. He was there in person, never wavering despite the abuse he took in the court room from creditors shouting and screaming at him. Neil arranged the funding with Millenium and shepherded that process as well. You won't see him in the PR on the acquisition but without his fortitude at the moment of truth, there would have been no acquisition of MobileAccess in 2011.

The Answers.com IPO was the result of Bob Rosenschein's insanely great salesmanship and vision and Jon Medved's perseverance. Jon arranged and recruited the bankers and investors that provided the bridge loan that saved Answers.com approximately 9 months before the IPO and Jon found the firm who was willing to take Answers.com public. That public financing was not your typical IPO and saved the Company, providing it fuel to live and ultimately flourish. When many investors (well known VCs and others) abandoned Answers.com and Bob, Jon did not. He rallied the troops and helped raise the money.

For all this, Yehuda, Bob, Jon and Neil deserve my thanks as well the appreciation of all of the employees of Answers.com and MobileAccess. Thanks.

Whose Side is Obama on Anyway?

To be honest, I have been perplexed by President Obama's foreign policy since the beginning of his presidency. I struggled to find a common thread or theme. When the riots broke out in Egypt, I figured that since nobody saw them coming (except The Economist) the US would take its time, sit quietly on the sideline, learn the situation and formulate a response.

Instead, first the Obama administration issued some mealy mouth statements about democracy and non-violence, hedging between backing a long time ally and protecting the physical well-being of the protesters. The administration was clearly not backing the protesters at this point, angering the Egyptian street. Then, after what appeared to be some behind the scenes negotiations, President Mubarak issued a statement saying he would step down in September, the masses in Tahrir square called for Mubarak's head immediately and President Obama changed course again, calling for Mubarak to step down immediately to put it more politely than the President did. All of the sudden, Obama wants an immediate turn to "democracy" and response to protester's demands. The about face would be puzzling under any circumstance but it is particularly puzzling in light of Obama's deafening silence during the protests in Iran earlier last year. Where was the US Administration support for removing Ahmadinejad and the demands to hear the voice of the Iranian people? I have struggled to make sense of Obama's policy but I am coming to a thesis.

I think that Obama is like the kid who is new to football and does not have a team to root for so he roots for the winner of the last Super Bowl or the last game. Obama's foreign policy is to land on the side of the winner and be around for the next round. At the beginning of the uprising in Egypt, he thought that Mubarak would come out on top like Ahmadinejad, so he hedged his bets. As soon as the tide swayed and he spotted swelling support in the square and weakness in Mubarak's position, he swung to immediate support for the protesters, hoping to come out on the winning side. He did not support the protesters in Iran because he thought they had no chance to win against the mullahs and well, everyone loves a winner.

His speech to the Muslim world in Cairo at the beginning of his presidency can be seen in the same light. Obama correctly posits that muslims are asserting themselves successfully on the world political stage and he wants to get on that bandwagon. He disrespected Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu because he thought that Netanyahu was a passing fancy as the Israeli left reorganized and that Israel was the ultimate loser in this negotiation with the Palestinians. When it became clear to Obama that Abu Mazen was weak and certainly not a sure winner, he abandoned him as well.

Obama not only wants to win on the foreign stage but like the kid whose newfound favorite team did not win the Super Bowl the next year, Obama looks for a new team throw his support behind in hopes of coming out a winner quickly. If the results are not immediate, he moves on and as I have written on this blog countless times before just like you cannot microwave peace, you cannot instantaneously resolve any diplomatic crisis. There are other examples such as Korea but I think the picture is reasonably clear that there is no consistent ideological doctrine nor realpolitik emanating from the White House. It just expedient chasing of winners who need to win now.

Unfortunately, in the fast changing sands of the Middle East, a rudderless foreign policy endangers lives as the Egyptians found out the day after Obama turned on a dime on Mubarak. And winner chasing is a recipe to build enemies in the Middle East who spot your weakness and disrespect its shallowness. Obama is likely to confront more challenges of this sort from Tunisia, Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia and I hope he can find the leadership skills and approach to lead, even if it means not winning the current battle. We live in a very challenging and volatile time in the world, expediency is not a winning strategy for the free world today.